October Meetup: .coop - the first social networks?

Over 160 years ago in Rochdale, the principles for the Cooperative movement were laid out by the Rochdale Pioneers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles). New ways of working and joining together helped shaped a worldwide movement of businesses, associations and collaborations.

Obviously, the original pioneers can't be with us (!) - but we'll be joined by Anthony Murray from The Cooperative News to look at some of the ways the modern movement is embracing social media and web technology.

The Cooperative News (http://www.thenews.coop/) is a democratically-owned and run newspaper with over 130 years of continuous publication, acting as the independent eye of the movement.

Alongside this, Anthony will highlight two recent projects:

s.coop (http://s.coop/index.php) - a cooperatively owned and run URL-shortener (and perhaps the only such service with a correct use of a domain name!). Recent winner at the 2011 dotCoop Global Awards for Cooperative Excellence (http://www.uk.coop/press-release/dotcoop-announces-winners-2011-global-awards) thenews.coop (http://www.thenews.coop/) - a global news hub aggregator, pulling together news and voices from across the movement in realtime... With such innovation within a worldwide movement being built from Manchester, it is great to welcome Anthony to Net Tuesday.

We will also be joined by Shaun Fensom, chair of Manchester Digital, but also a founding light in cooperative initiatives as Poptel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poptel) (an ISP run as a worker coop) and The Phone Coop (http://www.thephone.coop/)

Whether you are a member of the cooperative movement or not, please join us for an evening of inspiration. Bring your old coop dividend stamps (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sludgeulper/3733272840/) if you can!