How to contribute to the web as a whole. Links and suggestions by Paul Irish and more.

Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers - that's the social graph.

Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.

Maciej of Pinboard has some pretty insightful things to say about "social".

A site for sharing sketches in Processing.

"Conversational journalism is highly proactive — engaging ordinary citizens on stories before or during the reporting process, for instance, not after a story has run."

"M-PESA (M for mobile, pesa is Swahili for money) is the product name of a mobile-phone based money transfer service that was developed by Sagentia".

A compliment to microfinance, "microsavings" is starting to emerge as a beneficial product both for the poor consumer and the bank. At the tail end of the financial crises, many microfinance institutions have found they have an uncomfortable dependence on outside funding. Microsavings evens things out. Since it revolves around many small deposits, creative ways of reducing transaction costs are being invented, many involving deposit-by-cellphone.

A mobile-specific community portal, re: women's rights in Africa. Had
community bulletin board, asynchronous chat, links to other resources.

A collection of essays on Mobile devices (cellphones) used in relief and development/activism situations in Africa. I firmly believe that the wildcard of social change in our lifetime will be mobile platforms and the web.

Transparency International has put together a handbook on preventing corruption in humanitarian orgs.

"Poor people are not victims awaiting rescue." Relief and development done the right way: kickstarting businesses. They also have a line of farm industry-related equipment that can be purchased by third-world entrepreneurs.

Phones are being used as a bootstrapped food-stamp system in Relief and Development situations

Procedures from meta.wikimedia.

...and another, this one a forum.

A rundown of the basics of micro-farming

Sustainable, zero-waist practices

"The free encyclopedia of small farming that anyone can edit"

"Speaking of Faith" from American Public Media. An MP3 and other interesting articles on the topic.

"Like IMDB for typefaces". An anyone-can-contribute reference to learning about type and typefaces.

A Kiva microloan success in Nepal

Community funding site has found something interesting: "To date, if a project manages to get to 25% of its funding goal, it has a 94% success rate." This is it. This is a big deal. This allows for the public service that Gandhi talked about, fully reliant on the public.

Site for the TED conference. Creative commons video and audio of the talks.

The source code for spot.us, citizen-funded reporting. Other possibilities: community-funded relief and development projects, community-funded church projects, community-funded charities, community-funded city development, community-funded ____. Puts public service in the hands of the public and keeps it accountable.

Causes, effects, small steps

Open social networks via WordPress plugins

Publication by the UN

Web 2.0, how we think, writing in a personal voice and why Flickr loves you.

Community funded journalism: pitch a story and others may pitch in to get it reported.

Web based address book/CRM by 37signals

...with Yahoo Pipes and RSS

George Oates, creator of Flickr talks about how she fostered and grew community, creating a place for folks to play.

Cell phones are changing social dynamics in the third world and world-wide. Designers are working with anthropologists to find out how cell owners all over the world are using their phones and what features are needed.

Seth Godin: "Most power occurs because one side is better organized than the other."

An easy way to raise funds via the web. Funds aren't released until the total amount is met. If it doesn't get met, the funds are returned automatically. Think "I need $1000 to film this movie".

Or, "How to make a living in the world of the Long Tail"

Out of the box video sharing sites with this open source software. Put together by EngageMedia, a non-profit focused on social justice.

Pulling twitter updates on traffic incidents near you.

A fork of Textpattern. Community driven. Hallelujah!

A good way for small teams to keep up with each other (not to mention a crazy-cool repurposing of Wordpress).

Personality, business, handmade, local. The way Etsy is building online community.

Stories of people who create sustainable markets that benefit underserved communities in the developing world, going beyond charity to find systemic solutions to poverty, education, health and social justice.