Today, I had the privilege of attending the Interaction luncheon with speaker Bill Clinton. The food was great, and, admittedly, so was the topic of conversation. Clinton started off giving big ups to the One Campaign, recognizing them as a perfect example of how the Internet is empowering individuals to act in ways that have historically been done by government. I believe he called it " the power of private citizens to do public good".

When speaking of Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono as being named Persons of the Year, he recognized them as representatives of the individual citizen that were able to take action to help in international causes largely because of the rise in popularity of online donations.

Slashdot, Global Voices, Wikinews, OhMyNews, Digg. Which one is your fave?

Participate in a survey about how people use these sites for collaborative news, or just wait for the results, coming in April.

A collection of useful and semi-useful information:

• One/Northwest provides a great explanation of Bloglines and Del.icio.us

• danah boyd, of Friendster fame, offers her insight into the Myspace hysteria.

• A PDF of the DC Metro system, anagram style.

• DIA advisor and friend, Leda Dederich, on Videofile discussing the future of technology within social change and her projects ScoutSeven and DotOrganize.

• And if you're just looking to pass the time till 5:00, you can always try Best-Of-Craigslist.
  

A hilarious look at the peculiarity of a "how do you use" search on Google entitled Google the Magnificent. I can't re-create the funny so check it out.

Blogads.com and Holland.com are web 2.0 ready! They've selected 25 bloggers of varying pop-culture appeal to participate in Bloggers in Amsterdam '06. The progressive blogging community will be represented by the likes of AMERICAblog and TalkLeft.

No
blogging about the trip will be required--but in exchange each blogger
will be interviewed about the trip (the Dutch Tourism Board may be
using this for online/offline promotions), give Holland.com one month
of premium adspace, and put the "Bloggers in Amsterdam" logo in their
nav bar for one year. The mantra here is transparency. In exchange,
bloggers get a free roundtrip flight, a 5 night complementary stay in a
posh Amsterdam hotel and an I amsterdam Card.



Of course, they DO hope that the bloggers write about Amsterdam, probably especially Pink is the New Blog, one of the lucky 25.

Stop Sinclair!---again. It seems like forever ago, but in 2004 advocacy
groups across the country (and fledgling activists like yours truly)
created websites, call-ins and ad space to stop Sinclair Broadcasting
Group from airing Stolen Honor, a movie smearing Kerry right before the election. It worked. A small victory in an otherwise disappointing year.



One of the key players in the victory, StopSinclair.org, (now
StartChange) is dusting off their site to protest the merging of The WB
and UPN networks into the mega-network The CW. Less because they're concerned
about Gilmore Girls taking away fans from Veronica Mars, but more
because Sinclair Broadcasting Group would have a larger audience if
they are selected to be affiliates for the new CW network. Given their track record of distorting news, this is a bad idea.

This week's featured campaign (conveniently displayed on our homepage) is great for a couple reasons. Sojourners
has always been innovative in encouraging offline action, and meet-ups
have proven successful not only for engaging core activists but
building lists. Judging by the response to past meet-ups, people really
do want more ways to become involved in activist campaigns than just
clicking their mouse. More importantly, their State of our Values
watch will help create a community of likeminded individuals who can be
called upon to respond to developing issues on poverty, peace and
faith. 

It's December 16th, and I'm sure many of you are scurrying to get
out your end-of-the-year donation appeals. Good for you, tis the
season.

Unfortunately (fortunately?) blind giving is
passe--gone are the days of the yearly $100 mail-in donation from Mr.
and Mrs. Jones. Now, the Jones' have a high-speed connection and want
to know exactly what kind of bang you're getting for their bucks. And they're not alone.

Some of you may know that in the recent past I wrote a Masters
thesis on articulated social networking ( okay, who am I kidding, no
one knows). To save you the trouble I'll sum those 80 pages of anthropological babble up here.

Articulated networks are exactly what they sounds
like--visible connections between you and those in your network. Social
networking websites such as Friendster and Myspace
allow users to connect with friends and get a visual demonstration of
how, through these friends, they are connected to others on the
website. I was pleased to discover that I am closely linked to an old
friend from High School as well as Jumbo Slice ( DC residents feel free
to chuckle). This visualization is invaluable to ensuring the identity
of individual users, I guess because the theory is that by knowing who
your friends are, people expect that you won't lie.

This week's featured campaign
hopes to flood Washington, D.C. with 300,000 emails to Bush--one for
every Louisiana resident displaced by Katrina and Rita. Effective storm
protection and rebuilding efforts focus on wetland conservation as
prevention. From the Healthygulf blog:

A less-known component of New Orleans’ insecurity is
the crisis facing our coastal
wetlands. Although we know that
each mile of coastal marsh diminishes a foot of
storm-surge
from hurricanes such as Katrina, coastal Louisiana continues to lose a
football
field’s worth of wetlands every 35 minutes to erosion, jeopardizing the
nation’s oil infrastructure, Gulf
seafood production, and, most visibly, our coastal cities. A

comprehensive plan to reintroduce the land-building
power of the Mississippi River into
our dissolving coastal marshes has been written, but
lies in Washington, unfunded
and not prioritized.