Social Actions Announces Three Change the Web Challenge Winners

San Francisco, CA, April 28, 2009 — Three developers, whose web applications and widgets will make it easier for web surfers to find and share ways to make a difference, were named the winners of the Change the Web Challenge today. Social Actions (www.socialactions.com), a web-based nonprofit initiative committed to making it easier for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference, produced the Challenge. The winning applications were announced at NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, CA.

Thirty-five developers submitted web applications to the Challenge that use Social Actions' API, a dataset of ways for people to take civic actions (i.e. volunteer, sign a petition, donate) pulled from over 50 websites such as VolunteerMatch, Idealist.org, and DonorsChoose.org. In addition to using the Social Actions API, all of the applications were required to be fully functional and have an open-source license.

After a public online vote winnowed the list to 24 finalists, a team of eight judges selected the three winning web applications based on innovation, usability, and potential for impact.

First place winner, Social Actions Interactive Map, submitted by John Brennan, facilitates users finding and viewing actions by location on an interactive map.

"This application has the potential to be a bridge between online and offline actions - the holy grail of organizers, said Beth Kanter, Change the Web Judge and Scholar in Residence for Nonprofits and Social Media at the Packard Foundation. "Linking actions with geographic information visually shown on a map could be a powerful stimulus to facilitate self-organizing groups of individuals who care about an issue and want to do something about it in a particular location."

Second place winner Zemanta's Related Social Actions for Bloggers, submitted by Jure Cuhalev of Zemanta, notifies bloggers of contextually relevant actions to promote with their blog posts.