OneWebDay

This is the clearinghouse site for OneWebDay, a celebration of the internet scheduled for September 22, 2006 (and all the September 22s thereafter).

OneWebDay is one day a year when we all – everyone around the physical globe – can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities.

As with Earth Day – an inspiration and model for OneWebDay – it’s up to the celebrants to decide how to celebrate. We encourage all celebrations! Collaboration, connection, creativity, freedom.

By the end of the day, the Web should be just a little bit better than it was before, and we’ll be able to see our connection to it more clearly.

OneWebDay is September 22 every year, starting in 2006.

If you write about OneWebDay or take a picture related to OneWebDay (there’s a special hand signal — you extend your middle three fingers and have your thumb and little finger touch in a circle) tag it onewebday and it will show up on this site (once we add the Technorati feed, which we’re working on).

If you’re interested in being part of a project to celebrate the net on OneWebday, go to the ProjectWiki.

If you’d like to coordinate a project, let us know and we’ll help find people for you to work with. If you’d like to sponsor a project, by providing computing resources or money, let us know at sponsor@onewebday.org. This site is serving as a clearinghouse for projects, helping to match people to ideas (and ideas to people).

Sample projects could include:

Collective art projects (see yourself as a pixel)

Music mashups

Contributing to a slide show of flickr images of people doing the onewebday hand signal

A collection of oral histories — how the web changed my life

How I found my job online

How I found friends online

What the web means to me

How I work online

Teach your grandmother to blog

Teach the mayor to blog

Wire a town, or create a wireless hotspot

Put your digital pictures online.

Make a website for your club, church, school.

Make an entry for your neighborhood in Wikipedia.

Find out the email addresses of your neighbors and start a neighborhood mailing list.

Companies: run a virtual meeting for work-at-home employees.

Employees: teach your boss to IM.

Parents: get your kids to teach you to IM.

Doctors: Set up web-based self-scheduling for patients.

Libraries and schools: Run a website-building workshop.

About OneWebDay, Inc.
OneWebDay, Inc. is a non-profit organization. Really and truly. All donations will be devoted to making this celebration work well globally. To reach us, write to questions@onewebday.org.

The basic idea is to celebrate the internet by doing interesting and worthwhile projects online and offline that demonstrate what the web can do, and how it has changed all of our lives.

Please look around — and add to the ProjectWiki.

OneWebDay, Inc. (a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit organization)

Susan Crawford, founder and president

Renee Edelman

Mary Hodder

David Isenberg

David R. Johnson

Doc Searls

Kaarli Tasso

Jim Tierney

Gregg Vesonder

David Weinberger

Rick Whitt

Q: What is OneWebDay?
A: OneWebDay is one day a year when we all – everyone around the physical globe – can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities.

Q: When is it?
A: September 22 every year, starting in 2006.

Q: What type of celebrations do you have planned?
A: Groups and individuals should come up with their own ways of celebrating the Web by doing things that are meaningful to them and consistent with who they are. We hope the celebrations will affirm Web values in ways that actually advance those values. Maybe your local community will make wifi available to a school or a park. Maybe you’ll set up a real-world or online clinic to help newbies succeed on the Web. Maybe you’ll collect and post stories to document local history. Maybe you’ll post a gallery of online art. Maybe you’ll find and share five new weblogs from around the world. It really is up to you. We’ve suggested some projects on the wiki.

Q: What exactly are the Web values we’re celebrating?
A: That, too, is up to you. How has the Web changed your life? Increased your connectedness? More collaboration? More creativity? More openness to ideas?

Q: It sounds a lot like Earth Day.
A: Earth Day was a major inspiration for OneWebDay.

Q: Is it global or American?
A: Global! Global global global! Global.

Q: What’s the political agenda behind OneWebDay?
A: Just this: We want to raise global awareness of how important the Web is to our lives and how positive its values are.

Q: How can I help?
A: Start talking with the group you want to celebrate with. Come up with a plan. Then let us know on the ProjectWiki.

Q: How do I get my stuff to show up on the onewebday site?
A: Use this text for marking blog posts:

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/onewebday
rel=”tag”>onewebday</a>

Your posts will then show up on this site as well.

If you’ve found a Web page you want to share with other people interested in OneWebDay, at Delicious we recommend you use the tag “onewebday” or, if the page is specific to this year’s celebration, “onewebday2006″.

Upload your photos to flickr.com and tag them “onewebday”! Then they’ll rotate across this site.

Q: We should register our plans with you??
A: It’s not required, but it would be helpful to everyone if you let OneWebDay.org know about it so we can post your plans on the site. Maybe you’ll inspire others.

Q: How do I register our plans with you?
A: There’s a project wiki here — leave a note there. Or use the “project registration” link on the front page if you don’t feel like editing the wiki. We’ll try to help serve as a platform for people and projects to use.

Q: I work for a corporation. How can it help?
A: It can plan its own celebration. It can also donate money or resources to OneWebDay, Inc., a nonprofit, all of which we’ll use to promote the day. Write to sponsor@onewebday.org or use our PayPal link.

Q: Why September 22?
A: We wanted to pick a day when school was in session so schools can be involved. We picked the 22nd in honor of Earth Day, which is April 22.

Q: What about the other Internet celebrations ?
A: We want to collaborate with other celebrations. We’re all enjoying the Web.

The OneWebDay organization

Q: Who started OneWebDay?
A: Susan Crawford. She’s a professor at the Cardozo School of Law and on the Board of Directors of ICANN.

Q: Who else is involved?
A: Here’s a link to our board of directors.

Q: Who makes money off of it?
A: OneWebDay, Inc. currently employs zero people. We plan on hiring a very small administrative staff soon; they will be paid a modest salary. No one else makes a dime out of it.

Q: Who funds it?
A: We’re open to donations. Use the PayPal link on the front page!

Q: I’d like to contribute.
A: Great! It’s far more important to the success of OneWebDay that you participate than that you give OneWebDay money. So come up with a creative way of celebrating the value of the Web, tell your friends, and then make new friends and tell them. Use the OneWebDay tag.

Snipes and snarks

Q: Don’t you know the difference between the Internet and the Web?
A: Yes. We’re in favor of both.

Q: How about all the bad things the Web brings?
A: This is a day for celebrating the good. Celebrate as you see fit.

Q: Isn’t this really a US-focused celebration?
A: Not on purpose. From the beginning we’ve worked hard on making this as global as we can. We’re collaborating with people around the world.

Q: Did the space bar break on your keyboard when you came up with the name?
A: We opted for a name that we could spell consistently in a domain name. We have donated the extra spaces to the International camelCase Foundation.