Technology Resources
Media and Presentations
A web novel that describes what "distributed" social media is and why it is important:
Projects
Tools you can use now
Decider: a tool for making simple decisions amongst a group of people online. Decider is flexible enough to include choosing a date for a future meeting to just about any decision with clear and finite list of possible answers. Hosted by Riseup.
https://labs.riseup.net/decider/
Riseup Pad: A web site where multiple people can write a document together, in real-time. Hosted by Riseup.
https://pad.riseup.net/
Crabgrass: A web site designed to help groups collaboratively work together online. It supports the creation of groups, managing shared wiki pages and to do lists. Hosted by Riseup.
https://we.riseup.net/
Diaspora: An alternative social networking site, allowing users to post updates, pictures, etc. Unlike Facebook, in which all users are centralized on servers controlled by one corporation, Diaspora allows for "federation" - which means many organizations can run an instance of Diaspora and users of each instance can communicate with each other.
https://joindiaspora.com/
Sparkleshare: file sharing softare that allows you to share files with others over the Internet by saving a file in a particular folder on your computer. Unlike Dropbox, which provides a similar service and controls the servers that house a copy of all your documents, Sparkleshare allows you to choose where you want your files to be saved so you can save them with a trusted Internet provider like May First/People Link.
http://sparkleshare.org/
Collaborative Democracy: The Collaborative Democracy software is designed to be used in a workshop setting, with the goal of collaboratively writing a list of principles on a pre-selected topic. It can be used by groups of up to a hundred people with everyone having the chance to provide input. http://meetings.mayfirst.org/
identi.ca: a Twitter alternative that is run using free and open source software (the software is called status net and can be installed on a trusted Internet provider
https://identi.ca/
Concepts and Projects in Development
Global Square: A platform to perpetuate the creative and cooperative spirit of the occupations and transform them into lasting forms of social organization. The project is in development.
http://theglobalsquare.org/
Federated General Assembly: The Federated General Assembly (FGA) is an open source, distributed social platform designed to support the Occupy movement by allowing people and groups to collaborate, share their activities and ideas, with an overall emphasis on meaning, value, and trust. The project is in development.
http://projects.occupy.net/projects/fga
Freedombox: We're building software for smart devices whose engineered purpose is to work together to facilitate free communication among people, safely and securely, beyond the ambition of the strongest power to penetrate. They can make freedom of thought and information a permanent, ineradicable feature of the net that holds our souls. The project is in development.
https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/
OpenPGP web of trust: a computer-based system of verifying each other's identities online by relying on friends and friends of friends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust
