Kiva: Person-to-Person Microlending

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website. Using this site, you can directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries. This is an interesting model to let individual lenders select the person to whom they want to make a loan. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need. Here's the link: http://www.kiva.org/. Thanks to Scott Ireland for finding this site.

Read a blog posting from a Kiva Fellow in Indonesia.

Facebook, YouTube, and Aggieland

Texas A&M University just launched a new microsite to let students post YouTube-style videos showing what life as an Aggie is all about. The site, along with a new Facebook profile, is part of a university marketing campaign called "Do You Wonder?"

Do you have a favorite YouTube video about life at the University of Alabama? Would you be interested in establishing a site for our school?

Read more at CampusTechnology.com.

50 Cent is an angel(?) investor

50 Cent has entrepreneur-centered TV show on MTV that debuts Thursday, November 6, at 9pm central. You can read about the story on Yahoo! Biz from this link. You can also watch the trailer on MTV.com(2:00 minutes in length).

Imagine that you were going to develop a reality TV show for entrepreneurs - what would you do? What would make it worthwhile for you and the competitors? Comments below appreciated!

Wired.com Flagrant Cellphone Use Photo Competition

Have you been wronged by someone using a cellphone? Wired.com wants your pictures of flagrant cellphone usage. The two-week competition begins today. Read on for instructions.

Victims of the Crash

Slow sales and tight credit are killing small companies unable to weather the downturn. CNN Money offers a look at seven iconic brands that died this year.

Billionaire Blues

Forget about Joe the Plumber. The market meltdown is creating a new Poster Child - Joe the Meltdown Mogul. Read on at Yahoo Biz.

Vending Machines - Make Money While You Sleep

A frequently overlooked way to make money. The Momentex business plan caused me to think a little more broadly about the vending machine industry.

The Japanese have some of the most innovative vending machines in the world. I like the parking garage machine. Images of Japanese vending machines.

Vendors of vending machines
Vending Machines Unlimited
UsedVending.com
1-800-Vending (includes a primer on what to consider before going into the business
VendWeb.com (with offerings for the "desktop" machine domain)

Trivia!
The earliest recorded "vending machine" was in 215 B.C. when the mathematician Hero described and illustrated a number of inventions conceived by himself and his teacher, Tesibius, in a book called Pneumatika. Included in the book was the plan for a completely automatic, coin-operated machine that dispensed a small amount of sacrificial water when a five-drachma coin was deposited. It is unlikely that the machine was used on a large scale, and there is no evidence to suggest that anything was sold automatically again for centuries (Source: Business and Company Resource Center).

Read more at Galenet about the industry (you may be prompted for your library username and password).