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Official "Race to the Green" website?
Now don't anyone go rushing off and starting up a website or buying up any domains just yet...but let's start up discussion about the pros and cons of building our own website for the "Race to the Green" in this thread. Mainly because I think that there are a couple of questions I think we should ask ourselves before we proceed down this path...
1. Should we even have a separate website at this point? What are the pros and cons (if any) of doing this versus just creating a Flickr group, a Youtube Channel, a Facebook group, a MySpace page and things of that nature?
2. Even if we do start up our own website, should we still take the actions listed above (Flickr/Youtube/Facebook/MySpace) to help control our image and funnel interested people into not only joining CS, but also into being constructive members of the community and ultimately, green-minded members?
3. Is this event even going to be called "The Race to the Green" when everything is said and done? What if we can only get one boat? Not much of a race if it's just one boat. Then again, it could be something to build toward. Maybe if there is only one boat, the "race" aspect could be that we are racing against time to become as green as possible in a short but very achievable amount of time? For example, our race is to see if we can learn about sustainability in 6 months in a way that provides definite results? Not sure what that would be, but it's open for discussion. I bring this up, the idea that the event might not be called "The Race to the Green", just because I would hate for us to register www.race2green.org or www.r2g.org and then change the name of the event a few months from now.
4. If we do settle on a name and decide to start up a website, who all will be admins on it? How do we screen these people? How open source do we want it to be? Where will money for hosting come from? I have a very simplistic site, www.organicreform.org, and all of the content on it is embedded from other, free networks such as Flickr, Youtube, Blogger, Google Maps, etc. As I update those other social networking profiles, my personal website updates as well. It is not as dynamic and as RSS-friendly as I would like it to be, but I'm working on that. In the meantime, you can get a feel for what I mean about how modular it is.
5. If we started our own website, how would we use it to interact with the mainstream media? If the purpose is to raise awareness among non-CSers as well as CSers, our website could be an invaluable tool for doing so. Kind of like a conduit, in much the same way that the JUNK peeps did on their website...
http://junkraft.blogspot.com
...or the Couch Crash Festival a few weeks ago...
http://www.couchcrashfestival.com
Anyway, thanks to Jamie Terran for starting the spark that got this thread going. His question was this...
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website ?
has any one given any thought to what kind of technology we should make the website from ? or what it should contain ?
on the tech i'd have to go with modx (www.modxcms.com) its a great little cms thats very customization with lots of plug ins
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Here's a link to Jamie's profile...
http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/musan
I would say that it is definitely a good idea to have a website. Even if there is not much content at first, it is a place where people can always find you on the web, and it legitimizes the trip.
I wouldn't buy a domain until the final name is decided, but it couldn't hurt to begin designing the site now.
Most hosting providers these days offer support for modular site design projects like wordpress ( http://wordpress.org/)
These make it easy make complex pages without having crazy programming knowledge.
Although as Derek suggested, making a simple xhtml/css site with content embedded from youtube/vimeo/flickr/google is a very viable option.
I am not a professional web designer, but I have made a few sites with simple javascript and html/css. I would like to help build/maintain the site, is anyone else in the group interested in helping?
Topher
ps. I just had a thought, maybe you could ask the couchsurfing.com hosts for a small (very small) subdomain to use as the Race to the Green website (ie: racetogreen.couchsurfing.com). This way we generate traffic and interest in couchsurfing at the same time as promoting ourselves. This won't take too much bandwidth because all the real content can be hosted elsewhere and embedded into the pages.
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As always, great contributions, Topher! I just put up a poll on the subject, so we'll see what everyone thinks and take it from there...
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Voting ends on Sunday, y'all!
So far, only 9 people have put in their 2 cents - that leaves 200 of you who still need to have their voices heard!
ok dw here are my answers:
1) yes a website if for no other reason than to have a simple url to put on business cards and publicity literature.
2) yes all those other streams are good and crucial. all should point to the website and the website should point to them.
3) R2G is good. Why change it? Doing so will confuse 209 people and to what end? Its catchy. memorable. Just in case, we could also register
www.see-if-we-can-learn-about-sustainability-in-6-months-in-a-way-that-provides-definite-results .net
4) RSS is cool. Embed all the content ofc. Also put one of those little toolbars in so anyone with any of the top 10 social bookmarking engines like digg, del.icio.us, stumbleupon, etc can generate traffic. As far as technology goes, wouldn't it need to be "coded" in "html" or something? ;)
5)I think its important that anyone interested can access myriad sources of data on the subject from one central location with a simple url. slap it on everything that we publish from press releases to those slightly-out-of-style rubber cause-supporting wrist-bands.
Alright, so the poll has ended and of the 12 people who voted, all of them said "yes!" to starting up an official R2G website.
Now the question is...which URL should we use, how should we secure the web domain, who is going to be on the admin team and how do we choose those people?
Wait...that's four questions. But you get my drift. ;)
Thoughts? Suggestions?
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I own a web design firm and I can host the site on my server. I have plenty of room and as of right now lots of bandwidth. Of course when this becomes an internationally known event we might need a bit more bandwidth. :)
How about in the meantime you give me a call, Sam! We have much to discuss and time is running out! Or private message me a number to call you at and the best day/time to reach you!
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hehe missed the vote, o well would of been yes any way,
what domain... i think racetoogreen or theracetoogreen ?
if you want a freedomain check out za.net there free for life all you got to do is sort out hosting,
on the hosting, could talk to a mate in scottland runs some great servers and might just be up for something like this.
I think R2G.org would be a good way to go. Short, memorable, fun to say out loud. Might not hurt to get the .net and .com URLs as well and have them redirect to the .org.
We could always get racetothegreen.org and race2thegreen.org later.
Wow...this is starting to look like a real event. ;)
r2g.org.... don't want to sound Zionist when i say this but it sounds very yanky, they are all into abriations and hip terms for me i'd go with raceforgreen as there are muitable ways to spell and say 'too', but thats from tracking reading "seo for dummies" and we should also go for the .com first, its said that people will automatically remember this even if you say something else, also in the dummies book.
we should look into hosting in some ones house or office for the time being, i do work for a web development company and could ask here if there intested, though if/when i quit the job to race to green it might be a bit odd....
if any one has a good internet connection and a computer that could run linux we can get something started and sort out hosting later.
Hey guys,
has anyone thought about hosting this site on a "green" server? I know it would cost a bit more money, but I think it would make a lot of sense.
You could probably write to a bunch of green hosting providers to see if they would be interested in sponsoring this event.
Just google http://www.google.com/search?q=web+hosting+green
and write to the first 10 companies that show up or soemthing.
My 2 cents :)
Walter
Good Idea with the green hosts.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/plethora_of_opt.php
http://www.gogreenhosting.com/
http://www.thinkhost.com/
http://www.aiso.net/
http://www.sustainablewebsites.com/
Are just some of the few sites I found right away.
I haven't really had time to explore them all yet, but I'll poke around and see who's got the deal.
This is assuming that we can pay for there services...which I'm not sure is the case.
Maybe we could ask to use the couchsurfing.com servers? At least to get things started...if we start taking up bandwidth then we can move.
of course it should be a green server, perhaps we could get one of these to gift the hosting to us ?
derek if your looking into it we will probaly need
* a linux server
* php5
* mysql5
Hey I originally sent this to Derek but he asked me to post it here.
>Heyo,
>
>I did some poking around and Thinkhost.com seems to
>have a really good deal going.
>also, they have a program where non-profit
>organizations can apply for a free hosting program.
>
>Even if you don't set up a non-profit, you should
>contact them and see if they can help us out.
>
> http://www.thinkhost.com/socialchange/free-hosting.shtml?file=options/free-hosting.shtml&id=1
>
>If we don't fit the bill for free hosting, they only
>ask $7.95 per month for a plan that would be more than
>enough to suit the R2G needs.
>
>The only other thing left is what domain to register.
>
>Topher
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Just posted a poll!
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