ChangeEverything.ca gets a Webby nomination... and some big-league peers | Social Signal

ChangeEverything.ca, the online community we conceived and built for Vancity, has been nominated for a Webby Award.

That in itself would be pretty damn remarkable - but look at the competition in its category, social networking:

• Bebo
• Facebook
• Flock
• Ning

That's three major commercial social networks, and one highly-regarded up-and-coming application. Heady company!

As David and Goliath matchups go, Change Everything versus Facebook at first looks like a foregone conclusion. Facebook, after all, claims more than 70 million active users, and is ranked the second most-visited social web site in the world. Change Everything's registered users number in the low thousands, largely drawn from the Vancouver area - and even if every single person in Vancouver joined, the site would still be dwarfed by the blue-and-white juggernaut.

But look again at the kind of participation going on at Change Everything. This is a genuine community: people working together toward shared real-world goals. Facebook has sheer numbers on its side, but the depth of participation on each site is dramatically different.

Which is why last year around this time, when Change Everything was tapped as a Webby Official Honoree (not as cool as being a nominee, but certainly better than being a Webby Object of Scorn and Ridicule), Rob wrote that, proud as we were of the site,

more credit goes to Vancity, their online visionary William Azaroff, and most importantly the site's moderator Kate Dugas.

And more than to any of us, the real credit ought to go to everyone who's participating in ChangeEverything.ca, from the folks who just leave an occasional comment or vote in one of Kate's polls to the regulars whose contributions make the site such a vibrant, inspiring community.

We are really proud to have worked on ChangeEverything with Vancity and with some of our favourite collaborators in the Drupal world: 2bits, floatleft, Bryght/Raincity Studios and AffinityBridge. And we hope that a Webby would not only draw attention to the work this great team has done over the past two years -- most notably, the work of Vancity's kick-ass moderator, Kate Dugas -- but also to the broader community of scrappy start-up networks that are using the web creatively to promote social change.

Change Everything's success is partly due to the irresistibility of the underlying concept (inspired explicitly by the great 43 Things). But it also points to a hunger out there for social networking with substance - online community that goes beyond racking up "friends" or sending "'sup?" messages.

The judges will choose one of the winners in the category; your votes will select another. We hope you'll consider supporting Change Everything. And congratulations and best of luck to all of the nominees.

- - -

Updated: Guess who else is voting for Change Everything?

• Kate Trgovac, My Name is Kate
• Rebecca Bollwitt, Miss604
  
• Darren Barefoot
• Travis Smith, Hop Studios (very best of luck with 2007 winner Truthdig, nominated again in the Politics category - we're rooting for you!)
• Raincity Studios
• Monique Trottier, Boxcar Marketing
• Hillel Cooperman, Jackson Fish Market
• Bill Tieleman
• Sean Moffitt, Buzz Canuck

And thanks for the links to:

• Beyond Robson
• Techvibes
• Our friends at PLAN Institute