Us Now - a nice little doc about self-governing online communities, with my kind of distribution model.

Can we all govern? Us Now looks at how 'user' participation could transform the way that countries are governed. It tells the stories of the online networks whose radical self-organising structures threaten to change the fabric of government forever.

via vodo.net

I suppose if you wanted to you could watch the entire film in all its 90-minute glory embedded above, but I'd recommend downloading the BitTorrent file instead, which the filmmaker and the good folks at Vodo.net have thoughtfully included on the film's feature page. You can also make a donation via PayPal if you like -- I certainly thought it worthy of a couple of bucks.

This made-in-the-UK film makes its case for self-governing communities through three major examples:

1. CouchSurfing - hooking up travellers with a free place to lay their weary heads;
2. MyFootballClub - crowdsourcing a professional sports team (previously featured on CBC's Search Engine Podcast);
3. Zopa - community-driven loans.

If you have any kind of faith in humanity then this film should leave you hopeful for the future. The only issue I had with Us Now is that the downloaded .torrent file isn't exactly broadcast quality -- still very much worth watching, though!

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous