November 28, 2005
Birds of a Feather Flock Together
Meetup.com meets the UK at the new site called "Flock Together," which is helping Liberal Democrats find out more easily about by-elections and other party-related events.
A small team of volunteers has launched a website called "Flock Together" to help Liberal Democrats find out more easily about by-elections and other events happening in the party. The site includes maps of the local area with pins to show upcoming meetings and by-elections, together with the facility to automatically receive emails about meetings organised by any part of the party. Users can enter their post-code to find the activities nearest to them. Martin Tod, recent Parliamentary Candidate for North West Hampshire, was inspired to create the site after using the US site, meetup.com, during the General Election. "We used meetup.com to publicise our branch meetings in Andover and two people walked in off the street and joined the party" noted Martin. "meetup.com isn't really flexible enough to meet the party's needs, so we've created a new system designed to make it really easy for people to find us and get involved." In an email to party members, Chief Executive of the Liberal Democrats, Chris Rennard, encouraged members to use the site. "It is an important new development for the party - and I'm very grateful to the team of volunteers who are working on it. What will make it succeed or fail in the end is whether or not people make use of the site to find out about events and to advertise events." The site can be found at http://www.flocktogether.org.uk/ Sent by Mark Pack
Posted by Buzz Webster at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 21, 2005
Best of the Blogs Winners Announced
The winners of the 2005 Deutsche Welle International Weblog Awards have been chosen in all 13 categories. Take a peek at the best Weblogs of the year!
The Jury is in...and the best blogs of 2005 have been named. Check out the winners in all 13 categories here:
http://www.thebobs.de/thebobs05/bob.php?site=winner
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
Red Kettles and Bell Ringers go High-Tech
The familiar red kettles and bell-ringers that appear outside stores during the holidays, will now also be popping up online.
The Salvation Army has launched the first National Online Red Kettle Campaign. Individuals and organizations nationwide can help TheSalvation Army raise funds for those in need by hosting their own "virtual" red kettles on their personal, group or company website.
The Salvation Army Launches Online Red Kettle Campaign
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-17-2005/0004218331&EDATE=
Posted by Buzz Webster at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005
U.S. Maintains Control of the Internet
To Kick off the WSIS, an agreement on Internet Governance has been reached. US- based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will continue as the main governing body of the global computer network, but the agreement leaves the door open for future discussions.
Read what the International Press has to say about the Internet Governance Agreement...
US Retains Control of Internet Traffic System (Deutsche Welle)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1780970,00.html
Compromise on overseeing Internet opens World Summit on Information Society (National Post, Canada)
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=ec6b1cbc-17a0-44a9-9521-8b20cd4f820e
More talk on net's future (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4442336.stm
Posted by Buzz Webster at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 11, 2005
Mapping the Digital Divide
A new online tool for mapping the digital divide has been created. Check it out!
The website generates a map of the world, with each country color-coded based on its score in the ITU's Digital Access Index. The data is a couple of years old now, but at least it allows you to get a visual sense about the yawning gap between developed and developing countries.
As you explore the map, you'll find little symbols indicating specific remarks about what's going on in a particular country or region. You can also click onto a country and get a broader collection of development data and other local statistics. You can even explore other data sets related to political instability, landmines, the environment, corruption, and other important global indicators.
http://maps.maplecroft.com/loadmap?template=map&issueID=17
Posted by Buzz Webster at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 09, 2005
French Youths Turn to Web, Cellphones to Plan Riots
Young rioters in France are using blog messages to incite violence and cellphones to organize attacks.
France's government is policing cyberspace as well as rundown suburbs in the battle to end two weeks of rioting.
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=10217749&src=eDialog/GetContent
Posted by Buzz Webster at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 07, 2005
Go to the Library Without Leaving your Desk
Google is once again changing our daily lives, this time with an online library full of fully searchable public domain books from some of the world's most extensive libraries.
Google Inc. has announced the availability of the first large collection of public domain books on Google Print. This collection, scanned as part of the company's book digitization project with several of the world's largest libraries, includes works such as U.S. Civil War history books, government documents, the writings of Henry James and other materials.
Because they're out of copyright, these cultural artifacts can be read in their entirety online, where anyone can search and browse every page. They are fully searchable and users can save individual page images.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 03, 2005
House Defeats Online Freedom of Speech Act
The House of Representatives voted 225 to 182 not to send the Online Freedom of Speech Act to the Senate, slowing the process of extending Campaign Finance legislation to the Internet.
The Federal Election Commission is under court order to finalize rules extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet. Unless Congress acts, the final regulations are expected to be announced by the end of the year.
Opponents of the reform plan mounted a last-minute effort to derail the bill before the vote on Wednesday evening. Liberal advocacy groups circulated letters warning the measure was too broad and would invite "corrupt" activities online, and The New York Times wrote in an editorial this week that "the Internet would become a free-fire zone without any limits on spending."
Democrats Defeat Election-Law Aid for Bloggers
Posted by Buzz Webster at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
