Tasty nuggets

A few things have come across my desk while I was on vacation, so I thought I’d collect them here:

• Of course, there are new Web 2.0 tools that come out every single day. It’s a bit staggering, sometimes. I am waiting for this bubble to burst, too, but until then:
  • Timebridge – this seems like a pretty useful scheduling tool. The cool thing is that it integrates with GoogleCalendar. I just did a trial meeting scheduling – and it worked pretty well. One note, though – the increasing number of new web applications that are interfacing with google, meaning that there are companies out there with my google password, is a bit troubling. I wish there was a way to avoid that, and still get the integration.
  • DonorChoose – I am both fascinated and horrified by this site. Basically, the cool thing is that you can choose which school projects to fund – so if I’d like kids to have more hands-on science experiences, I can fund projects to buy things like microscopes … wait, what?? Microscopes? What happened to our school system that an organization is formed to provide a place for thousands (yes, thousands) of projects for school kids? In school. So they can learn. WTF? But, anyway, if you want a good cause, this is one. And the concept is one that is increasingly prevalent: donors get to choose exactly where there money goes, and there is some competition between worthy projects. I’m still on the fence about this concept in general.
  • Razoo – here’s another Change.org for you. (There is a post forthcoming where I vent my social networking curmudgeonness.)
• Building open social networks – This is a great article on O’Reilly Radar about opening up the “social graph” – it’s worth a look.
• My online identity score is 9/10. That’s kinda cool.