zoe's blog

Greetings Transmitters

It's been quiet on some of the technical front over the (british) summer - preferring to be out in the wildness, sun, rain and wind and mud..... but now I for one am back in town - for a bit anyway. so the ongoing work in this 'ere online 'field' deserves a little recounting here.

Finn from Ecobee, plus Peter Chowla, Hadiru Mahdi and I met lately at Bretton Woods Project offices. we noted that

* the Drupal aggregation and media sharing tools we created for IFIwatch.TV, RethinkingFinance.org and ChalkTalk! are basically working well.

so here we are in the sticks, surrounded by old stones and new gadgets, shaping our free video sharing tools to make more simple, usable sense.

We've divided into two working groups - one making 4 key modules work together, including FeedAPI, MediaMover etc.

the other working to improve user interfaces for various work processes..

The three aggregation and publishing sites we are focusing on are
http://www.ifiwatch.tv (D5)
http://www.chalktalk.org (D5)
http://www.rethinkingfinance.org (D6)

some photos on their way.....

This weekend in rural Wiltshire, west of England, we will be taking forward the Drupal media aggregation tools which have been being developed through the Transmission network with a test case at http://www.ifiwatch.tv ...

This site can now aggregate media feeds from all kinds of video publishing platforms, moderate and display the items, and then generate new media feeds by tag or search for users to take and do what they will with.

Want to know what's really going on with the financial crisis,
who caused it, and what could be done?

Want to share your ideas, actions, events, stories, analysis?

Want to see the future of free media on the web?

Then come to....

*** the Launch ***

of our innovative, timely and necessary sister sites:

*** http://www.rethinkingfinance.org *** and *** http://www.ifiwatch.tv ***

films, info and website demos, bar and snacks,
news about imminent actions, in depth analyses and the future,
vital information, lovely people... come!

Thursday 26th March, 6.30-9 pm
Horse Hospital
Colonnade, London WC1N 1HX UK

IFIwatch.tv and numerous other video sharing web platforms now offer media RSS complete with thumbnail images, link to video etc. However, as it seems to be impossible for most content management systems to meaningfully display, let alone aggregate, this vibrant and often important information.

We at IFIwatch.TV have a small bit of budget available to pay someone to create piece of javascript that will display the image+descriptions of videos on a 3rd party website. It will be used straightaway in several social/environmental/economic justice websites, and win you eternal gratitude as well as a few quid for the work..

Please do be in touch ASAP if you can do this work, or know someone who can..

many thanks!

eyes - at - ifiwatchnet.org

http://www.ifiwatch.tv is broadening focus to include more material on the reforms to the international financial architecture currently being proposed in response to the financial crisis.

In particular we are featuring the upcoming G20 meetings in London - and the popular alternatives, protests and so forth.

Lots of new material coming through, but more new feeds needed - do you know of a good source of info? please suggest it! let's syndicate! and do take our media feeds, from keywords or search if you only want a little from these waves of detailed info...

[http://www.IFIwatch.tv IFIwatch.tv] offers free and easy access to the latest independent videos to shine a light on the problems and practices of development financing institutions worldwide. These are the videos that rarely make it into the mainstream media. Videos that governments and corporations would often rather were not shared....

Critical documentary, protest reports, animations, interviews and more; unheard perspectives gathered from wherever they are published on the net, and transmitted direct to your computer.

Using media RSS, you can now be automatically updated with media in your areas of interest, even making your own online video channel - simply by subscribing to our keyword-based media feeds.

Why are we doing this?

[http://www.accountabilityproject.org/ourwork/video.html]

IAP, WITNESS, EarthRights International and Chiang Mai University’s Unit for Social and Environmental Research are excited to convene a Video Advocacy Workshop in Southeast Asia for displacement activists, in September 2008 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This 10-day workshop will bring together a diverse group of community activists, filmmakers and civil society advocates involved in struggles related to forced displacement in Asia. The workshop will equip participants with the tools to produce videos related to development-induced forced displacement and to strategically incorporate them into their advocacy campaigns, using the internationally acclaimed methodology of WITNESS.

The "No Screw Tube” campaign is beginning.....

1. Exploitation:
ScrewTube exploits your free videomaking to gain ad revenue.

2. Surveillance:
Posting on YT risks surveillance and IP tracking, both by corporations and the state. For example in 2004 Yahoo collaborated with Chinese authorities to identify dissident blogger Shi Tao. He is now serving 10 years in jail. Many sites record your IP address, not just corporate projects.

3. Censorship:
Posting on YT opens the door to censorship since they will do takedowns at State request or for copyright violations.

4. When Sharing isn't really sharing: