Here are some open source projects and grassroots media initiatives that may be of interest to our members. We'll discuss this in the Forums:

  • Mozilla, the granddaddy of open-source projects (Firefox, Mozilla, Thunderbird and more).
  • Storylink.org is a digital stories project at MIT that arose out of the academic community. More limited in scope, it focuses almost exclusively on 3-to 5-minute digital movies.
  • Undergroundfilm.org is a terrific site devoted to independent films that launched in June 2003. Alex Cohen serves as chairman.
  • OneWorldTV gives people the tools and training to create and share video stories.
  • Youth Channel is an alternative to mass media created to provide equal access to all young people, empowering youth to create change within their communities and the world.
  • Open4all.info is Drazen Pantic's effort to empower people to become media outlets.
  • DV Guide is the accompanying site to Open4all and requires use of BitTorrent.
  • Campusmoviefest.com, run by David Roma?, is a new annual contest for best short film made by a team of college students.
  • Youth Media Exchange - Brad DeGraf has put together a number of IndyMedia Orgs to help put this together.
  • Witness.org, an organization using video and technology to fight for human rights.
  • TriggerStreet.com is an online community that "gives you the ability to develop and share your filmmaking and screenwriting skills."
  • OnScene.com, a new clearinghouse for digital media run by David Schwartz (InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz's cousin).
  • BrainGlow, the Bay Area Video Coalition, a San Francisco group that shows users how to create their own media.
  • TellingStories is a San Francisco startup that sells the tools to let people create personal media.
  • Unmediated, a group blog that tracks the tools, processes, and ideas being used to decentralize media production and distribution.
  • Torrentocracy, a project combining RSS, Bit Torrent, and TV into a vast grass roots media distribution network.
  • World-Wide Media eXchange, run by some folks at Microsoft, asks: What can you do with a gazillion photos on a single database indexed by their location? Browse photos by location. Contribute your own photos to a world-wide database.
  • interdigitate.com is a project for the experimental purposes of gathering artists to submit various media elements to be used in collaborative art projects, primarily independent films and music videos.
  • Upcoming.org is a collaborative event calendar, completely driven by "people like you." Enter in the events you're attending, comment on events entered by others, and syndicate event listings to your own weblog.
  • xml2xlobby is a plugin for the Xlobby HTPC front-end on Windows. Adds XSLT support to this powerful frontend for placing syndicated media enclosures (flickr, BlogDigger, Feedster media) directly on television.
  • INdTV is a new alternative media venture hoping to harness the power of videoblogs. Started by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt.
  • Audioblogger: With Audioblogger you can post audio to your blog from any phone. Just dial a number and speak. The audio will automatically be posted.
  • Acmenoise, a project founded by remnants of MP3.com. Namely, the founders are Derrick Oien (former CEO of MP3.com), Joe Fleischer (Senior Marketer for MP3.com) and Ian Miller (Manager of Web Dev for MP3.com).
  • Lionshare: The LionShare P2P project is an innovative effort to facilitate legitimate file-sharing among individuals and educational institutions around the world. By using Peer to Peer (P2P) technology and incorporating features such as authentication, directory servers, and owner controlled sharing of files, LionShare promises secure file-sharing capabilities for the easy exchange of image collections, video archives, large data collections, and other types of academic information. In addition to authenticated file-sharing capabilities, the developing LionShare technology will also provide users with resources for organizing, storing, and retrieving digital files.
  • Audioblogger: Free unlimited audio posts from any phone to your Blogger blog.
  • ZeD - Open Source Television: 'Beaming out from your TV every weeknight on CBC from 11:25 pm to 12:05 am and online all the time, ZeD is a launch pad for independent creative expression that's slipped the leash of expectation. ZeD allows members to upload and promote material, from movies to music, and yes, even blog posts; best material is shown on the ZeD TV show.
  • MIT OpenCourseWare offers seven hundred courses from thirty-three academic disciplines and all five of MIT’s schools
  • The Prelinger Archives is a collection of "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films.
  • MyMovieFest.com is a new Apple iMovie community site launched by Michalle Mendenhall and her brother George Schmick III. The site has nearly 1,000 members offering feedback and ratings on amateur imovies. The site tracks a movie's number of viewings and offers tips, tutorials and a forums section where amateur filmmakers can learn how to improve their craft. Membership is free; $45 gets you 50MB of storage.
  • ourmedianet.org is a global network of activists, academics, and practitioners working toward stronger alternative, community and citizens' media.
  • The Open Video Project is a project to collect and make available a repository of digitized video content for the digital video, multimedia retrieval, digital library, and other research communities.
  • The open-source Spread Firefox site has some similarities to what we're doing, especially with community blogs.
  • The Buzznet photo sharing site is very cool, even if it's not open source.
  • Transom.org is an experiment in channeling new work and voices to public radio through the Internet, for discussing that work, and encouraging more. Jay Allison has been involved with both since the early days. You can read more about his chronic dedication to citizen storytelling in The Transom Review.
  • MusicMoz open music project, a comprehensive directory of all things music, edited by volunteers. "We list, and accept submissions of, music-related reviews, articles, factual information, biographies, and websites." Related to the dmoz open directory project.
  • The Public-Domain Movie Database, an In-Depth, Detailed Look at your Favorite Public-Domain Movies. A Searchable DataBase of Public-Domain Movie Information, Episode Guides and More. Created to assist people in their search for public domain movies and to develop a better understanding of the public domain laws, this database is intended to serve as a source for this need.
  • The UK Media Foundation is a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to creating and promoting creative works that can be built upon, shared and sampled. All not-for-profit, with for-profit options left available to the creators.
  • Weed is a service of Shared Media Licensing, Inc. We're a group of musicians and software developers based in Seattle, Washington. We created Weed because we knew there had to be a better answer to the problems of file-sharing on the Internet. Weed encourages file-sharing and makes payments to musicians at the same time. We do this by rewarding file-traders who respect artists' rights. We find this works a lot better than punishing fans who don't.

See our Forums for more.

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