If the project is successful, American voters will learn the impact that U.S. foreign policy decisions have on people around the world, on a general and personal level. They will also see how U.S. democracy is perceived in contentious countries like Iran and China.

The aim of this project is to expose American voters to the impact that their decisions, and their elected government’s decisions, have on people globally, using user generated video, news video, feeds and statistics. U.S. voters will also become aware of how the 2008 U.S. presidential election is being covered by television outlets in other countries. This knowledge will help make voters more aware of the importance of their decision and the empowerment they gain through participation in the democratic process. It will also bring them closer to individuals outside of the U.S. by allowing them to make a personal connection through video dialogue.

The project may be a great first step toward a permanent and growing mashup of international news and reports on a variety of global issues beyond the election. Future iterations of What the World is Saying – Human Rights, Development Aid, the Environment?

People are becoming more socially responsible, and want to be up-to-date with news about social change and impact. Plus, they are self organizing in online and real world communities to work together and bring change.

CBC (Change Broadcasting Channels) allows users to select channels of social change, and receive instant news about these channels on a mobile phone through SMS or twitter. Every channel has a community of subsribers that use the community tools to promote and share big stories and events. create momentum to find solutions to problems and trigger change.

Today there are a few barriers to getting instant access to socially relevant news:

· Relevant news needs to be obtained from sites dedicated to socially responsibility.

· Most of these sites have information from blogs and RSS feeds. Very few if any, have information from global news wires.

· These sites by nature offer a pull-based model, rather than an alert-based one where the user is notified of any news of interest as it happens.

· The user does not have much flexibility in choosing the news they want to track.

The idea of Change Broadcasting Channel is to create channels of news about issues of social change, and the endpoint for these channels is your mobile phone. Twitter serves basic phones with only SMS functionality. Flurry serves phones with a data plan.

A user can subscribe to an existing channel or create their own, based on a set of keywords.

Each channel has a community which is the group of subscribers to the channel. And this community gets triggers (the SMSes/twitters from a river of news) that create momentum, driving them to address their cause.

CBC will also integrate with http://www.groundreport.com to bring real user-reporting on channels mixed with mainstream media news from Daylife.

Change Broadcasting Channels will change the world by instantly informing socially active individuals of news of their interest, eliminating any delay in action. These users are part of communities where they actively use the modern tools to bring out the most relevant stories and issues and cultivate a discussion to find solutions.

3bn people have little access to life-saving or valuable information. Organizations serving these communities do not have simple, cost-effective tools to enable reliable and meaningful dialog to increase their reach while scaling their impact. Cellphone/SMS technology is complex to program, telecom orgs are inflexible/costly and existing SMS tools are difficult to use.

Resdida is developing a simple to use, turnkey platform for organizations (Govt, NGO, corporate, community) to leverage channel-based mobile content distribution, two-way messaging, and project monitoring and evaluation (M&E). The Platform allows for localized content creation and syndication, creation of content "channels", a wide array of distribution options, group profile management, two-way messaging (e.g. surveys automatically populate responses to a reporting module), and public service announcement capabilities. The Platform will be built for M&E by receiving and collating SMS-based field reporting in real-time, allowing for faster org response time.

Content may consist of program updates, emergency info, weather, health, sanitation, crop prices, news, as well as desired info such as entertainment, sports and culture. This approach will allow orgs to reach rural communities directly (and in larger numbers) with information they need and want. A survey module allows collection of feedback, and user data collection provides information on preferences to refine future development.

Resdida has a working prototype, with V1.0 now in development for release in 2009. Resdida will pilot the platform with 1-3 organizations to fully test its capabilities, make changes and prepare for broader rollout. V1.0 will be flexible enough for multiple org types, yet remains simple to use. A channel takes 5 minutes to setup and send to a group of any size via an extremely user-friendly web interface. NO technical knowledge/programmers, negotiations with telcos, purchase of software, servers/maintenance is required.

Writers have always written, not knowing about who or where their readers are. This mashup will show where the readers are coming from, who read a writer's article, or where the readers come from, who care about the same topics as any tag in the system.

We will use zip codes, which we have on record, for our members, or IP address, for non-registered visitors, to map where readers of a specific article come from. Since articles are also tagged, we can pull tag contact data for people as well, and map tags based on who's visited from where-- for any article.

When writers know more about where their readers come from, that could/will change the way they think about their readers and could change how they write.

This could have a powerful effect upon editorial decisions too. Since thousands of tags will be easily checked for how they "map", it will be possible to asses reach of the site and editorial policy in new ways.

Writing, news, Op-eds, the media-- they are essential elements of democracy. Understanding which aspects of the writing are reaching WHERE, for each article, or groups of articles, or by the author-- all of these should be easily pulled together using the system we've already built for managing content. Even on more local levels, if we can tap the power of google analytics to pull IP info and map it to local, county or state levels, this could be powerful, since we also tag our content by locale. For example, if a writer writing on water pollution discovers that the lower part of a county is seeing the articles, but not the upper level, and a river runs through the county, that could easily help the writer identify where further outreach is needed.

Citizen guardianship over public-interest information channels is essential to democratic debate and socially responsible media policy change. Independent, noncommercial and community media are struggling to survive while multi-billion dollar industries grow more powerful from the cables they run under the public roads and the licenses they use to broadcast on public airwaves, fighting off public obligations at every step. How can we create an environment where diverse media thrive? This is about how and what we communicate. Today's emerging information technologies have the potential to connect the world as never before. New media tools enable us to share solutions, strengthen cultures, and create new levels of accountability and transparency in governments and corporations, as well as, among social change organizations. THIS PROJECT could make local, regional national, and international media advocacy activities accessible to anyone interested in holding information gatekeepers in check. It would provide concerned citizens with 1) tools to feedback to broadcast, cable, satellite, radio and internet content decision-makers, 2) tools for messaging policy makers, and 3) motivation to transform individual viewers/receivers/"consumers" into participating media rights advocates by provide opportunities to get involved. THE PROJECT would also address a pressing need among media advocacy players in the U.S. Accessing information about partnerships, collaborations, new initiatives, etc. is klunky and time-consuming. Bridge-building between and among advocates across regions and issues is timely, if not urgent in today's media landscape. The widest gulf exists between grassroots and local media justice organizations and Washington D.C. Policy change efforts. The connection between scholarly research and community advocacy is developing, yet improving knowledge of and access to organizations would expedite productivity (and therefore, positive policy change). THIS PROJECT could minimally, be the gateway to more efficient networking, alliance and partnership initiatives and collaboration. Funders and/or investors would use the service to gain pertinent information about media issues or potential grantees. This mashup would help strengthen media movements, and ultimately be the e-support of efforts that preserve the free expression of diverse perspectives.