I have been following the OLPC project since it started and I am surprised when I run across people who haven’t heard about it. My daughter took the OLPC laptop we just received to school to show it off and only a few of her teachers had heard of the project. Without the background on what it is, the laptop looks and feels like a toy. (In fact, it’s an amazing set of technological and operational breakthroughs.)

One argument against this project has been that many of these kids need basics — food, clean water, jobs, teachers who get paid, etc. And so we shouldn’t spend money on laptops. No doubt kids have basic needs. But I have come to believe that in this flat world of ours knowledge is the solution to these problems. Kids who can participate in the global economy will have a way out of their circumstances as they become citizens of the interconnected world.

Here’s a demo video:

Our favorite conference of the year is the NTC – the annual conference of NTEN - the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. This is the conference were more than one thousand nonprofit professionals gather to share and learn about how technology can advance the mission of nonprofit organizations.

I will be leading a session about online video — more to come on that — and we are once again a sponsor of the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards, sponsored by See3 and NTEN — more to come on that also.

I am very excited that David Pogue, my favorite New York Times technology columnist, is the keynote speaker. For those of you who read this blog you know that I am a big fan of David Pogue. You can see previous posts from me on his work here and here.

So, register for the NTC today and meet us March 19-21 in New Orleans!

“We want to make a viral video,” says the client.

“But it also has to have all the facts right, and be on message for our organization and not hurt our brand.”

No problem.

The Onion has a nice piece that puts this in perspective:

YouTube Debate Becomes Website’s First Ignored Video

SAN BRUNO, CA—In an effort to connect with younger voters and tap into the immense popularity of the video-sharing website, Democrat and Republican candidates participated in the first-ever presidential debates shown on YouTube to at least 11 viewers.

An estimated 50 percent of the video’s viewers clicked on the link by accident.

The video debates—which received one comment, two stars, and was favorited by no one—featured candidates answering a variety of viewer-generated questions ranging from health care to the Iraq war, and racked up 4,881,990 fewer views than a 56-second video of a sleepy cat posted the same day.

“Don’t tase me, bro!” an unnamed University of Florida student said in a video that captured the attention of college-age men and women across the country. “Oww! Oww! Oww!”

Despite being highlighted on YouTube’s main page for the three weeks preceding and following each debate, the two videos remain among the site’s least watched, receiving five fewer views than an identical debate video that was sped up and set to the popular novelty song “Yakety Sax.” Nevertheless, 2008 Democratic candidate John Edwards reportedly called the debates a “success for modern elections” in an e-mail to CollegeHumor.com, urging the popular comedy outlet to please post the video somewhere, anywhere on its website.

Although Republican frontrunner Rudolph Giuliani touted his ability to bring in literally hundreds of new viewers to November’s GOP debate, the Federal Election Commission ruled that his campaign misled voters and broke federal law when it tagged the video as “Lindsay Lohan Britney Spears VMAs Boobs The Notebook Kiss Scene Juggling Letterman Spiderman.” The FEC also discounted several accidental views resulting from searches for “Hilary Duff,” “Dennis the Menace,” and “Daily Show Republican Debate.”

While official YouTube estimates put the debates’ total number of hits at just under a dozen, some candidates claimed the statistics had been miscalculated and should be rounded up to 13 to include the time Democratic candidate Joe Biden was unable to view the video because his dial-up Internet connection was too slow.

Leaders from both parties said they were already looking forward to holding similar debates in 2008, and that the next round will feature expanded interactive features for YouTube members, more candid discussions between candidates, and a surprise ending involving Mentos and Diet Coke.

My new OLPC laptop came tonight… My 9-year-old Meital is in charge, so hopefully I will be able to film her doing a review of it sometime this week.

For those of you who don’t know OLPC, have a look here.

This time of year the nonprofits bring out the gift catalogues. The idea is to allow people to buy the gift of helping by putting a specific dollar value on certain nonprofit activities. One of the most successful organizations at showing their activities as tangible items is Heifer International – where you can actually gift a water buffalo to a poor family in a developing nation.

This is the first year I am seeing this idea used by a political campaign. I received an email just now from the Iowa State Director of the Obama campaign. In his email he tells me that they have opened up their budgets and now I can sponsor a specific aspect of their Iowa campaign. Of course, like the Heifer heifers, these are representative gifts — they don’t actually buy that water buffalo, they are just showing you that this amount of money could buy a water buffalo. In other words, the money is fungible.

Here’s what you can buy from (for) the Obama campaign:

$28.75 25 “Big Round O” signs for a Chickasaw County GOTC Rally
$66.67 1 field organizer’s salary for a day in Des Moines
$115.50 75 Yard Signs for Davenport area Caucus Locations
$253.79 300 bags for canvassers to carry literature in Mason City
$511.46 750 “Turning the Page in Iraq” mail pieces in Davenport
$1,100.00 1 month’s rent for a small field office
$2,300.00 1 full day’s worth of radio ads in Des Moines

And here’s the letter:

Dear Michael,

Here in Iowa, our team feels a deep sense of responsibility for our role in this election.

What we do — or don’t do — in the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd can have a major impact on the future of our country.

But we also know that we’re not in this alone. Folks like you have shown again and again that you want to do everything you can to help us win here.

I have another unusual request for you. We are about to take a leap no other campaign has ever taken, and you can be part of it.

Starting today, you can provide our Precinct Captains, field organizers, and volunteers with the exact resources they need to do the job.

We’ve opened up our budget to give you an opportunity to choose what part of our campaign you want to sponsor — everything from yard signs to field offices to radio and TV spots are catalogued in our system.

If you click the link below, you’ll see specific items and specific costs, and you’ll be able to choose what part of our effort you want to be responsible for.

Take a look at the system and make your donation to support our ground operation in the crucial first-in-the-nation caucus state:

https://donate.barackobama.com/supportiowa

We asked you to do something out of the ordinary last week, and you really came through.

Tens of thousands of personal letters and emails poured in from across the country to our Iowa Precinct Captains and volunteers.

Your stories, words of encouragement, and passion for change connected with the folks here on the ground and moved them more than I can tell you.

Now you can make your support even more concrete. We’ve gone over our entire budget for our Iowa operation and built a system that will let you choose exactly what you want to support.

Make your donation to help win Iowa now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/supportiowa

The folks making it happen on the ground here are ordinary people.

But they are making extraordinary sacrifices every day and taking personal responsibility for our success in every precinct across Iowa.

They face a huge challenge, but one which they have enthusiastically taken on.

Here’s your chance to give them what they need to meet it:

https://donate.barackobama.com/supportiowa

Thank you for everything you’re doing to help us win.

Paul

Paul Tewes
Iowa State Director
Obama for America

We are working with our clients to engage constituents on sites like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. Why? Because we believe that increasingly we will be seeing engagement move to these social networking models and away from email.

Why? Because email… what’s the technical term?… sucks.

Here’s today’s headline for you:

NEARLY 95% OF EMAIL IS JUNK

Nearly 95 percent of the e-mail sent in 2007 has been “spam,” junk advertising loathed by its recipients, according to a report released Wednesday by a US Web security firm.

The amount of junk e-mail has skyrocketed despite a 2004 US CAN-SPAM Act that placed restrictions on sending unwanted messages and sanctioned penalties for “spammers,” according to California-based Barracuda Networks Inc.

Junk messages made up an estimated 70 percent of e-mail the year the act was passed, the Barracuda report indicates.

“The spam war is a continuous battle between spammers and security vendors,” said Barracuda chief executive Dean Drako.

“Security vendors now require 24-by-7 defense operations to continuously monitor the Internet for new spam trends and distribute new defensive solutions immediately.”

Barracuda said it based its findings on analysis of more than a billion e-mail messages received daily by its approximately 50,000 customers worldwide.

Spammers cunningly hide their identities by routing e-mails through other people’s websites, blogs or computers, according to Barracuda.

Link to the original story.

The folks at the One Voice Movement — who have been supporting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations toward a two-state solution — launched one-year of civic action and a countdown to a peace agreement. They are hoping to pressure the parties to continue the momentum from the Annapolis meeting, resulting in a Palestinian state at peace with a secure Israel.

One of the tools they are using are large public countdown timers in Tel Aviv and Ramallah. And, they have this web widget with the countdown. This is an example of portable content online – bringing the campaign to the people and not just bringing the people to the campaign. You can learn more on their site.