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The intersection of the web and the World Bank.

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Inside the Web is a blog exploring the intersection of the web, international development, and the World Bank, written by Bank staff that work on online strategy, editorial, content, governance, and technology.

April 2009

On video players and video services.

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 08:52

If you've taken a look at our Meetings blog, you may have noticed a series of videos called "VOICES" that we've been posting all week. The videos feature quick interviews with some of the people attending the 2009 Spring Meetings (from inside and outside the Bank) shot by simple handheld Flip Video cameras.

Filming and producing the series was a lot of fun, but also got me thinking about video players and the decisions we make about where to upload and share our videos.

Most of you may know about the World Bank Youtube channel. Our videos posted on the Youtube channel get quite a lot of views, and the videos we upload are of high quality and well-produced.

We decided to post our VOICES series on our Vimeo account partly because they were off-the-cuff videos with lower production values and wouldn't necessarily fit with the editorial direction of the Youtube channel.

Here's an example of one of the videos we posted to the channel:

 
A few of the people here at the Bank that were posting videos on Vimeo for the first were quick to remark about its ease of use and beautiful interface. Vimeo also allows much more flexibility when it comes to embedding videos and using HD video. Youtube, on the other hand, offers a much larger community and is still the number one place people visit when they are looking for video online.

I think there's value in having both accounts, and using them for different purposes. But that's just my personal opinion.

Have you tried several types of online video services? With so many of them out there, how do you decide which ones are best suited for your target audience?

Blogging the Bank-Fund Spring Meetings

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 10:58

April 26, 2009 - Washington DC. World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings 2009. Development Committee Press Briefing. (l-r) Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank Group President; Augustin Carstens, Development Committee Chair, Finance Minister, Mexico; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

The World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings took place this past weekend, and this year, we decided to blog about the meetings and all the events that took place around them. (In English and in Spanish!)

For a pilot, I think the World Bank Meetings Center did quite well. The preliminary traffic numbers are looking pretty good, and I've received some pretty good feedback from people that visited the site.

That said, there were very few comments on the posts -- perhaps not surprising considering the type of content and the timelines in which we launched the pilot. Going forward in the future, we're going to make an effort to make the tone more conversational but still keep the focus on providing quality information to people that don't want to wade through a series of press releases.

A good lesson learned for the upcoming Annual Meetings this fall.

A Bank of Photos

Portrait of a Colombian man. Photo: Scott Wallace / World Bank CollectionBlogging about the events did give us a chance to highlight some of the amazing photography in the World Bank Flickr stream. Unbeknowst to some people, the Bank's photostream has some high quality photos from around the world, all available for use under a Creative Commons license.

You can check out the photos from the Spring Meetings at the Spring Meetings 2009 photo set, or just visit the photostream to see the rich collection of photography that's available to use.

And a few quick questions before I sign off: does licensing these photos under a Creative Commons license make sense to you? Are these the kinds of photos you can see yourself using in various places around the web? How can we make our photo collection more robust and useful? Let us know.

Youthink! officially launches blog

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 18:46

Youthink!The blog has been up and going for a few weeks now, but it was only this week that the Youthink! blog officially went live. It's definitely worth checking out.

A quick primer for those of you that haven't heard much about Youthink! over the past few years: Youthink! is the World Bank’s website for youth. The site aims to inform youth on development issues, and inspire them to get involved. A 2006 Webby Award winner, the site has continued to evolve and now contains a section for educators and most of the content is now available in French, Spanish, and Chinese.

The blog is the next step in the evolution of the Youthink! site. Bringing together seven young bloggers from across the world, the blog features posts about topics as wide-reaching but impactful as climate change to the financial crisis.

The first batch of Youthink! bloggers are:

 

Drop by the Youthink! blog and let some of the young bloggers know what you think about their ideas and perspectives. And if you have any questions about the blog or any recommendationsto make it even better, let me know. I'll be sure to pass along the message.

World Bank Blog Planet: alive and kicking

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 17:50

New World Bank Blog PlanetIf you're reading this post, then the new World Bank blog platform at blogs.worldbank.org is live and open to the public.

A bit of context: the World Bank has had blogs for several years, detailing everything from regional updates to topical news to specialized research spaces. In an effort to bring some technical and brand consistency to the often disparate blogs, the Web Program Office has built a centralized platform (in Drupal) that will serve as the basic structure for Bank blogs going forward.

Making it easier for you.

Apart from the obvious technical benefits for us, what does the new platform mean for you, the user?

Well, one of the biggest improvements is the new "blog planet" at blogs.worldbank.org that aggregates the most recent and featured posts from all the blogs on the platform. Now, with a quick glance, you can see what people are talking about across the Bank in one place. You can also search for a particular topic or issue and see all posts related to that search term across all the blogs — and even better, subscribe toRSS  feeds by tag, topic, country, or region.

We've currently migrated five blogs over to the new platform, and will be steadily adding more as the weeks go by. I'll keep you updated as to our progress on that front.

In the meantime, if you have any thoughts about the platform, good or bad, let me know so we can make the experience better for you.

World Bank API re-launch causes some buzz

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Wed, 04/15/2009 - 10:13

Buzz about the API on TwitterThanks to a wonderful post by Giulio on the Private Sector Development blog, the news of the re-launch of the World Bank API has started to create some significant buzz about international development and the sharing of data.

For those of you that haven't heard just yet, the Bank re-launched its API with a new call structure, query generator, and new data sets too. In simple terms: the Bank is allowing developers to use a lot of its development data to create new and exciting applications for web users.

Tim Berners-Lee would be proud.

I just talked to Jeff Mccoy, one of the people here at the Bank that has been instrumental in getting the API re-launched and easier to use, and he's "really excited to see some of the things people will build with World Bank data."

So am I. And I'm pretty excited to help feature some of the neat things people build using the Bank's data as well.

If you're building a neat application with the new World Bank API, let me know how to reach you in the comments. I'll give you a shout and hopefully feature your project and ideas here on this blog.

For more information about the API and the importance of open data, check out the next few links:

World Bank Developer Network
Phase2's blog post on the API launch
Tim Berners-Lee's TED Talk on data
Vivek Kundra's thoughts on open data
Wikipedia entry for API

A (work-in-progress) comment guideline.

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 13:31

If you've tried to leave a comment on this site or any World Bank blog, you may have noticed that we moderate comments here. We've decided to take that decision in order to help manage spam and other offending (slander, hate speech, etc.) comments, and not to stifle discussion.

As the main comment moderator for Inside the Web, I wanted to take a stab at a drafting a comment guideline that will help guide the comment approval process. (I'm borrowing heavily from the Change.gov comment policy here.)

All comments submitted to Inside the Web will be approved as long as they:

  • Stay focused. If you're looking to voice an opinion on an issue not related to a blog post, check out the other World Bank blogs or the World Bank homepage.
  • Are respectful. Personal attacks, slander, profanity, hate speech, and trolling comments will not be published.
  • Are not spam. This is a place for conversation, not for selling your unrelated product.
     

This comment guideline is a work in progress. If you have any recommendations as to how we can make it better, let me know. I'll share future iterations of the guideline on this site as it evolves.

The World Bank, the web, and you.

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Sat, 04/11/2009 - 08:28

Change is afoot at WorldBank.org, and we want you to know about what we're up to and help guide our thinking.

We here at the World Bank Web Program Office have created Inside the Web as a way to share a few of our thoughts and ideas when it comes to the way the World Bank is using the web and how it can go forward. On this blog, you'll find updates on the research and work we're doing, links to articles and posts we're reading, and commentary on the web and the role it plays in international development.

We're also looking for your feedback.

Please feel free to tell us if you agree, disagree or can provide more insight on some of the things we post about. Got answers to the questions we'll be asking? Leave us a comment and help guide our thinking on the web. Your feedback will be read — that's a promise I can make.

The comments on this site are moderated for now (more on that in a future post) but that's just to watch out for spam and trolling: we will post any comments that help further the discussion on all issues we discuss here, whether they agree with us or not.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you — hopefully we'll be able to provide some value to you as well. Let us know if you have any topics you feel we should address or any issues that you think we may be leaving out.

Change is afoot. Thanks for being a part of it.