Package Research

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Making Money Online With

Newly launched shopping incentive platform Ifeelgoods today announced that it will help retail websites to give away Facebook Credits as rewards to customers. Users can earn Credits for making purchases, sharing with friends, clicking ads, signing up for email updates, or for redeeming loyalty program points. Facebook Credits have a low cost but a high perceived value, especially to social gamers who are often online shoppers, making them a more cost-effective incentive than discounts and rebates. These so-called “micro-incentives” could become a powerful way to entice customers to follow a call to action.

Retail websites first add some simple javascript code to display messages such as “Buy this dress and get 25 Facebook Credits” or “Post to Facebook and get 3 Credits.” Users then click a Facebook Connect button, allow the Ifeelgoods app access, and the Credits are automatically deposited in the user’s Facebook account. The integration will only be lightly branded as powered by Ifeelgoods.

The company is part of Facebook’s app2user program which enables apps such as ShopKick and Rixty to help merchants and loyalty program operators offer their customers Facebook Credits in lieu of other rewards. This effectively creates another payment method for Credits where users pay or create value for retailers who in turn pay Facebook. The Ifeelgoods team comes from Shop.org, PayPal, Google, and French media agency AGORAD, and has received $1.1 million in seed funding from Tugboat Ventures, Kima Ventures, Quest Venture Partners and angel investors. A number of undisclosed retailers are ready to implement the incentive program upon launch.

The company’s VP of Product Suchit Dash explains that Ifeelgoods has purchased a pool of full-priced Credits from Facebook, and one possible business model would be to sell them at-cost to retailers along with a set up fee for implementing the integration. Later, the company hopes to get discounts from Facebook for bulk Credits purchases, netting it a margin on each Credit sale.

Dash says ifeelgoods Credits incentives are similar to offering “free shipping where the perceived value to customers is seven or eight dollars, but the cost for retailers is three or four dollars. Five Facebook Credits are worth more than their actual value to someone heavily invested in FarmVille. We’re aligning ourselves with a currency which has potential. As users begin to be able to buy online books or music with Facebook Credits, the perceived value of the Credits expands.” By providing a low cost way to encourage users to spend money, give up contact information, and distribute marketing messages, Ifeelgoods shares the buying power of social gamers with online retailers.

Fundraising is a key component for most social good campaigns and projects. Thanks to the the Internet and the social web, raising money for a non-profit, community project or charitable organization or relief effort is easier than ever before.

The web makes it possible to get your message across and collect money from people all over the world and to include your social graph in the process.

If you have an idea or a cause that you want to bring awareness to and raise funds around, there are lots of great online tools to help get you started. Whether you want to raise money for a local community center or help fundraise as part of a broader social good campaign, these tools make it easy to get the word out and collect the funds you need./> id="more-380180">

1. FirstGiving

The U.S. subsidiary of JustGiving.com, FirstGiving lets users raise money for any non-profit in the GuideStar database.

It’s free to create a basic account, but if you pay $300 you can fully customize your donations page and link them back to your own website. FirstGiving lets you create fundraising around upcoming events, marathons and walk-a-thons too, which is a nice touch. The processing fee for donation is 5% plus another 2% for credit card transactions.

2. Crowdrise

We mentioned Crowdrise in a recent post about alternatives to Facebook Causes and it is a great tool for both charities and general purpose fundraisers.

Once you start a project, you can share your project’s link via Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook, Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter and e-mail. You can also earn points from the community based on your project and your overall campaign. Crowdrise also has an ongoing series of promotions and sweepstakes that you can add to your project to sweeten the incentive to give.

3. Kickstarter

Kickstarter is most often used by aspiring creatives to fund projects but it can also be used for great effect for local social good community efforts.

Kickstarter is unique in that if your goal amount isn’t reached, none of the money is collected. This “all-or-nothing” approach often leads to Kickstarter campaigns being more active and more involved than a traditional “donate widget.”

A great part of Kickstarter for the social fund creator is the ability to reward donors at certain levels. Much like PBS and NPR offer trinkets if you give a certain amount, Kickstarter lets its project creators do the same thing. You can get really creative with your different donor levels to drive people to give more.

4. WhatGives

WhatGives offers a great widget you can use on Facebook or on your personal webpage to collect donations for your non-profit. WhatGives is nice because aside from integrating well with Facebook, all donations are handled through PayPal.

You need to be a registered non-profit with an approved PayPal account, and all donations are channeled directly into that account. You can customize the platform and embed it as a Facebook app or on your blog or website.

5. Change.org

Change.org lets users create programs to generate actions from others. This can be as simple as signing a petition or writing a letter, or as generous as donating money. For non-profits in the GuideStar database, you can create your own donation pages to collect funds and also draw attention to other action items.

Change.org is very focused on making it easy to virally spread a message, and the site itself also acts as a portal to different organizations and awareness campaigns.

6. Chipin

Chipin is one of the most popular donation widget tools on the web and it’s a great way to collect money for a good cause. We love the Chipin widget because you can see instant progress on donations, and it accepts many forms of payment.

Unlike many of the services on this list, Chipin isn’t just for non-profits or community organizations. You can use it for any project you want.

7. Razoo

Razoo has options for individuals, non-profits, foundations and corporations to raise money for their causes. Individuals can choose to create a fundraising page for any registered non-profit that Razoo recognizes (they have a database of about a million) and non-profits can create custom pages for their organizations and connect with supporters and encourage them to create their own fundraising pages.

What we love about Razoo, in addition to its simple interface and great UI, is that it also offers donation matching for corporations or foundations looking for an easy way to raise money.

8. Convio

Convio offers software for online fundraising and membership, and while its target audience is probably bigger groups or organizations, it’s still worth a look.

For example, Convio’s TeamRaiser lets organizations make it easy for volunteers to create their own websites for tracking and attracting donations.

If you’re organizing a social good fund for a big charity walk or event where volunteers go door-to-door to get donations, check out Convio because it makes managing that process much easier.

9. Facebook Causes

Causes is an increasingly common way for individuals to raise money and start their own funds that are tied to a non-profit. Because Causes is so well-integrated into Facebook, it makes getting the word out and raising awareness and funds for your cause that much simpler.

10. StayClassy

A newer player in the arena of online giving, San Diego’s StayClassy is focused not just on helping non-profits collect donations online, but also manage events and campaigns, track their fundraising results and plug-in.

The world of online fundraising is vast and diverse. What tools have you used when starting your own social good funds? Let us know in the comments.

Brought to you by the class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit

This post was brought to you by the groundbreaking Social Good Summit. On September 20, as global leaders head to New York for United Nations Week — including a historic summit on global issues known as the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs) and the annual General Assembly — Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation will bring together leaders from the digital industry, policy and media worlds to focus on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world’s most intractable problems.

Date: Monday, September 20, 2010/> Time: 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. ET/> Location: 92nd Street Y, New York City/> Tickets: On sale through Eventbrite

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, PinkTag

For more Social Good coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Goodclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Good channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

robert shumake

Small Business News: Social Media Best Practices

How can you get more attention with your blog posts while showing the proper respect for the blog owner and his/her audience? How do you create an unforgettable.

BREAKING NEWS: Bears release Mark Anderson; sign Charles Grant ...

BREAKING NEWS: Bears release Mark Anderson. ... Fantasy Football Breaking News Click Here � H&S Torain � NFL Fantasy Football Waiver Wire, Week 5: Ryan Torain In Line For Carries � Photo � Fantasy Football Projections Week 5: Top Five ...

Probably Bad News: Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and Funny ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Excuse FAIL.

robert shumake

Small Business News: Social Media Best Practices

How can you get more attention with your blog posts while showing the proper respect for the blog owner and his/her audience? How do you create an unforgettable.

BREAKING NEWS: Bears release Mark Anderson; sign Charles Grant ...

Probably Bad News: Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and Funny ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Excuse FAIL.

robert shumake

The web makes it possible to get your message across and collect money from people all over the world and to include your social graph in the process.

1. FirstGiving

The U.S. subsidiary of JustGiving.com, FirstGiving lets users raise money for any non-profit in the GuideStar database.

2. Crowdrise

We mentioned Crowdrise in a recent post about alternatives to Facebook Causes and it is a great tool for both charities and general purpose fundraisers.

3. Kickstarter

Kickstarter is most often used by aspiring creatives to fund projects but it can also be used for great effect for local social good community efforts.

4. WhatGives

5. Change.org

Change.org is very focused on making it easy to virally spread a message, and the site itself also acts as a portal to different organizations and awareness campaigns.

6. Chipin

Unlike many of the services on this list, Chipin isn’t just for non-profits or community organizations. You can use it for any project you want.

7. Razoo

What we love about Razoo, in addition to its simple interface and great UI, is that it also offers donation matching for corporations or foundations looking for an easy way to raise money.

8. Convio

Convio offers software for online fundraising and membership, and while its target audience is probably bigger groups or organizations, it’s still worth a look.

For example, Convio’s TeamRaiser lets organizations make it easy for volunteers to create their own websites for tracking and attracting donations.

If you’re organizing a social good fund for a big charity walk or event where volunteers go door-to-door to get donations, check out Convio because it makes managing that process much easier.

9. Facebook Causes

10. StayClassy

The world of online fundraising is vast and diverse. What tools have you used when starting your own social good funds? Let us know in the comments.

Brought to you by the class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit

Date: Monday, September 20, 2010/> Time: 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. ET/> Location: 92nd Street Y, New York City/> Tickets: On sale through Eventbrite

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, PinkTag

For more Social Good coverage:

Monday, October 4, 2010

Making Money System

Up to this point this dramatic expansion of the U.S. monetary base has not caused that much inflation because U.S. government borrowing has soaked most of it up and U.S. banks have been hoarding cash and have been building up their reserves.

However, this situation will not last forever. Eventually all this cash will make its way through the food chain and into the hands of U.S. consumers.

But what is even more troubling is the dramatic spike in commodity prices that we have seen in 2010.

Wheat futures have surged 63 percent since the month of June. Wheat has recently been selling well above 7 dollars a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.

But wheat is far from alone. In his recent column entitled "An Inflationary Cocktail In The Making", Richard Benson listed many of the other commodities that have seen extraordinary price increases over the past year....

*Agricultural Raw Materials: 24%

*Industrial Inputs Index: 25%

*Metals Price Index: 26%

*Coffee: 45%

*Barley: 32%

*Oranges: 35%

*Beef: 23%

*Pork: 68%

*Salmon: 30%

*Sugar: 24%

*Wool: 20%

*Cotton: 40%

*Palm Oil: 26%

*Hides: 25%

*Rubber: 62%

*Iron Ore: 103%

Now, as those price increases enter the chain of production do you think that there is any chance that they will not cause inflation?

Do you think there is any chance at all that producers and retailers will not pass those costs on to consumers?

It is time to face facts.

Those cost increases are going to filter all the way through the system and your paycheck is soon not going to stretch nearly as far.

Inflation is coming.

Many savvy investors understand what is going on right now. That is one reason why gold and silver are absolutely soaring at the moment.

The price of gold set another record high on Friday for the sixth straight day.

Silver has also experienced extraordinary gains recently, and the U.S. Mint has officially raised their wholesale pricing above spot on American Silver Eagles from $1.50 to $2.00.

Meanwhile, there are even more rumblings that the Fed wants to print lots more money. On Friday, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley, stated that the high unemployment and the low inflation that the United States is experiencing right now are "wholly unacceptable"....

"Further action is likely to be warranted unless the economic outlook evolves in such a way that makes me more confident that we will see better outcomes for both employment and inflation before long."

During his remarks, Dudley even mentioned what the effect of another $500 billion increase in the Fed’s balance sheet would be.

Now keep in mind, this is not just another "Joe" who is making these remarks.

This is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - the most important of all the regional Fed banks.

In recent weeks it is almost as if you can hear Fed officials salivate as they consider the prospect of flooding the economy with even more money.

Up to this point, very little has worked to stimulate the dying U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve and the Obama administration are getting nervous as the American people become increasingly frustrated about the economic situation.

So will flooding the economy with even more money and causing even more inflation do the trick?

Well, no, but what inflated GDP figures will do is enable Obama and the Fed to say: "Look the economy is growing again!"

But if a flood of paper money causes the value of goods and services produced in the U.S. to go up by 5 percent but the real inflation rate is 10 percent, are we better off or are we worse off?

It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

So don't get fooled by "economic growth" numbers. Just because more money is changing hands doesn't mean that the U.S. economy is doing better.

In fact, many American families are going to be financially shredded by the coming inflation tsunami.

Just think about it.

How far will your paycheck go when a half gallon of milk is 10 dollars and a loaf of bread is 5 dollars?

Already, it is incredibly difficult for the average American family of four to get by on $50,000 a year.

So how much money will we need when rampant inflation starts kicking in?

And do you think that your employers will actually give you pay raises to keep up with all of this inflation?

Not in these economic conditions.

In fact, median household incomes are declining from coast to coast all over the United States.

Earlier this year, Ben Bernanke promised Congress that the Federal Reserve would not "print money" to help the U.S. Congress finance the exploding U.S. national debt.

Did any of you believe him at the time?

Did any of you actually believe that the Federal Reserve would act responsibly and would attempt to keep the money supply and inflation under control?

The reality is that the entire Federal Reserve system is predicated on perpetual inflation and a perpetually expanding national debt.

Whatever wealth you and your family have been able to scrape together is going to continue to be whittled away month after month after month by the hidden tax of inflation.

And unfortunately, as discussed above, inflation is about to get a whole lot worse.

So is there any room for optimism? Is there any hope that we will not see horrible inflation in the years ahead? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....

News started to break earlier this week about a $100 million donation Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making to Newark’s school system. He’s announcing it today on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Jason Kincaid and I spoke to Zuckerberg about the donation earlier this week, at the same time we interviewed him about the Facebook Phone issue.

He’s creating a new foundation and funding it with $100 million in Facebook stock. The money will be used to revamp the Newark school system, including closing some schools, opening new ones and experimenting with teacher pay. Newark Mayor Cory Booker will be a key figure in how the money is spent.

We interviewed Mayor Booker in 2008 when he was focusing on fighting crime in Newark via high quality security cameras and a gunshot detection system to monitor an eight square mile crime-heavy area of Newark.

The interview is below.

Mark Zuckerberg: So over the last year. I started researching what the best ways would be to kind of improve the education system. And I just have a lot of reasons why personally I’m interested in this. Have you met Priscilla, my girlfriend?

Michael Arrington: I only know her through your Facebook account.

Mark Zuckerberg: Yes. I mean – so we’ve been dating for about seven years. When she graduated from school, she went and became a teacher. Now, she’s in medical school and she’s studying to be a pediatrician. But this is just kind of a common thing that we’ve been really interested in – about education, kids. And, you know, the default path that we were on, we’re just like, okay, a lot of other people wait until later on in their career to figure out how to give back. Then we decided – this is just like a year ago, maybe nine months ago, I said, why should we wait? I mean, most people don’t have this kind of success early on in life. We feel really lucky so we should be researching this now. And we decided early on that the thing that we wanted to try to help out with was education. It’s just that there are so many things that are broken in the education system across the country now. The national education budget is 600 billion dollars that goes towards all of education. So it’s kind of crazy, right?

Michael Arrington: That includes state budget?

Mark Zuckerberg: Yeah – national, state, everything. So it ends up being quite difficult to make a difference because any amount of money that anyone has is just a drop in the bucket compared to that. So when you start learning about education, there are all these organizations that are national like KIPP – the chapter schools that are the top performing. There are 99 of them across the country. They’re really high performing schools.

There’s stuff like Teach For America, that places a few hundred teachers in a lot of different cities. And they’re really creating the pipeline for all of the – kind of HR and people who go into… A lot of people who do Teach for America don’t end up staying in teaching. But about two-thirds of them end up in education. So for example, the people who started a lot of the top charter schools are TFA alums. That’s an amazing institution.

But the thing that’s working a lot more recently is rather than trying to take a cut of one of these problems on a national level, going in to any given school – like a school district or city and trying to reform all these different things at once. So in New York, Bloomberg did a bunch of this, D.C. there was a bunch of this. Unfortunately, the mayor who did it there just lost his election. And the approach is – because there are so many different issues that are kind of all compounding in the education system rather than trying to fix any one of them in a lot of places,you get a lot better results when you fix all of them in one place. And the idea is that you’re going to show that it’s getting results on a five or eight year time frame. Then, that creates an example that other cities can go copy and improve.

So we did all this research and we figured it would be a while until we found a good candidate but it turns out that Newark, New Jersey is a good candidate for a lot of reasons. So the main reason is that the leaders there are really good. So there’s this guy, Cory Booker, who’s the mayor and who’s a Democrat and the governor, Chris Christie in New Jersey is a Republican. They’re both really good leaders who are rising stars in their respective parties. And just very well respected nationally, have a lot of political capital that they can spend on trying to make the reforms, the changes that are painful but necessary to get this stuff done. And at the same time, Newark is one of the lowest performing school districts in the country right now. About 45% of high school students drop out. Around 50% of students don’t pass the state proficiency exams for literacy.

In a study at the local community college almost all of the Newark students who end up graduating and going , end up having to take remedial classes in education – in language or math to just to learn stuff that they should have learned in high school. So it’s really right now, it’s not – it’s one of the lower performing school districts but to me that’s just an opportunity when you get great leaders to show that you can make really good improvements, right? And one of the great things about Newark is that it’s so close to New York City that there are a lot of other issues in Newark at the same time. But if you can just fix the education issues, then, everyone can just drive 10 minutes and get a job in New York City, so it becomes the highest order bit.

So that – that way Cory is really aligned towards one – like this is his top priority. He just got re-elected by a pretty big margin and it’s his biggest priority. Then, so now – so that’s kind of what we’re doing, I mean, the idea is fund him and basically support him in doing a really comprehensive program to get all these things in place that they need to get done.

Michael Arrington: It’s $100 million and – that will be spent over how long do you think?

Mark Zuckerberg: Five years.

Michael Arrington: Okay. And that will open up some new schools?

Mark Zuckerberg: Oh, yeah.

Michael Arrington: Quickly?

Mark Zuckerberg: Yeah, yes.

Michael Arrington: They can build them up.

Mark Zuckerberg: But it’s also a – well, actually a lot of the work will be done in the first year, kind of just like getting the charter schools to come … Working with Teach For America to get more placements for their – for their teachers.

Michael Arrington: So what happens after five years if this works out really well?

Mark Zuckerberg: Well, a lot of the data on reforming school districts shows that it actually takes eight to 10 years really to turn the thing around. But what the real goal is here – is just to show that it’s working. I mean, I don’t have much of a connection to Newark. I grew up in New York, right outside the city. So Newark is just close by and it’s going to – I hope that this helps the 45,000 students who go to school there. But the long-term goal would be to make Newark into a symbol that you can do this. So that way, a lot of the results can get replicated in other places and I – I hope that we can do that on the three to five-year period and that there will be more work after that. But hopefully a lot of it will get put in motion in the first year or so, and a lot of stuff that they need to do is just close down certain schools, make sure that there’s room for good schools to come in and join, set up programs. And then, a lot of this is going to be operating it and just going to take a long time to change.

Jason Kincaid: What about attracting better teachers to the schools? I’d imagine part of this isn’t just the way teachers are gauged but you know, the actual teaching talent. Is that what TFA should and can help with?

Mark Zuckerberg: Yeah. Also, TFA is – one of the things that’s pretty interesting is around this. So my girlfriend wanted to be a teacher after she graduated from Harvard. And one of the things that I saw that was interesting was socially the response that she got. Where, everyone was kind of, “this is such a nice thing that you’re doing it”. But it was like she’s doing charity. It’s clear that she could have gotten paid more doing some other job. She’s really smart and she was clearly foregoing the real economic value for her to do something that was socially valuable. So the question is, how can you make it so that a lot of the people who would go do other things, teaching is a respected and valued enough job that people actually go into it. Given that it has a lot more impact than what these people are being compensated at today. And I think of that – that is a big problem. One of the things that’s been pretty interesting about TFA is they’ve actually gotten a lot of really good college students to go into teaching but it’s only for a short period of time. 15% of the graduating Harvard class applies to TFA and there are aren’t enough placements today to accept all those people but they would accept a lot more of them if they could. It’s just that it’s really hard —TFA needs to go fund those people and get them placed at specific schools. There is often some politics around that. So that’s one of the big things that they are working on. But the TFA is trying to double over the next five years, right. So but that number surprised me, when I learned that 15%, I mean… Apparently TFA is I think by far the largest employer of students graduating from Ivy League schools.

Michael Arrington: So is it a government organization?

Mark Zuckerberg: No, no. It’s a private charity. Yeah. And now, the woman who founded it is starting – this woman, Wendy Kopp, is starting an international version Teach For All. So it’s cool, but in doing research for this, a lot of the educational issues in the U.S. are pretty different from international. So I’m not sure how much we’re going to be able to learn from this experience to do it internationally but maybe for the next one we’ll think about something like that. A lot of this really just comes down to though — I spend all my time running this company, you know. So for a lot of people who are later in their careers when they start this stuff, they can spend more time on it like running a foundation and I really couldn’t. So for me this is more like a venture capital approach where it’s like you pick the entrepreneur, the leader that you believe in and then you really like try to give them a lot of leverage.

Michael Arrington: Cory Booker in that case.

Mark Zuckerberg: Yes.

Michael Arrington: He was doing some things around cameras and crime control.

Mark Zuckerberg: Exactly.

Michael Arrington: That was really controversial.

Mark Zuckerberg: So his whole first term was focused on getting crime down because Newark has the highest crime rate, I think in the country and he reduced it by like 50 or 60% or something insane. Those numbers aren’t fact checked, so that might be off but it’s large, all right. And he’s pretty amazing when you talk to him about this stuff. He himself moved from the – mayor’s house and he got like a trailer and moved to like the most dangerous street in Newark. And he used to drive around on the streets with the police there at like three or four in the morning tracking down crime. And his whole theory was like…

Michael Arrington: That was when he was a city councilor, right, before he ran for mayor?

Mark Zuckerberg: I think it was after he was mayor. I mean, maybe he did that before and after. But my understanding was that, that was during his time as mayor because that’s when he made this this huge priority, is we have to cut down crime. It was like, if I’m going to get the police force to care about this, they’re going to go out risking their lives like I need to show that I irrationally care about this. I think he is pretty amazing.

Sea Ice News – delayed a day – but still something interesting ...

It makes good news right now because of the nice 15 year trend down, which is actually a 30 year trend down. The problem is that our satellite data for the sea ice extent started in 1979 (for the whole year at least). ...

"One in three households" have Wii console | News

Nintendo has revealed that one in three households in the UK contain a Wii console, while over 11 million people - around...

Record attendance for Eurogamer Expo | News

This year's Eurogamer Expo, which took place in London across October 1-3, has been hailed a.

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