The Social

NEW YORK--Four nonprofit organizations will be participating in a test of Facebook's "credits" platform, marketing and outreach director Randi Zuckerberg said on Friday morning at the Social Good Conference presented by social-media blog Mashable.

"I just received confirmation yesterday that...we're going to be reopening up charity gifts in the Gift Shop," said Zuckerberg (who is, yes, the sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg). "We are exploring ways for developers to use the Gift Shop to offer...virtual, real, and charity gifts."

This will be rolling out next week with four test partners--Project Red, Kiva, Toms Shoes (which is not a non-profit, but a for-profit retailer that donates a pair of shoes for every pair sold), and the World Wildlife Fund--Zuckerberg said, and pending its success, "we may open to everyone really soon after that."

The blog Inside Facebook reported last week that four online gift and greeting companies--American Greetings Interactive, GreetBeatz, Someecards, and Real Gifts--would be selling virtual gifts in the Facebook gift shop as part of a test of the new "Pay with Facebook" virtual currency.

Facebook first offered "charity gifts" for a 48-hour window to commemorate the milestone of 200 million members. A total of 16 nonprofits and advocacy groups participated in the initiative.

The social network already uses "credits" to sell in-house and branded virtual gifts, a change it made last November (gifts had originally been listed in U.S. dollars). The extension of the system to third-party developers on Facebook's platform has been talked about for quite some time now but finally appears to be nearing a wider launch.

Way back in February, the Web's elite were all abuzz over the "Twestivals," a series of events around the world that were organized online to benefit Charity Water, an otherwise small nonprofit organization that funds the construction of wells in developing countries. They ranged from small in-home gatherings to massive nightclub bashes, but there was one general, common hook: spread the word, donate, and tweet about it.

Months later, with Twitter practically bursting at the seams, is this strategy still sustainable?

One part fundraiser and one part publicity blitz, the big-picture hook of "Twestival" was that social-media tools like Twitter and Facebook--with their unprecedented capability to spread the word--could potentially change the face of the nonprofit world. In challenging economic times, the inexpensive use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social outlets to solicit small donations from the masses rather than relying on a few deep pockets has drawn extra buzz for Charity Water and its founder, former New York nightlife promoter Scott Harrison.

Charity Water's message: that one in six people on the planet don't have access to clean drinking water.

(Credit: Charity Water)

"We really maintain a presence on about ten of the social media platforms," Harrison said to CNET News on Tuesday. "We're sort of everywhere we need to be, because it's as simple as a sign-up."

"Leveraging social media is absolutely the right way to go," commented Toby Daniels, director of the Think Social initiative at New York's Paley Center for Media, a research project dedicated to applying the past few years' social-networking craze to real-world problems. "The message travels at lightning speed through Twitter, through Facebook, through any of these different channels. People love to share (it) because it's part of their social identity--things that look good, things that make them look good. Everyone is motivated to increase their social capital, and they do that by donating money, by visibly supporting a cause, by donating their time, by recommending other people to donate."

The new-media community has welcomed Charity Water with open arms, and in turn, the nonprofit--which uses Google Earth to map locations of wells and has a Web site full of photos and video taken in the field--has reached out to the Web's luminaries as some of its charter supporters. Last fall, Charity Water hosted a campaign to encourage people born in September to solicit donations from their friends in lieu of gifts. Prominent figures in social media, like Facebook exec Dave Morin and Mashable founder Pete Cashmore, participated in the drive and spread the word to their massive Twitter and Facebook followings, who were eager to jump on the bandwagon. The September campaign raised about $965,000, Harrison said.

"The reason why Scott's been so successful in these areas that people are challenged on is that he's done the most progressive thing," said Elliot Bisnow, organizer of the "Summit Series" entrepreneurship group, which promotes young business leaders' involvement in nonprofit efforts. "He's kind of ahead of the curve on every step." And in this case, being ahead of the curve has meant seeking out the Twitterati rather than Hollywood to spread the word.

But this was before Twitter's growth really began to explode. The latest numbers from traffic firm ComScore peg the microblogging service's June traffic at 44.5 million unique users around the world--in February, when the Twestival events were held, it was less than a quarter of this size--and Facebook has rocketed past a quarter of a billion. Charity Water has been joined in social-media prominence by nonprofit efforts and initiatives from the Bob Woodruff Foundation's Tweet to Remind project to support injured war veterans; to the Twitter-prominent Acumen Fund, an investment organization dedicated to alleviating poverty; to the "Facebook for Good" campaign that kicked off when the social network hit 200 million active users.

As the Web is flooded with more and more charity initiatives, both large, well-established ones and new nonprofits created specifically with harnessing social media in mind, problems can arise. At best, donations could be spread too thin, rendering many organizations less effective.

Of more concern is the fact that the influx of charities and nonprofits to platforms like Facebook and Twitter could result in noise, congestion, and outright apathy. Spreading awareness of a good cause grows difficult when that good cause starts to seem like spam. If one tweet after another is seeking donations, people might just get fed up.

"My filter is set pretty high," Toby Daniels said, "even though I think I'm very connected to the nonprofit space, and obviously invested in the social media component of that."

"I am a little concerned," Elliott Bisnow said of the potential for the "Charity 2.0" trend to reach a tipping point sooner rather than later. "People are more careful with scrutinizing what they give to now...There were way fewer nonprofits even ten years ago than there are today. There are tons and tons more organizations, and you can't just have a fundraiser anymore or send out messages or a newsletter or an e-mail. You can't just do that and expect to raise money."

The Acumen Fund is another nonprofit organization that has gained a prominent following on social media services like Twitter.

(Credit: The Acumen Fund)

We may already have a case study of what can happen when, for better or for worse, there are too many people out there trying to do good. In April, The Washington Post published an investigation into the actual effectiveness of Causes, one of the applications to gain early prominence on Facebook's platform. At the time, there were a whopping 179,000 nonprofits with Causes profiles, which allow for easy online donation transactions that are then broadcast in donors' news feeds, but the Post noted that the majority had not received a single donation.

Experts in the nonprofit space say that while any upstart organization--like any start-up business--will want to have a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter, that it's dangerous to rely too heavily on them. In order to be successful on Twitter, or on Causes, or with a Facebook fan page or YouTube channel, there needs to be legitimate promotion and effort, not to mention physical resources.

Toby Daniels pointed to the case of Charity Water.

"They're big in social media, but they're small in the scheme of things, and their biggest problem now is scale," Think Social's Toby Daniels said. "You cannot scale a business, or any type of organization, if you don't have infrastructure, and you don't gain infrastructure by having a Twitter strategy or a Facebook strategy or anything. You need staff, you need operational resources, you need to have all your business systems in place."

The truth is that Twitter and Facebook may fall from favor in the charity world if they grow so big and crowded that it puts a damper on effectiveness. Organizations that want to stay on top of a social media strategy will have to look elsewhere. And Scott Harrison said that Charity Water is already making its next steps.

"We're launching a brand new Web site," Harrison said, adding that it was built with the help of Michael Birch, who co-founded Bebo and sold it to AOL for $850 million last year. The focus, Harrison explained, is to make it possible for individuals to launch their own Charity Water donation campaigns.

"It goes into beta in a few weeks as part of the September campaign, so it'll allow people to 'give up' their birthdays again, but not just September," he said. "People can be creative. They can run marathons, they can skydive, they can give up weddings and anniversaries, they can get their schools involved, et cetera. And it will tie every dollar to a Water project. We're tracking each gift down to the project it's funding."

Harrison says he has no plans to give up on Twitter, even as it grows so big that it may be less effective.

"I don't think you'll see us pull back," Harrison insisted. "If anything, we'll be, maybe, creating more unique strategies for each of our (social media) presences."

And others in the digital charity space say that even if the power of a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page wane, that they'll have been well worth it.

"We've already spread the word to about 3,000 more people that we wouldn't have access to otherwise," said Melissa Kushner, founder of a small school supplies charity called Goods4Good, of the effectiveness of social media tools, "and so that would be a coup in and of itself."

We knew Facebook was about to hit 200 million active users, but now it's official, per a post by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the company's official blog.

"We will welcome our 200 millionth user to Facebook some time today," wrote Zuckerberg, who's just over a month away from his 25th birthday. "Growing rapidly to 200 million users is a really good start, but we've always known that in order for Facebook to help people represent everything that is happening in their world, everyone needs to have a voice."

To commemorate the occasion, Facebook has launched a page called Facebook for Good, a page for members to share stories and experiences about how the social site has helped them give back.

It has also partnered with 16 charities and advocacy groups that have created virtual "gifts" that members can buy for one anothers' profiles. Most of the proceeds of the sale will go to the charity--Zuckerberg wrote that the rest will go to administrative costs, not to Facebook.

The partner organizations include a few longstanding names in charity like the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association, as well as newer tech-industry favorites like micro-loan start-up Kiva, shoe retailer Toms, and clean-water group Charity Water.

The campaign also puts Facebook's virtual-gift platform and "credits" system back in the spotlight at a time when, after much anticipation, the company is finally starting to make some moves in the micropayment space.

Slightly over a year ago, at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, Zuckerberg was asked about Facebook's plans in the philanthropic space. His response was that the company wasn't yet at that point.

"I think at this point, because we're not incredibly profitable, we're not at that stage of the company--hopefully we get there--that's not really something that we can do a lot of," he said to CNET News last March. "But I'd like to think that just what the company is trying to do in general, just helping people communicate, is actually making the world better."

A year later, Facebook's revenues are up, but not as much as some critics say they ought to be. This kind of growth isn't cheap--and with 200 million users, Facebook still has a lot of work to do on the business side, not just in the feel-good, change-the-world department.

If you're looking for something "good" to do Thursday night, you're in luck. Volunteer-organized Twestivals are planned in more than 200 cities around the world.

The Twestivals are a loose coalition of fundraisers that aim to use the social-media tool du jour--Twitter--to raise money for Charity Water, a nonprofit devoted to bringing clean drinking water to developing countries.

It's not officially organized by Twitter, but enthusiasts are hoping that the series of Twestivals can be an example for future fundraisers and how the likes of Twitter can fuel volunteer and donor efforts. Word has spread largely through Twitter buzz. And given the current economic situation, many nonprofits are going to need to follow the example of the small-donor-driven Obama campaign in lieu of depending on a few deep pockets.

I should disclose that I've been doing some volunteer work with the New York edition of Twestival, helping write some copy for promotional materials. New York is Charity Water's home city, and the organizers are expecting more than a thousand people at a big nightclub blowout in the West Chelsea neighborhood. Other Twestivals will be smaller and more intimate gatherings, more like the "meetups" (or "tweetups," if you will) that local Twitter communities have been organizing for months now.

All in all, Twestivals around the world hope to raise a whopping $1 million on the night of the event and as a result of subsequent press throughout the rest of February.

The final Media Meshing party on Thursday night.

(Credit: Kate Miltner (flickr.com/photos/loggedhours))

NEW YORK--I hereby insist that we all stop using the "Recession? What recession?" line, which seems to be used every time any company has thrown any moderately lavish party in the last two months. Not only is it overused, but I think folks have caught onto the fact that things have legitimately changed.

Here in New York, the last blowout launch party in the city was for T-Mobile's Android phone in October. Company holiday parties have been scaled back like mad, leaving fewer opportunities for that great New York sport known as party-crashing. But socialization hasn't stopped; it's just changed its tune.

There were a few events of note this week. Note the trend: no more open bars!

The Goods for Good charity event at the downtown City Winery.

(Credit: Goods for Good)

• On Monday night, a relatively new nonprofit called Goods for Good held its annual benefit (read: everyone paid to get in) at a new downtown venue called the City Winery. (It is, in fact, Manhattan's only winery.) Goods for Good's mission is to gather unwanted corporate supplies en masse, from pens and notebooks to conference swag, and donate it to schools in developing countries.

It wasn't a tech event, per se, but there's a reason I'm including it here: The organizers said that they're not really on Silicon Valley's radar, but would like to be. At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco earlier this year, we saw the emergence of SchwagginWagon, which encouraged conference attendees to donate the free stuff they got on the show floor and then didn't want. Goods for Good's angle is a little different, since they are interested in bulk supplies that would otherwise be thrown away and that could actually be put to use in a classroom. Check 'em out if you're interested.

• Blip.tv, a video-sharing platform that pulled in another round of financing just in time, threw its holiday party at a low-key downtown bar on Wednesday night. There was no open bar; company executives were surreptitiously handing out drink tokens instead. Within a couple of hours, the place was pretty much a mosh pit--even when the free drinks ran out.

• Prankster-slash-boulevardier Richard Blakeley, by day the video editor at Gawker Media, decided earlier this month to call off his series of monthly "Media Meshing" mixers. There's never been anything lavish about Media Meshing; it's a cash-bar event at a relatively divey bar called Sweet and Vicious. But Blakeley's rationale was that it's a bit gauche to be throwing a series of media parties while people continue to lose their jobs. Gawker itself has gone through rolling layoffs this season, sparing Blakeley but axing many of his cohorts.

So Thursday night was the final Media Meshing, at least for a while. There are persistent rumors that someone else with less recession sensitivity will take the reins. Or not. But in either case, the economic reality has clearly hit the after-hours scene.

"I haven't had a drink all night," one of Blakeley's Gawker colleagues told me, shaking his head. Knowing that such behavior was uncharacteristic, I asked him why. His reply was, "Because nobody's offered to buy me one yet."

(Credit: Apple)

Good news, celebrity charity aficionados: Project Red is going to be providing some music for that Bono-approved iPod Nano of yours.

The high-profile nonprofit, which donates a chunk of profits to combat AIDS in Africa, will be launching a subscription music service this fall.

The as-yet-unnamed service will launch in September, according to The New York Times, and cost $5 per month.

It's structured like a newsletter: each week, members will get an e-mail with two MP3s--one an exclusive song from a well-known act and the other from an emerging artist--as well as a "Crackerjack surprise" (say, a video) and an update on how Project Red's charity money is being put to use. The songs are DRM-free, so you won't have to own a "Red" iPod in order to listen to them. The store itself is powered by PassAlong Networks, which creates music retail stores for clients and has several contracts with record labels in place.

Half the proceeds will go to Africa, and the other half to the artists and record labels involved. Project Red has had roots in the music industry from the start; U2 frontman Bono is a co-founder of the initiative.

It's tough to gauge the success of such a project. It's being spearheaded by Red's president of content, Don MacKinnon, who previously handled music distribution at Starbucks--another program that focused on blending a selection of well-known music with emerging artists. The ubiquitous coffee chain's in-store music project hasn't been a tremendous success, as is evidenced by its decision to scale back its in-store CD sales.

Project Red's music, however, is a digital initiative, which gives it a leg up on anything involving hard copies. (When was the last time you bought a CD?) But with so much focus on ad-supported free music, you wonder who's going to fork over $5 per month for music that they don't get to choose themselves.

Still, it is for a good cause.

This post was updated at 12:12 PM with more background about the technology powering the store.

The Eyebeam Art & Technology Center was decked out in red and black for Tuesday night's annual benefit.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

NEW YORK--"We skipped the paparazzi," Eyebeam director Amanda McDonald Crowley said as she welcomed several hundred people to the digital art center's annual benefit on Tuesday night. "We've got a photo-taking duck."

That requires a little bit of context.

On display at Eyebeam's "Freedom and Creativity"-themed benefit, held at the organization's headquarters in the post-industrial West Chelsea neighborhood, were a number of commissioned artists' and fellows' projects. One of them was Taeyoon Choi's "Camerautomata," literally a robotic duck that skittered about the floor, Roomba-like, taking photos with a camera embedded in its head and then printing them.

But that was just the start of it. This year's Eyebeam benefit featured a surprise live performance by the Walkmen, an MC gig by Comedy Central's John Mulaney, a DJ set by the downtown trio known as the MisShapes, and an auction of bizarre items that had all been found on Craigslist.

That's because the guest of honor was Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, selected for his company's values and community ethos. The newspaper industry, with advertising revenues hurt badly by online classifieds like Craigslist, might beg to differ, but the free-spirited Newmark is inarguably a geek hero.

"Pick almost any project coming out of Eyebeam and you'll see an attempt at humanizing the technology that so much of the world is rushing to cash in on," Eyebeam founder John Johnson said as he introduced Newmark.

He hailed the Craigslist founder as the embodiment of that goal. "(Craigslist is) a community service that does something simple very, very well. It connects people to people and the things they're looking for," Johnson explained. "It has fostered a community that is both local and international, and has helped to provide millions of stories that illustrate that people at heart, when given the chance, are basically good, helpful, and trustworthy."

Camerautomata, the robot duck who takes photos. He's dangerously close to skirt height.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

Accepting the dedication, Newmark insisted on staying humble. "Craigslist is a platform where people give each other a break, and you know, that ain't bad. And I'm honored by this and I feel pretty flattered, but the reality is that before I came over here, I was doing customer service at the hotel, and in the near term I think there's about 30 to 45 minutes of it remaining when I get there. And that's what we focus on."

At the reception prior to the benefit dinner, Newmark--sporting a Barack Obama campaign button--had been checking Twitter updates about the North Carolina and Indiana on his iPhone.

To support Eyebeam's mission while continuing to keep Newmark the center of the evening, the evening also featured an auction of several oddball packages that consisted exclusively of items mined from Craigslist. A "political package" featuring a talking Bill Clinton doll and a Palm Beach County voting machine from the 2000 election (among other things) sold for $750; a "wacky technology package" that included an antique typewriter, an '80s-era computer, and some hand massagers sold for $1,050; and an assortment of art including a Marilyn Monroe piece by Andy Warhol, a DC Comics cell featuring the supervillain Brainiac, and a vintage T-shirt featuring art by downtown New York icon Keith Haring sold for $5,300.

Comedian John Mulaney, who was explaining each of the auction items, gave some background on Brainiac, a high-tech villain whom Superman started battling in the 1950s, and then said, "If you know what I just said and understand it, you did not go to prom."

Judging by the appearance of the attendees, the only Eyebeam benefit-goers who didn't go to their high school proms were the ones who considered themselves too cool to show up. The mix of designer dresses and skinny hipster jeans was, for the most part, too chic to be geek-chic. The tech community was represented strictly by a few well-connected luminaries like Gawker Media founder Nick Denton and Personal Democracy Forum czar Andrew Rasiej.

The event was also, apparently, highbrow enough for benefit-bouncing socialite Kristian Laliberte to make an appearance: he waltzed into Eyebeam's headquarters carrying a gift bag emblazoned with the logo of luxury lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, proudly declaring that it was his second party of the evening already. I regrettably didn't ask Laliberte, who according to gossip columns will be the star of a reality show about New York's posh Upper East Side called The 10021, if he has any clue who Craig Newmark is.

The presence of Taeyoon Choi's omnipresent paparazzi duck, however, kept the quirk factor high, as did a comic monologue from Mulaney, who referred briefly to Craigslist ("I love Craigslist! It has so many different faces! If you're not comfortable talking to drag queens in real life, you can do it there!") but preferred to stick to non-tech topics for the most part.

"Pirates never have a big enough chest," he mused when discussing buried treasures. "In movies, the chests are always overflowing. Why is that? I think with the eye-patches, they have poor depth perception."

Google for Nonprofits, a site designed to educate charities about the search giant's suite of Web-based tools, debuted Tuesday.

The lineup of applications on Google for Nonprofits

(Credit: Google)

Essentially, it's a lineup of links to Google's various applications and tutorials for using them, but with a charitable spin. A link to YouTube is accompanied with "broadcast your cause to the world's largest online video community." Google Groups come with a suggestion of "communicate easily to staff or volunteers and encourage discussions among supporters."

But the Google for Nonprofits page also highlights special initiatives for nonprofits, like free advertising through the Google Grants program and transaction fee waivers on the Google Checkout service, along with success stories and testimonials for each Google application.

This is by no means Google's first effort to reach out to nonprofits. Last year, for example, Google launched an outreach program to help nonprofits take advantage of Google Earth. And Google runs a nonprofit of its own: the high-profile Google.org, which has in recent months earmarked $10 million for "sustainable transportation" development and launched a program that aims to use social-media tools for disaster relief.