Nosce te ipsum

I had an interesting Podcast waiting for me this morning thanks to Doug Kaye over at IT Conversations. In this new installment of Behind the Mic, Doug interviews Marc Canter and JD Lasica, founders of the fresh Alpha release of Ourmedia.org

This is a hugely ambitious project that I for one am extremely interesting in watching evolve. As the whole movement of consumers straying from Mainstream Media to seek out their own forms of news and entertainment, OurMedia.org is positioning itself to be the repository of various types of media, a place where anyone can publish content for anyone else to use. The interview tells the story much more eloquently but these guys seem to have their head and heart in the right places and I'm wishing them all the best. From the OurMedia.org FAQ:

What's the big idea here?

The idea is pretty simple: People who create video, music, photos, audio clips and other personal media can store their stuff for free on Ourmedia's servers forever, as long as they're willing to share their works with a global audience.

Ourmedia's goal is to expose, advance and preserve digital creativity at the grassroots level. The site serves as a central gathering spot where professionals and amateurs come together to share works, offer tips and tutorials, and interact in a combination community space and virtual library that will preserve these works for future generations. We want to enable people anywhere in the world to tap into this rich repository of media and create image albums, movie and music jukeboxes and more.

Who is behind Ourmedia?

Members of the creative community, technologists, educators, librarians and others interested in spreading digital culture are behind Ourmedia. Leading the effort are J.D. Lasica, a writer, editor with the Online Journalism Review, and evangelist for participatory media, and Marc Canter, a well-known technologist and open standards advocate who co-founded the company that became software giant Macromedia. This is purely an open-source, all-volunteer effort.

Almost any kind of digital media. Ourmedia will consist of video (blog video, music videos, television-style reports, documentaries, underground films, grassroots political ads, animation, machinima), audio (interviews with authors, oral family histories, readings of properly licensed book chapters), original music, photographs, ebooks, games, software and more. You decide what goes up on the site.

IT Conversations Interview | OurMedia.Org