Brainstorm!

[maradydd]

Prompted by a discussion with bunnykitteh, who's good at prompting these kinds of things:

Imagine a Facebook and/or MySpace application aimed at organising flash mobs for political action (e.g., the kind of thing Anonymous might use to quickly notify members of imminent $cientology activity in a particular location). What features should it have? (Twitter gateway?)

(Note that with Facebook, especially, there are all kinds of interesting concerns with respect to privacy...)

Comments

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Twitter definitely, and video function too. Also, geo-tagging, so you could meet up via GPS, [or tag where the coppers are massing and avoid that area!]

I think strong encryption with PGP keys would be more of a necessity!

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Have you already seen http://www.virgance.com/ and carrotmob?

[evelien.livejournal.com]

Facebook during the election had an application where you could sign up to have your status automatically updated every 2 hours to urge people to go vote. 1,745,754 people signed up, and in just under 5 days, sent out 4,919,071 status messages. The largest online rally in history.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I don't have any experience with Facebook/MySpace (programming or even really spending time on their sites), but...

How do you want to contact people? Email, SMS, IM, phone, nearby hackable electronic billboard *grin*...the more options you provide the better your coverage. (Some of us use SMS only as a last resort.)

Geo-based filtering might be useful so that a call to arms for a protest in Podunk doesn't annoy the activists in Artemisia.

Give people an easy way to invite others along who haven't signed up for your alerts.

[mycroftxxx.livejournal.com]

Uhm, an auto-archival function would be nice. Something that followed all of the participant twitter/Qix/whatever streams during the event and auto-collated it all into a timeline-based "What just happened" page. Assuming a group organizer/moderator, it would also be a good spot to submit links from later blog postings.

[mellowtigger]

Semi-related, I had trouble finding info about a local Queer Women's March just 2 weeks ago. I found out about it here at LiveJournal, but other people who attended found out via Facebook.

I've been kicking around for several years an idea (specific to the Bear community, because of the name) to start a project called "Bearly Involved" that would highlight very easy steps that people could follow to actively do something helpful for the environment. Post one "challenge" each quarter-year, have people write in their accomplishment on the postcard and bring it to a Bear event. The postcards are collected and then a winner is randomly drawn to receive a prize. I think it would be a great way to entice/introduce people to "scary eco-activist" ideas but in a grounded and practical way. I would focus on the plight of the poor polar bear, just to begin, but branch out from there. From barely involved to bearly involved.