Personal Democracy Forum (often referred to as PDF) is an annual conference that follows how the internet is changing politics, governance, and advocacy. PDF is an initiative organized by Personal Democracy Media, which has been founded by Andrew Rasiej and co-founder Micah Sifry.
Conference
The Personal Democracy Forum conference is an annual event held in New York City that began in 2004. The mission of the conference is to have political professionals, technologists, and non-profit executives educate each other on how technology is changing and what the future of democracy and advocacy looks like.
In 2013 the PDF has been organized for the first time on regional level in Poland: PDF-Poland and CEE. Organized in Warsaw by ePF - polish foundation, publisher of the Sejmometr.pl and MamPytanie.net, receiver of the 2012 ePSI Trailblazer in the parliamentary data category.
Conference
The Personal Democracy Forum conference is an annual event held in New York City that began in 2004. The mission of the conference is to have political professionals, technologists, and non-profit executives educate each other on how technology is changing and what the future of democracy and advocacy looks like.
In 2013 the PDF has been organized for the first time on regional level in Poland: PDF-Poland and CEE. Organized in Warsaw by ePF - polish foundation, publisher of the Sejmometr.pl and MamPytanie.net, receiver of the 2012 ePSI Trailblazer in the parliamentary data category.
Bumblehood was a semantic wiki company that existed from 2009 to 2012. It was headquartered in Munich, Germany with local offices in Zagreb, Croatia and Moscow, Russia.
The company's main project was a semantically organized community-driven web portal which provided a knowledge base about countries and cities worldwide.
Website
Features
Bumblehood was based on semantic data organization and utilized the topic maps paradigm, enabling access to contextual information. It was oriented on providing geo-specific knowledge and local business directories with user opinions and reviews. Some of the covered topics included geography, economy, politics, history, culture, points of interest, various local information etc. The portal's content could be edited by any registered user through a WYSIWYG wiki interface, and all information was accessible without the need for registration.
BumbleMap Platform
BumbleMap was the software platform for collaborative knowledge management that the Bumblehood portal was run on. It was based on the topic maps paradigm and provided tree-based visualization of the topic map with a contextual menu adhering to typing of topics, associations and occurrences.
The company's main project was a semantically organized community-driven web portal which provided a knowledge base about countries and cities worldwide.
Website
Features
Bumblehood was based on semantic data organization and utilized the topic maps paradigm, enabling access to contextual information. It was oriented on providing geo-specific knowledge and local business directories with user opinions and reviews. Some of the covered topics included geography, economy, politics, history, culture, points of interest, various local information etc. The portal's content could be edited by any registered user through a WYSIWYG wiki interface, and all information was accessible without the need for registration.
BumbleMap Platform
BumbleMap was the software platform for collaborative knowledge management that the Bumblehood portal was run on. It was based on the topic maps paradigm and provided tree-based visualization of the topic map with a contextual menu adhering to typing of topics, associations and occurrences.
Surchur (pronounced sûrchûr - "searcher") was a realtime discovery and search engine launched on May 1, 2008. Surchur, located in Carnation, Washington, was privately held and self-funded.
Functionality
Surchur, the "dashboard to right now", had two core features: discovery and search.
The realtime search engine used proprietary algorithms based on Twitter mentions, Facebook shares, diggs and votes by its users to normalize results and rank web pages popular in real time. The results were organized in tabs based on their source: "popular" items were web pages most followed/voted by users, "blogs" were items pulled from the blogosphere, "social web" included diggs and tweets, "pictures" pulled from flickr and photobucket, "videos" from YouTube and Truveo, and "products" from Amazon.com and eBay. Surchur was used by some as an internet reputation management tool.
The homepage displayed the Real Time Board, an algorithmically determined and ranked list of the most popular topics on the web. The list was based on popular terms from search engines, news sites and social media and the ranking is based on the popularity across Surchur itself, the blogosphere and total tweets with the velocity of the popularity playing a crucial role.
Since August 2012, the service has been "indefinitely paused".
Functionality
Surchur, the "dashboard to right now", had two core features: discovery and search.
The realtime search engine used proprietary algorithms based on Twitter mentions, Facebook shares, diggs and votes by its users to normalize results and rank web pages popular in real time. The results were organized in tabs based on their source: "popular" items were web pages most followed/voted by users, "blogs" were items pulled from the blogosphere, "social web" included diggs and tweets, "pictures" pulled from flickr and photobucket, "videos" from YouTube and Truveo, and "products" from Amazon.com and eBay. Surchur was used by some as an internet reputation management tool.
The homepage displayed the Real Time Board, an algorithmically determined and ranked list of the most popular topics on the web. The list was based on popular terms from search engines, news sites and social media and the ranking is based on the popularity across Surchur itself, the blogosphere and total tweets with the velocity of the popularity playing a crucial role.
Since August 2012, the service has been "indefinitely paused".
WiseCampus.com, originally named Isleptthroughclass.com, was a free college note sharing website, founded in September 2007 by University of Dayton student Ryan Sapp. The site allowed any college or university student to freely access a database of accumulated lecture notes. In addition to the site's free note sharing capability it also provided monetary rewards to students who post their own class notes.
This site was headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana leasing space in a warehouse from Access Garage Doors.
Note sharing
Any student who signs up to the website was granted full access to view all of the shared notes from any college or university in the United States. Members may also participate in uploading their own documents where they can receive incentives based upon the number of documents they submit. Upon submission notes are viewed and determined acceptable based on the clarity of the content.
Rewards
Based on the activity of the user, members were able to earn points for their participation within the site. Ways to earn points include posting acceptable notes, starting blog threads, inviting friends, logging in and commenting on previously posted blog topics. Once enough points were acquired members were able to visit the sites giftcard catalog where they can purchase with their points a variety of online giftcards. According to WiseCampus.com, the earning potential for its members was unlimited; as long as members are submitting acceptable notes and actively participating, they were able to be rewarded an infinite number of times.
This site was headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana leasing space in a warehouse from Access Garage Doors.
Note sharing
Any student who signs up to the website was granted full access to view all of the shared notes from any college or university in the United States. Members may also participate in uploading their own documents where they can receive incentives based upon the number of documents they submit. Upon submission notes are viewed and determined acceptable based on the clarity of the content.
Rewards
Based on the activity of the user, members were able to earn points for their participation within the site. Ways to earn points include posting acceptable notes, starting blog threads, inviting friends, logging in and commenting on previously posted blog topics. Once enough points were acquired members were able to visit the sites giftcard catalog where they can purchase with their points a variety of online giftcards. According to WiseCampus.com, the earning potential for its members was unlimited; as long as members are submitting acceptable notes and actively participating, they were able to be rewarded an infinite number of times.