some interesting projects to check out

Here are a couple of sites I ran across while I was surfing today. This is the kind of research you guys need to be doing - what's out there, who's doing what, what are people talking about in terms of new tech and new tools.

I'm always on the lookout for tools regular people can use to create media (since I"m not in the production part of my department). I saw this today on JD Lasica's blog Social Media. He has a project called OurMedia to encourage people to create their own media

here's a directory of tools the project put together - http://www.ourmedia.org/learning-center/open
and they have a collection of open source/creative commons media people can play with - http://www.ourmedia.org/learning-center/open ---- videos, stills, audio, even old wax cylinder recordings from the early 1900s.

Another project (that I think got Knight money) - is the 247townhall - they're having a weekend long replaying of an even they had Friday about poverty in America. They have a civic journalism section. It's not particularly innovative, but they have picked an audience (underserved communities) and built up a nice collection of tools. Notice they have included explanations of some of them (see the "what's a tag" link on the civic j page.

A third project that is kind of interesting - outside the traditional newsroom - is described in a post by Jeff Jarvis who writes the Buzz Machine blog. check out storybridge.tv --- http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/06/21/local-independent-tv/

this isn't a project so much as a discussion about local news - since one of our options for community was the geographic community it might be itneresting. The conversation was started by Jeff Jarvis (yep, i like his blog) - here's a link to the post about local news - lots of comments so far too. http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/06/21/the-future-of-local/