We Media game changers announced

This from Beth, Wemedia.

Thank you for participating in the first We Media Game Changers Awards and for being a finalist. We had an impressive group of organizations and people and projects and I have enjoyed learning more about your projects via essay and other communications.

First, we will be formally announcing the winners today but I wanted to give you all a preview of the list as well as the press release. Secondly, I want to renew the invitation to you all to come to We Media Miami Feb. 24-26, 2009 with complimentary registration. You can use the promotion code WM-FIN to register. If you have questions or want to discuss further just let me know. For details and to register visit http://wemedia.com/miami/.

Press Release: 2009 WE MEDIA GAME CHANGERS AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Recipients include digital storytellers, social networking activists, mobile media pioneers and a foundation focused on journalism.

RESTON, VA - Online media star ZeFrank, mobile texting service Twitter, David Plouffe, the Obama campaign mastermind, Japanese digital designer Yugo Nakamura and Kenyan mobile alert service Ushahidi are among nine winners of the We Media Game Changers Awards to be presented at the We Media Miami conference in February.

The other award winners are: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Innocentive's crowdsourcing for the science crowd, Humana's Freewheelin' and social network Socialvibe.

You can learn more about the winners and their achievements at: www.wemedia.com/awards.

The winners will be celebrated and featured speakers at the We Media Miami conference, Feb. 24-26, 2009, where their stories will become the content of the conference. Register for the conference at: www.wemedia.com/miami

The awards recognize people, projects, ideas and organizations leading change and inspiring a better world through media. Specific recognitions include:

Plays

Key trend: the end of apathy

Twitter is recognized for changing the real-time communication game.

Innocentive for taking Web 2.0 to the marketplace.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for changing its own approach and everyone else's by shifting it's money to media innovation and the information needs of communities.

Ushahidi for redefining the ability of people to quickly communicate vital information for action.

Freewheelin for demonstrating that the Internet is not just something on your screen and challenging the fundamental assumption that health insurance is only for after-the-fact care by steping into preventative and holistic health.

Players

Key trend: society's new storytellers

ZeFrank, essential contemporary culture, proves that a new type and scale of engagement and entertainment is possible.

Yugo Nakamura, designer of Design and the Elastic Mind, for exploring non-traditional forms of storytelling through interactive systems in digital and networked environments.

David Plouffe, for the mobilization of millions with a methodical media campaign that utilized the Internet, cell phones and personal communication devices as never before.

Community Award

Key trend: social networking gets serious

SocialVibe for unleashing the power of distributed advertising on personal media.

An international panel of pioneers from media, technology, business, social activism and blogging judged nominees for the awards, and the We Media Community award, for Socialvibe, was selected by the public through online voting.

The awards highlight achievements through exceptional story-telling, novel business models, significant social impact, innovative design and powerful visions of media for the connected culture.

The awards are organized and administered by iFOCOS, the media think tank and futures lab that organizes the We Media conferences and global membership community.

The We Media conference also features a media venture startup gallery and an early stage media venture startup competition with up to $50,000 in seed capital awarded to winners.

Register for the conference at: www.wemedia.com/miami

About We Media

The We Media conferences, community and awards are organized by iFOCOS, a media think tank and futures lab founded in 2006 by media visionairies Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin. They help anyone create, operate and sustain ventures in a media-centric culture powered by everyone. We Media programs function as a marketplace of ideas and actions for business and social innovators. They connect individuals and organizations from across industries who believe the power of media, communication and human ingenuity should be applied to innovate in business and to make the world better through media. More about We Media at: www.wemedia.com.

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In addition to the winners listed above we have a group of Honorable Mentions that will also be part of the We Media program.

Honorable mention:

(Key trend: Advancing journalism in the digital age)

Witness’ The Hub for creating a platform for global rights media and action. A You Tube for people who care about the world.

Akron Beacon Journal for showing there is still an important role to be played by the so-called mainstream media at the community level. Its American Dream project applies the best of civic journalism in familiar, low-tech formats for print, the Web, and video.

Off the Bus for enhancing the coverage of the presidential election through a national network of citizen journalists.

David Dunkley Gimayah for elevating narrative, multi-media journalism through tireless experiments that push multi-media on a wide range of topics to a higher standard on a wide range of topics.

MediaStorm for creating a new, digital platform for high quality journalism: a multi-media production studio for storytelling wrapped by great design, photography and aesthetics.

Born in September for demonstrating the Power of One, using personal media to make a global difference.

NPR for creating technology that opens content to public use, putting it in the hands of citizens to do with it as they see fit.

Footnote’s The Wall for bringing personal stories to physical spaces, in this case tributes to each of the 58,000 names on the Vietnams Veterans Memorial.

Pulitzer Center for showing media practitioners how to evolve their work across multiple platforms and multiple formats to engage with wide audiences.

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thank you,

Beth