Every day, 6.7 billion people view the world through their own unique lens. Imagine if there was a way to collect all of these perspectives, to aggregate and mould them into the cohesive story of a single day on earth.

That’s what YouTube wants to do as it launches “Life in a Day,” an ambitious but incredibly compelling project which sets to out to document one day, as seen through the eyes of people around the world.

On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a snapshot of your life on camera. You can film the ordinary – a sunrise, the commute to work, a neighbourhood footie match, or the extraordinary – a baby’s first steps, your reaction to the passing of a loved one, or even a marriage.

(if you cannot view the embedded clip above, click here to go directly to YouTube)

Kevin Macdonald, the Oscar-winning director of films such as The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and One Day in September, will then edit the most compelling footage into a feature documentary film, to be executive produced by Ridley Scott, the director behind films like Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner and Robin Hood.  LG Electronics is supporting “Life in a Day” as a key part of its long-standing Life’s Good campaign and to support the creation of quality online content that can be shared and enjoyed by all.

The film will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere.

Want to take part? Here’s what to do:

1. Visit the “Life in a Day” channel and learn more about the project. Be sure to read through the steps you need to take to participate and the guidelines for creating your video(s). Also check out some of the sample videos for inspirational ideas.

2. On July 24, capture your day on camera.

3. Upload your footage to the “Life in a Day” channel any time before July 31.

Regardless of whether your footage makes it into the final film, your video(s) will live on on the “Life in a Day” channel as a time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010.

Clay Shirky looks at “cognitive surplus” — the shared, online work we do with our spare brain cycles. While we’re busy editing Wikipedia, posting to Ushahidi (and yes, making LOLcats), we’re building a better, more cooperative world.

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html

Clay Shirky believes that new technologies enabling loose collaboration — and taking advantage of “spare” brainpower — will change the way society works. He talks a lot about the difference between doing anything and doing nothing. Social science is looking at how much value is derived from our intrinsic motivations to create and share, according to Shirky.

Fascinating stuff as always from TED.com.

Clay Shirky’s work focuses on the rising usefulness of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, wireless networks, social software and open-source development. New technologies are enabling new kinds of cooperative structures to flourish as a way of getting things done in business, science, the arts and elsewhere, as an alternative to centralized and institutional structures, which he sees as self-limiting. In his writings and speeches he has argued that “a group is its own worst enemy.” His clients have included Nokia, the Library of Congress and the BBC.

This is how it would be…

The last line is probably the best…

(via GeeksAreSexy)

An object in the sky spreads radiation over North America. Fearing terrorism, U.S. Homeland Security agents are dispatched to investigate and contain the damage. What they discover will have implications for the entire world.

Pioneer One is the latest project from Josh Bernhard and Bracey Smith whose previous indie feature The Lionshare, became VODO’s biggest success to date with over 450,000 downloads since its release. The success of the project inspired the writer/director duo to develop this quality drama in collaboration with VODO and its distribution partners. With a successful distribution of the pilot they’re hunting for the donors and sponsors that will make the continuation of the show possible.

The show’s pilot was shot for just $6000, raised through the micro-funding platform Kickstarter.

“This production was possible due in no small part to the willingness of talented, professional people working for free,” explains Bernhard. “From actors to composers, they did this because they believed in the project and wanted to see it happen. The production was a journey in and of itself.”

This is a nice experiment in film production and distribution which could prove to be as disruptive as the torrent sites which host the project.

Check out the video blogs that were posted to the web that tell the story from script to finished episode:

PIONEER ONE Video Blog #10 from Pioneer One on Vimeo.

Season One

This is the first episode of a 7-episode first season. I’ve just downloaded the torrent but have yet to watch the episode. What’s going to happen to this mysterious cosmonaut? Is his story true? What will happen to our agents, now operating on their own? Help the creators tell this story, along with a further 4 seasons mapped out for the future.

Donate

To make the next episode of Pioneer One possible, the team is asking for your help. A total of $2,155 donated so far (Last update June 18 6:38 PM) out of a donation target $20,000 ( £13,500) which is enough to fund the next three episodes.

Contributors can expect to receive the following extras:

• Donate $5 and get the Pioneer One opening theme mp3.
• Donate $10 and get the theme plus two deleted scenes from the first episode.
• Donate $25 and get everything above plus an exclusive commentary track featuring Josh Bernhard and Bracey Smith.
• Donate $100 and get everything above plus a thank you note in the credits of an upcoming Pioneer One episode.

Torrents

To download using torrent files you need a BitTorrent client, such as uTorrent.

• HD 720p (1119 MB)
• Xvid (349 MB)

Bitlet

If you haven’t got a Bittorrent client installed you can download this release in your browser using BitLet.

• HD 720p (1119 MB)
• Xvid (349 MB)

Direct downloads

For direct downloads please visit one of the site’s DISCO members.

• OneDDL
• Scene Source
• Plube
• Veehd
• English

Discussion

Places to share your thoughts on Pioneer One:

• Here on vodo
• Pioneerone.tv, the official site
• SomethingAwful
• Torrentfreak
• VeeHD
• EZTV
• Isohunt

Gink. Nuff said.

This current clip is one of a few that are currently doing the rounds on the Internet. It’s a great example of an inexpensive ‘stunt’ that can spark a torrent of talkability around a relatively new brand. Kudos to Germanwings!

Enjoy:

Click here if you cannot view the embedded clip above.

Remember Socialnomics? The video was an immediate web-viral amongst social media and comms professionals. Well prepare for a reboot with updated stats for 2010…

Social Media Revolution 2 is a refresh of the original video with new and updated social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore. Based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.

(Photo courtesy of gopal1035 on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.)

Back in November, I wrote about an ambitious BBC World Service Trust project in Bangladesh which encouraged the learning of English via mobile phone handsets. Since then, examples of mobile technology bringing together traditionally remote communities have been cropping up on my radar on a weekly basis.

The application of mobile technology in the sub-continent goes beyond education as villagers in the Uttar Pradesh region of India are now beginning to use cheap voice calls as a platform for basic news delivery.

Widespread illiteracy makes newspapers and SMS alerts inadequate as news delivery systems, and irregular electricity makes television and radio unreliable. Voice calls are also very inexpensive in India, with per-second billing and a downward price-war among the main operators. Voice calls over mobile phones are an easy way for villagers to stay informed.

Gaon Ki Awaaz, which means “Village Voice” in the Avhadi language, sends out twice-daily news calls to subscribers directly over their mobile phones. Launched in December 2009, the project recently expanded to 250 subscribers spread over 20 villages.

The goals of Gaon Ki Awaaz are:

• Create a local-language news broadcast that is accessible to non-literate villagers
• Create a means of getting information from villagers and re-broadcasting it
• Develop a self-sustaining business model through ad revenue

Here’s where I point out that all this was set-up for with a budget of just $1,000 (over 4 months)!

How does it work?

Gaon Ki Awaaz has two local reporters from the village of Rampur-Mathura, Divyakar Pratap Singh and Priya Gupta, who produce twice-daily news reports (broadcast at noon and 5 p.m.) by recording 30-to 60-second voice notes on their phones. These files are then sent via MMS to local editor Satyenda Pratap who converts the audio files and sends them on to the project coordinator at the International Media Institute of India for final review.

Subject matter for the broadcasts can include alerts such as when health camps are coming to a nearby area, farm tips, events happening in the village such as religious and/or community-oriented celebrations, or local-centric government announcements.

The initial feedback from the village is very heartening.  Villagers gather around mobiles, whose speaker phones are turned on  to listen to the bulletin.   A local merchant even released an advertisement that was broadcast on March 5, showing the supplementary economic potential of such services.

Further south of the region, a similar project is operating among the members of the Adivassi tribe in India. Like Gaon Ki Awaaz, it allows villagers to share and receive news over their mobile phones in their native language (in this case, Gondi). Launched by Shubhranshu Choudhary of the International Center for Journalists, the project focuses on citizen reports with dozens of citizen journalists reporting throughout the region.

View the video below for more information on how the set-up works:

These two projects highlight the true potential of mobile phone ubiquity within targeted communities to deliver cheap, reliable access to hyper-local news that may be more independent than government-controlled media.

As mobiles become more common in rural areas, similar projects can provide a way to keep citizens connected.

To find out more about these and other projects, visit the following links:

http://gaonkiawaaz.wordpress.com/about/

http://mobileactive.org/case-studies/gaon-ki-awaaz-news-alerts-rural-villagers

http://mobileactive.org/survey-voice-based-mobile-tech

http://www.psfk.com/2010/03/using-mobile-phones-to-broadcast-news.html

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. In fact, I have a huge blog post writing itself inside my head about this very topic. Until that article materialises here, enjoy this video from IBM which explains beautifully what is meant by the phrase “The Internet of Things“:

Click here if you are having difficulty viewing the embedded video above.

“Over the past century but accelerating over the past couple of decades, we have seen the emergence of a kind of global data field. The planet itself – natural systems, human systems, physical objects – have always generated an enormous amount of data, but we didnt used to be able to hear it, to see it, to capture it. Now we can because all of this stuff is now instrumented. And it’s all interconnected, so now we can actually have access to it. So, in effect, the planet has grown a central nervous system.

Look at that complex set of relationships among all of these complex systems. If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. Thats where societies become more efficient, thats where more innovation is sparked.

When we talk about a smarter planet, you can say that it has two dimensions. One is to be more efficient, be less destructive, to connect different aspects of life which do affect each other in more conscience and deliberate and intelligent ways. But the other is also to generate fundamentally new insights, new activity, new forms of social relations. So you could look at the planet as an information, creation and transmission system, and the universe was hearing its information but we werent. But increasingly now we can, early days, baby steps days, but we can actually begin to hear the planet talking to us.”

via ReadWriteWeb