I'm old.

This is what it must have felt like for my father when I told him that Duran Duran was like an 80's version of the Beatles. He must have spontaneously sprouted grey hair right then and there.

I'm on Facebook, and I don't know what the heck I'm doing there. A friend of mine asked me to be her Facebook friend, and how could I tell her no? I hadn't realized that we weren't friends already. Now, I have validation that we are buds. But I haven't embraced it yet. Somebody else asked me to be their friend and alas, after a couple of tries accepting his invitation, I was frustrated enough that I went back to programming. So now I feel bad, because he doesn't know that he's my friend. I've dissed him by not being able to figure out how to accept his invitation.

Oh, the humanity. Or lack thereof.

Then I read a Newsweek article on Facebook-ing Philanthropy. Okay, now some established dead-tree media is talking about the possibilities for philanthropic causes to leverage social networks. I have to figure this out now, before somebody realizes that I'm old. My read is that although no money is coming in, awareness is being raised. Now organizations need to figure out how to capitalize on those eyeballs in a quantifiable way.

The Daily Bruin also ran a recent article on Facebook and Philanthropy, which included the following quote:


Great. The real world is messed up but what is so great about this online world is that it is just like the real thing. Only with virtual kegs of beer. (And yes,  I rewrote the  previous sentence to be more grammatically correct. I can feel the grey hairs sprouting with each passing moment.)

I was just about to start following the breadcrumb trail back out of Facebook and into the real virtual world when I read this:


Oddly enough, this made me feel better and I decided to take a bit of a look around, see what I could find in this den of virtual iniquity. In order to be a responsible Facebook Citizen, I found the Causes application and added it to my profile. Then I went and searched for causes to support. Now, when my handful of friends come and visit my profile, they can see that I support the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, and one of 11 different options for Kiva. I picked the one with the most members and the most money donated.

For some reason, I skipped joining Sam's Stop the Lies of Global Warming cause. He seems to have everything he needs already, other than a dictionary and a copy of The Elements of Style, perhaps. And yes, how old am I? I just edited out a frontal lobe joke, because it is unseemly to me to bash a high school kid for being young and ill-informed. *sigh* I swear, I'm going to go straight from Facebook to a retirement home. Besides, Sam's obviously figured out how to add friends, and I'm still trying to figure out how to log in properly so that I can add all my friends to the same profile.

Also not making my causes cut was a Stop Vegetarians cause. I didn't realize that I was abnormal and part of the problem. I guess if I really cared about making the world a better place, I'd be choking down a hamburger for lunch. Instead, I have my mind set on a nice green salad with sprouts.

So yes, Facebook did originate as a social network for college students, and in many ways has stayed true to its roots. It is as much about sex, drugs and music as one would expect, with some social causes on the side. Just like Berkeley in the 60's. Only instead of waking up and wondering where you are, you wake up and wonder if you would have more friends if you had more bandwidth.

It is still too early to buy your own XO Laptop from the One Laptop Per Child initiative. The Give 1 Get 1 program doesn't start until November 12th. You can still donate one without getting one right now, however. Or, you can give a whole bunch.

OLPC has added options for those who would like to donate on a grander scale. Not content with buying one laptop to be sent to a child? How about 100? 1000? How about 10,000?

The more you donate, the more say you have in where the laptops end up.

Last week I attended the 2007 Plone Conference in Napoli, Italy. Plone is the software that powers the Social Edge web site, and it was great to get a look at the latest revisions to it and talk with the folks who are doing the actual development of the product. Or platform. Maybe it's a platform product? Well, however you describe Plone, it is working well for us here on the Edge. Now we get to start planning when we're going to upgrade to the latest release and what features we'll put to use first. With any luck, users will never notice a big change, just new features as we roll them out. It is going to take us a little while to gear up for that, so don't expect anything new to show up right away.

One of the keynotes at the conference was from Tom Moroz of the Open Society Institute, and it was about the similarities between the open source software movement and work by non-profits towards an open society. Interesting parallels, to be sure. I was most interested in his comments about the need for online collaboration tools for non-profits.

It was also interesting to find out about some of the organizations that are using Plone to run their sites. Discover Magazine has a nice Plone based site, as does Novell, but I was more surprised to find out that the CIA is also using Plone. I guess I can stop fretting over whether or not Plone is secure enough for us here on Social Edge. They should still probably consider updating their favicon, though the folks working on Plone appreciate the free advertising.

I was surprised by the number of Windows based laptops at the conference. Not that they were numerous, but in fact the exact opposite. I saw more presentations delivered from Ubuntu based machines, along with other Linux variants than I did from any of the various flavors of Windows. Macs, on the other hand, have gone from being a geek's focus of condescension years ago to the most prevalent platform for hardcore developers. Even more surprising to me was that Keynote is taking hold amongst this crowd over PowerPoint.

The most interesting part of the conference, however, was just the camaraderie of the developers. Coming from a corporate background, it still surprises me that folks from around the world can come together to develop something as complex as a content management system, for free, and have that product end up being robust and secure enough to meet the needs of major corporations like Novell, and security intensive organizations like the CIA. As Tom Moroz discussed in his keynote, we all have something to learn from the open source software crowd.

So you've heard about the One Laptop Per Child Project, and about the Sugar OS it runs and you've been curious to see one for yourself? Maybe even take one for a test drive? Well how about going one better and actually buying one? Heck, maybe you'd like to buy one for somebody else while you're at it.



Well, soon you'll be able to.

For two weeks starting on November 12th, you can buy an XO Laptop - as long as you buy a second one to donate. Right now you can donate as many as you'd like at $200USD a piece. On November 12th, $399USD will get you one and one for a child in a developing nation.

David Pogue reviewed the XO for the New York Times. He liked what he saw.

Seth Godin donated five. Who else is going to step up to the plate?

Is your business a 501(c)3? If so, Google has something free for you.

Google Checkout for Non-Profits is free through 2008, and allows you to collect donations on your site quickly and easily. They have also wrapped it up with their YouTube offering. Depending on what they charge for the service you may not want to use it in 2009, but until then, there's no good reason not to take advantage of it now. Then you can add a little box like this to your site:



No, we're not taking donations here on the Edge. That's just a screenshot, an example of what it will look like on your site. Chocolate, however, is always accepted around these parts. Mmm, chocolate. But food products are harder to send over Cat-5 and wi-fi than donations via Google Checkout.

IBM has developed a new voice to sign language technology called SiSi (Say It Sign It). Interesting stuff. Don't know how this would work with podcasts, but having it work with live presentations is pretty outstanding.