Josh Catone reports:

… while the Central United States recovers from a spate of storms that has ravaged towns with tornadoes and flooding, the American Red Cross is relying on a number of web 2.0 technologies to spread information to the press and people affected by the severe weather. The online newsroom that the organization has set up relies on a number of web 2.0 widgets.

The newsroom site runs off of Wordpress, and it’s being used to push out press releases, media, and information about shelters. The Red Cross is using Utterz to post audio reports from the field, Flickr for photos and YouTube for videos, as well as a Slide-powered slideshow widget that allows anyone to upload photos of disaster areas. The site also features a Google Maps mashup that depicts the surprisingly large number of relief operations currently being run by the American Red Cross

[Via Read/WriteWeb: Social Media Used to Keep Flood Victims Informed.]

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A series of lunchtime seminars is to be held at Auckland University, Waikato University, Victoria University of Wellington, and Canterbury University: IMPACT ‘08 - The Social, Cultural & Ethical Impact of ICT Innovation.

The seminars are organised and funded through a partnership of UNESCO New Zealand, the 2020 Communications Trust and InternetNZ.

All sessions are on the third Monday of each month and run from noon to 2 PM.

Topics include Entertainment, Water Management, Agriculture, Identity, Social Interaction, Community Building and Location.

Perhaps of particular interest to community organisations are:

Agriculture, June 16

What are the impacts for farmers with Rural Broadband, GPS and RFID technologies? What are the impacts on the consumer, food distribution & preparation operations and our health?

Social Interaction, August 18

How are innovations in ICT impacting on how people interact? What is the impact of innovative ICTs eliminating the tyranny of distance and time?

Community Building, September 15

What impact does ICT innovation have in building communities? And, has the concept of community changed away from a geographic focus? And what is the impact on the individual’s association with their multiple communities?

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Summary: set aside half an hour to read Ethan Zuckerman’s article, watch the videos he includes and follow the links he offers. It’s important.

Via Camden Kiwi: Virtual Beachcombing:

…, a serious, if light-hearted, take on the use of web 2.0 technologies by political activists, and why it may not be such a bad thing that so many people use so much technology just to swap pictures of cute cats.

… I was led to Ethan Zuckerman’s notes on his Cat Theory Talk at ETech.

Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.

Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats.

In brief, he explains why the technologies that start out enabling us to share cute photos of our cats are actually the ones that eventually may lead to social change, thanks to activists:

… With web 2.0, we’ve embarced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. as a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on - the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.

[The image here is from Zuckerman's article.]

Read his article to find out why repressive regimes that block the tools activists use eventually have to give way to people who want pictures of cute cats.

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