DigiActive.org

Tool: ChipIn Makes International Fundraising Easy

Tool Description: ChipIn allows you to create an embeddable fundraising widget for your blog (see below) that allows to you to receive donations internationally through your PayPal account.

Activist Application: Although you can make a lot of social change without money, sometimes its useful. ChipIn makes online fundraising accessible to grassroots organizations.

Ease of Use: Really easy. Go to the ChipIn site, www.chipin.com, and enter some information about your fundraising campaign: 1) campaign name, 2) fundraising goal, 3) fundraising campaign end-date, 4) your Paypal account. Then ChipIn will create an animated widget which you can embed in your blog. When a donor clicks the “ChipIn!” button on the widget they are taken to PayPal, where they make the donation.

Tool: FotoFlexer

Tool Description: FotoFlexer is a free online image editor that allows you to easily make customized images for your online campaign.
Activist Application: In an online campaign, images are key. You’ll need an original image for the header on your advocacy blog and for your badges and banners. Now you don’t need to spend money to buy the editing software necessary to make original images for your campaign.
Ease of Use: Easy. The FotoFlexer web site makes editing really self explanatory. As soon as you land on their homepage, www.FotoFlexer.com, they start guiding you through the steps to editing an image. You can upload your images onto the FotoFlexer website and edit them online, then download then to your computer and use them.

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Tool: SMS

Tool Description: SMS (short message service) is the technical name for text messaging - notes sent between mobile phone users. Think of it as e-mail for mobile phones.

Activist Application: There are so many activist applications for SMS that we’ve put most of them after the jump. Here they are in brief: organize a protest in minutes, evade censorship by using SMS for communication that you cannot speak or e-mail (only true is some countries), election monitoring, activist security (”If I don’t text you every 2 hours, it means something is wrong), citizen journalism, and more to come….

Ease of Use: Easy. All mobile phones now have SMS built in. Just choose a phone number to send the message to, type the message, and press send. Pricing varies by country and carrier.

thousands of phones, thousands of uses for activists

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Tool: GTalk

Tool Description: GTalk is Googles version of Internet telephony. I allows you to talk online for free with other people that use GTalk.
Activist Application: Burmese democracy activists used GTalk to tell people around the world what was happening in their country. According to Maung Maung, a Burmese activist and trade unionist, “There are about 50 Internet cafes all over Burma, and young people were able to log into GTalk and say to the rest of the world, ‘Here’s what is happening on this corner; here’s what is happening on that corner.’ Quite a lot of young activists have been trained in how to use Gmail. It is extremely helpful to the movement.” GTalk is available in Burmese (see below) and many other world languages.
Ease of Use: Easy. You can download it here or use it without downloading it by clicking here. You do need a Gmail account and a microphone to use GTalk.

Tool: Wikis

Tool Description: A wiki is a web page which users can easily edit and add content to by clicking an “edit” tab on the page.
Activist Application: Following the tumultuous elections in Kenya, a Lithuanian activist, Andrius Kulikauskas, is using his community wiki to offer help and provide information about the situation.
Ease of Use: Fairly easy. You can create a wiki for free at sites like Wikispaces.com. This page explains the basics of wiki syntax (the codes for italics, bold, links, etc.). Here is a video which explains the basics of using a wiki:

Tool: Twitter

Tool Description: Twitter is social network where people update their friends about their actions in real-time via SMS. People can read your SMS posts online.
Activist Application: Kenyan blogger AfroMusing used her Twitter channel to send news updates on the unstable situation in the country following the recent elections. The Twitter channel KenyaNews has been set up specifically to update people on the latest news out of Kenya.
Ease of Use: Easy. Just sign up for a Twitter account here and inform your friends of your Twitter channel.

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Tool: Can Activists Trust YouTube?

In late November, Egyptian activist Wael Abbas‘ YouTube account was suspended due to videos of torture which he had posted. Though his account was re-activated a few days later, all his videos had been removed. YouTube’s side of the story is that Abbas had violated their terms of use by posting videos of “graphic or gratuitous violence” (many of Abbas’ video depict police torture, including sodomy. ) However, other videos, of police brutality, demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and election irregularities were also deleted when his account was restored.

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Tool: Google Grants

Google has begun offering free AdWords to non-profits through a program called Google Grants. The program allows non-profits in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK to post cause-related AdWords for free. These keyword-based ads can be used to promote the organization itself or a cause which the organization supports. (Here’s a short video about how AdWords works and here’s a long video that gives more detail) Read more »

Tools: The Best of 2007 - How Can We Use Them for Activism?

Here is lifehack’s list of the best web apps of 2007. They haven’t been used for activism yet, but use your imagination and see if you can be inspired.

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  bubbl.us allows you to brain-storm by creating visual idea maps. Take a look at this video to get a better idea of how it works. This might be a good way to for activists to work through ideas collaboratively.
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  Buzzword is an online word processor. Here is a video that explains how it works. This might be a good way for activists to collaboratively create documents online. It appears to still be in alpha.
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  Empressr allows users to create and share slideshows using text, images, videos. Presentations can be shared on the Empressr site and can also be embedded in users’ own pages. Here’s a video that shows how it works. This might be a good way for activists to share presentations. Read more »
  
  Tags: bubblus, buzword, digitalactivism, empressr, highrise, jott, lifehack, mint, nozbe, nptech, sandy, scrybe, todoist, tool, vitalist
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Tool: YouTube

Name: YouTube

Website: http://www.youtube.com

What it is: YouTube is a site where you can upload your digital video for all the world to see

Rating:

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