One Web Day: The Way We Are (Online)

by Jordan Yerman | September 21, 2008 at 09:32 am

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The third annual One Web Day takes place tomorrow, September 22rd. This event serves as a sort of personal and societal state-of-the-union address for the Internet and its users.

Susan Crawford, the founder of One Web Day, describes it as "Earth Day for the Internet", a chance for netizens to take stock of what we have online, what we do, how we do it, and what is worth preserving, and even weigh in on how the Internet has changed their lives (for better or worse).

Aside from the overall aim of the event, this year's OWD examines online political participation, which is fitting for an election year. Grassroots participation has never been easier, and more and more voters (particularly young people) are getting involved, though a wide gap still exists between online activity and actual voting.

So, if we take stock of our online lives at the moment, what do we have?

The biggie right now is user-generated content: it took nearly a decade, but the Web is now more than an extension of television, and more than a new form of shopping from home. You can publish, broadcast, rant, and spam. You can talk to strangers like never before. Reaching out has never been easier, and neither has lying about who and what you are. The very nature of identity has changed, as has our threshold of suspicion. The very question of "who am I and what do I do" has taken on new parameters, beyond the realm of science fiction only a few years ago.

The dissemination of information, and the grapevine though which it travels, has accelerated to a breakneck speed. In terms of news, this has not only affected the race for the much-coveted scoop, but has also redefined news, and locality. What is a reporter? What is a broadcaster? What is a viewer? Where is the crossover. You tell me.

Aside from participation online, there will be real-world gatherings as well:

New York City is the real-world epicenter for One Web Day 2008. Gathering in Washington Square Park at Noon will be some of the Web’s great visionaries, including: Sree Sreenivasan (Columbia Journalism & WNBC-TV); Tim Westergren (Pandora); Prof. Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law); Craig Newmark (Craigslist); Dharma Dailey (Ethos Wireless); City Councilwoman Hon. Gale A. Brewer; John Perry Barlow (Electronic Frontier Foundation); Andrew Baron (Rocketboom); S.J. Klein (One Laptop Per Child); and the founder of OneWebDay, Susan Crawford, among others. That same day, the city’s seniors will take to the steps of City Hall under the auspices of Older Adults Technology Services of New York. The Saturday before OneWebDay, experts in online journalism, collaboration and activism will conduct free workshops and demonstrations for anyone looking to hone their cyber skills (http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/...).

In Washington, DC, Internet experts and advocates will join members of Congress and FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to “bury” an E-democracy time capsule and discuss the state of the Web. Focused on the Internet as an interface between citizens and governments, the event features presentations on government transparency, online tools for participatory democracy and the problem of broadband accessibility (http://timecapsule.onewebday.org).

San Francisco will witness a massive volunteer effort, coordinated by the Mayor’s Department of Technology, to bring residents in public housing online with wireless Internet and donated computer equipment with the help of Free the Net and Meraki wireless (http://www.sfconnect.org).

Chicago hosts a seminar sponsored by the Future of Music Coalition to educate musicians and label owners about the intersection of music, law, technology and policy, to help prepare musicians to participate in the issues that affect their livelihood (http://www.futureofmusic.org/events/chic...).

In Cincinnati, community technology activists will convene a town meeting on “The Next President, the Internet and the Disconnected City,” featuring representatives from both the McCain and Obama campaigns (http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/...). Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell will represent the McCain campaign.

Aside from providing a place for you, our readers and contributors, to add to this state-of-the-Interweb, We're also collecting, as a sort of yearbook, some snapshots of currently-popular sites. Will they look obsolete in a year's time? In a month's time? Which sites will be the jeans-and-t-shirt of the web, and which will be the butterfly collars?

Sounds compelling!

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