Author Archive
What is Web 3.0? Semantic Web & other Web 3.0 Concepts Explained in Plain English

This is what I have been writing about lately… web 3.0, the semantic web.
The Evolution of Web 3.0

Great presentation on the evolution of the web and what it means for us.
Virtual volunteering – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup
to comply with Wikipedia’s content policies, particularly neutral point of view
. Please discuss further on the talk page
. (March 2010)
Virtual volunteering is a term describing a volunteer
who completes tasks, in whole or in part, offsite from the organization being assisted, using the Internet and a home, school, telecenter
or work computer or other Internet-connected device. Virtual volunteering is also known as online volunteering, cyber service, telementoring
, and teletutoring
, and various other names. Virtual volunteering is similar to telecommuting
, except that, instead of online employees who are paid, these are online volunteers who are not paid, and they are working to benefit a nonprofit
organization, school, government program or other not-for-profit entity, as opposed to a for-profit business.
Contents
[hide
]
[edit
] In practice
People engaged in virtual volunteering undertake a variety of activities from locations remote to the organization or people they are assisting, via a computer or other Internet-connected device, such as:
- translating documents
- researching subjects
- creating web pages
- editing or writing proposals, press releases, newsletter articles, etc.
- developing material for a curriculum
- designing a database
- designing graphics
- providing legal, business, medical, agricultural or any other expertise
- counseling people
- tutoring
or mentoring
students
- moderating online discussion
groups
- writing songs
- creating a podcast
- editing a video
- monitoring the news
- answering questions
- tagging
photos and files
- managing other online volunteers[1][2][3]
[edit
] Early history of the practice
The practice of virtual volunteering to benefit nonprofit initiatives dates back to at least the early 1970s, when Project Gutenberg
began involving online volunteers to provide electronic versions of works in the public domain.[4]
In 1995, a new nonprofit organization
called Impact Online
(now called VolunteerMatch
), based in Palo Alto, California, began promoting the idea of “virtual volunteers”.[5] In 1996, Impact Online received a grant from the James Irvine Foundation
to launch an initiative to research the practice of virtual volunteering and to promote the practice to nonprofit organizations in the USA. This new initiative was dubbed the Virtual Volunteering Project
, and the web site was launched in early 1997.[6] After one year of operations, the Virtual Volunteering Project moved to the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin
. In 2002, the Virtual Volunteering Project moved within the university to the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
.
The first two years of the Virtual Volunteer Project were spent reviewing and adapting telecommuting
manuals[7] and existing volunteer management guidelines with regarding to virtual volunteering, as well as identifying organizations that were involving online volunteers. By April 1999, almost 100 organizations had been identified by the Virtual Volunteering Project as involving online volunteers and were listed on the web site.[8]
Due to the growing numbers of nonprofit organizations, schools, government programs and other not-for-profit entities involving online volunteers, the Virtual Volunteering Project stopped listing every such organization involving online volunteers on its web site in 2000, and focused its efforts on promoting the practice, profiling organizations with large or unique online volunteering programs, and creating guidelines for the involvement of online volunteers.
Until January 2001, the Virtual Volunteering Project listed all telementoring and teletutoring programs in the USA (programs where online volunteers mentor or tutor others, through a nonprofit organization or school). At that time, 40 were identified.[9]
[edit
] Current state of the practice
Virtual volunteering has been adopted by at least a few thousand nonprofit thousand organizations and initiatives.[10] There is no organization currently tracking best practices in online volunteering in the USA or worldwide, how many people are engaged in online volunteering, or how many organizations are involving online volunteers, and studies regarding volunteering, such as reports on volunteering trends in the USA, rarely include information about online volunteering (for instance, a search of the term virtual volunteering on the Corporation for National Service
‘s “Volunteering in America” yields no results.[11])
The United Nations
runs an online volunteering service, formerly a part of NetAid
, that allows organizations working in or for the developing world to recruit online volunteers, and does have statistics available regarding numbers of online volunteers and organizations involving such through its service. Several other matching services, such as VolunteerMatch
and Idealist
, also offer virtual volunteering positions with nonprofit organizations in addition to traditional, onsite volunteering opportunities. VolunteerMatch
currently reports that around 5 percent of its active volunteer listings are virtual in nature. As of June 2010, its directory included
more than 2,770 such listings including roles in interactive marketing, fundraising, accounting, social media, and business mentoring. The percentage of virtual listings has dropped since 2006, when it peaked at close to 8 percent of overall volunteer opportunities in the VolunteerMatch system.
Wikipedia
and other Wikimedia
endeavors are examples of online volunteering, in the form of crowdsourcing
; the majority of Wikipedia contributing volunteers aren’t required to undergo any screening or training by the nonprofit for their role as researchers, writers or editors, and do not have to make a specific time commitment to the organization in order to contribute service.
Micro-volunteering is also an example of virtual volunteering and crowd-sourcing, where volunteers undertake assignments via their PDAs
or smartphones
. These volunteers aren’t required to undergo any screening or training by the nonprofit for such tasks, and do not have to make any other commitment once a micro-task is completed.[12] Micro-volunteering was invented by a San Francisco-based social enterprise called The Extraordinaries in 2008.[13][14][15]
[edit
] See also
[edit
] References
- ^
“What are examples of virtual volunteering?”
. AIDSvolunteers.ca. http://www.aidsvolunteers.ca/vvfacts/general.html#examples
. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
- ^
“examples of virtual volunteering”
. University of Texas at Austin. http://www.serviceleader.org/old/vv/examples.html
. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
- ^
“Make a Difference From Home: Be a Virtual Volunteer”
. theextraordinaries.org. http://www.theextraordinaries.org/2008/11/make-a-difference-from-home-be-a-virtual-volunteer.html
. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
- ^
Cravens, Jayne (Spring 2007). “Online Volunteering Enters Middle Age – And Changes Management Paradigms”. Nonprofit Quarterly (Nonprofit Quarterly).
- ^
Green, Marc (Fall, 1995). “Fundraising in Cyberspace: Direct E-Mail Campaigns, Virtual Volunteers, Annual Fund Drives Online. Does the Information Superhighway lead to new horizons or a dead end?”. The Grantsmanship Center Magazine (The Grantsmanship Center).
- ^
Cravens, Jayne (February 2001). “who funds the virtual volunteering project?
“. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin).
- ^
Cravens, Jayne (April 2001). “related resources
“. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin).
- ^
Cravens, Jayne (February 2001). “Virtual Volunteering Project
“. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin).
- ^
Cravens, Jayne (February 2001). “[http://www.serviceleader.org/old/vv/orgs/mentor.html
agencies and initiatives that involve online volunteers as mentors or tutors]“. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin).
- ^
Cravens, Jayne (Spring 2007). “Online Volunteering Enters Middle Age – And Changes Management Paradigms”. Nonprofit Quarterly (Nonprofit Quarterly).
- ^
volunteeringinamerica.gov. Retrieved 09/24/2009.
- ^
http://nonprofit.about.com/od/volunteers/a/microvol.htm
- ^
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106118736
- ^
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Responsible-Tech/2009/0804/smart-phone-app-lets-you-do-good-deeds-in-your-spare-time
- ^
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=7162300
[edit
] External links
- The Virtual Volunteering Project
- The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook
- Virtual Volunteer opportunities at VolunteerMatch.org
Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_volunteering“

This is a great idea for non-profits. I wonder how one finds volunteers? This is something that I want to discover.
Bruce Whealton
http://brucewhealton.us
Bookmarks for August 23rd through August 24th
These are my links for August 23rd through August 24th:
- Pixelpipe – Your uploads
– - 20080428gr7goal4.pdf (application/pdf Object)
– - About Bruce Whealton
– Bruce Whealton – Web Developer, Writer, Poet, Publisher<br />
<br />
<br />
Bruce Whealton is an American poet, publisher, editor and web designer/developer. Bruce Whealton is co-editor with Jean Arthur Jones for t … - Lexxe Search Engine
– - Top Blogs Technology – Blog ranking – Wikio
–
About Bruce Whealton
Bruce Whealton – Web Developer, Writer, Poet, Publisher
![]()
Bruce Whealton is an American poet, publisher, editor and web designer/developer. Bruce Whealton is co-editor with Jean Arthur Jones
for the online magazine Word Salad Poetry Magazine
. Bruce Whealton lives in North Carolina. He has seen many of his poems published in various books, journals/magazines and on the web. Bruce Whealton is also here on Wikipedia and onWordopedia: Bruce Whealton
Education
‘Bruce Whealton attended the Georgia Institute of Technology and received his Bachelors Degree in Electrical/computer Engineering in 1989. Bruce went on to receive his Masters in Social Work from the University of South Carolina in 1996.
Career and Professional Information
Bruce has combined his interest in technical matters with his creativity as expressed in efforts such as this poetry magazine, his own poetry, and as a Web Developer/Designer. Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs
, a successful web development, web design and consulting company in Carrboro, North Carolina, near Chapel Hill, NC in the Triangle Area of North Carolina – the Research Triangle area.
Poetry
Bruce Whealton”’ began to think of himself as a poet beginning back in 1992, when he shared his poetry at a poetry reading for the first time. This was at the Coastline Convention Center overlooking the Cape Fear River, in Wilmington, NC. He began Word Salad as an online poetry magazine in 1995.
You can read blogs by Bruce Whealton: http://brucewhealton.us
and On Being a Poet and Other Existential Ideas: Bruce Whealton
Publications and Recognition
- Bruce Whealton can be found featured on the Port City Poets section of the Star News Online, as seen here.
- Bruce Whealton has been publishing Word Salad Poetry Magazine
since 1995, with the magazine being in its sixteenth year in 2010. - Bruce Whealton was featured in “‘The Simple Vows Anthology” with his poem Genealogy.
- More links to where Bruce Whealton has been published are available here on Word Salad’s website.
- Four Poems by Bruce Whealton appeared in “And Now the Nightmare Begins: The Horror Zine,” Rivers of Blood, I Dreamed I was A Ghost, and The Name.\
- Four Poems by Bruce Whealton appeared in “Twice the Terror: The Horror Zine,” Sensuous and Strong as the Serpent, Shelter, Becoming, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Bookmarks for August 22nd through August 23rd
These are my links for August 22nd through August 23rd:
- video Bruce Whealton, Word Salad Poetry Magazine, Poetry Event – bruce whealton, word salad poetry magazine, poetry magazine – videos Tom’s Hardware
– via video.tomshardware.co.uk Interesting place to find a video that was for Word Salad's aniversary event. I am the publisher and co-editor of Word Salad Poetry Magazine and I do the W … - Powerset
– Unlock Meaning<br />
Powerset finds articles related to the meaning of your query. And sometimes even direct answers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
… - Resource Description Framework (RDF)
– RDF is a W3C standard for modeling and sharing distributed knowledge based on a decentralized open-world assumption. Any knowledge about anything can be decomposed into triples (3-tuple … - Resource Description Framework (RDF) | drupal.org
– - Accountability Services
–
video Bruce Whealton, Word Salad Poetry Magazine, Poetry Event – bruce whealton, word salad poetry magazine, poetry magazine – videos Tom’s Hardware
Interesting place to find a video that was for Word Salad’s aniversary event. I am the publisher and co-editor of Word Salad Poetry Magazine and I do the Word Salad Online: http://WordSaladPoetryMagazine.com
http://facebook.com/WordSaladPoetry
Powerset
Unlock Meaning
Powerset finds articles related to the meaning of your query. And sometimes even direct answers.
![]()

A more intelligent way to search. This tool uses natural language processing to allow you to more accurately and flexibly search wikipedia. It seems that they took wikipedia as an example website application they could use to test their ideas. It is fun to use and very handy.
Resource Description Framework (RDF)
RDF
is a W3C standard
for modeling and sharing distributed knowledge based on a decentralized open-world assumption. Any knowledge about anything can be decomposed into triples (3-tuples) consisting of subject, predicate, and object; essentially, RDF is the lowest common denominator for exchanging data between systems.
This module provides comprehensive RDF functionality and interoperability for the Drupal 6.x platform. For more information, read the introductory posting
or watch the demo video
. Be sure to subscribe to the Semantic Web
group on groups.drupal.org to keep up with the latest happenings.
The module requires PHP 5.2
or newer, makes use of the ARC2
library if available, and will integrate with the Views
, FeedAPI
, Feed Element Mapper
, Location
, and Services
modules if they are installed. For adding SPARQL
query support, see the related SPARQL
project.
Projects that rely on this module as a dependency include Calais
, File Framework
, FeedAPI RDF
and the Relations
and DAV
APIs and their spin-offs such as File Relations Server
.
This project is being developed by Arto Bendiken
, Miglius Alaburda
, Ben Lavender
, Jeff Miccolis
, Frank Febbraro
and Stéphane Corlosquet
. Development has been in part sponsored by OpenBand
and MakaluMedia
.
Downloads
Recommended releases
Version Downloads Date Links 6.x-1.0-alpha7 ![]()
Download (63.71 KB) 2009-Mar-25 Notes ![]()
Development releases
Version Downloads Date Links 6.x-1.x-dev ![]()
Download (66.22 KB) 2010-Jul-11 Notes ![]()

This is the future of the web. Companies, organizations and individuals who take advantage of these technologies will be more competitive and be able to take advantage of the benefits. RDF is part of the semantic web. Semantics is about meaning. I’ve been writing about how most content on the web is not setup in a way that has meaning that can be understood by web agents, by machines, computer, the software that makes up the web. So, web services, in most cases, until they implement these changes, have no idea what the meaning is contained in the content, the data on the web.
As I mentioned in another post, we can take google and how it does a search. We might ask a question of google but it is just looking for the keywords in the question mean. With the semantic web which is being slowly implemented by Google and moreso by Yahoo, the search engine will understand the phrases we use – the language we use, the meaning in our questions. So, if you have a search that includes the word apple, it will look at the context and know whether you are talking about a fruit or the software company. This usually isn’t a problem because other words (keywords) in our search usually help to increase the likelihood that we will find something related to what we are searching. We won’t get a site that has information about the fruit if we search for apple software. Those two words help target the results.
This did become a problem problem recently for me when I was looking for a place called Digsby. I got page after page about the social chat application (it does more than chat/IM). I tried to tell my search engine, not to give me results that have anything to do with software, or computers… it did not work. The semantic web would help with this.
Bookmarks for August 20th through August 22nd
These are my links for August 20th through August 22nd:
- Accountability Services
– - can personal brain read OWL, RDF files?
– - Need Legal Help from an Online Lawyer ASAP? Ask Attorneys for advice with the INS, visas, citizenship, naturalization, nationality, international law, passports, green cards & more! – Just Answer!
– - sample2003scsalg1goal1.pdf (application/pdf Object)
– - lesson5_2.pdf (application/pdf Object)
–