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Kiva Now Taking Loans via hi5 Posted: 18 Dec 2008 02:13 PM PST In the truest of holiday spirits, social network hi5 has teamed up with micro-lending site Kiva.org in order to provide an integrated way in which hi5 users can make direct, person-to-person microloans via Kiva’s service. This will be accomplished through a Kiva community profile on the hi5 network, enabling the users on hi5 to lend directly to the entrepreneurs. Why does hi5 or Kiva need a partnership like this? It enables both hi5 and Kiva to operate on a global scale. Kiva already acted as a financial medium for micro-lenders and those in developing countries in need of money to launch their startups. But digging into a large and already global network like hi5 means that Kiva can tap into hi5’s social network in order to promote more giving. The good thing about this particular partnership is that it’s setting out to make real, actionable occurrences take place within an online environment. LendingTree set out to achieve a similar goal by initiating its launch as a Facebook application. And Kiva has a Facebook app as well, though it doesn’t appear to be as integrated as the new partnership between Kiva and hi5. Given that hi5 just launched its virtual currency last week, I imagine that a partnership with an organization such as Kiva is only one way in which the new hi5 currency could come into play, even if that’s not yet the case. There are a great number of organizations for charitable, financial and entertainment purposes that could further take advantage of the hi5 currency, so I would conjecture that we’ll be seeing partnerships with hi5 along these lines throughout 2009.

12seconds’ Clever iPhone App Posted: 18 Dec 2008 10:17 AM PST Application developers like 12seconds can’t yet tie in the iPhone’s video capabilities, so what’s a video-based service to do? Since 12seconds.tv has taken the Twitter model and applied it to video updates, it’s almost necessary for the company to have a viable mobile accompaniment for users that are always on the go. Having used mobile devices like the Nokia N95, I’ve grown to appreciate the video capabilities that connect me to the web and the communities I’ve become partial towards. So as 12seconds emerges from its beta test phase, it’s been interesting and encouraging to see the workaround its development team has come up with to appeal to iPhone users. Instead of a video recording that updates to your 12seconds account, you get to select a handful of photos that will be converted into a slideshow on 12seconds. Attach an audio recording and you’ve got the closest thing to a video that Apple’s SDK will allow, for the time being. Thankfully, 12seconds has also made the interface and process for selecting photos and creating an audio recording as painless as possible, so it’s not even as daunting as it seems. The new iPhone app, which will run you 99 cents, is a great entrant for 12seconds into the dominating mobile market. I think this was a very important move for 12seconds to make, and its inclusion really speaks to the company’s dedication to its initial product road map and potential as a leading application.

Social Media and the Business of Innovation Posted: 18 Dec 2008 08:24 AM PST I wanted to write about social media's impact on innovation weeks ago, but got sidetracked. Herein we quote the Post: "The real problem [with the Detroit automakers] is failing to stay competitive with global rivals in the realm of advanced principles of design and manufacturing – principles that exploit global, peer-to-peer information platforms to increase the variety of smash hits a firm might produce." So wrote Bernard Avishai in the Washington Post on November 23rd, in "Why Detroit Can't Keep Up". Avishai was identified in the Post as the former technology editor of the Harvard Business Review and a former international director of intellectual capital at KPMG. We in new media are not in the automobile industry and don't particularly care to challenge the innovation supremacy of, say, Volkswagen's Skoda division in the Czech Republic (which Avishai profiles quite admiringly). But the lessons for social media's ability – even in a capital intensive manufacturing industry like automobiles – to lower product development costs while greatly EXPANDING the edges of the innovation envelope are eye-popping. Avishai writes approvingly of the "capacity to experiment" famous at companies like Sony, Samsung, Apple and Honda, a capacity made possible by a culture anathema to the "big idea" homerun-swinging approach of American car companies. Ideas are developed across the company, in product teams within brand units, while data, experiences, specifications, relationship lessons and other learning is shared across internal social networks. So, for example, Skoda's local designers are able to actually incorporate VW's breadth of experience in designs for the local Czech market rather than simply taking a VW Golf and slapping on a Czech body cover – in contrast to GM taking the German Opel and calling it a Saturn. This is not exactly the same as crowd-sourcing, where Twitter "followers" and other networks are tapped into to better inform an individual community member. Rather, ideas are shared on the peer-to-peer model of academic journals long-ago made the norm in science learning, with the twist of building the "modular" car or other production output. Technology is but one enabling mechanism of social media's ability to foster innovation. More broadly, the current spotlight on the automobile industry is intertwined with the debate about the role of government in an economic recovery – or saving – of America's manufacturing sector. And to that end, the falling down of certain parts of the American economy may have the salutary effect of fostering the kind of innovation impossible in otherwise robust times. So argued Bret Swanson in Forbes last week, writing "How Techno-Creativity Will Save Us". While Steve Forbes and his minions have been trumpeting the rally cry of "How Capitalism Will Save Us" and similar blather from the business press, the kernel of realism in their valuable optimism is the historical spurt of innovation out of times of crisis. From the standpoint of new media and, particularly, social media, one very exciting consequence of the success of the Obama campaign may be the obvious political buy-in to the value of social media. One would consequently expect encouragement – through the policy apparatus of tax, trade, treaty, multi-jurisdictional and other government-controlled touch points of the economy – that could spur expansive growth of social media's application to business. The opportunity to do so may result from both the fortuitous rise of this particular new administration as well as a political climate receptive to experimentation. Andrew Mirsky is principal of Mirsky and Company, a new media and technology law firm based in Washington, DC with an office in New York City. Andrew advises media and technology clients on all legal aspects of business operations, including corporate and finance, intellectual property, contracts, and human resources. Andrew is also founder of Media Future Now, a (roughly) monthly gathering of DC professionals, focused on finding ways to keep media-centric businesses agile, innovative and future-focused.

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