American Cancer Society Creates Video Channel for Cancer Stories: SharingHope.tv Enables OpenID Technology

Austin, TX (PRWEB) March 4, 2008 -- The American Cancer Society has launched a new Web community to help connect cancer survivors, their friends and family members. SharingHope.tv allows users to upload video, audio, photos and artwork to tell their stories of cancer (http://www.sharinghope.tv). Innovative for a non-profit organization, the new site relies almost completely on people outside of the organization to create its content and it enables OpenID technology. SharingHope.tv is built on the Ruby on Rails web application framework.

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AT A GLANCE

SharingHope.tv allows users to

* upload videos, photos, music or artwork

* add free background music from independent artists

* view content, make comments, and share it with others

* embed videos on their own blogs or MySpace and Facebook pages

* store twice as much video content as YouTube

* log in with an existing OpenID

* create an OpenID using ACS Passport

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QUOTES

"With Ruby on Rails, the American Cancer Society is innovating on the Web in half the time of other alternatives. Sharing Hope.tv is going the extra mile and lowering the barriers to new members by accepting their OpenID accounts."

Tom Brown

CTO, SuperBorrowNet, Inc

"Many people share their stories of cancer on Web sites like You Tube, Flickr, and personal blogs. Now they have a chance to come together in a single online community, with an organization and an audience that really cares about cancer."

"This site is not about the American Cancer Society - it's about the people cancer affects. We are providing a forum for people to share their stories, their heartbreaks, their triumphs and joys. No one knows more about cancer than the people living with it. We want to make it easy and even fun for that knowledge to be shared."

David J. Neff

Director of Web and Interactive Strategy

American Cancer Society High Plains Division

"Cancer can move into our lives and leave us with feelings we don't know how to process and thoughts we don't have a way to express. Sometimes words spoken to friends and family aren't enough. And sometimes there simply are no words."

"Just the fact that the American Cancer Society recognizes this is comforting to me. But in SharingHope.tv they have gone beyond recognizing it and provided a way for patients to share what's on our minds and in our hearts in ways that work best for us."

"Whether I'm feeling drawn to add a simple video of me talking about some aspect of my care, share an image I created, or tell about my experience in another way, what I look for most are opportunities not only to communicate my cancer story but to walk in another survivor's shoes through experiencing their videos, art, music--something made without fanfare by average people, in whatever way they felt most comfortable sharing."

"It's my hope that people like me will use SharingHope.tv to give a gift of their thoughts or experience to someone else going through a similar struggle. You may never know how what you share will touch someone's life, make a bad day better, or just provide a sense of recognition."

Susan Reynolds

Artist, Blogger, Communicator, Cancer Survivor

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