By now you’ve surely heard of “Web 2.0.”
Photo:Net Squared, Creative Commons, Flickr
Wikipedia defines the term as “a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users.”
In real terms, Web 2.0 is the wedding pictures of your summer camp friend on Facebook, a toddler performing Beatles karaoke on YouTube, and Wikipedia’s definition of the word “Wikipedia.” Web 2.0 is also a tool that facilitates relationships among like-minded people, in the socially conscious community for example, that could ultimately lead to novel and effective ways to elicit positive change.
NetSquared is a notable proponent of these like-minded relationships, and they are one of the more successful equal parts socially- and strategically-minded community-oriented sites that launched during the propagation of Web 2.0.
Its goal was, and continues to be, the formation of a cohesive community of non-profits that share knowledge, experience, and technical savvy in order to empower and mobilize communities for social causes.
The site is proudly a work in progress, but its scale is grand:
We don’t know exactly what the NetSquared community will look like, or how it will change the face of the non-profit web. What we do know is that both the online and offline work of every non-profit can be enhanced by a dynamic online community in which organizations and users support one another. And we know that the creativity and commitment of the non-profit world is crucial to achieving the creative and community potential of the Internet itself.
NetSquared’s current main initiatives are:
- NetTuesday meetup events in Atlanta, Chicago, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and Washington DC
- The Annual Conference, which this year is to be held in San Jose, California on May 27th and 28th, 2008
The site also includes interviews, podcasts, video segments and project opportunities for socially aware creatives, as well as partnership information and advocacy efforts.
Disclosure: thepanelist.net and NetSquared have an ongoing partnership based on our parallel goals of social consciousness, which includes mutual promotion and endorsement. Additionally, not only am I personally attending the 2008 NetSquared Conference, but thepanelist.net is also a proud sponsor.