The Social

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.

ServiceNation, a relatively new nonprofit that hopes to engage more Americans in volunteer and service work, has earned the seal of approval from Facebook.

The social network will provide the organization with advertising deals, technical help, and support for ServiceNation campaigns on Facebook. In return, ServiceNation has selected Facebook as a primary tool for online organization and communication.

The nonprofit was kick-started earlier this year by four existing organizations: City Year, Be the Change, Civic Enterprises, and Points Of Light. Its inaugural "summit" is set for September 11 and 12 in New York with a keynote by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Facebook is already a place where people are acting on their interests and ideals, connecting with each other, and sharing information that can lead to meaningful change," Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of global communications and public policy, said in a joint release. "Through this partnership with ServiceNation, we can be part of an historic effort to inspire Americans to act together to get more directly involved in and connected to their real-life communities."

Given Facebook's global reach, influential status among young people, and reputation as an effective tool for group communication and organization--as well as founder Mark Zuckerberg's more-than-occasional comparisons with a young Bill Gates--the company has been increasingly asked about philanthropy and the general concept of "doing good." In both speeches and private conversations, the company's executives frequently talk about changing the world.

But Zuckerberg said at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in March that the company was not yet mature enough to undertake its own philanthropic projects. That would take up financial resources that the young company simply doesn't have yet.

"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," the CEO, then just 23 years old, told CNET News at the time. "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."

As part of its annual "Wikimania" conference in Alexandria, Egypt, the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation--parent company of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and a number of others--announced two new members to its board of trustees. The announcement went out on Friday and is effective immediately.

Taking over from current chair Florence Devouard will be Michael Snow, who has been on the board since February and has been an active member of the Wikipedia community since 2003. A lawyer based in Seattle, Wash., Snow created the "Wikipedia Signpost" community news resource in 2006.

Another Wikimedia Foundation board member has been announced, too: Ting Chen, who has worked on both the German and Chinese editions of Wikipedia. He currently lives in Mainz, Germany and works at IBM.

The Wikimedia Foundation restructured its board in April, formally naming creator Jimmy Wales as "community founder" and expanding the total membership of the board from eight to ten. The nonprofit also received significant donations this spring, including $500,000 from venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and $3 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. But things haven't all been sunny: the Wikimedia Foundation has come under fire regarding use of funds on Wales' behalf.

NEW YORK--Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University law professor and co-founder of the new Change Congress project, gave the audience at the Personal Democracy Forum conference a brief history lesson on Tuesday morning. His message: government corruption is nothing new.

On a massive display screen, he loaded up a portrait of legendary New England statesman and eventual Secretary of State Daniel Webster, whose professional conflicts of interest would have been enough to make even the most lukewarm of political bloggers cringe.

Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig co-founded the project Change Congress.

(Credit: Lawrence Lessig )

"Bribery wasn't even a crime in our Congress until 1853. The 19th century was a cesspool of this kind of corruption," Lessig explained. "Up to 25 percent of the voters literally sold their votes. I'm not talking about a golden past."

But there are two big differences between that vintage sleaze and the corruption in government today, Lessig insisted. The first is that because of the government's reach and its potential to affect everyday American life, keeping it clean is a more serious priority.

"Even though today the individuals are better than the individuals who populated our government in the past, the problem of this corruption is much worse," Lessig explained. "And it's much worse because government today is much more significant. It's first more critical to core national problems...and second, it's more pervasive. The government's fingers are everywhere."

He brought up a number of examples: Perks from the sugar industry caused the Food Nutrition Board to establish guidelines that determined a "balanced diet" to be 25 percent sugar. When he was vice president of the U.S., Al Gore couldn't have his way with Internet deregulation because Congress was concerned that money from the telecommunications industry would stop flowing, said Lessig, who considered a run for Congress himself. And then there's the big one: global warming, and the "junk science" research put forth at the behest of the oil industry.

"Just putting money on the table removes the conditions of trust," Lessig said. "Money destroys the opportunity for trust. Eighty-eight percent of the people in my district believe they have their votes bought."

But the other big difference between the 19th century's politics and today's is what's making possible Lessig's mission at Change Congress: Daniel Webster's America didn't have Wikipedia, WordPress, or Twitter. (It would've been kind of cool, though: "Wig shopping with @henryclay, then out to eat. WTF is with these tea prices?") The Web's tools have made it possible for far more information to make it into the hands of ordinary citizens, and those citizens in turn can use the Web to band together and work toward democratic action.

Change Congress, which he founded with Joe Trippi, the Web czar for Howard Dean's ultimately unsuccessful but sea-changing presidential campaign, is "a kind of Google mash-up in the context of politics." Pulling together and organizing grassroots anti-corruption and activism efforts from across the Web, the ambitious effort is a "bipartisan reform movement to leverage the reform work of others."

But what's really holding us back, Lessig said, is the notion that we only have to get excited about politics every four years. The political blog phenomenon, for all the press it's gotten, is still a hotbed for small cliques of policy junkies three-fourths of the time. Change Congress, Lessig explained, will be a round-the-clock operation that doesn't only pick up when people are headed to the polls.

He left his role as founder and CEO of copyright reform advocacy group Creative Commons in April to focus on Change Congress.

"Every fourth year we wake up. There's this explosion of democratic energy and then we fall back asleep," he said. "We have this radical exciting party and activism surrounding this ideal every fourth year and then we crash. This is our Thursday night out."

Creative Commons, the nonprofit dedicated to reforming copyright in the digital age, said Tuesday it has received a $4 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The money will bolster Creative Commons' five-year financial plan, which has also seen support or pledges of support from Google, Mozilla, Red Hat, and the Omidyar Network.

Out of the $4 million from the Hewlett Foundation, $2.5 million will go to the main Creative Commons organization over the next five years, and the remaining $1.5 million will go to its CCLearn education project.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Lessig, the organization's founder, a Stanford law professor, and a "free culture" advocate, is stepping down from his role as CEO of Creative Commons.

His replacement will be entrepreneur Joi Ito, who described himself to CNET News.com in 2006 as "sort of part-time entrepreneur, VC and nonprofit board member...(with) some writing, blogging, speaking and government policy work on the side."

Ito has been serving as chair of the Creative Commons board and will be replaced in that role by James Boyle, a current board member and a Duke law professor.

The organization has announced two other management changes. Diane Peters will join Creative Commons as general counsel, coming from a stint at the Mozilla Foundation; the organization's current general counsel, Virginia Rutledge, will take on the new role of vice president and special counsel.

Lessig, who will remain on Creative Commons' board, made headlines earlier this year when he briefly considered a run for Congress. Though that effort was short-lived, Lessig soon thereafter launched an online-and-offline campaign called Change Congress. The new initiative's goal is to cast off the corporate influence on American politics, including lobbyists to big-money political action committees.

With his departure from Creative Commons, Change Congress will become Lessig's primary project. "Although I have changed my focus, I'm still very much committed to Creative Commons and the Free Culture cause," he said in a statement. "The work I intend to do with Change Congress is in many ways complementary to the work of Creative Commons. Both projects are about putting people in power and enabling them to build a better system."

Lessig founded Creative Commons in 2001 to combat what he saw as a rigid and outdated copyright system, encouraging the rejection of the traditional "all rights reserved" standard in favor of a "some rights reserved" alternative that would promote "creative reuse."

While big tech players like Yahoo's Flickr and the OpenSocial Foundation are eager supporters, Creative Commons still has yet to gain true mainstream media acceptance.