Social Networking for a Cause

by Tim Yu

From corporate-sponsored "Cool Apps" to niche spin-offs like Bakespace, Virb and I'm In Like With You, online communities are still largely about socializing and/or wasting time. Their potential as powerful tools for the greater good—beyond finding out where the party's at—has been largely untapped, but we managed to find a few. The following are some of the latest and best sites where social networking meets social change.

A virtual soapbox for the online masses, the U.K.-based Friction TV is an online forum for public debate launching in the U.S. next month. Like YouTube for social activists, it features largely uncensored content aiming to exercise freedom of speech and catalyze online debate in a social forum.

Nabuur uses an online platform to efficiently connect experts to people seeking advice from all over the world. From construction workers to math teachers and MBAs, online volunteers from different continents help individuals develop business ideas and finish projects. Projects like building schools and health clinics get a boost from direct assistance via the internet.

Helping to solve environmental and humanitarian problems, HumaniNet is a space to share Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to better map rural locations in need of relief. By sharing GIS developments online, experts and users can implement the latest technologies, which makes getting around uncharted territories to reach people in need a whole lot easier.

Recently graduating out of Beta phase as of a couple weeks ago, Get Miro is open-source software for online video. Like Firefox, Miro is developed by a nonprofit organization and driven by the social mission to make it easy for anyone to subscribe and view free internet video on any topic. A well-designed interface and attractive aesthetic make it one of the better HD players out there today.

H.E.L.P. (Humanitarian Emergency Logistics & Preparedness) is a telemedicine-based online community of physicians and financial donors bringing advanced medical assistance to disaster zones and areas of humanitarian need around the world.

Building on Muhammad Yunus' Nobel prize-winning efforts at pioneering a new category of banking known as micro-loans, Kiva is a site that connects the world's poorer populations looking to develop unique business ideas to people with disposable incomes while providing a transparent lending platform. Donate as little as $25 dollars to help start a business or simply buy a goat and get repaid.

Designed to highlight the connection between money and politics as a way to promote reform, MAPLight links campaign contributions and votes. Providing a transparency so that journalists and citizens can hold legislators accountable, customized widgets further enhance functions and research on any issue.

Combining social networking with the environmental movement, the four year-old site Freecycle creates a global gift economy in an nonprofit online community. If you're looking for a bike, someone might be throwing one out on Freecycle. Reducing unnecessary waste, Freecycle is a "cyber curbside" that connects people and decreases our impact on the environment

To Catch a Web, Part Two

by m ss ng p eces

Our second video on Emil Fiore, New Jersey's only spiderweb catcher, ventures into the forest to watch a few "catches." Going a little deeper than Part One (which documented the capture of one web), this episode looks more closely at his process, as well as the spiders and their webs themselves.

Vending Machine Safety

by Ami Kealoha

Vending machines are ubiquitous in big, crowded Japanese cities. Wouldn't it be great if they did more than dispense cold bottles of green tea and hot cans of coffee? Like, what if they could also protect people? In Osaka, they can.

Security company Network Security Japan (NSJ) has created a network in the city's hipster hub Amerika-mura (American Village), an area packed with cafes, clothing stores, clubs and bars. The network integrates antennas placed on vending machines with portable panic buttons.

Here's how it works: if a woman is being followed or harassed, she presses her panic button, which are even outfitted with a web cam. Called a "robot locator," the panic button sends notification to the NSJ command center. Via antenna, the company is able to pinpoint the location, and an NSJ guard in a mini-car or on a bicycle comes directly to that specific video machine.

Since NSJ patrols the area, the service conceivably should be more responsive and faster than calling the cops. And it only costs ¥300 ($2.52) a month to join. That's the same price as two bottles of lactic beverage Calpis Water from a vending machine. Cheap!

by Brian Ashcraft

Ecsotype Bags

by Fiona Killackey

Created by Melbourne-based design duo, Christian and Sabine Pound, Ecsotype is the label behind some of the most functional (and good-looking) bags the world has ever witnessed. "Ecsotype is about justifying every idea and creation by its originality" says French-born Sabine, "It's about building from the ground up (our products feel more like engineering projects to use) and the thrill of looking for the right balance of uniqueness, intelligent function and 'never-before-seen' form. It's about extending the idea of customization beyond colorways and into 'rigging.'" Christian adds, "There are several ways to lace a shoe…why not several ways to rig a bag?" Passionate, excited and, above all else, skilled in their craft the Pounds have made a name for themselves since the inception of Ecsotype in 2004 via quality stockists, international press and the recent introduction of an online store. "We live for the excitement that each new idea brings" says Christian, "and for the process to materialize into something worth being excited and passionate about." CH caught up with the dynamic designers to chat about custom-made zips, book bags and house keys.

When, how and why did you start?
We started in 2004 with one idea, a messenger bag that would be assembled from parts. We thought there was something really interesting and unique in it [so] we set about having it made. We waited nine months for custom-made zips (that are so bizarre they are just not useful to anyone else but us!), stitched dozens of prototypes ourselves and visited a few manufacturers. Some manufacturers refused to have anything to do with Ecsotype but the brave took it on and suffered the whole way through! We don't work by season. We add to our catalog approximately every six weeks and keep all our products available to purchase.

The Book bag [pictured] is truly original. How did you come up with the idea and why the name?
Our first four products relied on zips to join each component. We wanted to approach construction in a different way. With Book the components slide or snap in place. Its dimensions are based on a small paper bag that was about A4. The idea for it started as a new version for another product but developed so strongly it ended up standing on its own.

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Trompe L'Oeil by Rosanna Bankes

by SummerSeventySix

I've always found the artistic technique of trompe l'oeil (derived from French, meaning trick of the eye) absolutely fascinating. It's age-old and I was really only familiar with examples painted as murals, depicting landscapes or decorative features, but Rosanna Bankes paints modern examples on whatever surface she's commissioned to paint on. Already an impressive artist, Rosanna honed her skills as an apprentice under pioneering French master Yannick Guegan.

Above (and here) are examples of her meticulous work, all painted on a table top, except for the key painted on what looks like a cherrywood staircase, which has also been created by her hand.