June 20, 2007
The World Bank is monitoring your buzz
A pleasant break from all this GIS-related blogging, the World Bank Private Sector Development Blog has tipped me to a new Open Source application that the World Bank has just released. I know, I know - when I read that last sentence it doesn’t make sense to me either, but I imagine that project lead Pierre-Guillaume Wielezynski pushed quite hard to get this out there.
Given that it’s the World Bank, the app is not what you might imagine. In the words of the site,
We developed the BuzzMonitor, an open source application that “listens” to what people are saying about the World Bank across blogs and other sites in order to help the organization understand and engage in social media.
So it’s full speed ahead on the Web2.0 bus at the World Bank! The jury seems to be out on whether this is a really awesome new approach or a bit of a hog on your server, but it looks interesting enough to try - a super-aggregator with some nice features, particularly eliminating dupes, attributes sources, and allows users to collaborate on tracking and tagging. Apparently they open-sourced it in response to requests from other organisations, so there must be some demand - but you’ll need your own server to set up.
There’s been discussion around the application on Britt Bravo’s blog, the Net-Savvy Executive blog and (gasp) an article at Salon. Plus Pierre seems to be taking an active role in any discussions, so I’m sure if you email him he’ll be happy to give you a guided tour!
Filed under Development, Media, Open Source, United Nations, Web by Paul Currion
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Comments on The World Bank is monitoring your buzz »
Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski @ 10:37 pm
Paul,
Thanks for the note, I am indeed happy to be part of the discussion and do guided tours, especially for non profits, ngos etc…
I think this could be a great tool for organizations tracking who’s talking about disasters and humanitarian issues. Think about how you could instantly get the picture (across blogs, media sharing sites, news) of who is saying what about the situation in Darfur, how authoritative they are , what concepts they talk about etc..and then have a community of interest collaborate around this content by voting on it, by tagging it, by commenting etc…
If you ever get around to installing it, let me know what you think. Yes, BuzzMonitor needs a server (its own in an ideal world) but we find it to work ok provided that you do not aggregate millions of mentions per hour.
Cheers,
Pierre Guillaume
Paul Currion @ 2:35 pm
I think the potential is quite huge, but need to test it for myself… the question is really whether organisations that were using this kind of service would be able to respond effectively to what their tracking showed. My experience has been that a lot of NGOs really aren’t very media-savvy, and I think that (to begin with) this tool is more useful for advocacy than any other purpose - tracking the impact that a report or campaign has in the online world, for example. It would be interesting to use as a research tool, as well - the “forgotten emergencies” type of reporting that Oxfam or MSF do fairly regularly.
Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski @ 4:04 pm
Paul,
Yes, agreed. For advocacy and for building buy-in internally for more “social media” and less top down communications. Changing behavior is more long term but hopefully, this can serve as a starting point.
Cheers,
PG