My brief fling with Idealware has finally come to fruition — together, we have given birth to a brave new article about participatory media. What are we talking about? Tools like video sharing sites, blogs, social networking sites, social media and viral marketing — technologies that gain their value from the work of people acting with only minimal direction (or none at all) and often in large numbers. These bottom-up applications are generally lumped together under the “Web 2.0” label, and to many of us they’re still wrapped in a bit of an air of voodoo even if we’ve used them before.
So, the Idealware folks and I put together a piece that looks at many of the basic participatory media tools, how you’re likely to use them in a nonprofit, advocacy or campaign environment, what resources they require and what you’re results you’re likely to get when you try them out. I provided the article’s basic structure, Idealware editor Laura Quinn filled in the gaps and untangled the most convoluted of my sentences, and outside editor Beth Kantor reviewed the whole thing and made some excellent additions. Check it out!
– cpd
It was already an excellent article!