Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems

David Roodman’s long post is a great explanation of how Kiva works. It’s also critical of the way Kiva markets.

Post: People start pollution. People can stop it.

On Earth Day, 1971, a nonprofit called Keep America Beautiful launched TV ads to persuade people to stop littering.

Post: Think before you leap: Four truths about starting a nonprofit

Kristin, my colleague at the Case Foundation, has some good advice for folks thinking of starting their own nonprofit: think twice. http://www.socialcitizens.org/blog/start-nonprofit

Apps we like: Epicurious

Great recipes (zillions of them) – and in-app advertising done right.

Back in the web 1.0 days, Conde Nast put all of the recipes from Gourmet and its other food magazines online at http://epicurious.com. The recipes were searchable and over time Epicurious added ratings and other community features.

It’s been a fabulous resource for cooks. They are great recipes, and there are lots of them – including the 1955 recipe for steak au poivre that keeps me from going vegetarian.

Epicurious has now come to the iPhone with the free “Epicurious recipies and shopping list” app http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=312101965&a… .

That whole recipe database is now searchable from your iPhone. And, yes, it will make a grocery list from the recipes you pick.

• search the entire Epicurious recipe database -- from the phone
• see how other Epicurious users have rated the recipes
• save favorite recipes
• generate a shopping list from the recipes you pick
• check off items as you buy them
• price: free

Post: Why nonprofits are afraid of online communities

Eric Ries on the power of online communities –

Google Sidewiki - Danger, says Jeff Jarvis

Google is trying to take interactivity away from the source and centralize it. This isn’t like Disqus, which enables me to add comment functionality on my blog. It takes comments away from my blog and puts them on Google. That sets up Google in channel conflict vs me. It robs my site of much of its value (if the real conversation about WWGD? had occurred on Google instead of at Buzzmachine, how does that help me?). On a practical level, only people who use the Google Toolbar will see the comments left using it and so it bifurcates the conversation and puts some of it behind a hedge.