Salsa Scoop

Mashable Funding Decisions: Who Profits?

N-TEN Connect yesterday dropped a tantalizing suggestion -- complete with screenshot -- that it's working on an application to aggregate RSS feeds of grants data.

A great deal remains unsaid in the post: it's not clear where this application is on the spectrum from brainstorm to code, and it's not clear how plausible is the "hope" to turn funders onto the idea.

That's the real trick here -- the code is a cinch. But it'll need some critical mass of buy-in from funders to make it into a useful tool.

 

Read more...

06:30 PM Aug 29, 2006 - 0 comments permalink

Surveillance Society

As if AOL's search-data oopsie earlier this month didn't do enough for the privacy willies, a couple of criminal busts come along to refine that gnawing sense you try to ignore that someone is always watching:  a CEO on the lam traced after a Skype call, and a webcam-watching Texan who espied burglars in Liverpool.

 

Read more...

12:30 PM Aug 27, 2006 - 0 comments permalink

Apostasy!

We'd like to congratulate Nicco Mele, former Dean web guru and exec of the friendly consulting shop EchoDitto, on rising above the modest station appointed to our like to be saluted by Atrios as Wanker of the Day, personally ripped by the likes of Kos and Yglesias, and heaved from the New Organizing Institute board, after coming out for John McCain in 2008.

 

Read more...

10:00 AM Aug 25, 2006 - 0 comments permalink

Network-Centric Philanthropy

Michael Gilbert recently surveyed grantmakers and -seekers on the matter of providing grant information in RSS/metadata form, and everyone thinks it's a good idea.

I only wonder if the interest among funders in RSS feeds is more an interest in each others' feeds more so than an interest in sharing one's own feed with the world.  This one seems like it might need a supermajority to overcome some foundations' control impulse, though a couple bright sparks out there are sure to run with it sooner than later.

The mashups are delicious to contemplate, of course, and dreams of funding efficiencies tickle the fancies of donors and donees alike.  But really -- will foundations fear that making nominally public but arcane data easily accessible in this bloggish form encourages sharper  and more public critiques of their funding calls, with unwashed masses getting muddy footprints all over the inner sancta?  Progressive foundations in general haven't been ripped up by friendly fire on Kos or Talking Points Memo for backing Ineffectual Organization A and stiffing Plucky Underdog B all while their funding areas neglect The True Burning Issue Of Our Times. (Soros may catch flak from Instapundit, of course, but that's a different ballgame.)

 

Read more...

06:00 PM Aug 24, 2006 - 0 comments permalink

Using RSS For Business

 Robin Good's summary of his use of feeds and aggregation (via RSS Specifications), and the back-o-the-envelope calculation of the thousands of dollars worth of labor it leverages for free, is every word applicable in the ever resource-strained nonprofit sector.
 

Read more...

10:00 AM Aug 23, 2006 - 0 comments permalink

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190