Network News in a Box - 2007
Reading through this Toledo Talk post from October 2007 titled [[Reporting on the San Diego County fires]], saw this section "Network News in a Box":http://toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/tt.pl/article/6032/Reporting_on_the_San_Diego_County_fires#Network_News_in_a_Box and found this unused open, wiki "https://newsinabox.jottit.com/.":https://newsinabox.jottit.com/ That wiki's home page was munged, but it was easily reverted back to a former, valid state. Now saving some of those page here. It was interesting info in the fall of 2007.
more.
hr.
https://newsinabox.jottit.com/
h1. Network News in a Box
_Creating a free grassroots news collection/distribution tool in response to breaking news events_
h2. Creating an Instant Grassroots Driven Network
_(Wiki site created by "Gabe Wachob":mailto:gwachob@wachob.com )_
h3. What is this
This site is to document the tools and process used to create the sandiegofire twitter account. The next time there is a large scale breaking news event for which eyewitness and other reports are not otherwise easily consolidated, the mechanism discussed here could be deployed within minutes. Twitter could be a instant news channel for eyewitness reports and other important info.
h3. What was built for the San Diego Fires twitter?
1) "Chris Messina":http://factoryjoe.com suggested that various tweeters giving first hand accounts or other info use the "hashtag" #sandiegofire. This would allow users to "track #sandiegofire" and be given realtime SMS or XMPP IMs for these updates. Several tweeters such as "Nate Ritter":http://twitter.com/nateritter began tweeting very heavily using this tag.
2) Numist, on the freenode IRC network, created a twitter/XMPP -> IRC bot for those in the #sandiegofire IRC channel to get consolidated updates - he added both #sandiegofire hashtag track feed as well as certain other tweeters, such as KPBS that did not use the hashtag.
3) "Gabe Wachob":http://blog.wachob.com asked if there was a URL on the web that non-techie people could be sent for seeing the consolidated list of tweets. After a brief discussion with Blaine Cook @ Twitter, it was decided that the IRC bot simply post the consolidated tweets to a newer "Twitter account":http://twitter.com/sandiegofire
h3. Source code and Schematics
* "Architecture Diagram":http://toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/tt.pl/article/142543/Network_News_in_a_Box_-_2007#Architecture_Diagram
* "Source Code":
h3. Other Uses
* Earthquake Information - see recent "SF Bay earthquake":http://www.earthquake.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc40204628.php
hr.
h2. Architecture Diagram
This diagram is in ascii art so it is editable in the wiki! Do not delete this line.
TWITTER FEEDS NEWS BOT OUTPUT STREAMS
+-----------------------+ (called p5py)
| |
| #sandiegofire track |
| |
+-----------------------+ +-----------+ \ +-----------------------------+
| | XMPP \ | |
| +----------->| twitter.com/sandiegofire |
+-----------------------+ \ | | / | |
| | XMPP \ | News | / +-----------------------------+
| KPBS Feed | ------------> | Bot |
| | / | |
+-----------------------+ / | | \ +-----------------------------+
| | IRC \ | |
| +----------->| freenode/#sandiegofire |
+-----------------------+ | | / | |
| | +-----------+ / +-----------------------------+
| Other Feeds |
| |
+-----------------------+
hr.
h2. Aggregated Citizen News Network (ACNN)
h3. Ideas:
* centralized domain name
* subdomains used for new disasters, locations, etc (need to standardize)
* design accompanies mainstream media sources (streaming video, audio, feeds), as well as a standardized method of streaming our own types of content
* process of organizing task-force teams should be documented including how to grant access to publish
* build a first rev quickly, possibly using tools like Deki Wiki from MindTouch
h3. Standards:
h3. What we need:
_Strictly speaking, the needs reflect what it takes to create a web site which would enable citizen journalists, programmers, and others to publish media quickly and easily during crisis periods_
* Needed to create this site:
** system administrators
** web hosts with major bandwidth (what about load balancing?)
** designers and usability experts
** programmers
* People who will be involved (ie, "users" or the citizen journalists):
** graphic designers
** videographers
** podcasters
** google maps mashup experts (gmaps is very cumbersome, perhaps a realtime flash app with layered vector diagrams updated to the minute with zoom-capability? [taylor])
** writers
** photographers
** programmers (doesn't matter the expertise, it would be used)
h3. What we have:
h3. Resources/People:
_Please add your name, email, and what you can provide to the bottom of this list_
* Nate Ritter, nate [at] perfectspace [dot] com
** hosting
** domain names
** PHP/MySql
** project management, process flow
* Lee Fuhr, lee [at] gmail [dot] com
** interaction design
** some graphic design
** thinking :)
* Tola Oguntoyinbo, tola [at] sonecast [dot] net
** strategy, process
* Derek Payton, derek [dot] payton [at] gmail [dot] com
** Python (Django), PHP, MySQL, SQLite
** Hosting (can maybe get a good deal on a dedicated w/ static IP through work)
** Server Admin. Experience (Debian/Debian-based (Ubuntu) distro's)
** LightTPD Experience
* Taylor Neilson, tneilson [at] cstv [dot] com / taylor [at] e-nlight [dot] us / FireStormSD [dot] com
** stradegy, infrastructure, cisco programming, systems administration, high-bandwidth models, load-balancing, high-storage management SAN, project management, 7 years experience.
** currently has several dedicated servers & 100mbit/10mbit pipes with terabytes of storage.
** Macromedia Flash+Actionscript 5 years
** Photoshop/Graphic Design 7 years
** Web interface incl. apps/graphics/programming
** HTML, CSS, XHTML, w3C Standardization, FlashComm, PHP, ASP, Javascript, BASH Scripting, TCL, 3D Modeling, C+, UI, AI, Mobile data, etc..
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