Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2008

Social networking, version 2.0?

Something to explore in greater depth over the coming days: via Cool Hunting, a post by Tim Yu about Social Networking for a Cause. Yu writes:

From corporate-sponsored “Cool Apps” to niche spin-offs like Bakespace, Virb and I’m In Like With You, online communities are still largely about socializing and/or wasting time. Their potential as powerful tools for the greater good—beyond finding out where the party’s at—has been largely untapped, but we managed to find a few. The following are some of the latest and best sites where social networking meets social change.

Yikes, I’ve never even heard of Bakespace, Virb, or I’m In Like With You. After these references to “communities” that are “still largely about socializing and/or wasting time” (um, that sounds familiar…), Yu goes on to list additional sites I’ve also never heard of, but which have a “networking for a cause” spin:

• Friction TV, described as “a YouTube for social activists, it features largely uncensored content aiming to exercise freedom of speech and catalyze online debate in a social forum”…
• Nabuur, which “connect(s) experts to people seeking advice from all over the world. From construction workers to math teachers and MBAs, online volunteers from different continents help individuals develop business ideas and finish projects. Projects like building schools and health clinics get a boost from direct assistance via the internet.”
• HumaniNet: helps solve humanitarian & social problems by sharing GIS “to better map rural locations in need of relief. By sharing GIS developments online, experts and users can implement the latest technologies, which makes getting around uncharted territories to reach people in need a whole lot easier.”
• Get Miro, an “open-source software for online video. Like Firefox, Miro is developed by a nonprofit organization and driven by the social mission to make it easy for anyone to subscribe and view free internet video on any topic.”
• H.E.L.P., stands for “Humanitarian Emergency Logistics & Preparedness”; this is “a telemedicine-based online community of physicians and financial donors bringing advanced medical assistance to disaster zones and areas of humanitarian need around the world.”
• Kiva, which builds on “Muhammad Yunus’ Nobel prize-winning efforts at pioneering a new category of banking known as micro-loans”; Kiva “connects the world’s poorer populations looking to develop unique business ideas to people with disposable incomes while providing a transparent lending platform. Donate as little as $25 dollars to help start a business or simply buy a goat and get repaid.”
• MAPLight: “highlight(s) the connection between money and politics as a way to promote reform”; by linking campaign contributions and votes, it creates transparency “so that journalists and citizens can hold legislators accountable, customized widgets further enhance functions and research on any issue.”
• and of course Freecycle (the last one — and only one I had actually heard of before): a “cyber curbside” where you can recycle your stuff and create an online gift economy.

Lots to explore here… My cynical/overly-critical side wonders whether the flip side of obsessive narcissism (exemplified by the old style “social networking” sites) might be the guilt trip (”Do good! Now!”).

Of course, at the end of the day does it matter, if something good did indeed come out of it all?

Yann Martel, bearing great gifts — Is Stephen Harper reading?

Arts News Canada carried an article from Halifax’s Daily News today: Author plays professor to prime minister, one book at a time:

One of Canada’s most popular authors is taking a decidedly novel approach in his efforts to encourage appreciation of the arts - he’s started a website to help expand Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s literary horizons.

Yann Martel, the author of the award-winning 2002 novel Life of Pi, is behind the website “What Is Stephen Harper Reading,” a project aimed giving the prime minister a little taste of culture.

Since April, Martel has been mailing Harper a different inscribed book every two weeks, along with a personal letter praising the book’s virtues. The letters are posted online at www.whatis stephenharperreading.ca.

Martel admits he’s taking a few jabs at Harper, but insists he isn’t preaching.

“There’s no point in writing to someone if you’re going to insult them. I certainly don’t agree with the prime minister - I’d never vote for him - but that doesn’t mean one becomes petty and petulant,” he says.

“I really do believe that if the prime minister reads any of these books that I’ve sent him, he will be a different person. It’s a completely sincere conviction. Otherwise, why would I bother being a writer?” [click on the link above for the rest of the article]

I then visited the website Yann Martel has dedicated to this project: What is Stephen Harper reading?. Please take a look — the letters that accompany Martel’s bibliographic offerings are literary works in themselves. They’re funny, full of insight into literature and life, and deeply philosophical, too. Stephen Harper is lucky to have such a “professor,” and amazingly for us, we get to read over their shoulders.

Harper isn’t saying much back, alas…