The idea
A tool to take web snippets, RSS feeds, social bookmarks and other online media and to easily assemble these in printable leaflet, flyer and poster formats. This would make online information available in a non-digital format ready for copying, faxing, posting, sticking up on a notice board, and generally sharing amongst those who prefer to/can only recieve information offline.
Something like a cross between MS Publisher and NetVibes for print. Ideally such a tool would also allow templates newsletters/posters/flyers to be shared and worked on collaboratively – with the capacity for creating one-off publications, and regular publications, which would auto-update on the basis of RSS feeds etc.
What social need does it address?
The digital divide. (And the ’social media divide’). Whilst the web has made it easier than ever to share information, that sharing is only accessible to a limited number of people.
Creating a bridge between the online and offline worlds can make sure information shared through social media channels is:
- Available to those without access to the technology
- Available to those with access, but who are not yet comfortable using social media technologies
At present, a lot of people are missing out on a lot of information – and a lot of the potential of information sharing is being lost – because the sharing is taking place in online spaces that are not accessible to everyone.
What’s new about it?
It aims to make publishing on paper move able to move at least somewhere closer to the speed of Web 2.0. Initiatives on bridging the digital divide have tended to focus on bringing people to the technology so that they can access information and services. This looks to make it easy to take the information directly to people in formats and spaces that are accessible to them.
What inspired you?
Realising the amount of information I have at my fingertips is not accessible to many of those I’m working with, meeting with and campaigning with on a day-to-day basis. Realising it’s information they could really do with having access to. Realising that if they had access to the information, they could join in many more conversations and I could learn a lot from them. And realising that asking them to learn to use social media spaces is not the only solution.
Idea submitted by Tim Davies
Tim is founder of Practical Participation
March 4th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
hear, hear! i am always struggling with this challenge and when i bring it up, people sometimes just look at me like, well, that’s just the way it is. i once had a similar thought, though not so well thought-out. good thinking.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
[...] in how the explosion of amazing networking and interactivity on the social web can bridge to the offline world of paper and pens. Well, thanks to a tweet from Alberto I just came across a great Beta project exploring [...]