Online fund-raising can become a complicated process, especially when large sums of money are involved. A number of startups have attempted to simplify the process and provide users with progress analytics. Below are descriptions of the more prominent solutions available for peer-2-peer online fund-raising and lending.

Kiva is focused on providing loans for low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world. The company collects small loans from a massive pool of lenders to provide larger sums. Payments are processed through PayPal after Kiva collects the entire owed amount. [Kiva.org]

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SuggestionBox.com is the exciting new way to send suggestions and watch ideas turn into action. We’ve created one place where individuals can share ideas with every company, group, organization, and product on the planet. The best part of a free individual membership is that it’s interactive. People can stay in the loop by tracking their ideas, connecting with people, and improving the things around them.

• Is a concept that everyone already understands
• Fills a universal need
• Built using technology that users are comfortable with, similar to email
• Has tracking through dashboards and folders
• Standardizes feedback into one place for people to reach any company worldwide
• Allows a community to grow and interact around any brand

Link to [ SuggestionBox ]

EFF is the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world.

From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990 — well before the Internet was on most people’s radar — and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.

Link to [ Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) ]

A new game developed by University of Washington researchers called Fold It, turns protein folding into a game.

In a ground breaking first, Foldit asks volunteers for more than processor cycles on idle computers and seeks to help solve some of the most complex biological problems using people’s inherent problem solving skills.

After about 20 minutes of training, people feel like they’re involved with video game but are actually applying the same laws of physics which cause protein strands to curl and twist into 3D shapes.

Link to [ Fold It ]

Dan Melton of Nonprofit Technologies recently discussed implementing closed micro-blogging networks for support-groups. Could the availability of Twitter clone software revolutionize connectivity for those suffering with addiction, grievance, etc?

This [micro-blogging] is particularly attractive for nonprofits who run closed support groups or want to create one-time custom made social network without requiring users to have a twitter account. I think this service would work well for support groups that require a degree of peer accountability. For instance, an AA group could use this as way to obtain peer support on the spot. ie…I’m considering drinking, despite my promise, and I know that I can send a text message to the support group where my peers are waiting to give me moral support.

Melton mentions ReVou software in his post, but other clone scripts surely exist. Feel free to leave any knowledge of similar solutions in the comments.

Link to [ReVou]

You may have noticed in your browser’s address bar that this site’s URL is sans www, there’s a reason for that, www. is deprecated.

“By default, all popular Web browsers assume the HTTP protocol. In doing so, the software prepends the ‘http://’ onto the requested URL and automatically connect to the HTTP server on port 80. Why then do many servers require their websites to communicate through the www subdomain? Mail servers do not require you to send emails to recipient@mail.domain.com. Likewise, web servers should allow access to their pages though the main domain unless a particular subdomain is required.

Succinctly, use of the www subdomain is redundant and time consuming to communicate. The internet, media, and society are all better off without it.”

Link to [ no-www.org ]

A Firefox extension (which also works in Flock), Effortless Good takes a portion of the revenue generated from Amazon purchases and splits the proceeds between The Rainforest Alliance, Save The Children, The Grameen Foundation, and The Participatory Culture Foundation.

Link to [ Effortless Good ]