Earlier today I sent out an email to a couple of friends about a potential large scale project that I'd like to spearhead. The idea is to develop a simple framework for a community to access and manage just about any sized project. If you're reading this, you're more than welcome to contribute to the development team for any open source part of the project (which may be open extensions to a base framework, or some other pieces of the project).
What defines the type of social media collaborative project I'm interested in:
- connected by a fairly powerful underlying database
- and an easy to use/update front end:
Some examples of social designs or group media efforts. The overall collaborative goal is improving the web domain whether or not the users care.
- YouTube
- squidoo
- twitter, myspace, facebook, friendfeed, gmail, etc
I'd like to have a framework/tool for any project organizers/managers. They can specify their own design goal.
What the working software will provide
- Anyone can initiate a project, and may dictate the terms for others to join/contribute to that project
- Once an individual contributes, their efforts are documented and remain part of the project history
- Project management teams and leadership can be passed or coordinated by the project initiator or a board of supporting individuals
- graphic interface for standalone and web based versions
- open Application Programming Interface (API) for extension via stand alone programs, web browsers (add-ons), html (scripts), widgets, etc.
- provide an RSS Feed to show current categorized updates for specific projects or user specified sub/supersets
Basic Requirements:
- scalable
- customizable
- fast/efficient
- run or be easily accessible on all common Operating Systems (windows, linux/unix)
- easy to understand & use
- will need to be able to communicate information between accepted networking and feed tools
What would SEAM do
- simple user interface to a heavily connected database network
- objects in the system may contain many links to other objects and the links are given contextual information or tags
- the BIG database may be organized or displayed in many different (user specified) ways
- so anyone could see who is responsible for making an abstract plan more concrete
- who else is working with/for them
- lists of objectives/milestones (+deadlines/due dates)
- and links to how to measure them/mark completed tasks
- a simple set of rules for adding things to the database and for adding additional links to other parts of the database as time goes on (hence emergence, a complex database emerges from a collaborative community using simplistic user interface)
Some related readings
some future movement of the web evolution
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_web
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data
- http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/RDFnot.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Global_Graph
- http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/215
Related software/sites/communities:
- http://sourceforge.net/
- http://esw.w3.org/topic/SemanticWebTools
- http://www.openair.com/home/solutionsProjMgmt.html?leadsource=oag1
- http://www.dmoz.org/about.html
- organization of web information, a little out of our immediate scope
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