Since my last update, we’ve launched a developer version of Drumbeat.org and held two community events. Also, two of our bootstrap projects have moved beyond planning into roll out — P2PU Open Web is running it’s first course and Web Made Movies has started shooting. As these things unfold, we need more contributors and supporters with a variety of skills — see help wanted list below. Here is the full March update.

Highlights

• First P2Pu open web skills course launched by John Britton. 28 people are taking the course.
• Initial shooting started for Web Made Movies at SXSW and in Brasil. Short clips and call for more footage coming in April.
• www.drumbeat.org developer version launched, people are creating project pages and submitting site improvements.
• Overall Drumbeat project roadmap and website development roadmap recently posted for people who want to see where the project is headed.
• First ‘local drumbeat’ events happened in Rio and Sao Paulo in late March. Toronto (April) and Berlin (May) planning going well.

Where we need help

• John Britton from P2PU needs expert advisers for its Open Web Skills curriculum design process. Arun and Blizzard have already agreed to help, but we need a bigger posse.
• Max Weinstein from StopBadware.org is looking for high profile stories of badware experiences and also for web design help.
• Nicholas Reville and Dean Jansen are looking for volunteers to test their beta prototype for Universal Subtitles. And also suggestions for organizations with video content for translation.
• Ben Moskowitz is looking for contributors to test and refine their workflow for Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia. And to help identify the most “video deficient” parts of Wikipedia.
• There are still major gaps and zones of crappiness in the drumbeat.org copy. We need volunteer writers, copy editors and illustrators who can help with this.
• Comment below if you can help with any of this, or contact the project leads directly by saying how you want to help via their Drumbeat page.

Project notes

• The biggest progress we’re seeing is with the bootstrap projects that we’ve picked to show what we mean by Drumbeat. Makes sense: this is where we’re putting most of our energy for the next couple of months. Notably:
  • P2PU Open Web Career Track -> First course is up and running. Also, work on a competency map (what skills will people learn?) and a peer accreditation framework (how will we know who has learned what?) has started.
  • WebMadeMovie -> Early shooting has started, mostly focused creating a short promo asking people to submit their own videos online. Also, interviews with: Local Motors, Casa da Cultura Digital and Iranian twitter activists. Early work started on ‘future of online video players’ design challenge.
  • Universal Subtitles -> About to start a major fundraising campaign and call for participation with Drumbeat. There is a video demo of the concept up on the Drumbeat site.
  • StopBadware.org -> Moving closer to the public launch of it’s badware stories project. As above, looking for high profile people with badware stories to tell at launch time.
• There are also a number of newer projects gathering steam, including Richard Milewski‘s project for high schools and the Open Video Alliance’s Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia project.

Event notes

• Our first local events happened in Rio and Sao Paulo in late March. They were good early examples of what we’re looking for with these events:
  • Approximately 40 people showed up for each event.
  • In addition to web and free culture geeks, we also had teachers, artists, filmmakers and others who were new to the ‘open web’ idea. That’s a critical to what we’re aiming for.
  • Discussion was a mix of general discussion about Drumbeat and the open web plus presentations and feedback on specific Drumbeat projects.
• The Brasil events produced some good media coverage, including a piece on MTV Brasil and an article in the tech section Estadao Sao Paulo (jpeg).
• The next events are happening in Toronto (April) and Berlin (May). We will be doing a local event organizer training with each of these events. If you want help organizing a Drumbeat event in Europe or North America, we may be able to bring you to this training. Contact me.

Web site notes

• Developer preview of the Drumbeat website was launched at the end of February.
  • As outlined last month, the aim here is to get people hacking on the site — both adding content and making actual site improvements.
• There is a website development roadmap that outlines the steps along the way to a full beta, which we expect in May. We’ll make alot of noise about the site at that point.
• There is now documentation up on how to do a local install of the site and submit patches.
• People who want to help should joint #drumbeat-dev on irc.mozilla.org.

The aim with these monthly update posts is to provide a high level overview for people who aren’t deeply involved in Drumbeat. For more detail or to get involved, jump into the Drumbeat wiki and newsgroup.

PS. A question: is this the right level of detail for these posts? Seems like alot, but many people also asking for this info.