Remembering the Victims: What You Can Do

Hi folks -- just wanted to do a roundup of some of the things people are doing in the world of blogs and online social media in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings ... especially what they're doing to remember the victims.

* People Helping People: Leading the way is the Web site of the Virginia Tech campus newspaper, the Collegiate Times. On their main page, you'll find links to stories about students creating donation sites (like the student-created Donate VT, which also links to Virginia Tech's Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

(Update: Just heard from the AOL Community Investment group that AOL will be matching employee contributions, up to $100,000, which is great.)

They've also set up Hokies 4/16: A Memorial Project, a group blog where people can send in their words, photos, audio and video to remember Monday's events.

* Profiles of the Victims: The Washington Post has profiles of the 32 victims as part of their ongoing coverage. (An article notes that "The Washington region is home to an estimated 35,000 Virginia Tech alumni, most of them in Northern Virginia," so it's very much a local story.)

* The Role of Technology: Wired's blog coverage includes a look at a walking assist exoskeleton created by murdered Virginia Tech engineering and mechanics professor Kevin Granata.

They also look at the role of technology in disaster alert systems.

* Things You Can Do: Kathi, who journals over at Supporting the Troops, sent me a couple of links:

The people behind One Day Blog Silence encourage a day of blog silence on April 30th:

 I don't necessarily agree with their approach (I generally believe in more talk, and especially more intelligent talk, not less), but it's there if you want to participate.

 

She also sent along VA Tech Fallen Tribute, which is a site where you can get an animated gif to post to your Web sites, blogs, profiles, etc.

Thanks, Kathi.

Don't forget, AIM and AOL users can choose Virginia Tech and Virginia Tech Support Buddy Icons, too:

Also, Friday, April 20th is "Orange and Maroon Effect Day," where people are encouraged to wear the Hokie school colors as a way of showing support.

* Exploiting the Tragedy: PC World has a warning about a spam e-mail that claims to link to a video of the shooting, but actually links to a Trojan Horse program designed to capture banking information. (Link via NowPublic)

Similarly, Wired talked about domain name speculators grabbing Web site domain names related to the shooting; some of them may be hoping to grab a few quick bucks off the tragedy; others may use them for more nefarious things, like password phishing or trojaning, so be careful. (Again, if you want to help, there's an official memorial fund donation site on the Virginia Tech Web site.)

* International Reactions: Salon has a compilation of editorials and stories about the shootings from around the world. Also, the Web site Watching America offers translations of foreign language stories -- it's always interesting (and sometimes puzzling, and sometimes infuriating) to see how people outside the U.S. see things.

Remember the official donation site for the Memorial Fund.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: virginia tech shootings, hokie spirit memorial fund, hokies 416, orange and maroon effect day, one day blog silence