Community News & Articles

In rough economic times such as these, it is important to recognize the more optimistic efforts being made to inspire change by way of new media and technology.

Thanks to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, an organization dedicated to awarding grants to help transform journalism and communities, twenty-one innovative ideas that will help residents lead informed lives have received US$ 5 million. The projects are the first winners of the Knight Community Information Challenge, a five-year, US$ 24 million initiative to help community foundations support creative ways to use new media and technology to keep communities engaged.

Google has decided that it needs to get deeper into the knowledge management business! They have announced a new free tool called knol- still in beta - that enables authors who know a lot about a particular subject to write about it. Knol is Wikipedia, but with perks! (meaning it could be paid).

This Thursday the Percussion team — proffers of the fabled Rhythmyx web content management product — will be conducting a webcast showcasing their shiniest new CM toy: the Community Marketing Solution.

Here’s an interesting social media service that may not be (entirely) froth, though it’s still too soon to tell. SezWho is an offering that helps site owners build traffic and community participation by joining “islands of content,” like blogs and other media, with the gruntwork of crossover participants.

Perhaps most meaningfully, the offering is designed to help good content providers build integrity that then follows them across other social media. To illustrate, imagine that the eBay seller score you worked so hard to build was meaningful outside of the eBay community.

The next time you see the phrase “open source” used in association with some software, be advised that you’ll need to take that claim with a grain of salt. This was a statement made last November by ZDNet blogger David Berlind.

As the concept of Professional Open Source gains momentum and more vendors jump on this boat, its becoming increasingly important to have some reliable indicators of what a real open source effort looks like.