HI all,

I wanted to add a personal comment to the project description for PulseWire (www.pulsewire.net) because I truly believe that the mission and features of the project and web portal could dramatically change women's lives by putting needed resources and tools into their hands. I hope you will take another look at this project and realize how significant a project it is and help us to get it developed to share with all.

Joshua Levy at the Personal Democracy Forum has a post today about the use of MySpace for political campaigns and by advocacy organizations. He interviews Scott Goodstein, who has worked on the Save the Internet, Save1800Suicide and Military Free Zone campaigns, and me (I work for the Genocide Intervention Network).

In his NetSquared presentation with Howard Rheingold, Paul Saffo said that social movements, online and otherwise, "need elites" in order to effect change.

At first, this struck me as a popular myth — that social movements never accomplish things through activism alone — when in fact that's been pretty spectacularly disproven.

But then Paul continued, and said that what he meant was "thought leaders" like Dr. King — an instructive example, since his oratories and marches were supported by a network of churches and supporters and specific strategic planning that made his leadership possible. Read on...

I just submitted this as a question to Howard Rheingold for the session on disruption.

Listed here for anyone to comment on Information Barter.

• Given that empowerment of disempowered people is a positive disruptive force;
• Given that everyone knows something (for example, the local rural bus timetable);
• Given that it is empowering to share what you know, to have others value your knowledge;
• Given that people value things more if the things (including information) are not provided free;

Then what about information barter? - the process where information is traded for other information.

The CyberInstitute is adding to the “cornucopia of the commons” with online information for small businesses in developing countries, and investigating the use of information barter.