We’ve been talking a lot about Facebook lately (well, actually John Brian has been talking a lot about Facebook lately), and now YouTube seems to have noticed that it’s system may provide some unique possitilities for Nonprofits.

Available only to 501(3)(c) Organizations YouTube – Broadcast Your Cause is a new offering allowing you to create your own “Nonprofit Channel” with:

• Premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity
• Rotation of your videos in the ‘Promoted Videos’ areas throughout the site
• The option to embed a Google Checkout “Donate” button, and fundraising without transaction costs.

Sounds pretty good up front. There’s not a whole lot of information available on the site right now, but it’s probably something worth keeping an eye on.

http://youtube.com/nonprofits

Remember the Verizon ads that have phone users wandering around town, with the whole network of Verizon users following them around? I always thought those were a little creepy – do I really want The Network listening in on my phone calls?

Turns out those people aren’t just following you around, they’re also checking your text messages to determine what they think is appropriate and what’s not. And today, as the New York Times noted, they decided that a perfectly innocuous advocacy message wasn’t appropriate. From the piece,

Saying it had the right to block "controversial or unsavory" text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

Was this Verizon dipping their toe into the water of a politically censored network to see what kind of message it would send? Was it an overzealous spam filter that got its signals crossed? Was it an antiquated policy that should be dropped? Or was it just a dumb call? Follow me below the break for more, and what it could mean for your NPO.

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Baaaaa.

That’s my response to the appearance of “fluff stories” on my Facebook feed. These increasingly annoying additions have one clear message: join the herd. Enjoy these movies, these books, these groups. Everyone else is doing it.

I just have one small problem with this: I don’t care at all about this information – I never find it useful. I takes up way too much of my feed. And I can’t turn it off. So I guess that’s three problems.

Okay, now that that’s done, I’ll go into why this is a step away from what makes Facebook more useful than other social networks. I’ll also investigate why Facebook may have gone this direction – privacy advocates, the answer may outrage you.

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A little over a year ago, Stephan Colbert recently defined wikiality as

A reality where, if enough people agree with a notion, it becomes the truth.

That seems pretty close to Netscape’s opinion of social news, if you read their recent statement closing shop at their own social news portal (emphasis mine):

Many of you may remember that Netscape.com used to be much different than it is today. In fact, it used to contain more mainstream news before we shifted to the social news site you see now.

We received some feedback that people really do associate the Netscape brand with providing mainstream news that is editorially controlled. In fact, we specifically heard that our users do have a desire for a social news experience, but simply didn’t expect to find it on Netscape.com.

Now, to be fair, they did indicate that they plan to build a new social news site, but the bottom line is that by using words like “mainstream” and “traditional,” Netscape is saying that they just didn’t like the stories people were voting on (As a sidenote, I found this story on Digg, ironically enough).

Sound like a tough allegation? Follow me below the fold…

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How is it that a nation that was first to the moon, first to create artificial light, and first to deep-fry cotton candy is one of the only nations without a good SMS payment system. That is, a system that’s good for consumers, small businesses and non-profits, rather than a cash cow for telecommunications companies (which I suppose answers my question). But as Duncan on TechCrunch discusses, it looks like that may be coming to an end as Google’s patent for GPay reveals that they’ve been pondering a way to pay by phone.

I’ve written previously about the unfeasibility of running fundraising campaigns by SMS in America. Google’s GPay patent application reveals possible plans for a system that would allow people to buy things or pay each other by SMS. Via the Times of London:

The new patent, which was filed last year by Google but has only just been published, describes how a text message from a mobile phone could trigger a �??computer-implemented method of effectuating an electronic online payment�?�.

While mobile phone-based payment systems already exist, some commentators suggested that the development of such a service could give Google a lift as it makes a big push into telecoms.

[...]

The GPay patent filing describes a system where a user sends a text message to Google that gives details of a payment to a specified payee. GPay would debit the user�??s bank account and credit the payee. It suggests that a user would not have to keep an account with Gpay as payments would be made externally.

Taking payments out of the hands of telecoms would likely mean dramatically lower fees, which opens the door to SMS fundraising. What could this mean? Sure, there’s that initial vision of Bono at a conference, urging fans to txt $10 to ONE to end poverty. But there’s so much more that organizations can do, even if they don’t have rock-star power behind them. Here are a couple ideas off the top of my head:

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While the news of Katrin Verclas’ resignation as Executive Director at NTEN was distressing, you couldn’t ask for a better successor than Holly Ross. Under Katrin’s leadership NTEN has grown in all the ways the Board envisioned and we’re pleased that she’s accepted our offer of a Board seat.

As NTEN’s Board Chair, I’m really excited to see Holly take the reins. She’s been a true champion for the organization since the beginning, most recently as Program Director. Holly’s well positioned to lead NTEN’s next phase and build out from the great progress made so far.

Hopefully, as an NTEN member, you’ll join me in congratulating Holly — and if you’re not an NTEN member, why not? It’s the membership organization for anyone even remotely interested in the intersection of technology and nonprofits. Join NTEN today!

If you’ve always wondered how Heifer International’s programs work, check out this new feature. Inspired from a print poster, the new interactive version gives site visitors a fun way to learn how Heifer does it’s work. The interactive “poster” was designed and developed by Beaconfire in partnership with Magnum Multimedia.

Convio is the latest of the nonprofit software providers to go public (or at least to register to go public). They filed their application with the SEC on August 30th and will likely go public with offering around the end of the year. How will this change the lives of their customers? Only time will tell… Here’s where you can read more:

Convio press release

Blog posting on Allan Benamer’s Nonprofit Tech Blog