We’ve tabulated the results for My Yard Our Message and the 50 winning signs are posted. The wisdom of crowds looks like it has paid off, too: the winning designs really are the cream of the crop. The top vote-getter is “peace,” by teri_kwant, with 130 people saying they would put the sign in their yard. If anyone wants to share the entire set of winning signs on another site, I’ve set up a simple widget, as seen below.

We were very pleased with the results of voting: Over 900 users registered to vote, and over 24,000 votes were cast. There was a flurry of voting in the first two days after voting opened, then a steady trickle, with another uptick before voting closed.

One cool feature in the project is the neighborhood aspect. We’re seeding three neighborhoods with sets of winning signs. Lindsey Stern has more details about this in the Walker’s ECP blog. To facilitate the community gallery aspect of the project, we’ve set up a signs map that we hope everyone who has a sign will use to let us know where it is. There aren’t many signs yet, but eventually there will be. To manage having many signs on the map, we’re using a handy google map plugin called Cluster Marker. This allows the map to automatically set the correct zoom level to see all the signs, but hide signs that would otherwise be too close together at a high zoom level. Every time I work with google maps, I am please with how robust and thought-out the map api is. It will be exciting to see the map flesh out as people add signs to their yards.

CDM tips us off to a new politically oriented project called RemixAmerica. According to the website:

Remix America is all about combining the art of the remix with the great ideals of America. We’re multi-partisan and open to every opinion.

We’re all about free expression via political remixes, mashups and video. Come back every day — we’ll be featuring the best remixes and remixers on the web!

Here’s a sample video of one the better and more recent remixes:

Their goals appear to be not unlike that of The UnConvention, and their focus on video is similar to ours. Interestingly, the RemixAmerica has a library of built-in clips, and you can import video from youtube, images form Flickr and Photobucket, or upload your own video. One could conceivably even make a remix project and post it to both RemixAmerica and I Approve this Message. Even more interestingly, they have a collection of playlists, that list various source materials such as iconic speeches, clips, things from current events, and a collection of favorite remixes.

So far, quality remixes on the site seem a little sparse. As we know, it can be difficult getting the word out about a worthy project. The RemixAmerica Blog is also worth checking out. Lots of good political videos in there, too.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — This city near the top of the world has a distinguished history of hosting summit meetings. Presidents, prime ministers and premiers have come here to discuss their differences and chart earth’s future.

Yet mere planets were beneath the concern of the nine leaders — warlords, religious crusaders, industrial tycoons, freedom fighters, university dons and banking moguls — who temporarily set aside their differences last week and gathered here under a banner of peace. After all, they had an entire galaxy to consider.

Of course that galaxy does not really exist. Yet for the more than 200,000 players of the science-fiction game Eve Online; for the company here that created it, CCP; indeed for the broader concept of how companies relate to their customers, the inaugural meeting of the Council of Stellar Management was a watershed in the evolution of online democracy.
Seth Schiesel
Face to Face: A Council of Online Gamers
NYT
Published: June 28, 2008