Massively participatory urban planning and design tools and process: the Betaville project

In this paper, we summarize the purpose, strategy, and state of development of the Betaville "Masssively Participatory" online platform for art, design, and planning applications currently under joint development at the Brooklyn Expeirmental Media Center of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and the M2C Institut für angewandte Medienforschung at the Technical University of Bremen, to introduce a panel discussion about Betaville as a next-generation participatory/e-governance platform at the 12th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2011), Digital Government Innovation in Challenging Times.