Global Open Source

Right off the bat, I just want to say that I have no political comment on the current conflict in the Middle East or on Al Jazeera network. But I did want to highlight a really interesting technology implementation they are doing.

The War on Gaza web app is a real time crowd sourcing implementation. Using their website, twitter, or sms anyone can submit a short news item about the crisis. Each comment is geotagged and categorized by the author (and can include web links, photos, or videos). It shows up instantly but will remain identified as "unverified" until some authorized individual is able to verify the report. From the front page, those interested are then able to either use the map interface to browse around or read through a "news feed" implementation in reverse chronological order.

The coolest part to me is that they did this in a matter of days using Ushahidi, an open source platform that was developed in Kenya during the riots after the 2007 election. It is a great tool that is now being used in a few places across the world - from tracking crisis info to managing comments. And did I mention it is open source and free.