The Extraordinaries

Idea: Translating Citizen Journalism

I just had (what I think is) a really frikkin good idea. Of course, like all good ideas, there's probably someone already doing it... so please let me know if so. 

First, some pre-amble. Jacob just sent this link to me:

Ground Report: http://www.groundreport.com

It's a crowdsourced citizen journalism business that pays its reporters on the basis of how many people read their stories. It's also very well done - their incentive package seems to be adequate and their design is clean and useful. It's head and shoulders above  iReport, the other citizen reporting site that we've been tracking (I'm sure there are others... we haven't been tracking all that closely). 

It occurs to me that *maybe* there are tens of thousands of would-be reporters who speak/write uncommon languages... languages with small numbers of readers. And who, therefore, have little financial incentive to report. 

What if we used a system like the WorldWideLexicon (which I've been on about before) to do crowdsourced translations of these crowdsourced news reports? What if a brilliant writer who speaks Romansh can report to a global audience? Or Masalit speaking people living in refugee camps in Darfur can tell their stories (by cell phone) to someone who translates the audio file to English for American readers who have the political power to galvanize for stronger action by the US government? 

It seems that breaking this language barrier in the domain of news could be transformative? 

Right? Wrong? Already happening? 

iPhone AppStore Secrets - Pinch Media

Great slideshow from Pinch Media about what's doing well on Apple's App store:

iPhone AppStore Secrets - Pinch Media

View more presentations from pinchmedia. (tags: pinch media)

Originally got to this presentation from the following post, which doesn't seem to be alive anymore: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/02/20/the-keys-to-app-store-success-courtesy-of-pinch-media/

Kyte, a similar business model

Jacob just sent me the link to Kyte: http://www.kyte.com/platform

A "Universal Digital Media Platform" - they've got an iPhone app framework as part of their package which was just launched yesterday. Check out the announcement and screenshots of sample output. They're using a model similar to one that we've been considering (but for social good focused crowdsourcing apps).... basically - create on the Web using a toolset and then publish to Web, Mobile, Widget, Facebook, wherever.... They build in various monetization schemes that you can use as a client:

* Ad integration

* Sponsored channels

* Ecommerce / micropayments

* Premium content

And then it looks like they charge a monthly fee using the SaaS model... although they don't list any pricing on the Website. Looks like they've got a good number of pretty high profile investors. Wonder how well it's going? Anyone have an inside scoop?

TED Talks Need Action

I just watched this incredibly moving and somber TED talk by Sylvia Earle. And I'm looking at the rest of this TED page (see screenshot). What's missing to me is *ACTION* - I see this talk and I want to do something in response. But look at my options:

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Watch this talk as high-res video (MP4)

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There's such a prime opportunity here to connect the enthusiasm of the moment - the inspiration to act - with real action. I know that Social Actions is playing in this space - providing a system to embed actions on relevant content pages - and I think that's smart. When our system is up and running, you'll be able to perform a task, right there, on the spot via a widget - or mobile phone. Something - TED needs something to inspire and then enable us to action. Otherwise, it seems like something of a wasted opportunity. Building awareness is great, but I'm left wanting more.

Here's the talk:

Volunteerism: Is a spade a "Spade?"

Thanks to Peggy Hoffman for starting off the conversation about the nomenclature of volunteerism. See post here. I've been thinking about this issue for quite some time. The issue is this:

It seems that we've narrowly defined what is and what is not "Volunteerism." And that we may benefit from broading the definition to include other forms of non-market work by citizens.

I actually wrote a bit about this issue in my recent post about Information Age Volunteerism for TechPresident, but cut it, thinking it was a little off focus for the article. Here's the section before the edit:

Sometimes I wish that Wikipedia would follow me around so that I could turn to it and ask it questions in the middle of a conversation. No, it’s not always right. No, it’s not the utopian vision of collaboration that some wish it were. But it’s damn good. I’d be hard pressed to find a nonprofit organization that hasn’t benefited from Wikipedia being freely available at any time of day or night. Wikipedia is volunteerism for the Information Era.

Of course, we can support Wikipedia by giving a donation, but we can also support it simply by editing a page. Moreover, we can support endeavors that are like Wikipedia. What’s like Wikipedia? Open source software. What is the most efficient and value creating volunteer workforce in existence today? It's the open source community. Being an "open source coder" is synonymous for "software development volunteer." We can support it by using open source software and by contributing code to open source projects.

In addition, we can start thinking about how we can use these Wikipedia/Open Source-like models in the field of volunteerism. The private sector is quickly coming up with brilliant new ideas that take advantage of the amateur’s passion for participation. Threadless, Innocentive, iStockPhoto. These are companies that have dominated their niche by relying on peer production. These models work. Let’s explore them.

And let’s call Open Source and Wikipedia “volunteerism.” There’s an issue of nomenclature that flies under the radar. Why isn’t the Open Source movement the single greatest volunteer accomplishment? I won’t mince words; it is the single greatest volunteer accomplishment. Why don’t we herald it as such? Why don’t we model volunteer efforts in other domains after it?

In my opening analogy, I said that discovering new forms of volunteerism was like a Magellanic voyage. But of course, Magellan didn’t discover anything. He came across lands where people had been living for centuries. Open Source has been here for a long time. However, the field is not linked decisively enough with volunteerism. Magellan named almost every place he visited and these names still exist today: the Pacific Ocean, Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia. The process of naming a thing for one’s community can have transformative effects.  

What do you think?

ps. I also cut the part about Magellan because I thought it was hyperbole and dorky... but here it is, back again... so feel free to say that it's hyperbolic dorkism.

(and why does Typepad completely jack up formatting?#@#$!)

Verizon launches 7-Minute Abs!

Sometimes these tech announcements:

"Verizon expects 4G launch next year"

remind me of this great scene from "Something About Mary":

Galaxy Zoo: Crowdsourced Astronomy

Far out. Jacob just came across this effort from Oxford University. 

The Galaxy Zoo files contain almost a quarter of a million galaxies which have been imaged with a camera attached to a robotic telescope (the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, no less). In order to understand how these galaxies — and our own — formed, we need your help to classify them according to their shapes — a task at which your brain is better than even the fastest computer.

More than 150,000 people have taken part in Galaxy Zoo so far, producing a wealth of valuable data and sending telescopes on Earth and in space chasing after their discoveries. Zoo 2 focuses on the nearest, brightest and most beautiful galaxies, so to begin exploring the Universe.

News to us, but looks like it's been around for a while. Inspired, I'm sure by Clickworkers. Check out the Galaxy Zoo video here.

Virgance

Woa, over the last few days I've received about 6 emails and one article cut out of the Economist (from my ever-thoughtful wife) about these guys. 

"Virgance is a for-profit company that takes new activism ideas and uses the power of online social networks to scale each idea into a large-scale, citizen-powered global campaign to improve the world."

They seem to be a very like minded organization. Really interesting to hear how they've navigated the for/non-profit line. We've been struggling with this debate for the last several months... Thier crowdsourced philanthropy seems most interesting to me. Wonder how that's working out:

"Lend Me Some Sugar is a way to crowdsource corporate philanthropy. We ask corporations to give their philanthropic budgets to Virgance, and then we give our users the ability to determine where the donations should go. Our goal is to create a mutually-beneficial paradigm shift in power whereby citizens have a say in what charities and non-profits companies should support."

Some of the recent links:

http://www.virgance.com/about.php

http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/obamapreneurs_the_economist_gives_virgance_some_love

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/virgance-harnessing-the-community-to-save-the-world-business-plan-included/

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13031214

(why the heck does the economist online "close the comment window" ???, preventing new comments)

Route Tracking

We're working on enabling GPS route tracking in our app... a superb way to donate your spare time to generate valuable data sets. Imagine this:

Crowdsource Your Ped/Bike Route

As you begin your commute to work (via ped or bike), you launch The Extraordinaries on your phone and press "Track Route." Every 20 seconds, your GPS coordinates are sent to the server. At the end of your commute, you press Stop. You then tag & rate your route for a variety of factors: safety, scenic-ness, physical difficultly, your mood on this route. 

So, now we've got the holy grail for GIS-geeks: data. We can see route heatmaps, average commute time, safe routes, dangerous routes, hilly routes, fun routes, miserable routes, desire lines. You can put this data in the hands of the geeks and see what they come up with.

We can imagine a whole array of (non-Extraordinary) uses for this data either online or on another iphone app:

* Show me a scenic route that is safe

* Show me a physically challenging route that makes people happy

* Show me how to get downtown via a highly rated walking route

* Give me a hilly 60 mile cycling loop from the Golden Gate Bridge.

* Give me a flat 40 mile route from from my house that passes the beach

* Show me how to commute to work in the fewest minutes by ped or bike

* Shake the phone and show me a random new fun route

To close the feedback loop with the Extraordinary user, maybe we can display a bumper page that shows how many routes have been submitted along with a summary of the user's commute data - such as average time, time leave every morning, etc - interesting data to make the user feel like they're doing good for their city - and also getting some valuable personal information. Maybe we can list all of the other apps that have been created with the data that they've contributed to. Or we can suggest alternate routes submitted by other users who live nearby.

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Since coming up with this idea, we've found a couple of orgs creating similar apps. I'll use this post to list those I find. If you know of any, please post a comment.

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UC Berkeley & Nokia

"Cars at the Mobile Century command center in Union City head out on their 10-mile driving route on I-880. The drivers, all UC Berkeley students, carried GPS-enabled cell phones that transmitted speed and position information to researchers at the command center, creating a nearly real-time picture of traffic flow. 

There is currently no projected date for commercial launch of such a system, but when it does become available, its benefits could be huge. In the United States alone, traffic congestion leads to 4.2 billion hours in extra travel time and an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel burned, for a total cost of $78 billion, according to a 2007 report from the Texas Transportation Institute. With the number of vehicles on the road increasing rapidly around the world, a cost-effective method of travel planning could help drivers make smarter decisions about which routes to take, the researchers say.

Today's experiment was supported by a $186,000 grant from Caltrans. Additional support came from the National Science Foundation, Nokia, Tekes, the University of California Transportation Center and the Volvo Center of Excellence for Future Urban Transport at UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies, which is also home to CCIT."

http://www.physorg.com/news121845452.html

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New Promo Video - 90 Seconds