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The Iowa Flood site is a collection of blogs, discussions, pictures mostly submitted by Iowas. It’s a neat resource simply to observe what is happening in Iowa with the floods. It’s also an opportunity to witness and participate with a form of news reporting and social dialogues in a non media traditional environment. When you hear about “Web 2.0” or social media, this is one such example. Of course an event like the floods in many Iowa communities is an easy way to bring individuals together on a number of community levels and media platforms. We’ve all heard the stories about how the NPR audience went up five million and stayed there in large part due to their role in coverage 2001’s national events. Now with some of these social media outlets covering stories that connect communities will these new outlets maintain a level of participation on other items as time goes on or not? It’s a process worth attention of us in the traditional media and it’s a process that certainly some of us can be a participant. I can tell you now that there are people from the Des Moines Radio Group submitting information to this site, largely because like me they also participate with Andy on social media websites.