Little off topic, but these two essays / presentations on using Web 2.0 technologies for activism and organizing have really inspired me recently:

Here Comes Everybody: Clay Shirky
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2008/02/shirky

and Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism, Ethan Zuckerman
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007877.html

Both presentations are optimistic about the potential of Web 2.0 technologies (or the internet in general) to enable activist groups to coordinate and build movements for social change. I’m partly interested in this for my day job but also to help figure out how a tool like this could be useful for more than research.

As a counterbalance, I tried sifting through last month’s First Monday which devoted an entire issue to “Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0.” Most of the essays were more Kritikal (read: academic) than I expected, approaching Web 2.0 from Foucauldian or Marixst perspectives (ex. “wikis as a tool of our corporate overlords to get proletariats to work for free” etc.) that tweak my wonkish pragmatism.

As for the project itself, I’m almost finished with the base code for the next generation of the project but decided to take a detour to rework the interface (thus the theoretical research) but I am still planning on releasing it on opendebateengine.com this Spring as an open source project. I’ll move all of my theoretical / engine-related blog postings over there, leaving this space for news about space lasers and picking on China hawks.