Twiceadayevenonsundays: Making Money on Ebay

The Education Tech Series is supported by Dell The Power To Do More, where you’ll find perspectives, trends and stories that inspire Dell to create technology solutions that work harder for its customers so they can do and achieve more.

Non-profit organizations and passionate individuals have found a slew of creative ways to leverage social media and the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet to make the world a better place. Online campaigns help provide clean drinking water, food and malaria-preventing bed nets to people who need them.

Creative uses of the web are helping to provide and enhance education. These four projects, for instance, found innovative ways to help build schools through digital campaigns.

1. Epic Change

Epic Change has become a model for raising money using social media. Since 2008, its annual TweetsGiving has asked people to tweet about what they’re thankful for while making a donation. The strategy was so successful that #tweetsgiving became a trending topic on Twitter during the first year’s campaign.

Starting out, the benefactor of TweetsGiving was a school in Tanzania that was founded by Mama Lucky Kamptoni, a passionate local woman who started the school using money she earned from her poultry business (now there are two more benefactors). Epic Change wanted to help her rebuild and expand the school.

The organization also launched To Mama With Love, a website where users can make a donation by creating a “heart space” for a mother they care about. The “heart space” is a collection of photos, videos and words dedicated to that mother. Other people who care about that mother are invited to donate in her honor.

From one of the classrooms that was built using donations from these campaigns, the students now tweet and connect with the rest of the world.

“So often, we hear the stories of children in the so-called ‘developing’ world from the perspective of the media, non-profits or friends who have traveled or volunteered,” explains the Epic Change Blog. “What happens now – when these students can share their own stories, and build relationships with the rest of the world, for themselves? How will the world be different when these children, who live so geographically far away, move into our virtual backyard? What difference will it make in their lives to know that their voices will be heard?”

2. Stillerstrong

When Ben Sitller launched the Stillerstrong campaign on YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube, Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter and a branded website, he did it with a video that poked fun at Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong campaign. It was hard to tell if he was kidding.

But the campaign, which sells Stillerstrong headbands and accepts donations by text message and credit card, has raised about $300,000 to help provide temporary schools for Haitians displaced by January’s earthquake. At the time the campaign was announced, the organization and its partners Causecast and the Global Philanthropy Group were expecting each school to cost between $45,000 and $55,000.

3. TwitChange

Instead of auctioning off celebrity memorabilia to support a charity, TwitChange hosts eBay auctions for celebrity Twitter interaction. The donation’s bidders put down to have a celebrity follow them, retweet their tweet, or mention them in an update. The proceeds go to aHomeInHaiti.org, which will use them to build a home and school for children with disabilities in Haiti.

The first auction in September raised $531,640.25. The website instructs us to “stay tuned for the celebrity tweet auction coming this holiday season.”

4. University of the People

Less of a “campaign” than a full-blown effort to democratize education, University of the People provides tuition-free higher education through an online campus.

Since launching last year, the university has accepted about 700 students from 100 different countries to its three- to four-year programs for business and computer science. Recently the university opened computer centers in Haiti so that students with limited Internet access could enroll in its courses.

“I do believe that if we take the millions of people around the world who could not afford going to university and teach them tuition free, we’re not only changing their lives, and their family’s lives, we also change their communities, their countries,” founder Shai Shai Reshef says. “And if we have a lot of them, we will change the world for a better world.”

Series Supported by Dell The Power To Do More/>

More Social Good Resources from Mashable:

- How Online Classrooms Are Helping Haiti Rebuild Its Education System/> - Why Social Media Is Reinventing Activism/> - 5 Creative Social Good Campaigns for the Holiday Season/> - 4 Real Challenges to Crowdsourcing for Social Good/> - 9 Creative Social Good Campaigns Worth Recognizing

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, urbancow

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Try a different mobile OS

If you are due to renew your mobile contract this year then why not give some thought to switching OS? Android, iOS and Symbian have all seen big shifts in usablity and technical features in 2010 and 2011 might be a ideal time to see how the other third lives or to try something new and go with Windows Phone 7. Who knows, maybe by the time your contract is due, BlackBerry will surprise us too?

Listen up and listen good

Last year you probably gave Spotify a try and maybe even subscribed. This year you should give a few other music streaming services a go. Try out the web-based mflow so super simple track sharing and purchasing and keep your eyes peeled for Google Music and Apple’s take on cloud music storage.

Make an app

If you run Android you can now knock up an app using Google App Inventor without too much in the way of coding savvy. Symbian users can make newsreader apps with the Ovi App Wizard and iPhone owners can use AppBreeder to create promotional apps that can be published to the App Store (for a fee).

Back that stuff up

Listen carefully – your data is important. If you lose your hard drive or your PC gets nicked you will be in trouble, so the time to start doing proper backups is YESTERDAY. Luckily there are plenty of ways to back up your stuff that mean you won’t have to give it any thought bar a bit of initial set-up. Try online solutions like Carbonite or Dropbox or go for a local WiFi gadget like Q-Waves Wireless USB Data Kit.

Reuse and recycle

Getting rid of some of your old gadgets and gizmos has never been easier. eBay now offer green.ebay.com to instantly trade decent old electronics for cash or recycle duffers at no charge. There are other specialised services for mobile phones such as SellMyMobile that will pay you cash money for your old blower. Go 3D

If you want to watch the undoubtedly amazing new David Attenborough 3D doc via Sky you will have to bite the bullet and get yourself a 3D TV at last. Come on, you know you want one really. Just think of all those times you can watch Avatar! If 3D video still isn’t floating your boat then this could be the year of 3D Radio.

Kill your television

Well not the telly itself maybe (especially if you just spent a fortune on a new 3D one) but why not see if you can live without your satellite or cable subscription and embrace Internet TV? Google TV, Apple TV and the Boxee Box all offer low-cost ways to change the way you suckle from the glass teat. TV catchup services like iPlayer and 4OD mean you can still watch shows you like from the terrestrial channels even if all you have is an old laptop – just dont forget you still need a licence.

Make something amazing in Minecraft

There are loads of incredible games launching this year but the amazing creations of Minecraft players keep wowing us with their sheer inventiveness. Now that Minecraft guru Notch has decided to release the first proper beta of the indie mining and making game it seems like the ideal time to start digging for minerals and build something out of this world. We’d love to see what you can come up with.

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Money on Ebay

1. Epic Change

2. Stillerstrong

3. TwitChange

4. University of the People

More Social Good Resources from Mashable:

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