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Welcome to 2007!
All around the world, people are brought together in celebration by the concept of a New Year. A New Year is a chance to begin anew, a culmination of the past and a shared anticipation of the future.
This issue of TakingITGlobal's dispatch will take a look at some of TakingITGlobal's exciting new technical features created over the past year and will look at a few things to look forward to in the future for the online community.
Although different cultures may follow unique calendars, each New Year's celebration shares the common hope for a fresh start and a shining future.
Happy New Year, whenever it may be, wherever you are!
The TakingITGlobal Team
dispatch@takingitglobal.org
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Top 10 Technical Highlights of 2006
- TakingITGlobal has cool new Web 2.0 features! Web 2.0 means a second generation of Internet-based services - such as social networking sites, wikis, and communication tools - that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.
TIG has always been at the forefront of Web 2.0, and now there's even more cool ways to integrate your TIG experience with other Web 2.0 sites. On your member profile you can now add links to RSS feeds from YouTube, del.icio.us, and Flickr, and your content from those sites will be automatically and regularly imported into your TIG profile. You can also link to your profile on other social networking sites. All of this can be done under "edit profile" under the "web 2.0" tab.
Try it out by Clicking Here!
- TakingITGlobal is available in 11 languages! By switching the language in the dropdown on the top right of the TakingITGlobal website, you can use our tools in: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Romanian, Dutch, Arabic, Russian and simplified Chinese.
- Discussion Boards are available in several of the languages that TIG offers. This means that you can discuss in the language you feel most comfortable in. Join the discussions in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian! Don't just participate in the English discussion board because it is the one with the most posts. Help us make the other language boards a vibrant place!
Click here!
- Not only does every TIG member automatically have their own TIG blog, now you can submit your blog entries in two languages. To do this, at the bottom of your entry click the option to submit in two languages.
Try it out here!
- You can have a voice by submitting a podcast. A podcast is an online audio program that can be downloaded from the Internet and played on a personal computer or a portable device such as an Apple iPod. You can post your own podcast by selecting the "audio post/podcast" option on your TIGblog.
To read more about TIG Podcasts check out this link:
TakingITGlobal Podcasts
- Group TIGblogs are TakingITGlobal's online space for you to reflect on events, communicate about shared interests, or just chat about your day with a group of TIG members! This means multiple TIG members can post on the same blog. This is great for projects and can also be linked to project pages.
Group TIG Blogs
- You can add the school you are attending or attended for higher education on your profile, and then easily search for and connect with others from your school just by clicking on your school name on your profile!
Add this under the "details" section of the "about me" tab of your profile.
Add it here
- Groups and projects can be linked. When you create a project you have the option to have a group linked to your project. If you enable this feature, you will have a group with the same name as your project. The members of your project will also become the members of the group.
- Wiki pages are now available in projects. When creating a project, if you select the "enable wiki" box, you will have a custom page on your project where members or administrators can edit and post content. If you've already created a project, the option is available under "Edit Project."
- What's Hot is a new section on TakingITGlobal where you can stay connected to the most popular content on the online community. You can check out the most popular discussions, articles, artwork, and blogs from the past 7 days.
Check it out!
TakingITGlobal featured in the book "Wikinomics"
 Don Tapscott's bestselling new book "Wikinomics" about 'How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything' features TakingITGlobal.
"The media (and parents) frequently express alarm at the shallowness of MySpace... TakingITGlobal is one of the world's best examples of how N-Geners are using digital technologies to transform the world around them. With 110,000 registered members in nearly two hundred countries, a Web site in seven languages, and five million unique visitors, one could mistake TakingITGlobal for the United Nations. In a sense, you wouldn't be wrong. After all, its members rub shoulders with business and government leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Plus the site lists over two thousand youth-initiated and -managed community action projects that tackle tough issues ranging from closing the digital divide in rural India to preventing HIV in Uganda. This United Nations is not run by senior diplomats, but entirely by young people..."
Click here to buy a copy on Amazon.com. Want to discuss global collaboration and how cutting-edge sites and tools like TIG are changing the world? Join author Don Tapscott in a TakingITGlobal Live Chat on February 13, 2007 at 10:30 AM ET / 3:30 PM GMT! Send an e-mail to:
chatnotify-subscribe@groups.takingitglobal.org to get a reminder a day before and one hour before the chat.
Panorama Online Magazine Welcomes Stories about forced Migration
The next issue of TakingITGlobal's online journal will be on the theme of Forced migration. Forced Migration is about the movement of refugees and internally displaced people. It is also about people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects. We want to hear what you have to say on this topic.
Find out more on the next issue of Panorama.
Submit your article here.
Featured Country: New Zealand
 New Zealand is also known as, Aotearoa, "the land of the long white cloud" in Maori, one of the two national languages. According to folklore and archaeological evidence, Aotearoa was first populated by migrating East Polynesian tribes. New Zealanders like to call themselves 'kiwis', after its endemic endangered flightless bird. Aotearoa serves as a home for many of the world's oldest species, such as the tuatara, a close relative of the dinosaurs. More recently, Aotearoa has been known for its innovations in creative arts and technologies. Find out more about New Zealand by visiting the country site and checking out a TIG member from New Zealand, Cherrie Kong's profile!
http://newzealand.tigweb.org/
http://profiles.tigweb.org/Cherrie
Featured Partner: Adventure Ecology
TakingITGlobal recently partnered with Adventure Ecology to create the Adventure Ecology club community site. Here's a message from this great organization:
Are you ready for an Adventure?
You've probably read the headlines and seen the TV reports. Planet Earth has managed to catch a fever, or as your friendly scientist may put it, the climate's changing. Adventure Ecology, a global youth led environmental network tackles this health crisis head-on. Be part of the solution - your bright ideas can change the world.
Find out more by clicking below:
http://orgs.tigweb.org/Adventure+Ecology
Wrap Up
Your interest, support and involvement with TakingITGlobal helps our community to grow and encourage more young people to become inspired, informed and involved everyday! In being a member of TakingITGlobal, you are part of a community that is 130,000 strong coming from over 250 countries and territories. Thank you for having a vision of positive change. Your work makes a difference!
In friendship,
The TakingITGlobal Team |
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