As community manager for happyfrog.ca, i often rally up a crews of  bloggers, photographers and podcasters to create social media of green minded businesses, sustainability focused organizations and other stories which the mainstream media don't pick up.

Recently at the EPIC Sustainable Living Expo in Vancouver, we pulled off the biggest social media bonanza i know of with over 50 posts including audio, video, and narrative, plus a Flickr pool of hundreds of candid shots from the trade show floor.

Big congrats to N2Y2 Project Nominee and San Francisco Net Tuesday speaker, Not Just a Number for winning the The Knight Award for Public Service at the Online Journalism Awards:

"The Knight Award for Public Service honors digital journalism that produces compelling coverage of a vital issue and engages a geographic community. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the award carries a $5,000 prize"

You can hear Katy Newton and Sean Connelley, the producers of Not Just a Number for The Oakland Tribune and their web affiliate insidebayarea.com, talk about this citizen journalism project on the NetSquared Podcast.

I've posted the initial nomination for NewsCloud's Netsquared proposal. Please take a look and leave your comments on the Wiki.

Links:

Expanding Access to the NewsCloud Open Source Media Platform

NewsCloud Web Site

NewsCloud Blog

NewsCloud Wiki (information about our open source platform, API et al.)

Many of you have been asking about the availability of the video that was recorded at the NetSquared Conference by Link TV …so we’re happy to report: one partial and two complete sessions are up now. Here’s Dan Gillmor’s segment from the session: A Voice in the Wilderness to the Wisdom of Crowds: Citizen Journalism, Nonprofit Organizations and Social Change. You can go to www.fora.tv and search for "netsquared" under the Search button in the top nav bar tab, where you’ll also find Making the Most of Disruption featuring Paul Saffo, Howard Rheingold, and Lucy Bernholz; and Grassroots, Netroots, and the End and Beginning of Politics  featuring Amy Goodman Joan Blades and Micah Sifrey. Registration is required to use the ForaTv site, and you will need to log-in to view the programs.

Video coverage of the conference sessions and speaker interviews was conducted by Link TV in collaboration with NetSquared. The 32 hours of conference footage will be edited over the next weeks, and these sessions and segments will be made available through Fora TV  and the NetSquared Website. Excerpts will also be used for a Link TV documentary that will air later this year.

Ethan Zuckerman,  Global Voices Project
Told us about Hao Wu, who was disappeared by the Chinese government for his blog.  He did not know Hao, he had 8 emails from him.  When Hao was detained, they were hesitant about advocating for his release, because of the family’s fears. But that changed, and they mounted a full court press, including getting and posting photos of his life.  

Don’t speak. Point.  It is getting easier for people around the world to speak on behalf of themselves.  Advocate’s best strategy is often just to point to those who are speaking on the web, and get out of the way.

Michael Rogers

Mass media will try to coopt citizen journalism. Most will botch, a few will get it right.

Introduced Dan Gillmor, Eun-taek Hong, Ethan Zuckerman

Dan Gillmor

The best reporting being done on Guantanamo is by the ACLU. this is stuff the MSM used to do well. These tools are perfect for what you're doing.The mass media will try to adopt, co-opt, but can't control it. The barrier to entry is zero.

(someone's personal video of tsunami) Democratized media: not ability to vote, but to participate -- tools are in the hands of everyone who wants to use them, at least in the developed world