micro-finance

The micro-lending revolution, which made it possible for community-based lending institutions to bundle together micro-donations of $25 into loans for entrepreneurs in emerging markets, is making its way to your local Starbucks.

Brooklyn-based Kickstarter enables people to "crowd-fund" new artistic projects (books, movies, films, etc.) and then follow along the progress of the project through regular updates. In my first-ever Kickstarter project, I helped to crowd-fund a new book from Robin Sloan (a former Current TV exec and aspiring novelist) after reading about it on CNET:

by: Matt Rhodes

by: danah boyd

by: Guy Kawasaki