What is an online video sharing community? What is an internet reality show? What is Web 2.0?

I have received several e-mails in the last few days asking these questions. First, what is the difference been Web 1.0 and Web 2.0? As my friend in Australia wrote, "my position in the antipodes, where sometimes a land-based phone line is a challenge, means that I've only barely come in contact with Web 2.0 as a concept." Well there are many things I could say on the Web 2.0 topic. But, lets start out with Time Magazine's definition. "Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together as away for scientists to share research. It is not even the overhyped dotcom of the late 1990s. The new web is a very different thing. It is a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0 as if it were a new version of software. But, it's really a revolution." Click on the Time link to catch up on the December "Person of the Year Issue," that covers "the user-powered revolution." And, if you need an antidote from big media spin afterwords, I suggest a quick visit to Trend Spotting from the Daly Show on YouTube. When you've finished having a good laugh at youth culture and social networking (hey, the baby boomers are just jealous!), come back here to see how a social network from Buzznet, who posted their interests as activism will be putting together a piece on New Orleans for Ugonet - featuring lots of quirky video clips and "not emo" music.

So, what is Ugonet? Ugonet will be a video sharing community (when I get the scripts working on the ugonet.org domain!). Yes, ugonet is like a MySpace YouTube combo for social entrepreneurship and off grid folks around the world. Individuals and organzations worldwide - agents of change -- will be able to upload video clips and photos (for free), describe their projects, and manage the presentation (easily). You will be able to link your project into a bustling node on the digital nervous system without worrying about how another organization or blogger is (mis)representing your work! The site will allow you to set up groups, invite members, create networks of friends, and a lot more!


Next question, What is an internet reality show? How will this work? There are already several examples of the genre. The world's first internet reality says Technology News was launched by StudyAbroad in 2004. Combining television shows like MTV's The Real World and CBS's Amazing Race with blogging, StudyAbroad has created BlogAbroad, a website where three college students studying abroad during the spring semester keep an interactive journal of their adventures. They are given different tasks to complete during the semester and post comments, stories, pictures and videos available 24 hours a day. For more internet reality adventures, see Yahoo's proposed online reality series which follows two families as they refurbish their homes with $10,000 in electronics. I personally like better the idea of spending money on WiFi in an "off grid" community. Also, check out TyMeLyNe's online Hip Hop reality show. Several people have e-mailed me asking me for more details on the ugotrade reality show. How do you play? Well as soon as we have a bunch of folks up and running on ugonet's networking and clip sharing community, the online community can work out some of these questions together! Members will be able vote on a variety of different game plans and show formats, and if the show should go ahead. Well, I hope some of these links and brief explanations help. The main point is that ugonet will be a user generated video community, and the director of the show, in many ways, will be you!

What is Social Entrepreneurship?

There will be more about this, of course, in future posts! But, for now, The Skoll foundation has a page giving a brief history. And, for an insiders view, see The Kiva Chronicles, a blog "by social entrepreneurs for social entrepreneurs." Go to YouTube for a clip from Rooy Media's Social Entrepreneurship series and to Ashoka for news of projects around the world.

AfricaWrites crosses the Makona

This photo just in from AfricaWrites shows Managing Editor Patrick (with camera) and Robert Millamono – AfricaWrites Field Coordinator and Assist. Editor - on a trip across the Makona river into Sierra Leone in October of 2005. Patrick describes their experiences:
“We were to meet with several community leaders and Chiefs. But unfortunately we were detained by the secret police and were delayed a bit. However, while in custody we made some great friends and the government agreed to offer their full assistance in working with us within the region. That particular crossing was the site where many rebels died a few years ago while attempting to flee back across the Guinean border. They perished in the cold and (very) rapid waters of the Makona. The primary means of crossing that river is by using the Kissi traditional canoes. While crossing, they constantly fill with water so children are always helping to empty the water with small tin cans.”

News from the Amazon

Thank you Marcelo for this great photo, and for kicking off what I hope will be a steady stream of news from digital frontiers.



Filmmaker/Photographer/Writer Marcelo Fortaleza Flores writes about this photo and his work:
"I have been teaching photography and filmmaking (Digital Media) to Amazonian indigenous peoples as well as to disenfranchised children in Africa since 1995. In this photograph, we see Yanahin Wauja, an indigenous photographer and cameraman I trained in the Xingu Park in Brazil, filming a rehearsal for the representation of a Wauja ritual mask dance in Montpellier, France in 2005. The representation was sponsored by the new ethnographic Musée du Quai Branly as part of the Year of Brazil in France. Yanahin and I are co-directors in a joint project about the Wauja mask dance and its representation in Western cultures. A recent publication in the review Gradhiva in France features two excellent photographs by Yanahin."

Traveler Activism

See Nygus's Garbage World at Flickr

Kristin's blog.travelistic had a great piece (Jan. 19th) about travelers going beyond the "invisible" pseudo-anthropologist. Kristin reports on her night out at a Nonsense NYC organized event, "Where Have You Been?" at Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side. Every edition features one adventure story, one activism story, and one wild-card entry. The activist traveler this month was Selena McMahan from Clowns Without Borders. Tales at next month's installment are slated to include visits to communities living in the shadow of Manila's trash dumps . This link, from Kristin, gets you into Matthew Power's vivid journey through the labyrinth of trickle down economics as he goes to see the 50 acre Payatas dump. Powers takes a clear headed look at unexpected consequences as helpers of various stripes try to bring fresh air and health to the seething world of the dump - an organic gardening training program, celebrity activism, government, and NGO interventions. The migration from the countryside to cities all over the world is the largest migration in human history with 1.3 million people abandoning their lives in the countryside every week. We may only hear about garbage dumps on the news when hundreds of people are killed in an avalanche of waste - like at Payatas in July 2000. But, it is clear that the ubiquitous head-in-the-sand and not-in-my-backyard approach to garbage will have to go.

Virtual Homelands

Virtual Homelands have been hot for a while. Forbes was touting the success of IndianParty when it was just an email directory back in ’97 in the days before the www2 lights went on. Now Tibetan Technologies, Yahel Ben-David
Thubten Samdup and the Dharamsala IT Group are pioneering the next generation virtual homeland by linking it to sustainable development and putting ICT resources in the hands of local talent.

Celebrity Activism

There is a lot of talk about celebrity activism. You love it, you hate, but in the end you can’t put it down. OK, I visit Perez Hilton more times than I care to admit. Some days, I have thought about adjusting my browser settings so that big pink screen wasn’t quite so obvious. Yes, the ugotrade internet reality competition is getting on the bandwagon. But, lets do it www2 style - reinvent it as u go. Which www2 stars would you like to see as the guides for ugotraders?

Oh yes, I know I need some bling for my blog. Thanks Otto for reminding me and sending me this link.