:Michael Anuzis

Sudden traffic spike ever bring your site to its knees? It happens to the best of us – well, it used to. An innovative web hosting platform is shaking things up and it’s only a matter of time until it becomes the norm.

It’s called the grid server. As the name suggests, content is hosted by a cluster of thousands of servers each dedicating resources to you on an as-needed basis. It’s relatively inexpensive & you only pay for what you use – smart hosting.

On that note, 2Core will be out for an hour in the near future as we make the migration – I expect it to be our last time down for a long time. Update: We’re on it!

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I’ve never been big on donating to charities. In part because paying my own tuition and rent hasn’t left me with much, but primarily because I was skeptical my money would go where it needed to and be spent in the best possible way. Give me full assurance that 100% of it goes to where it’s needed, throw in a 97% chance I’ll get my money back in the future, and now you’ve got my attention.

Welcome to Charity 2.0 – codenamed Kiva. It’s a non-profit website that connects you with entrepreneurs seeking loans in developing countries. Lending as little as $25, you and other lenders join forces to make possible some great small businesses. As a college student (for one more month) I’m not exactly swimming in money. Regardless, in less than 10 minutes I helped buy an ultrasound machine for a medical clinic in Kenya and helped found a family clothing company in Uganda. Not bragging, just trying to give you a taste of the kind of great options at your fingertips as you read this.

Kiva combines the microfinance charity model with a network of prescreening partners, making the likelihood of your full repayment around 97%. Consider the flaws of previous donations to charity. Now consider 100% of your money going directly to those in need and a 97% chance you’ll get your money back. Kiva revolutionizes the notion of charity in no small way.

I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to hearing about the success of these investments, getting my money back, and re-lending it to more interesting projects in the future. If you think you could survive with $25 less to make a gift you can keep on giving, you might consider doing the same. It couldn’t hurt to at least check out the options.

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I’ve been watching some videos on Social Impact Investing.

Here are the highlights:

- Social impact investments frequently outperform non-social impact investments.
- Certain social impact mutual funds have outperformed major bottom-line-only mutual funds for years.
- (Your) professional asset manager can be told to invest in socially screened investments.

The take-home message? If you like to make money while helping humanity, social impact investing is a no-brainer.

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“Seth Godin may be the best intuitive marketer alive today. He’s in that tiny subset of the niche within the microcommunity of people who simply get it.” – Randall Rothenberg, Marketing Columnist for Advertising Age

“Google is my friend.” – An old woman

Seth Godin Speaks at Google – Even if you’re not into marketing or (heaven forbid!) Google, this thought-provoking talk is well worth the watch.

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As of the time of this writing, I’ve officially joined the ranks of the 187 other Google AdWords Professionals in the U.S. (588 worldwide). What’s in it for you? For starters, it means I can give you $100 free instead of $50, the result of which will probably generate much more than that.

I’ve been pretending I already work at Google this entire semester, and have been doing free consulting work accordingly – everything from helping companies promote their products on Google Base and optimize their e-commerce via Google Analytics, to reaching new customers in Google AdWords and migrating smoothly to Google Apps – not to mention the Google users I’ve been supporting on Google Groups. My strategy for getting hired is working so hard before I get in that they can look at me and say “Hey, looks like all we need to do is give you a desk!” — I hope it works.

More importantly, if you think you might benefit from any of the above services please drop me a line. I’d be happy to help.

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Ever find yourself alone in a room thinking something fun must be going on, if only you knew what? Well, Twitter is here to help. It’s a free website that helps you and your friends keep track of who’s doing what where at any given time. You can update your current activity from anywhere using your mobile phone, and your friends can subscribe to these updates on theirs.

Chances are you don’t want to know about every little thing going on with every person you’ve ever met, but for 3-8 of your closest friends Twitter’s great. Rather than subscribing via your mobile phone, you can optionally send and receive updates via instant messages instead. The site gives you options to control your privacy, but for those inclined Twitter even provides a widget you can embed on the web to publish quick messages to everybody.

Innovation of this caliber has the potential to change the way we live and interact on a massive scale – exciting prospects for the future.

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This IT Conversations podcast on collaboration tools is particularly well done. Most of the software mentioned is free & all of it enhances efficiency\collaboration in the right setting. Whether you’re talking about project management, knowledge management, document management, or just better communication within teams, these tools are powerful options to know about.

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