Tech Roundup 2008.2

I'm on day 2 of a 14 day East Coast/European business trip so my posting schedule may be a bit jet lagged. That said, I just found this post over at SocialActions and realized I could skip ahead on an entire tech roundup simply by linking to Peter's notes on platforms.

The SocialActions post notes several new online giving platforms that launched in the last weeks. These include CauseCast, which was kicked off in San Francisco at the Tech50 conference - as a platform that uses celebrities' fan networks to raise money for causes this site can only juice my prediction that celebrity philanthropy will be the embedded giving of 2008. The post also highlights Akoha, Zazengo, and Givvy. It also notes new sites providing information on environmental impact of certain consumer products and choices, including GoodGuide and OpenTrace.

I only have question about all this: How many more online giving platforms can launch between now and the official opening of Giving Season 2008 (which I usually mark with the publication of the NYT Giving Section, the Sunday closest to the 11th of November)? Cancel that - here is another question -  perhaps we should start dating Giving Season to early September, to coincide with the timing of TechCrunch50 and DEMO (the 2 big tech conferences - deliberately scheduled at same time) - that launched these sites? In fact, the number of online giving platforms/widgets/technologies that launch at TechCrunch and DEMO might just become another one of our key new trend indicators for the field.....hmm....

Tags: philanthropy, platforms, socialactions, socialentrepreneurs, trends