SOMEWHAT FRANK

SocialVibe: Get Sponsors For Your Cause

SocialVibe allows you to "Get Sponsored" by your favorite brands on your social profiles while earning points for the reward of your choice. Though based in Los Angeles but I got a chance to talk with Sarah Townsend from SocialVibe for a quick impromptu interview at South By Southwest Interactive. Check out episode 74 of SOMEWHAT FRANK as we talk about SocialVibe and how it can be used for social good.

Wattzon: A Personalized Energy Tracker

"It's gettin' hot in herre, so take off all your clothes." from the popular Nelly song, Hot In Herre

Rather than shed all your clothes you might want to first determine why it is getting so hot in here - on the planet Earth. Climate change is definitely something that has take center stage as the Earth is heating up. But we all can help to lessen our individual impact on climate change. Something as simple as unplugging your coffeemaker or toaster after use can help to save energy and reduce your negative impact on climate change. I find it is difficult to measure the various things I am doing to impact climate change. WattzOn recently launched to create tools to help us all determine our energy consumption.

Video: A Good Pop-up Community Center

There are a number of online communities with a new one popping up just about everyday. GOOD Magazine recently took a more literal approach and created a pop-up community center in New York city.

The Point: Helps Solve 'Tipped' Problems

Have you ever had a issue you wanted to stand up for but figured it would not go anywhere without the support of a larger group of people? Well, now you can test the waters of any issue or problem with the help of The Point. Inspired by the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell which explained the idea that trends need to reach a certain point before becoming mainstream, The Point is a community where people come together and take action, securing the safety in numbers necessary to make things happen to solve problems.

InviteForGood Links Events To Charity

InviteForGood is a social event planner that links social events to charitable organizations so that guests can donate while responding to an invitation.  InviteForGood is familiar to those of us who have ever worked with online gift-registries for weddings, except that, here, the registry allows guests to donate to selected charities instead of purchasing gifts.  This provides users with the ability to share the charities they are enthusiastic about with their friends.  The hope is that, after having exposed others to charities users care about, people will be more likely to donate in the future and begin a life of charitable giving. 

The website keeps users informed of when and who has pledged donations to the selected charities and provides users with the ability to quickly send out "thank you" letters.

Although the website includes certain preloaded charities, such as Doctors without Borders, the Red Cross, and the Books for Kids Foundation, users can also add their own charities that are not preloaded.  There is no fee for using the website and the website does not take any part of the donation for its own operating costs; it appears that InviteForGood is a purely charitable.

Bottom-line: InviteForGood could be a great way to share your enthusiasm for particular issues while encouraging friends to participate.

Good: For People That Give A Damn

Good is a media company aimed at creating a platform for the ideas, people, and businesses that are driving change in the world. Good, an L.A.-based company founded by Ben Goldhirsh, offers up a print magazine, feature and documentary films, original multimedia content and local events.

The print publication is a work of art as the photos and compelling articles are extremely well done making is difficult to think there is only a month worth of prep time between issues. Good Magazine makes if feel good to become a subscriber as 100% of your subscription cost goes to help the participating charity of your choice. With a goal set of 50,000 subscribers and $1 million dollars given away by mid 2007, Good is about a quarter of the way to its goal.

On the web, Good covers a number of my favorite topics and makes it easy to filter to specific categories like Technology,  Art & Design, Business & Money and Media. Good employs an "It's Good" Digg-like rating system on each article in addition to offering RSS feeds by topic. In addition, Good has created close to a dozen video shorts on a number of different topics. The first video in the SplashCast below is titled, Paying for Your Attention points out how much advertisers are paying for your attention.

Good will be teaming up with Creative Commons, a Good supported organization, to host a party at South By Southwest Interactive on March 12, 2007. If you are headed to Austin for the event I recommend you check it out - judging by its NYC launch party I am sure it will be a GOOD time.

18Seconds.org Spotlights Energy Savings

18Seconds.org is campaign Yahoo recently launched in conjunction with Lawrence Bender, Oscar-winning producer of the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth,"  devoted to informing the world about the energy savings associated with switching from a normal light bulb to a compact fluorescent lamp. The campaign is based on the idea that is only takes 18 seconds to change a regular light bulb to an energy saving compact fluorescent light bulb. Lawrence Bender authored a guest post on the Yahoo! corporate blog which stated:

"If every American swapped just one bulb, it would save more than $8 billion in energy costs, prevent the burning of 30 billion pounds of coal, and keep the equivalent of two million cars worth of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere."

Those are some pretty eye opening numbers. At the same time it is inspiring to hear that everyone can pitch in to help save energy and ultimately the planet. The 18Seconds.org web site offers a mashup which places the current compact florescent lamp purchase numbers by geographic location on a Yahoo map. Currently, Arkansas is the leading energy saving state and Bellingham, Washington is the leading energy saving city in the United States. For additional information about 18Seconds.org, check out the video below.

Six Degrees to… Kevin Bacon's Charity?

We’ve all heard of the game “Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon.”  It’s simple: start with a celebrity, say, Selma Hayek and connect her through movies to Kevin Bacon.

• Salma Hayek in Fools Rush in with
• Matthew Perry on Friends with
• Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly with
• Ben Stiller in Something About Mary with
• Matt Dillion in Wild Things with
• Kevin Bacon

And there’s the concept.  Now take the game, and do some good with it through SixDegrees.org. 

Launched by none other than Kevin Bacon himself, in partnership with Network For Good, an AOL, Yahoo and Cisco Systems backed charitable organization, celebrities advocate their favorite charities and encourage others to do the same – and that includes non-Hollywood types.  It’s a great vehicle for awareness as well as fund-raising, as Bacon has promised to match the top six non-celebrity fund-raisers with a $10,000. Check out the video below for Kevin Bacon’s perspective on the charity.

Echoing the ever-growing role of the web as a social network, SixDegrees.org rallies us all around a great purpose that evolved out of a simple grassroots game. I never really considered myself a particularly huge Kevin Bacon fan, though Footloose rocked my world back in 1984, I have to say that I think a lot more highly of him now.

You can donate and add a badge to your web site, social network page or blog. Additionally, you join the Six Degrees AIM Pages Network or buy Six Degrees swag on eBay to show your support.

Special thanks to Kyle Bradbury for assisting with this article.

Related Articles:
Philanthrophy Through Technology
GoodSearch: Search To Benefit Charity
Google.org A 'For Profit' Auto Maker?
The One Million Masterpiece: Online Artwork Collaboration For The Records

The One Million Masterpiece: Online Artwork Collaboration For The Records

The One Million Masterpiece or OMM for short is a piece of online collaborative artwork with record book aspirations. Similar to the Million Dollar Homepage which sold one million 1 pixel squares for $1 per pixel, the One Million Masterpiece looks for a small donation  of a minimum of 3.50GBP which is approximately $6.50USD (5.10EUR, 7.20CAD, 8.70AUD or 743.5JPY) to one of the participating charities in return for a square of the collaborative digital canvas. The charities include:

• Oxfam International
• Save the Children
• World Cancer Research Fund
• ActionAid International
• World Wildlife Fund

The One Million Masterpiece is the brain-child of Paul Fisher who has big dreams for the artwork as it aims for the record books. Upon completion the piece should measure approximately 8 meters or 26 feet which is about the height of a two story house.
The site itself is Ajax-based and was created mainly by Eamonn Ramsay designed and developer the entire application. It offers a way to easily navigate through the various art squares. Upon clicking on a square it is enlarged to a full view. The site also has social hooks which include comments and ratings. I just registered and donated to World Wildlife Federation to create the square shown below. 

Related Articles:
Philanthrophy Through Technology
GoodSearch: Search To Benefit Charity
Google.org A 'For Profit' Auto Maker?

A Look Back At 2006

It has been a great 2006, as Somewhat Frank has offered up over 400 articles which attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. I thought it might be interesting to reflect on some of the best of 2006 as we look forward to 2007. Here are some of the most popular articles:

1. Facebook Redesign Angers Students Over Invaded Privacy (September  6, 2006)
2. VideoJug: The Online 'How To' Video Site (December 28, 2006)
3. Why Isn’t Internet Access Free For Travelers? (November 27, 2006)
4. The History of the Personal Homepage (September  3, 2006)
5. Widgets Live! Everywhere (November 11, 2006)
6. Philanthropy Through Technology (October 18, 2006)
7. Kiboze: Group Text Messaging Made Easy (August 12, 2006)
8. RunFatBoy.net and Get In Shape (September 26, 2006)
9. 37signals Preaches "Less" For Success (April 29, 2006)
10. PlentyofFish.com the Craigslist of Dating (March 25, 2006)

Most of the traffic to Somewhat Frank came from:

1. Google 
2. Digg
3. Direct or RSS feed
4. Yahoo
5. Technorati
6. MSN
7. Techmeme

The top web 2.0 keywords which brought visitors to Somewhat Frank were:

1. web 2.0 directory
2. web 2.0 compliant
3. web 2.0 widgets
4. wine web 2.0
5. how to start a web 2.0 company
6. web 2.0 aggregator
7. web 2.0 sites
8. web 2.0 techniques
9. web 2.0
10. learning web 2.0

Some of the top overall keywords that brought visitors to Somewhat Frank were:

1. frank gruber (no big surprise here)
2. plentyoffish.com
3. green monster games
4. moobella
5. goodsearch
6. like.com
7. somewhat frank (another shocker)
8. devilfinder
9. myheritage
10. chalksite

Finally, let's take a snapshot look at where Somewhat Frank readers came from (click the map to see a larger view):

Alas, Somewhat Frank is a global destination. Thank you all for reading and interacting with Somewhat Frank in 2006 and be sure to tune in for more in 2007.

Happy New Year from Somewhat Frank!

GoodSearch The Web And Help Find A Cure For Cystic Fibrosis

What if the charity of your choice could earned a penny every time you searched the Internet?

Well, that is exactly what is happening today (November 28, 2006) as Somewhat Frank has selected to support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as the charity of the day on GoodSearch. The GoodSearch charity of the day is displayed on the left side of the site and all of search revenue for the day is donated to the displayed charity. GoodSearch was highlighted recently on Somewhat Frank in an article titled Philanthropy Through Technology. 

Thanks to J.J. Ramberg of GoodSearch we were given the opportunity to select the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as the charity of the day.  Please help to support the search for a cure for cystic fibrosis, the inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive systems of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States, by searching the web with GoodSearch today.

Philanthropy Through Technology

Let me guess: you’re sitting at your computer, skimming through this article looking to see if anything applies to you, so you can get back to that list of ALL those things that you simply MUST accomplish.  I’ll save you some time: it DOES apply to you, so slow down and ingest…

As many of us experience every day, a reoccurring theme in blogs – in any social commentary, really – is the increasing pace of our world.  Thanks to pay-by-touch features, e-ticketing and Crackberries (to name only a few), our insatiable quench for time is placated by technology.  Gadgets, gizmos and thingamabobs (my non-techie lingo for widgets, applications and start-ups) create time for your “to dos”, but what about the things that aren’t on that list that we still want to accomplish?

As a non-profit enthusiast, I am thrilled that this “technology creates time” phenomenon now extends extensively into philanthropy.  No matter whether you’re a proponent of a particular cause or you just want to help out, technology has, yet again, stepped up and delivered TIME for you to fit it in.

For enviro-minded people, TerraPass helps counter the carbon dioxide emissions created by your lifestyle… and you don’t even have to leave your computer!  Just plug in your car’s information, your flight plans, your energy bill, etc. and TerraPass crunches your carbon dioxide output.  No it’s not just to make you feel guilty; this site also enables you to donate an amount to alternative energy sources to offset your damage.

Scared that putting your foot in the door of a charity will result in a non-stop barrage of calls, letters and requests?  Fear not: One Brick is a commitment-free nonprofit volunteer organization pointing you quickly to what needs to get done and who needs your help.  Sign up on your terms to bypass the tedium of long-term planning, meetings or orientations.

Sometimes you don’t have to do anything but be consumer to help. Apple just announced the iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition.  More than just a sassy color – Apple donates $10 of the purchase price to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.  Inspired by U2’s Bono and other AIDS advocates, Apple’s offer exemplifies many retail campaigns to bring simple charity support to the masses. For more on the (RED) campaign check out this recent article by Read/Write Web.

GoodSearch, a product that has been highlighted previously on Somewhat Frank, allows you to designate a donation to the organization of your choice each time you perform an online web search.

Kiva is a really interesting non-profit that allows you to loan money to entrepreneurs in under privileged parts of the world. This process is called micro-finance. Eric Olson highlights his first micro-finance payment to Kiva in detail here.

Thanks to philanthropic techies, we can all now find the time to help out.  I'm sure I left a few organizations out so please add others you know of in the comments section!

This article was a special guest contribution to Somewhat Frank by the extremely talented writer, Kyle Bradbury. Thank you Kyle.

Widgets and Web 2.0

Widgets have become a hot topic in the web community lately as a large number of sites are allowing users to personalize their experience. The term widget can be used interchangeably with gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, mini and flake but for the sake of simplicity I will use the term widget in this article to cover all of these terms.

What is a widget?
As the web has become widget happy with community development projects popping up everywhere, I think it is safe to assume that the general public does not even know what a widget is. Rachel Cunliffe, cre8d web designer, recently asked this very question as she encountered an advertisement which pointed her to a widget.  A widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate html-based web page. A widget can be created for just about every site or service possible thus allowing users to pull it into personalized homepages (Netvibes, Spotback and Pageflakes), blogs (WordPress and Typepad) or other social website pages (AIM Pages, TagWorld and MySpace). 

Why all the buzz about widgets?
Widgets are a great way for a site or service to creatively offer products, services or news without having to visit the actual site. Similar to feeds and syndication, widgets can save a user time by making everything they care about on the web easily accessible in one place. Widgets can also leverage syndication in unique ways. The idea really rings clear on a personalized homepage which allow users to aggregate and create their own configuration of widgets. In a recent TechCrunch article Mike Arrington explained the value in a widget-driven personal homepage, Netvibes, as it positions all your favorites in front of you in at one time in saying:

“Like Google search, the best thing about Netvibes is that it has no problem with me quickly leaving the site to take care of other business. And that’s why it’s earned my loyalty as a user.”

Ease of use and the ability to see all or items in one page (via widgets) makes them a key component in the personalization process.

It is unclear exactly who was the first to create a widget. History seems to believe the word "widget" is derived from the combination of "window" and "gadget." A number of widget projects have risen up to help further along the widget movement. Konfabulator was swept up by Yahoo and leveraged to launch Yahoo Widgets to place widgets in front of a mainstream audience. Dashboard, an Apple project, was created to place widgets on the Mac OS X desktop. Opera web browser offers desktop widgets. Google Gadgets launched yesterday (October 3, 2006) to unleash 1200 new widgets which can be used on any web page. Microsoft also offers Gadgets for Windows Live. IAmAlpha.com is an AOL widget initative for AIM Pages which launched with a makeover in May 2006. 

A number of widget marketplaces that have also popped up. Widgetbox, a the online widget marketplace, looks to widgetize the web by offering a number of different widget options. Widgipedia, a free widget community deems itself the ultimate cross-platform resource for both users and developers of widgets and gadgets. The Spring Box, offers a platform to create widgets on for both the desktop and the web and Clearspring, currently in private beta, also appears to be a widget platform looking to widgetize the web.

Bottom-line: Widgets are the wave of the future of the web as our attention continues to be overloaded with too much information. With widgets, users are able to customize a page to be able to get their sites and services in personalized homepages.  An open standard development infrastructure which would allow a single widget to be plugged into any application and work properly seems to be something the widget movement is currently lacking – it may be a pipe-dream but I think it is worth wishing for.

Google.org a 'For Profit' Auto Maker?

Google's philanthropy organization, Google.org, brought Larry Brilliant on board back in February and was highlighted in a report today in the NY Times which had the blogosphere buzzing. Interestingly, Google.org remains "for profit" so they can fund startups which is not the norm for philanthropic organizations or sites using the .org domain extension. Another interesting point is that Google.org plans to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline. Yes a Google car - I cannot wait to see it!

I-GO Big City Car Sharing Option

With gas prices at a high and parking in small supply in larger cities it makes sense to not own your own car. Though there are several alternatives to driving (i.e. public transportation, biking, walking, etc.) sometimes you just need to to drive a car.

I-GO Car Sharing, a not-for-profit car sharing services based in Chicago, gives people yet another transportation option in the city without the hassle of owning a car. I-GO allows you to pay a one time enrollment fee ($75) and schedule to borrow a vehicle by the hour 24/7. You don't have to pay for gas or insurance and instead pay an hourly rate (starting at $6 per hour) plus mileage ($0.50 per mile) for usage of the car. Check out all the specific pricing details here.

I-GO uses technology to enable its users to have access to vehicles in any location at any time. Each member receives a Smartcard and each car is equipped with a Smartcard reader.  Upon retrieving a car you simply:

• Place your new I-GO Smartcard over the card reader on the front windshield to unlock the doors.
• The car key is in the glovebox and is now attached to a green key fob which is stored in a specific slot.

I-GO was developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and offers a number of car sharing locations throughout the city of Chicago and also has expanded to other cities such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Washington D.C. and Portland. For more information on the Chicago program check the I-GO Chicago web site or go to the Chicago I-GO blog.