Change the Web Challenge

Change the Web Challenge

Something interesting caught my attention from the WP Dashboard yesterday, it’s a post from the WordPress blog entitled the Change the Web Challenge.

What is Change the Web Challenge?

Social Actions’ Change the Web Challenge is about building innovative tools to help people find and share opportunities to take action on the websites, blogs, and social networks that we all visit everyday.

Change the Web Challenge is basically a contest where individuals and organizations alike are encouraged to create a plugin, widget, mashup, hack or any web application that will help people find and share opportunities to take action. WordPress is taking part in this contest as one of the technology partners and as an incentive for WordPress developers who will be participating and creating a WordPress plugin for this contest, the best WordPress plugin will be featured in the Plugin Directory.

Here are some of the web applications that are already powered by Social Action:

  • ‘Related Ways to Take Action’ WordPress Plugin: A plugin you can add to any WordPress.org blog that identifies the keywords of each blog posts and then displays related ways to take action.
  • Twitter Action Pack: A directory of 30+ Twitter accounts that automatically post actions on the issues you care about.
  • Firefox Ubiquity Command: A Firefox mashup that lets you highlight any phrase as you browse the web and find related ways to take action.

I really like what Social Action is trying to do with the Change the Web Challenge. Not only does it create new applications and technology but it also increases people’s awareness and participation on relevant social issues. Like what Lloyd mentioned in the WordPress blog post, “the real prize is spreading a little more love in the world.” I would love to participate in this contest however, I’m not a programmer or developer so all I can do is blog about it and share it with others.

Deadline for submission of entries is on Fri, April 3, 2009 and winners will be announced on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference. Btw, there will be 10,000+ worth of prizes that will be given away.

To learn more on how Change the Web Challenge works or on how to apply, check out the Change the Web Challenge official page.

Anyone else interested in joining/participating in the Change the Web Challenge? Do you have an idea for a plugin, widget or mashup that will help people find and share actions?

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16 Comments

  1. @Joe – Wow, that’s very nice and encouraging. Thanks for the kind words!

    I’m really surprised that no one’s built something for human rights since its a very popular and common global issue. Thanks for the tips! I’ll certainly try to work on it and have it submitted before the deadline. :D

  2. @jaypee It was my pleasure to stop by. Your readers are one of the most vibrant communities around the Challenge!

    I also think @elmot’s idea is great. Interestingly, no one’s built a widget around human rights. You could (without any programmning skills) grab the RSS feed for a search query of human rights actions and then feed this into an easy widget builder like WidgetBox. Might make for a cool submission!

  3. @elmot – I hope so too. Like what Joe said, even if we’re not developers or programmers, we can still participate by sharing our ideas and collaborating with the developers/progammers to put that idea into action. (no pun intended)

    The idea you shared earlier is a very good one and I’m sure the other commentators/readers can come up with other brilliant ideas themselves.

  4. i hope jponline together with all its avid readers could contribute to this noble cause and project of wp. blogging should therefore be seen as a catalyst for social renewal and development.

  5. @singapore – No, its not only limited to programmers or developers. Anyone can participate. If you have ideas, you can share it on the idea hub and collaborate with developers/programmers and work on the idea you have. :)

  6. @Joe – You’re welcome! Glad I could do my little share of spreading word about Change the Web Challenge and thanks for stopping by.

    I’m sure my readers as well as myself, would love to share our ideas since most of us aren’t programmers or developers so collaborating with the experts would be best. I believe that elmot’s idea/suggestion would make a good entry but since its about a very common topic, I’m thinking that someone already has it covered.

    Once again, thank you for taking the time to stop over and share more information about Change the Web Challenge. All the best to you and the rest of the organizers as well as the participants. :)

  7. Hi John – Thank you so much for spreading the word about the Change the Web Challenge to your community!

    We need to work harder on being clearer that this challenge is just as much about idea people and activists as developers and programmers. Actually, when these groups collaborate to create apps, amazing things can happen!

    We would love it if you and your readers (like elmot, loy, and jhay) would share your ideas for apps and plugins that help people find and share actions! You’re welcome to add ideas to our new idea hub, and connect with developers at our growing developer google group.

    You’re also welcome to contact me @ [email protected] and I’ll do my best to help connect you and your readers with developers who can help bring your ideas to life!

    Best,

    Joe Solomon
    Director, Social Actions’ Change the Web Challenge

  8. @jan – Although I acquired some programming skills back in college, it is not my profession and I’m not prolific enough to write my own apps or programs from scratch and limited to only tweaking stuff.

    Well, this is one noble effort which I support and believe in so I do whatever I can to help it. :)

  9. Wow, that’s news to me, this part about not being a developer or programmer. I just assumed you were one based on the expertise on a wide variety of things technical you’ve shown here in your blog.

    Well, spreading the good news and the goings-on about the cutting edge of technology that’s not a bad thing. I, for example, have been forced to go out of my comfort zone to participate in discussions I would not have thought I’d go into three months ago.

    Guess, I’ll have to credit this to you. And of course the irresistible lure of that magical WP t-shirt. hahaha.

  10. @elmot – That’s true and I’m glad that they are.

    Btw, that’s an awesome idea for a challenge entry. Although I’m not sure whether there’s already an existing action that deals with that.

  11. corporate social responsibility is really taking its seat as an important priority of companies worldwide these days…and so with wp.

    how about a plugin about human rights concers that bloggers all over the world could be informed and take action via the net: like human rights issues that is rampant in myanmar, china, russia, the philippines, cuba, and many more. i think with this plugin, governments could be pressured (esp ours) to keep sacred the rights of every man and woman.

  12. @loy – I’m sure your programming skills are far much better than mine so you’ll have a better chance of qualifying for this challenge. Btw, its not only limited to WordPress plugins, you can create a Facebook app, a widget or mashup. :)

  13. I, too, would like to join this contest, but I have mediocre programming skills. Well, there’s still one month to learn how to create a WordPress plugin. :lol:

  14. A nice effort, and like you I wish I could join directly, but the best I could for now is to tweak WP themes. ;)

    I’m sure though, the resulting plugins will be impressive.

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