Thank you so much for finding this conversation thread and joining in! I’m really excited to hear of your rising Phoenix story…if I can call it that!

There’s a group in Brazil that’s created a project you might find interesting that has created an online space for collaborative media design and sharing, especially for youth. If you’d like to learn more, let me know and I’m happy to make an email intro to them. Their website is: http://eletrocooperativa.org

I’d love to check out Ideapals and share ideas/feedback. I can’t make the event on the 28th, but what is the best way for me or other readers who are interested to join in the discussions/collaborations/development with you?

Thanks again

I too was a member of ideablob and very active in the in-person “bloblive” events. I met my business partner and CTO of my company, MoviePals Open Cinema, at a bloblive meetup. I was inspired by the way people shared ideas and I’ve always been a huge supporter of collaboration, in fact my original idea was a collaborative film studio allowing people from all over the world to connect and create movies together, owned by the artists and distributed online for free with advertising.

I was not happy when Blobliveand Ideablob went out of business and I began to think about collaboration. Specifically how people come together to work on ideas and share their passions. Thousands of hours of development and 400 cups of coffee later: IdeaPals.org beta was launched.

I liked how people got excited about sharing and the competition as a bonus. I don’t have a large amount of capital, but we can build collaborative websites that can scale to millions of users and since we’re creating a year long web series, we also have some serious advertising space available for the most active members of our community.

I would love to get your feedback or have you take part on the site or on one of our inperson events. This is only the beginning. WE really believe in this. You can get an idea of what we’re doing on the front page of http://IdeaPals.org and we’re throwing our first in person open mic in LA on the 28th of this month. That info is available here: http://www.meetup.com/ideapals-la-open-mic/ . You can also see the idea I started with, MoviePals Open Cinema, taking place in my ideapals group at http://ideapals.org/premium/moviepals

Thanks for joining in the conversation here! I’m looking forward to hearing more about your ideas about collaboration and hope that as the topic is one of my focuses for the blog in 2010 I can start a few good conversations and brain waves for you to contribute to!

Again, really appreciate you joining in and hope to hear more from you going forward

I stumbled onto this discussion after passing a parked car on the street tonight with a ideablob.com t-shirt used as a seat cover for the drivers seat!

Personally, I would like to see all of society shift from a model of secrecy and competition to one of collaboration and co-operation. Basically, I want to be able to dream, and see my (and obviously many others as well) ideas come to life.

I’ve been playing with some models in my mind, but I would love to join a discussion with anyone and everyone who might have similar dreams! I’d especially like to connect with some artists, architects, and passionate dreamers who have the energy to get things done!

Cheers for now . . . I hope to find you all engaged in your passions, and working side by side with me to create a better future!

-Nate

Thanks for thinking this through with me! I mentioned somewhere as well the idea of a code of conduct or bill of rights as well; I think it could be really powerful and helpful in opening organizations and users to the conversation and components of using 3rd party tools, let alone the impact it could have when coupled with something like a stamp of approval, etc.

UserVoice or GetSatisfaction are similar to what I was thinking, but perhaps a platform or space that was a bit more dynamic or collaborative for building out ideas. Not sure, just thinking It would probably need to be something that could take inputs for what users want (functionality, roles, etc.) as well as ideas from the developer side and have them collaborate.

We’ll obviously need to keep talking about!

I think another direction would be a third-party stamp of approval, like fairtrade, verisign, or the better business bureau. If a web service meets certain criteria, they get to sport a lovely icon in their footer.

This third-party stamp could work, if a few big names were attached to it. Ideally, it’d be an open body that sets the specs of a user bill of rights. It probably couldn’t get into the specifics of development, but at least create a broad standard for ethical services.

As I just commented to Stacey, in my recent post on Tactical Philanthropy blog ( http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2009/11/causes-myspace-ideablob/ ), I’ve proposed that perhaps what we need is a platform or space where users—whether they are individuals, communities, organizations, or any other broup—could voice their ideas and requests for functionality, tools, etc. This space could serve as a community-driven development directive, where anyone building tools could come to find exactly what users want, and so on.

I think we both agree that an integral part of this process would be some sort of model or commitment that the community be part of the making, molding and adoption of tools from the very beginning (hopefully increasing the number of community-generated ideas that take off but also the number of adopted tools where community is still central to the ongoing design and communication, etc.).

Do you think, as someone who’s touching both sides of that process in some ways, that a platform or space like that would work? What would you want it to include or how would you want it to work?

Thanks again for joining in!

I really appreciate you taking the time to add your story to the mix here. In my latest post about the Causes/MySpace and ideablob events, (a guest post on the Tactical Philanthropy blog: http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2009/11/causes-myspace-ideablob/) I’ve proposed that perhaps what we need is a platform or space where users—whether they are individuals, communities, organizations, or any other broup—could voice their ideas and requests for functionality, tools, etc. This space could serve as a community-driven development directive, where anyone building tools could come to find exactly what users want, and so on. I think an integral part of this process would be some sort of model or commitment that the community be part of the making, molding and adoption of tools from the very beginning (hopefully increasing the number of community-generated ideas that take off but also the number of adopted tools where community is still central to the ongoing design and communication, etc.).

What do you think about a space like that? Would you use it?

Thanks again for contributing here. I’m very excited about the possibilities for our sector from whatever comes next.

As a community, we should probably temper our excitement for the latest and greatest tools. I don’t mean we should opt-out. But we should vigorously demand a standard of participant rights. We should explore and experiment with new tools, but at the very moment things start getting exciting, we need to remain sober. What would you do tomorrow if your google or facebook or twitter accounts vanished? Should we use and support services that give us so few guarantees?

We should not only have open and portable data, but an agreement on how a service provider will close its doors if that day ever arrives. This agreement should specify how we will be notified and it should detail our options for exporting our data or migrating our accounts. Startups have very little time for such doomsday planning. But those that step up will be thanked with eager and faithful users.

What else can we do in the mean time? Lean toward open services like Identi.ca rather than Twitter. Maintain a diversity of tools even if it means duplicating a little work. If you push out your videos on a few different platforms, you’ll have much less to lose if youtube takes issue with your content and pulls the plug on your account.

Any other ideas?