It's one thing to talk about how new technologies are changing politics, and it's another thing to actually experience that change. With that spirit in mind, we at Personal Democracy Forum are hosting an open online backchannel during President Bush's State of the Union speech and the Democratic response tonight, for anyone who would like to join in.
It's an experiment in creating a virtual conference around a real-time political event, and, we hope, a nifty way for PDF subscribers and friends to discover a new tool for enhancing community conversations.
We will be using "A Really Simple Chat" (ARSC), the simplest way we know of to do group chats. Unlike other chat tools, ARSC is a program that lets anybody with a Web browser -- any browser -- join in a discussion and see what other members of the group are typing.
To join in, anytime after 8:30pm eastern, go to http://fwiki.com/pdf, pick a nickname for yourself, and enter any password you like. It's easy to add your own message; simply type it and hit "enter" to send your message to the group. The "help" menu offers additional tips.
You will see a choice of three chats to enter: "Democratic-leaning," "Republican-leaning" and "Free for all." We've created those three rooms to allow people to self-select what kind of conversation they'd like to be part of. Please respect the other participants in the room; disruptive or obscene posters will not be tolerated.
ARSC is a great "backchannel" for sharing commentary during meetings. It has been used productively at conferences such as last year's Personal Democracy Forum, WTF, and PopTech, and it will be featured at F2C: Freedom to Connect, March 30-31, in Washington, DC and this year's Personal Democracy Forum, May 16, in New York City.
ARSC is an easy to install, simple to handle, cross-browser and cross-platform compatible, high-performance open source web chat system written in PHP. It was created by Manuel Kiessling, with InRoom chat features from Greg Elin and David Isenberg. We are indebted to Greg for his help in customizing the tool for PDF. For more information (and to download):
http://manuel.kiessling.net/projects/software/arsc/
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/26/inroom_chat.html
Remember, this is an experiment. Hopefully, it will enliven the experience of watching the State of the Union. Please give us your feedback afterwards.
Posted by msifry at February 2, 2005 01:08 PM