Want some ideas on building wireless networks in the Developing World?

You don't have to start from scratch... there's "a practial guide to planning and building low-cost telecommunications infrastructure" at this link.

For those into crafts. You can RFP for specific craft items.

Make sure you sort out the pricing and delivery arrangements precisely.
Here's the link.

Looking for a way to tag audio with commentaries in the context of Folk Knowledge Management?

Musicbrainz.org might have something to offer.

Just came across the phrase "phatic relations".

Then a vague temptation to draw a matrix kicked in. Below is the result of that random inspiration. At the risk of sounding too presumptuous, I'd like to call it the Yuvienco grid. :)
I hope to get some independent validation.

Here's how to write comics without really trying. Well not exactly.

Tool: http://www.planetwidegames.com/
Inputs: http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml + creative juices
Output: pdf comic (may just be a good substitute for powerpoint presentations)

Thanks Q. D'Souza. He's got more ideas at his blogsite.

You must have heard of flashmeeting. Picked it up only now.

Website says: "The simple one-click video conference! It works in a web browser running the Flash 7 plugin!"

This is experimental, and requires registration. Sidebar reads: "Registered users book meetings using a simple web form. The system automatically returns to you, the booking confirmation and 'ticket' you need to pass on to the people you want to join the meeting, to give them access." Here's the link.

Yet another item connected to the "Collapse of Power".

Ever heard of the Dunbar Number? Something to consider on scalability of social connections. Read more. And thanks to Christopher Allen.

What is "matang saga"?

Speaking of the last item on Clay's prescriptions on building Social Software ...

You may want to explore how Jeff Vail describes the nuances of scaling social networks. Of course he talks more about complex societies in his proposition about the Collapse of Power. Read on.

Here are more Great Web 2.0 Software, according to Dion Hinchcliffe. Read On.

How should people from the digital haves write Social Software for the digital have-nots?

Ethan Zuckerman poses more questions:

In designing the tools to enable communities, are we thinking about the
full spectrum of people we'd like to use these tools? Are we helping people join
our dialogues, or are we content to keep them out? If we are committed to the
long, hard project of ensuring that the whole world has a chance to participate
in our conversation, there's a chance that emergent democracy can be a force in
emerging democracies. If not, we help ensure that the community phenomena that
have developed around social software won't extend to the people who could be
most positively affected by this technology. Read the antecedent statements.

For videobloggers!

Here's a comparison study of and FlashVlog and Vlog It!

BTW here's more from Marc Eisenstadt's Blog tracing the development of social software.

Where he recognized the tip off from Mark Gaved on Hive Mind and Pixelmania.

Another BTW: Mark Gaved wrote something about Grassroots Initiated Network Communities.

Does Social Software really hold a lot of promise?

In these times of:

[an apparent] disintegration of vital aspects of our human existence on this earth, coupled with a seemingly relentless monoculture that threatens to take its place.

...

The fact of monoculture means that we continue to lose the ability to adapt to the perceived threats to our way of life. We thus are moved to protect our comfortable status quo by erecting strong walls.

...

I am inclined to agree with the following:

we do have much to fear: I fear the extinction of creativity and innovation. I fear the eradication of indigenous knowledge and ancient wisdom. I fear a dictatorship of cultural banality and fundamentalist Christian values, and the concomitant marginalization of "the other." Mostly, I fear the end of thought and insight and awareness.

Read more.

How do you visualize a multiple value proposition with a strong social dimension?

Reuters Foundation's Digital Vision Program demonstrates it like so: Multiple Value Proposition of a Social Project.

I'd like to call it a Social Value Web or Social Value Cloud.

Heard about searching fotos via sketching? Check this out.

Now how do you bring high touch to high tech social interaction?

Timo Arnall might have some answers. Read more.

Here's a recognition of the power that Social Software exerts on E-learning. Robert J. Freund
talks about a broader context in Mass Customization and Multiple Intelligence.

Shirky's thoughts on social software (circa 2003) Read more. Still good in 2006.

Some prescriptions from Clay. In order to to build a piece of social software to support large and long-lived groups (italics are mine):

1. Allow users to invest in their "handles" or identities. (What price, reputation?)
2. Recognize good works to maintain participants in good standing. (Loyalty, to whom?)
3. Create barriers to participation. (Privileges?)
4. Find a way to spare the group from scale. (How large should a community be?)

Western science and folk knowledge have been strange bedfellows until now.

Robert T McFetridge and Geoff Howell see some promise for marrying the two. Read more.

This partially supports my regard for Social Software as primarily social than software.

According to Russel Mc'Ormond:

Software being a set of rules that govern technologies such as computers makes this discipline far closer to a social science than being a technology itself. To understand the influence of software on our lives, and how we can influence software, requires that we look at it as if it were a type of politics.

More

Still more from me.