WebProNews

Tag: Crowdsourcing

  • Facebook Helps Ichthyologist Crowdsource His Research

    Facebook has just released the second installment of their “Facebook Stories” initiative, and this one involves an ichthyologist and how he got by with a little help from his Facebook friends (many of whom are also ichthyologists).

    Tagging people in posts or photos is something that we all do every day. It’s really the only way to make sure that someone sees something that you want them to see. In this Facebook Story, titled “Degrees of Separation,” one researcher uses Facebook to crowdsource the identification of thousands of different species of fish – simply by tagging other scientists in the photos of the fish.

    We’ve all woken up to a surprising amount of Facebook notifications. I’m sure that this time, it was one of the more satisfying moments of Brian Sidlauskas’ career.

    Check it out below:

    Last month, Facebook launched their revamped Stories site, which they said will help them “celebrate the extraordinary ways that people are using Facebook.” The Facebook Stories site has a different theme each month, as August’s story “Remembering” involved a man who pieced his life back together with Facebook after forgetting everything due to an illness.

  • Bounty For TPP Text Is Up To $25,000

    From the onset, TPP has always been the worst of the big trade agreements and copyright laws. It’s so bad because we know next to nothing about it. All the leaked text from the document are months old and have probably been updated by now. Last we heard, it was planning on extending America’s fair use laws to the rest of the signing countries.

    Understandably, people are angry that TPP is still veiled in secrecy. They want Wikileaks or some other organization to get ahold of the most current negotiating text and share it with the world. To achieve that, Democracy In Action is crowdsourcing a bounty for TPP’s text. That bounty is now up to $25,000.

    Here’s what the group hopes to accomplish:

    At this very moment, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP)–a trade agreement that could affect the health and welfare of billions of people worldwide–is being negotiated behind closed doors. While 600 corporate lobbyists have access to the text, the press, the public, and even members of the US Congress are being kept in the dark.

    But we don’t have to stand meekly by as corporate cronies decide our futures. Concerned citizens from around the world are pooling together their resources as a reward to WikiLeaks if it makes the negotiating text of the TPP public. Our pledge, as individuals, is to donate this money to WikiLeaks should it leak the document we seek.

    As WikiLeaks likes to say, information wants to be free. The negotiating text for the TPP wants to be free. Someone just needs to release it.

    The project is like a Kickstarter of sorts. People can pledge any amount of money that they want. Wikileaks, or whoever else leaks it, will receive the combined amount of pledged money. The group would prefer Wikileaks leaking the documents because they want the group to reaffirm its commitment to the public, and not just self interest.

    It’s an great way to get people involved without expecting much from them. People can donate just $1 to the cause. Unfortunately, it could just backfire horribly in the end. There’s no guarantee that people will pay the amount they pledge. The text could be leaked and the those responsible wouldn’t get the money that was promised.

    Even so, that wouldn’t be so bad, right? Important trade agreements like TPP should have been made transparent in the first place. It’s pretty sad that we have to resort to bribery just to find out what the Executive branch of our government is doing behind our, and Congress’, backs.

  • Kickstarter Has Transformed into an Indie Game Haven Overnight

    If you are a game developer and you have faith in your idea, Kickstarter may be able to help even more than you think. That’s because crowdfunders are absolutely throwing their money at game projects on the site. Seriously, Kickstarter has been hijacked by gaming enthusiasts.

    The company highlights this today in a blog post entitled “The Year of the Game.” Its main point? More money is currently being pledged for gaming projects than any other type of project on the site. In 2012, crowdfunders have pledged over $50 million (and the year is only two-thirds complete). That compares with $42 million spent on film projects, $40 million on design, $25 million on music, and $16 million on Technology.

    And it’s not just that Kickstarter users are spending more on games than all of the other categories. It’s also important to note that this is a new trend. There hasn’t been a gradual increase in money spent on game projects over the last few years – it’s been exponential.

    In 2009, $48,190 was pledged for games. In 2010, that number climbed to $519,885. In 2011, it increased sizably to $3,615,841.

    Now, it stands at the aforementioned $50 million+. Here’s what that looks like on a graph, if you were curious:

    And there’s still four months to go in 2012.

    Kickstarter says that 23% of all dollars pledged this year are for games. Last year, it was only 3.6%. Seven out of the eleven projects that broke through the $1 million barrier are games. Apparently, the time is now to get your project set up on the site.

    Kickstarter points to a game project called Double Fine Adventure as a catalyst for the surge in game-related pledges. That game currently has over 87,000 backers who have pledged over $3.3 million. As you would expect, this kind of success prompted other developers to get to work on Kickstarter.

    “Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community. They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision. It’s the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can’t afford. At least, not until now,” says the game’s developers.

  • Facebook Looking at Navigation App Waze [Report]

    Is Facebook looking to get into the crowdsourced traffic information game? According to Israeli business publication Globes, Facebook is eyeing navigation app Waze.

    According to Globes, the two companies have already had discussions – as Facebook execs apparently visited Waze offices in Israel. “The purpose of the talks is not known, but the two companies are reportedly headed for collaboration, possibly involving the use of Waze’s application via Facebook. Alternatively, Facebook may acquire Waze,” they say.

    Waze is originally an Israeli startup, although they do operate a main office in Palo Alto, California.

    Although Waze provides GPS services and free turn-by-turn navigation, one of its most interesting uses is as a giant traffic crowdsourcing platform. People can report accidents, traffic issues, speed traps, and much more. The app is constantly morphing, as it reacts to information gathered from drivers using the service. It’s a truly community-oriented GPS application.

    So, one could see Facebook and Waze working well together, considering the nearly 1 billion Facebook users who could add to Waze’s crowdsourced traffic data.

    This is not the only Israeli company that has (reportedly) attracted Facebook’s attention. Earlier this year, the company acquired Tel-Aviv-based facial recognition software company Face.com.

    [via Forbes]

  • Offbeatr Looks to Kickstart Adult Projects

    You can say that this one was born out of a sort of Rule 34-esque necessity. If it exists online, someone has taken it and turned it into porn. Or, you could say that it simply filled a niche that wasn’t available since most related sites ban pornographic content. Whatever the reason, Offbeatr is here and it’s the Kickstarter for porn.

    It’s only been live for a couple of weeks, but Offbeatr is beginning to pick up steam.

    It works in a manner similar to Kickstarter – person starts a project, people fund it (or they don’t), and they have a certain amount of time to reach certain goals. Plus, Offbeatr also allows project leaders to offer rewards.

    The difference is that Offbeatr has a selection process. Once a person becomes a verified project creator, they are allowed to create a project idea. That idea must then be approved, and after that a voting process begins. Before they can start collecting money for their project, creators have to hit a certain vote goal.

    Of course, Offbeatr would be a prime target for illegal and otherwise questionable project ideas. That’s part of the reason why they have an approval process. They do forbid certain projects as well, for instance ones containing elements of rape or violence, bestiality, incest, minor involvement, etc.

    As of right now, some of the featured project include a furry adult comic book called “Inside the Candy Box,” a video series called “Super F*ck Friends,” a website to find your “Sex twin,” an e-book that explores sexuality and Asperger’s syndrome, and a “Japanese Porn Cultural Exchange.

    So, as you can see, the ideas are pretty diverse.

    As of now, Offbeatr is only accepting project creators from the U.S., the UK, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. When asked why Offbeatr charges a little more than other crowdsourced project sites, they cite their all-or-nothing funding model and the fact that adult websites have a harder time getting their payments processed or have to pay more to do so.

    Offbeatr caps its goal amount at $30,000. The lowest project you can submit is one with a $300 goal. Project creators are only allowed to run one project at a time.

    Offbeatr offers a SFW versions of the site and NSFW version of the site. Browsers are taken to the SFW version by default.

    [via ReadWriteWeb]

  • DeAngelo Williams Wants His Facebook Fans To Create His Next Touchdown Celebration

    You can feel the excitement in the air as the NFL preseason gets underway. The NFL preseason serves two purposes for fans; First, it quenches the football drought that they’ve been experiencing all summer. And is also signals that we’re only a month away from the actual NFL season.

    This Saturday, the Carolina Panthers tackle the Houston Texans, and Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams wants to make the game special – by performing one your your touchdown celebrations.

    Williams has posted a video to Facebook, asking his fans to post videos of their own endzone dances. He says that the best one will get its moment in primetime, as he’ll perform it if he scores a touchdown during the preseason.

    Here’s what he had to say in the video:

    In light of Saturday’s first game against the Houston Texans, I want to run this. For four weeks I’m gonna get a chance to choose between you guys. I want you to put it under my comment box, I wanna get you guys involved in the game. This is what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna give you an opportunity, right now, underneath. I want you to comment and post a link of you doing your best touchdown celebration. The best one , if I score on Saturday or throughout this preseason, I’ll do your endzone celebration.

    Hundreds of comments have poured in, but not everyone is fully understanding DWill’s request. A lot of people are posting videos to generic dances, and there are quite a few suggestion for “The Carlton.” He does have some originals pouring in, although I can’t attest to their quality:

    But hey, anything to spice up the preseason is cool in my book.

    [h/t AllFacebook]

  • The First Episode of The Silent City, A Crowdfunded Post-Apocalyptic Web Series, Hits

    During the second week of January 2012, a trailer for a crowdfunded web post-apocalyptic series debuted. Shot on location in New York City, the video’s creative team made use of abandoned industrial locations located around The Big Apple, a promising idea that’s also seeing a little action in Detroit.

    Regarding The Silent City, upon completion of the successful Kickstarter project, which raised $12,055, production on the web series began, and now, our patience has been rewarded with the launch of the Silent City‘s first episode, A Fractured World. The episode followers a lone survivor searching for food. Instead, he finds some now useless pieces of paper that held much more meaning before his world was destroyed. It’s a good beginning:


    I found that intriguing enough to definitely check out the second episode, whenever it hits. There’s a YouTube page for The Silent City series, and subscribing will keep you posted about new episodes and behind-the-scenes content. You can also keep up with the series on their Facebook page, which will also feature the new episodes when they launch.

    The Silent City will be presented in five total parts, meaning there are four more episodes to come. No word on when the additional episodes will be scheduled for release. With that in mind, hopefully, they won’t make their audience wait an extended amount of time for the continuation of the series. Considering it’s been about six months between first learning about the Kickstarter and the premiere of the first episode, it shouldn’t take too much time to finish their project, provided they don’t get sidetracked or bought by a company that wants to change how the future episodes are released, ie, monetize the content.

    The question is, let’s say someone from HBO is really high on The Silent City and wants to buy the rights to it, as well as control the distribution of the remaining content. Would the creative team behind the web-based series allow the purchase to go through?

  • Kickstarter Panhandlers Are “Not As Bad As Child Molesters, But Close”

    Crowdsourced funding site Kickstarter says that it is a way to “fund & follow creativity,” but the folks at The Onion have a different opinion of the site. To them, it’s all an internet scam that features beggars peddling a bunch of stuff nobody really needs.

    Harsh, I know. But you have to admit, for every interesting, well-thought-out, deserving project you find on the site – there are at least a couple duds. For every awesome zombie RPG, iPad to Etch-a-Sketch converter, iPhone-ready bra, and nifty little tin can USB phone, there are a couple dozen Ron Paul video game ideas and as*hole alarm clocks waiting to suck you dry.

    Not to mention the well-intentioned but slightly delusional NYU grads and their “projects.”

    Check out how The Onion is warning people about the threat of Kickstarter below:

    Mashable says that this video is the season premiere of The Onion’s Tech Trends series. It joins shows like “This Week in History,” “War for the White House,” and “O-SPAN,” in The Onion’s rotation of satirical hilarity.

  • Duolingo Opens To The Public After 125,000 Users Translated 75 Million Sentences During Beta

    Way back in November of 2011, Duolingo opened up their private beta and was hit with a flood of excitement in the form of invite requests. “People asking me for Duolingo invites: Patience, grasshoppers,” said creator Luis von Ahn.

    For those of you who never got in, or who are just hearing about it for the first time and want to get your language learning on – Duolingo is now open to the public.

    “Duolingo leverages the brain power of millions of people who are currently learning a new language to help translate the web,” says Luis von Ahn, co-founder of Duolingo. “So much of the web is partitioned off by language barriers. With more than a billion people on the planet learning a new language, I knew this was the ultimate opportunity to not only provide accessible education resources, but also make the internet a truly world wide web.”

    And that’s the incredibly simple but brilliant premise of Duolingo. Once you choose the language you’d like to become more proficient in, Duolingo feeds you words and phrases from around the web – based on your skill level.

    Next, you translate those phrases. If you have trouble, Duolingo helps you out a little bit with hints. Your translations go into a giant pool of all user translations, and part of the Duolingo experience is voting on the translations submitted by the community. That way, they most correct translations can rise to the top.

    So, in theory, Duolingo allows people to learn a foreign language while simultaneously crowdsourcing the translation of the interwebs.

    With their public launch, Duolingo says that they already have over 125,000 active users as a result of the private beta. Since November, those users have translated 75 million sentences in english, Spanish, German, and French. Other languages are on the way, they say, including Portuguese and Chinese.

  • Maven Research Crowd-Sources Consulting Work

    When Wyatt Nordstrom launched Maven.co back in 2009, he had questions. Questions he could not find answers to. Maven Research was founded, three years ago this month, to use the web’s long reach to answer the unanswerable questions businesses have on a weekly basis. Since then, Maven has quietly served some of the biggest clients in the business world, raised $2 million from two funding rounds, and now has 25 employees in cities across the United States. “We’ve been under the radar…but we’re starting to get more attention, particularly from fortune 500 companies,” said Nordstrom in an interview with WebProNews. “We’ve created what we consider the fastest way of sourcing expertise,”

    On the Maven website, the company is described as a global knowledge marketplace. Marketplace is the functional word here, the one that makes it different from Wikipedia’s global knowledge compendium. Maven’s customers are searching for data and advice that doesn’t yet exist, and they are willing to pay for it.

    Maven provides three types of services: electronic surveys, telephone consultation, and extended consultation. Maven talent-sources industry experts from a global pool and pays them to answer their clients’ questions. “What you get is a quick way to get to any kind of expertise,” said Nordstrom. He pointed out that, in his opinion, Maven has kept its services uncomplicated, requiring a minimal amount of expertise for both clients and consultants to access and use.

    The cost of Maven’s services scale with the amount or difficulty of answers needed. For example, surveys scale with the number of questions on the survey and the difficulty of finding the right people to take the survey. A survey of CEOs for example, would be more expensive because of their relative rareness and high level of expertise. The surveys come back to clients as raw data. Maven does not provide analysis, but does produce survey results that feature some simple graphs.

    Telephone consultation is provided at the consultant’s per-minute rate. Maven arranges the session by scheduling a time for the consultation, and then ringing both the client and the consultant’s phones at that time.

    Extended consulting allows clients to hire experts for longer durations. For all of these services Maven acts as an administrator, handling compensation and other details.

    For each of these services, consultants are vetted through a qualification program. Clients work with Maven to develop knowledge and expertise thresholds that consultants must pass to be part of a survey or considered for consultation work. In the case of extended consulting, experts must complete written interviews. Broad qualifications will provide more survey data, while niche expert qualifications, such as “oil company CEO’s,” would provide more precise, niche answers.

    The first profile on Maven.co, Wyatt Nordstrom

    Nordstrom did confirm Maven’s talent source pool does include CEOs. He emphasized, though, that any kind of expert has a place on Maven, no matter their career level. Nordstrom told us that for its members, Maven is not dissimilar to LinkedIn, just more private. The company’s talent pool, which they consider to be a social network, has grown virally, mainly by word-of-mouth, with expert colleagues telling each other about the extra consulting work available through Maven. It’s similar to Demand Media except, instead of writing, Maven is crowd-sourcing expertise.

    Maven is still expanding its services and trying to cover any kind of query a business may have. In April of this year the company launched its “Knowledge Communities” product, which enables businesses to use Maven within their own workforce. This allows sprawling, multi-national businesses to make sure none of the expertise they have hired is going to waste.

    Nordstrom’s goal for Maven is, like so many other tech startup founders, to cut the red tape, lawyers, and expense from traditional business practices – in his case, talent sourcing. He wants Maven to “be the single source for all forms of expertise.” Having already serviced clients such as Heinz, Procter & Gamble, and GlaxoSmithKline, it appears the company is well on its way toward that goal. This type of startup is another example of how the web can streamlines business, even for traditional industry.

  • Larry David Joins Twitter At The Behest Of Charity Bribers

    Former Seinfeld and current Curb Your Enthusiasm funnyman Larry David has cautiously waded into the brackish waters of social networking. Late Monday, the writer, actor, and producer sent out his first dispatch to the Twitterverse.

    And it’s a demand.

    “I was told by Charity Bribes that if I Tweeted they’d give 10K to the NRDC….Pay up!” he said a few hours ago.

    It’s really David. The account has been verified by Twitter and his assistant told the Washington Post that yes, it’s really him. So, why is David now on Twitter and what’s he going on about – bribes and such?

    @LarryDavid4
    Larry David    I was told by Charity Bribes that if I Tweeted they’d give 10k to the NRDC…Pay up! 19 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    You have to go back to early April to figure this one out. Back then, we told you about a startup called “Charity Bribes.” Their goal was simple – to crowdsource the bribing of celebrities for a good cause. It’s pretty simple. People go online and pledge any amount of money to see a celeb complete a particular activity. What celeb and what activity is determined via voting on the site. The most popular idea has a month to garner donation pledges.

    If the celeb ends up completing the bribe, all of that pledged money goes to a pre-selected charity. If they don’t act on the wishes of the masses, no money goes anywhere.

    The first bribe offered up by the site was to Larry David. It was simple – all the bribers wanted him to do was to join Twitter.
    And although he didn’t quite join within the (first)30-day session, the pledged money will still end up at the National Resources Defense Council.

    From the Charity Bribes blog:

    Thank you to all the bribers for your generous contributions. The total amount of $10,163 will soon be donated to the NRDC. We’ll keep you updated. And, of course, thanks to Larry David for taking the bribe and making our track-record of extortion a perfect 1-for-1.

    Back in April, I told you that I thought Charity Bribes was a terrific concept. The only problem was gaining enough press to make other celebrities (future bribe targets) take notice. Now that David has accepted to bribe, the service will hopefully raise even more money for various charities in the future. Let’s also hope that David keeps up with the Twitter thing.

    Next up – Conan O’brien. If he interviews a guest on this show wearing an eye patch and a turtleneck, Austism Speaks will get some donations.

    conan charity bribe

  • Pinterest Is Crowdsourcing The Site’s Translation

    Pinterest wants to translate their site into other languages and they are seeking translators to assist them.

    Here’s what they had to say in a blog post:

    At Pinterest, we’ve always wanted to make it easy for people all over the world to organize and share all the beautiful things they find on the web. We want to take another step towards making this vision a reality by translating Pinterest into other languages.

    At first, they want to focus on five languages – Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German, and French. In the future, they say they would like to expand the scope of the translation with Dutch, Greek, Italian, Korean, Polish, Swedish, and more.

    If you’re fluent in one of those languages and would like to participate in the translation, Pinterest has created a Google Doc-signup sheet that asks, among other things, how you learned the language in question and if you have any translation experience.

    Twitter has had a lot of success in the past with crowdsourcing translation. Back in February, 2011, the Translation Center opened up. Twitter adds new languages to the Translation Center and people go to work translating the Twitter site (not the tweets). Once the task is completed, the new Twitter sites go live. Twitter’s most recent language addition was a handful of right-to-left languages including Hebrew, Farsi, Urdu, and Arabic. As of right now, Twitter is available in 28 languages.

    Last month, Path also began a crowdsourced translation initiative.

  • Groupon Grassroots Announced In Honor Of Earth Day

    It’s Earth Day which means everybody is going to be talking about conservation and how we can go green a little more this year. One Internet company is using Earth Day to relaunch one of their services with a new name and renewed focus.

    Groupon today announced the launching of Groupon Grassroots. It’s the new identity for Groupon’s old G-Team collective that crowdsourced funding for charities and community events. During the G-Team days, Groupon says more than 100,000 people raised more than $3 million dollars for more than 500 projects.

    As for the Earth Day connection, Groupon will be getting the ball rolling on Grassroots by funding and hosting 50 environmental campaigns with $1,000 each. Some of these campaigns include raising money to run water-quality tests at surf beaches in Los Angeles or installing energy-efficient attic insulation at a Habitat for Humanity home in Atlanta.

    If you find a particularly righteous cause on Grassroots, you may want to start funding it now. Groupon also announced a partnership with Edward Norton’s Crowdrise, an online crowdsourcing charity, to start the Groupon Challenge. The three campaigns that bring in the most money will receive an additional prize from Groupon. First place will take home $25,000 with second and third taking home $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.

    For its final announcement, Groupon is using its Getaways program for a good cause. For only $2,000, you can fly to Zambia to take part in volunteer efforts to help people in the region. It’s not only a charitable venture, but a good vacation to boot.

    If you aren’t much of the Earth Day kind of person, there are still plenty of noble causes in Grassroots that could definitely use some attention and money. Check out the Web site for more details with potential causes to invest in. You just might change somebody’s life for the better.

  • Path Crowdsources Translation to Other Languages

    Path, is taking the route Twitter took in transitioning their social networking app to other countries in different languages; they’re letting the users help with the translation process. The crowdsourced approach seems to be providing great success to Path.

    Here’s what they wrote on their blog:

    Every day, all over the world, more people are sharing their stories with loved ones on Path. The response internationally has been amazing. We’ve heard from students and professors to avid travelers and programmers — all offering time and knowledge to help improve our translations. We thank you for your help!

    Working with Smartling, a translation specialist, and many volunteers from around the globe. Path is set to offer their services in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. In the future we are planning to add Traditional Chinese, Thai, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesian, Russian, Turkish, Malay, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian Bokmål, and English (UK).

    More from their blog:

    Today we’re taking another step to improve the Path experience for those of you abroad. We have set up a new translation platform, powered by Smartling, which allows you to sign up and edit the languages available for Path, submit translations and work with others to ensure your language is fully supported in future versions of Path.

    So it sounds like they’re are on the right path to success with their platform. Allowing others to help with the translation is a great way to tackle the challenge of getting foreign language users on board. We’ll keep you updated on how their progress is coming.

  • Wasteland 2 Raises $900K In Two Days

    Wasteland 2 Raises $900K In Two Days

    We reported earlier this week that Brian Fargo of InXile Entertainment was attempting to revive the classic Wasteland franchise. He had shipped the idea around to publisher with no avail. Upon finding the success that Double Fine had with Kickstarter, he took to the Web site to ask for $900,000.

    It’s only been two days and the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter has already raised the $900,000 it needs to become a real thing. While it didn’t hit the mark as fast as Double Fine did, it’s still a momentous occasion for fans of classic games.

    Like Tim Schafer before him, Brian Fargo was live tweeting the lead up to hitting their funding. It’s a wonderful look into a truly humbled game designer who has fought so hard for this game to have the fans back him up when nobody else would.

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    What makes this even more exciting as it feels like history is all being made here. Let the power return to the developers! 18 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    It’s possible to make the initial funding in the first 48 hours at this rate! There are sure smiling faces at work today. 16 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    If we can raise another $160k today we will have achieved our initial goal in less than 2 days. 😉 We have hit tipping point for sure. 16 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    It’s like the best telethon ever… 95% funded… I’m Gobsmacked. 9 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    My friends thought I was crazy to try this. “You’re in the middle of the desert making a movie so people send you money?”, says them. 😉 8 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    We are sure getting close! Sold out of the 10k pledge tier! 7 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    I know there was concern with the amount we requested but we could not have done WL2 justice with just 300-400k. 7 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    Woot!!! We did it!!!! Fantastic! I am going to sleep like a baby tonight. Once again I am awed by the support! A dream come true today. 6 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @BrianFargo
    Brian Fargo    And again… you have all been amazing and only through your efforts would this have ever happened! To think 20+ years… 6 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Some of the actual details about the game were revealed last night on the Twitter as well. Fargo said that they will be making it as close to the original Wasteland as they can. This includes the ability to create your party with NPCs joining along the course of the game. He also said that they were wanting to go with an isometric top-down view, but he’s going to leave that up to the fans.

    He also confirmed that he would doing an iama on Reddit soon, so fans should look forward to that.

    I know it’s like beating a dead horse now, but Kickstarter has been absolutely amazing for developers after Double Fine proved you could fund a multi-million dollar game through the Web site. I don’t know if this will have an everlasting effect on game development, but crowd sourced publishing seems to be here to stay for now.

    The Kickstarter campaign is now at a little over $965,000. It still has 32 days before it’s funded so it could potentially hit the multi-million mark just like Double Fine. If you would like to help fund the next wave of classic RPGs, you can do so here.

  • Jimmy Wales Wikipedias The British Government

    Wikepedia chief and co-founder, Jimmy Wales accepted a position with the British government as an unpaid advisor for open policy creation and other technology-based initiatives. Using his extensive technology and business savvy, Wales will instruct civil servants on how to best engage the public via the internet and available online software.

    Efforts are currently underway to merge many government websites into one all service area where users can engage in making policy and learn more about how to help representatives make more informed decisions. British officials have been attempting to gain momentum with their efforts to access the public and make regulation and legislation more accessible to citizens for years and the addition of Wales marks a new high for their campaigns.

    Let’s see what people on Twitter had to say about the Wikipedia founder entering into public service:

    @phillburns
    Phill Burns    http://t.co/0uoRLYJB Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder to become UK #government advisor. Good news I’d say yeah? 4 hours ago via TweetCaster for Android ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @JamesFirth
    James Firth    Gov appoints @jimmy_wales as policy transparency adviser. Simple fix: get rid of #FOI S35 & S36 exemptions: http://t.co/hgnliife 6 hours ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @abu718
    Mongo    No shit. Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales becoming adviser to British government http://t.co/egfLubKt 3 hours ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @joan_starr
    Joan Starr    How about that! RT @jafurtado Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales becoming adviser to British government,by Jamie Keene /The Verge http://t.co/nkjFt2OC 2 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @abubuts
    abubuts.com    Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales to be adviser to British Government: Jimmy Wales, you all know him right? That … http://t.co/k4V2x24I #abubuts 3 hours ago via twitterfeed ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @PXDigitalGov
    Chris Yiu    @jimmy_wales congratulations! Great to have you advising UK gov. Let us know next time you’re over, would love to talk http://t.co/Py0jZbxg 4 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @piggiebrotha
    Dorian Prodan    Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales becoming adviser to British government. Expect “please, can you spare some pennies” banner in Parliament. 4 hours ago via Silver Bird ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @Marwood
    Andy Lancaster    How soon before we see his face pleading for money at the top of every .gov.uk site? http://t.co/i3PnlPhu #thehorror 4 hours ago via Seesmic ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @AnonNewsDE
    Anonymous Germany    #Golem: Open Government: Jimmy Wales berät britische Beamte http://t.co/KpsemOMf #Internet #WWW 1 hour ago via twitterfeed ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @cgarmstrong
    Chris Armstrong    This is a great move for @jimmy_wales – becoming an adviser to the British government. http://t.co/3qd5ydGy 4 hours ago via Twitter for Mac ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Sounds to me like Wales is a welcome addition. It definately helps to have an experienced entreprenuar of his caliber onboard. I can’t wait to see what change he can bring about. When the public can be heard before legislation is passed, things are bound to change for the better. I am curious what others think about that.

  • Twitter Moves Right-To-Left, Adds Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, and Urdu

    In January, Twitter added four new right-to-left languages to their Translation Center, the crowdsourcing project that allows users from multiple different languages to help translate Twitter (the service, not the actual tweets). Now, they’ve announced that the work is complete and you can now interact with Twitter in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, and Urdu.

    According to the Twitter blog, this particular project was the work of 13,000 volunteers. Over 425,000 people have contributed to translating Twitter since the Translation Center was launched in February, 2011.

    @translator
    Translator     We just launched Twitter in #Arabic, #Farsi, #Hebrew, #Urdu. Change your language settings, and try it out! http://t.co/BowHIhKG 35 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    The translation was performed by students, journalists, and even IT professionals. Twitter says that the right-to-left languages took a little extra work to make sure they turned out right:

    These 13,000 volunteers are a vibrant and diverse group. Among those who donated their time and translation skills to make right-to-left languages a reality on Twitter: a Saudi blogger, Egyptian college students, a journalist at the BBC, IT professionals in Iran and Pakistan, an Israeli schoolteacher, the co-founders of the grassroots #LetsTweetInArabic campaign, academics specializing in linguistics, and teenagers in Lebanon.

    Right-to-left languages posed a unique technical challenge, particularly with Tweets containing both right-to-left and left-to-right content. To solve this, our engineering team built a new set of special tools to ensure these Tweets, hashtags and numbers all look and behave correctly.

    As of right now, Twitter is available in 28 different languages.

  • Twitter In Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, and Urdu Coming Soon

    Twitter has added four new languages to their Translation Center, and in a few months users should be able to participate in the conversation in some right-to-left reading languages.

    The new languages are Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, and Urdu and users can head on over to the Translation Center and start working today.

    The Translation Center, launched in 2011, is a giant crowdsourcing program that allows users from dozens of languages to help translate Twitter (the product, not the actual tweets). Twitter says that over 425,000 people have helped with translations. Because of their work, Twitter is available in 22 languages – a number which is about to jump to 26.

    Twitter had this to say in a blog post:

    As we prepare to add Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu to Twitter, we’ve developed new ways to ensure that Tweets and hashtags will work properly in right-to-left languages. We’ve also made changes behind the scenes to give right-to-left language speakers a localized user experience. As soon as our volunteers have completed their translation work, we’ll make Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu available for everyone on Twitter.com later this spring.

    The most recent language addition to Twitter was Swedish, which became available earlier this month.

    [Image Courtesy Dave Parker, Flickr]

  • State of the Union Goes Interactive Via Mozilla

    If you’re interested in the State of the Union Address, it will be given on Tuesday January 24th at 9 pm eastern time. For those who are not really sure what the ‘address’ really is, I’ll summarize for you. Annually (once a year) the President of the United States is responsible for filling in Congress about the state of affairs in this nation. At this time he will also inform congress about his plans for legislation (consideration of new laws or potential laws) in the upcoming year.

    Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution:

    “ He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. ”

    This years State of the Union is going to be a little bit different than it has been in the past. Via some new technology and work from the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Address will reach a significantly larger audience.

    As soon as the Barack Obama’s words leave his mouth participant’s will begin the work of transcribing them into dozens of different languages and making it possible for people all over the globe to understand and react to the speech. brought to life by new technology from Mozilla, the president will open, a sort of, interactive online forum with his address.

    All of this kicks off something called “Open Election 2012” sponsored by Mozilla, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS News Hour, and the Participatory Culture Foundation. The Goal of these organizations is to unite their resources to bring broader, more clearly understood coverage of the upcoming election campaigns and to make participation possible for people all over the globe. It’s going to become an interactive event.

  • Dungeons & Dragons Reboot Will Be Shaped By Fans

    D&D players: Are you ready for a reboot?

    Although fantasy role-playing might owe it all to Dungeons & Dragons, the game itself is struggling to stay relevant in a world full of RPG options. Gaming analysts say that D&D sales have been on the decline for years, and D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast’s ex-VP told the NY Times that the market peaked a decade ago and has been steadily falling since 2005.

    Controversial rule changes, highlighted by the latest revision of the game in 2008’s 4th edition, have broken up the fan base. When you couple this with all of the modern RPG competition out there, you can see why the people at Wizards of the Coast feel like it’s time to try something new.

    So today, manager of D&D’s R&D Mike Mearls announced that they are in the process of developing the next version of the game – and they are turning to D&D players to help them shape it.

    From a post on the Wizards site:

    [W]e are excited to share with you that starting in Spring 2012, we will be taking this process one step further and conducting ongoing open playtests with the gaming community to gather feedback on the new iteration of the game as we develop it. With your feedback and involvement, we can make D&D better than ever. We seek to build a foundation for the long-term health and growth of D&D, one rooted in the vital traits that make D&D unique and special.

    We want a game that rises above differences of play styles, campaign settings, and editions, one that takes the fundamental essence of D&D and brings it to the forefront of the game. In short, we want a game that is as simple or complex as you please, its action focused on combat, intrigue, and exploration as you desire. We want a game that is unmistakably D&D, but one that can easily become your D&D, the game that you want to run and play.

    So Wizards of the Coast is looking for fan participation. They have already started a small playtest for Friends & Family, which basically amounts to internal employees and friends. The next step is a special playtest at the D&D Experience convention later this month. The final step is the open playtesting that will involve the release of rules and other materials through the website. This will all begin sometime this Spring.

    “We seek to reach as many people as possible, from the gamer who just started with D&D last week to the gaming group that has been together since the early-1970s,” said Merals. “For this process to work, we want to give a voice to all D&D fans and players of all previous editions of the game.”

    Players that want to participate in the playtest can sign up for email notifications.

  • McDonald’s Starts Plant A Tree Movement, Reddit Decides To Help

    McDonald’s Starts Plant A Tree Movement, Reddit Decides To Help

    The power of the Internet can be summed quite nicely with the concept of crowdsourcing. Using the Internet to organize like-minded individuals for a common cause–in this case, McDonald’s and their Plant a Tree movement–has caused many different events and causes to reach a substantial level of viral popularity.

    As indicated, to coincide with their tie-in with the Smurfs movie, McDonald’s has started a Plant A Tree movement, one where the company promises to plant up to 100,000 trees every time a code is entered from a pack of Apple Dippers, which are available in McDonald’s line of Happy Meals. In order to enter the code, you have to navigate to the McDonald’s Happy Meal page, one that is currently engulfed with an almost-overwhelming Smurfs theme.

    The use of your computer’s mute button is a good escape if a loop of the Smurfs theme proves annoying.

    Now for the crowdsourcing aspect of the story. Word of McDonald’s act of charity, one that’s albeit cloaked in a “please buy Smurfs stuff” appeal, hit the Reddit wires, and now, the Reddit community is committed to making sure McDonald’s hits the 100,000 planted trees mark. So much so, in fact, one Reddit user posted a reusable Apple Dippers code for other Reddit users to enter.

    For those of you who’d like to contribute, the code is M4JE-3YKW-7L7J, and it was found courtesy of the the SlickDeals forum.

    According to one of the Reddit users from an earlier comment, the McDonald’s Plant a Tree count was near the 50,000 mark. The comment was made four hours after the initial link was posted to Reddit, and now, two hours since the 50K mark post, the McDonald’s tree program stands close to 77,000 commitments.

    Furthermore, I took a screenshot when I started writing this post, and the count was congruent with the 77K. I’ve since took another screenshot, which is about 30 minutes older than the first one I took. The difference in the count is almost 10,000:

    McDonald's and the Power of Reddit

    McDonald's and the Power of Reddit


    These images act as a perfect example about the power of crowdsourcing. Between the SlickDeals forum, Reddit’s voracious users–so much for them not driving traffic, right, Outbrain?–and other word of mouth resources, it’s almost a given McDonald’s will meet it’s 100,000 tree-planting commitment. The question is, will the Reddit users of the world stick around to see if the fast food king keeps it word?

    Crowdsourcing is great for drawing attention to various movements, but the follow-through is just as important, or else these efforts are for naught. With that in mind, I would still encourage you to use the code provided and make sure McDonald’s reaches it’s 100,000 limit.