Well, not really. Actually, qwerty will likely be around a lot longer, but its reason for existence died today. The OnlineMail reports: The end of the line: Last typewriter factory left in the world closes its doors.

The qwerty keyboard was designed to scatter frequently used letters across the rows of keys to keep the hammers that hit the paper with letters from jamming. If frequently used letters had been centered on the keyboard so the more agile index fingers could hit them, the typist could go faster causing the hammers to jam.

It really does not make sense to have qwerty keyboards on digital devices, but it does give computer keyboards, smartphones, and tablets a relic to remember the age of typewriters, which officially ended today.

WIRED’s Epicenter blog reports today: Wael Ghonim Leaving Google To Launch Tech NGO in Egypt. The article about Ghonim explains:

“[He has] decided to take a long term sabbatical from @Google & start a technology focused NGO to help fight poverty & foster education in #Egypt,” Ghonim, 30, wrote in a Twitter message over the weekend. . . .

Ghonim credited Facebook for being the “spark” that helped ignite the revolution, and Twitter for being a crucial way for the protesters to communicate to the outside world.

Last week, Ghonim was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In his Time citation, written by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ghomin was credited with understanding that “social media, notably Facebook, were emerging as the most powerful communication tools to mobilize and develop ideas.”

“By emphasizing that the regime would listen only when citizens exercised their right of peaceful demonstration and civil disobedience, Wael helped initiate a call for a peaceful revolution,” ElBaradei wrote.

Although the young activist was criticized by some of his compatriots for receiving too much credit for the Egyptian uprising, he insisted throughout that he did not want to be “the face of the revolution,” as he tweeted on February 11th, the day Mubarak left office.

But by then, it was already too late.

In an appearance at Stanford University last Friday, Ghonim said that although Mubarak had been toppled, the most difficult work remained — building a new society. . . .

At the recent PSFK Conference in NYC, various presenters spoke about platforms for collaborative production and consumption. Yancey Strickler discussed Kickstarter’s collaborative funding of creative projects, for example, and Joe Gebbia talked about Airbnb’s collaborative consumption of private space, ranging from urban living rooms to forested tree houses. The lineup of speakers hinted towards an emerging, integrated system of collaborative production and consumption, i.e. an emerging collaborative economy. Note that when I refer to this collaborative economy, I’m not talking about the OpenIDEOs and Innocentives that occur between companies and their customers, but about – using the word of PSFK co-founder Piers Fawkes – “disintermediated” collaboration between people, à la peer production and collaborative consumption.

Here’s the story: startup fever has finally gotten the best of you, and you decide to breathe life into one of your crazy, creative ideas. But you have a full-time job, not enough extra cash, certainly not enough time to go hunting for investors, or any of the other resources you’d need for that matter. So, being the avid Smart Mobs reader that you are, you know about Kickstarter, and apply for funding. You tweak your idea slightly after talking to one of their customer service reps (wait a sec, was that Yancey?), post it on their platform, and raise more than the money you need in a matter of days. Then you use DIY online communities like MAKE and Instructables to help you build the thing. Because your thing is socially innovative, you sign the New Consumer Bill of Rights and brand it with COMMON, the world’s first open source brand, along with your personal signature. Finally, on Etsy, the community marketplace for small-scale creators, you not only sell the thing, but get valuable feedback and join a “Team” of creators like yourself. You’ve now collaboratively funded, produced, branded, and sold your dream thing, all with the help of other people just like you. Alternatively, if your thing was an actual, physical thing, you could have done all of the above with Quirky, the social product development platform that carries products all the way from ideation to distribution. Oh, and when the thing gets written up on all the big blogs and you’re invited to speak at the 2012 PSFK Conference in Berlin about the emerging collaborative economy (so meta), you use Airbnb to share a room in a Berlin home and Flinkster (the German version of Zipcar) to rent a shared car. Last but certainly not least, you teach other people how to make the things - and collaboratively make things in general - through Skillshare, the community marketplace for democratized learning.

Of course, more could be added to this story, but the point is: a collaborative economy is emerging. This is beyond instapreneurship, where any Tom, Dené, or Пульо can make anything with nothing more than a design. This is a different kind of economic system that is being born of our current one. This system will initially exist in opposition to the current one but I think, with some creative destruction, will ultimately co-evolve into a new, more collaborative economy. How meaningful that yet again we have unknowingly and unintentionally sewn the seeds for progressive transformation.

It would be beautiful to elaborate a map of collaborative production and consumption platforms, for creators to know which platforms to use depending on what they want to make, and platform providers to more systematically survey the landscape and fill unfulfilled needs.

Still, what does this “different kind of economic system” actually look like? What’s the tangible difference between Kickstarter money and VC money? As it turns out, there’s a very tangible difference: venture capital and Kickstarter engender a completely different kind of relationship between funder and fundee. The former is based purely on ROI, while the latter is based on shared knowledge, learning, consensus, and a shared goal; in short, on collaboration. (And in case this still sounds like a VC relationship, emblem of collaborative production Wikipedia adds that “this is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective, determination to reach an identical objective.”) In his talk at PSFK, Yancey emphasized how in order to get funded, Kickstarter creators must be charismatic, honest, receptive, and able to compellingly articulate the awesomeness of their idea. They must also offer rewards, a legendary Kickstarter phenomenon which can be anything from signed copies of a book to hot-air balloon rides; not quite the kinds of rewards VC’s looking for. The difference between Kickstarter and VC is the difference between the tall tail and the long tail – the latter is quite literally more democratized relative to the market population.

COMMON is a particularly poignant manifestation of the collaborative economy, as it represents both collaborative production and consumption, namely of a brand, and in turn the collaborative reaping of brand value. It allows socially minded producers and consumers to produce and consume not just individual, socially innovative products, but whole systems of socially innovative production and consumption; not just Brooklyn Brewery beer here, and Harwood Bacon and farmers’ market oyster mushrooms there, but the bacon that was produced from the pigs that fertilized the field that grew the barley to make the beer, whose spent grain was used as substrate to grow oyster mushrooms, altogether, literally and metaphorically, in a holistic package. This is indeed a new brand of capitalism, in both senses of the word. All of which begs the question: what will be the function of non-open-source big-brands in a collaborative economy? (This is another post for another day, but in the meantime, check enlightened thinking about the future of big publishers.) If transformative change manifests itself at all levels of organization, from its social structure all the way to its product - as does the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s conductor-less structure in its music - what will Coke, or at least “soft drinks,” taste like?

At the end of his PSFK talk, Airbnb’s Gebbia concluded, “I can’t yet say Airbnb will change the world, but I can tell you we’re changing the way people experience it.” Well, I can’t say Airbnb will change the world by itself, but I can tell you that it will in concert with other disintermediated platforms of the collaborative economy.

New projects takes advantage of Facebook to build communities of practice for humanitarian workers

read the full article on UNFPA News

Mama-Together for safe birth in crises is a platform for health workers to identify themselves as champions within humanitarian organizations or in the field and to join a community of practice. Maternal health practitioners will be able to seek advice from follow members by posting questions, sharing best practices and lessons learned, tracking own practices/skills and participating in online discussions. Mama also offers a ‘Lives Saved Counter’ application through which the community can show the impact of their work as a collective

Google Wants You To Complete its U.S. Map reports EPICENTER today. Here is the basic idea:

. . . The tool is already available in 183 countries, where the lack of good maps made it impossible for the search giant to create a useful online mapping service. The user-generated maps quickly became good enough for driving directions in India, according to Google MapMaker tech lead Lalitesh Katragadda.

In Romania, where maps were atrocious but the internet connection was good, the maps quickly became good enough for navigation in about a week and, a year on, is practically complete. In all, 150 of those countries changes have been integrated into Google Maps proper.

Now Google wants to have its U.S. users tweak its U.S. maps to make them even more detailed, into what Katragadda calls a “living, breathing map and canvas for the people who live there.” . . .

Wired Campus reports that a one hour Skype session took place this week between Libyan rebels in Benghazi and a gathering of Lehigh University students and faculty in room on the university campus in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The event demonstrates a new sort of communicating world that is characterizing the 21st century. From the article:

. . . A translator for the rebel army said he hoped the event would give students and faculty a clearer picture of what’s happening, which would in turn help them spread their message to a wider audience in the United States.

“This is real-time information,” said the translator, who said he did not want to give his name because his outspokenness had led Libyan-government forces to kidnap his brother, who has since been released. “Whatever is happening in the streets is actually conveyed to you.”

He said he was particularly interested in talking with the academic community because many policy makers emerge from its ranks.

“Through people like you we can actually form an idea of what we stand for in terms of values,” he said. . . .

Professional golfers are big-time tweeters, perhaps because they are so mobile. They scatter themselves around the world every week as they compete in tournaments on six continents. In fact, at the Masters on the last day, there were players from six continents at the top of the leaderboard!

A Golf.com story today titled Tweets of the Day: Sunday at the 2011 Masters captures the flavor of pro golf tweeting. The famed founder of the Masters tournament, Bobby Jones, famously said that “professional golf is played on a 5-inch course, between the player’s ears.” As the sampling of the tweets in the Golf.com story shows, the communications venue for master golfers is now as wide as the Web.

Rory McIlroy, the 21-year-old Irishman about to swing in the above image, led the Masters for the first 3 days, and then dropped some key shots in the 4th round to fall out of contention. Three McIlroy tweets illustrate the intimacy and reach of tweeting among the pro-golf mob:

Rory McIlroy, professional golfer: Thank you to everyone for all your kind words and messages of support. I’m a little overwhelmed! Very much appreciated!

More from McIlroy: Oh and congratulations charl schwartzel!! Great player and even better guy! Very happy for him and his family!

Joe Posnanski, Sports Illustrated: Rory Mcllroy is pure class. He unraveled in front of the world. “Character building, I hope,” he said.

In authoritarian regimes, sending emails and using Facebook can be dangerous for activists. The U.S. State Department seeks to train them to protect themselves online.

Full article by Brian Bennett in the Los Angeles Times

Twitter feeds and Facebook pages have accelerated the pace at which protesters have amassed supporters to demand regime change in countries across the Middle East and North Africa. But in a growing number of cases, local intelligence and security agencies have begun tracing those electronic trails to arrest or intimidate protest leaders and supporters.

It’s one reason the US State Department is seeking to augment a little-known program to help people in authoritarian regimes protect their online identities, email, cellphones and other private communications from bugging and censors.

Maskati joined the classes held in Beirut in January. He has since taken precautions on his home computer to encrypt emails and Internet activity. He also learned to electronically sweep his laptop for spyware designed to secretly transmit copies of his files and contacts to government snoops.

But Maskati said many political activists in Bahrain find the encryption techniques burdensome, and the applications to protect cellphone contacts and encrypt text messages are difficult to install and use. And all Maskati’s training could not prevent Saturday’s raid on his house.

“Most activists don’t understand security,” said Scott Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of State for Middle East policy. “We should be putting more information and more tools out there.”

That may soon happen. The State Department has spent only $20 million of the $50 million that Congress has authorized for the program since 2008. The department is reviewing proposals for how best to spend the remainder.

Boris says: “Better cancel any plans you might have over the next few hours. This is amazing.”

Boris is right: Click the image to make some music.

Your Smartmobs tweep @gervis was virtually present at We Are What We Tweet @wawwt #wawwt , Facebook, Flickr , Vimeo (video) and saw a groundbreaking event taking place on April 8 in Birmingham that was presented by BIAD (Birmingham Institute for Art & Design).

“A big, non patronising, well done to the #masocialmedia students for a very well organised & enlightening”

@daveharte #wawwt really good event this morning. Great line up of speakers. All fast and pacey like an event should be. Well done!

Participants were media professionals, students and academics featuring real life accounts from the recent Egyptian revolution. The programme provided a practical exploration of how social media is being used to drive change, tell stories and provide a commentary on our lives, the speakers considered a number of recent high profile world events.

Key speakers from a range of backgrounds explained how social media influenced those events and discussion considered what lessons we can apply to our own lives.