Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The Philanthropy Channel


I've written about Fora.TV before. This platform - which I think of as "the YouTube of Ideas" - is getting better and better. Look over there --> to the right. That is the embedded Fora.TV player - you can get it for your blog or website by going to fora.tv/tools. I'm delighted to announce a formative partnership with Fora.TV - stay tuned, we'll let you know more as details of the Philanthropy Channel develop.

Imagine what this means for social action. If a picture is worth 1000 words, consider what it means if you can stream video of public policy conversations, important lectures, activist demonstrations, global health discussions, and philanthropic conferences.

For any conference host it means potentially reaching millions of people instead of dozens. For activists it means bringing awareness to millions, not dozens. To foundations, it means hosting conferences or discussions that millions can watch, contribute to, and inform - not just dozens. Every organization's media strategy needs to consider the implications of this. Who do you really want to talk to? Who needs to hear your message? Who cares about your work and doesn't know it yet? What other conversations do you and your partner organizations need to be part of?

Fora.TV partners with YouTube and Revver and any of the other video sites - what gets posted to Fora.TV can then travel across those systems to reach any of their users. Fora.TV is organized around issue-specific channels that are integrated with other media (blogs, web links) and that are curated to make sure the highest quality, global thinking on a subject is brought together in one place. It also provides tools that let you 'click' through a video to a specific chapter or topic, to search the video for certain phrases, and to participate in the think tank on the topic. Go ahead, click on the "open tools" box in the screen to the right. You can now search the talk by "chapter" - you can get the transcript, and you can get the link.

So, help us design the Philanthropy Channel. We'll be designing this in the next several months - send in ideas, tell me what you want to see, what should be covered, and how this tool can help you accomplish your social and philanthropic goals.



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