Change the Web Challenge: Q&A with our Social Action Platforms

Yesterday, Social Actions hosted a conference call to discuss the Change the Web Challenge with the online platforms participating in Social Actions. Here’s a quick summary of the details Joe shared, and a write-up of the Q&A session that followed.

Many thanks to JD Lasica (SocialMedia.biz), Jacob Colker (The Extraordinaries), Bryan Owen (Razoo), Vicki Saunder (Zazengo), Rolf Kleef (NABUUR), and David Chamberlain (Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel) for taking part.

Let’s keep the conversation going -- add your comments and questions below!

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CHANGE THE WEB OVERVIEW

Vision: Create a contest that ignites hundreds of new apps so that people are seamlessly introduced to opportunities to take action no matter where happen to be on the web.

The Challenge: Developers compete for $10,000 in prize money awarded to the best applications that draw from and distribute data in the Social Actions API.

Timeline: Mid-February launch, with winners announced at NTEN (dates).

Selecting the winners: Twenty finalists will be selected through open voting (as in the N2Y3 mashup challenge) and a panel of judges will select the three winners (nominations for those judges are currently streaming in!).

Momentum building: A 12/15/08 press release, tweets from @changetheweb, and a wave of developers coming our way courtesy of the recent FEEDaNEED contest win are all building momentum for the Challenge.

What apps do we expect?: These will be completely determined by what the developers are inspired to do! Facebook and iPhone apps seem likely, though, and the success of the Wordpress app and Twitter Action Packs might inspire we built (as examples of what could be done) are doing great – 2,000 downloads for the DonorsChoose.org plug, and each of the 30+ Twitter streams (@climateactions, @diabetesactions, etc.) are adding 100 new followers a day.

Sponsors: Convio, NTEN, and CauseWired Communications are all on board. Techsoup is close to confirming that the Challenge will be hosted by Netsquared. There’s room for a few more sponsors though – anyone interested in signing on should get in touch with Peter ASAP (peter@socialactions.com).

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Q&A

Q (prompted by JD): Are you expecting or encouraging particular kinds of apps, and how will you handle apps that connect to more “closed” data?

A: Our end of course is open, and the other end might always be closed, but anyone can use the API for any kind of application and submit it to the Challenge. Facebook, Ning, OpenSocial – it all depends on what developer community gets excited about. We won’t have a say in mandating what kinds of apps get built, but we’ll continue to actively reach out to other communities like iPhone to encourage these applications.

Q (prompted by Rolf): How will the timing overlap with N2Y4?

A: We’ll aim to launch a week after N2Y4 launches, so there will be overlap (content-wise, too, as N2Y4 is expected to be about mobile apps and Change the Web will inspire mobile as well as other kinds of apps).

Q (prompted by Rolf): The Challenge seems North American-centric so far. I’d like to see more international judges and anything else you can to do make it truly a global contest.

A: It’s definitely a goal of ours to be truly international and multi-lingual. API-wise, Wokai (China) is coming in, we're encouraging GiveIndia’s RSS feed, and we're talking with Greater Good South Africa and others. GlobalGiving, Kiva, and NABUUR already bring international actions to the API. For the Change the Web Challenge, please let us know what more we could be doing to encourage a true global contest. Nominating judges from the round the world is definitely an important part of that. Attracting developers from around the world is also really important.

Q (prompted by Rolf): Is prize money awarded for a working application or a good idea, or both?

A: We want to see fully functional apps. We’ll have a separate mini-contest to vote on great ideas, and encourage developers to tap into that for inspiration, but the Change the Web Challenge itself is about rewarding a fully useable apps.

Q (prompted by Rolf and Jacob): Our platforms would be most excited about the apps that come out of this Challenge if the dataset included the information that's most important to us – the time and tools required to fulfill a volunteer request, for example. What are your plans for enriching the data available to the Social Actions API so that the apps that draw from it are most relevant to us?

A: We need to get the word out that the Open Actions microformat is available -- 16 of datapoints most common to all platforms – and that platforms have the option of using it or RSS now. We’re also hoping that the Challenge will create incentives for platforms to use and encourage the richer Open Actions microformat.

Q (prompted by Bryan): Does the Related Way to Take Action widget rely exclusively on keyword relevance, or is it based on specific datapoints in the API?

A: It’s based exclusively on keyword relevance. We’re working on incorporating the ability to vote actions up or down, share them with friends, and other features that could build that into a feed for high impact actions.

Q (prompted by JD, Rolf): Do you have plans for in-person meetups at NTEN or at N2Y4? The e-Campaigning forum and Skoll World Forum on Entrepreneurship (both in Oxford at the end of March) would be good opportunities to discuss this, too.

A: All great ideas. NTEN’s media sponsorship of the Change the Web Challenge includes an igniter session: featuring apps that have come out the Challenge. But we should also definitely organize something then, and at N2Y4, too. The Oxford forums sound great, too. [Rolf will be at the e-Campaigning event and offered to see whether Change the Web could have a session there; Vicki mentioned she’ll be at the Skoll Forum, too]. We should definitely generate some spontaneous tweetups, too, in between those face-to-face connections.

We also had a quick chat about the importance of attracting talented developers. JD offered to help create some visuals for the Challenge, and Rolf encouraged us to do as much international outreach as possible.

David asked for a clarification about our 501©3 status – we have a fiscal sponsorship from Mobilize.org – and JD offered to take a look at the list of organizations we’d reached out to for additional sponsorships (thank you, JD!).

Please keep the questions coming -- post them below or contact joe@socialactions.com for more info!