Drumbeat/outreach

As we work to draw in a broader swath of engaged Drumbeat community members, we're looking for new and "user friendly" ways to convey the value of the open web to our "non-traditional" Drumbeat audiences.

An overall goal of this outreach is to learn how to connect the open web to things people think are exciting here and now.

One idea that seems promising is to brainstorm "Wonders of the Open Web", a la the "7 Wonders of the Ancient World".

We came up with a starter list that includes:

• Wikipedia: The amazing open knowledge repository, based on the free and open source Mediawiki software, which didn't find success until adopting a radically open community process.

• The Internet Archive: A digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form, providing free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. One of the largest and most valuable aggregations of open-licensed content, including lots of great music.

• Wordpress: A state-of-the-art free and open source publishing platform based on open web standards and usability which allows anyone to publish a dynamic web site.

• Project Gutenberg: The first producer of free electronic books (ebooks), and a place where you can download over 30000 free ebooks to read on your device of choice.

• A lot of potential "Wonders of the Open Web" are sort-of developer tools like Wordpress: Drupal and jQuery are some enormously popular ones, but tons of libraries and frameworks exist that try to make it easier for non-professionals to create web-based content. Wordpress is a stand-out in part because it's both an open-source framework that anyone can use anywhere and a hosted one: if the latter were what made it a WotOW, then why not make Blogger, TypePad, DreamHost, and similar hosted services WotOW? If the former were what made it a WotW, then this would seem to open the door for Drupal/jQuery/etc. to become WotW too, though this could lead to making the list look way too techie and developer-focused. -Atul

• What, if anything, doesn't make sites like Facebook and Twitter a Wonder of the Open Web? It seems like there's a blurry line between what is or isn't a WotOW based on the criteria of decentralized/participatory/transparent/hackable. -Atul

• • Or free-as-in-freedom! Facebook is anything but open. - Gerv

• What would be good is not just "stuff which is open", because even if the structure of the web was closed, that sort of content could still exist. What is there whose existence is enabled by the openness of web technology? Universal Subtitles is something that will be a WotOW by this criteria when it actually happens. Is there anything which currently exists? - Gerv

• My favorite software [Booker]
  • GNU / Linux OS,
  • Apache - A webserver,
  • MySQL - A database,
  • PHP - A server side scripting language,
  • Drupal - A web development framework / product,
  • Firefox - A desktop development framework / browser,..
  • StatusNet - A distributed status update framework / product

• Other favorites (not software) [booker]
  • Mozilla :-)

• ADD YOUR "WONDER" HERE!

Thanks in advance for contributing to this list!