COMMENTARY | Facebook's much anticipated IPO makes me feel like it's 1999. Only now there is just this one huge Internet player amassing all that dough, profitable already even before going public. Nothing like the San Francisco of a quarter-century ago, with crowds of would-be millionaires from all those long-gone companies living the dream before the bubble burst. Experts say that Zuckerberg's walled web is a sign of the maturing of an industry. But I miss the good old times of the free, unmuzzled Internet - oops, I'm dating myself here - when all kinds of mavericks flocked to the Bay Area in the hopes of making their first million. Facebook has more than 800 million active users. But probably less than 1 percent of such number will become rich out of its IPO. And standing tall with a $1 billion year profit in 2011, it's not like they need money for expansion.
All the celebration around its IPO also brings up nostalgia - longing for a time gone by when entrepreneurs jumped on the brand new territory and started shaping it. What has been psyching me in the World Wide Web these days is the big wave of microfinancing, crowdsourcing, and fundraising that technology has made possible. How does the other 99 percent raise funds for their dreams? Now there are plenty of Web-based platforms that help make it possible.
San Francisco-based Kiva was the first one that came around. Kiva allows individuals to lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity anywhere in the planet. Since it was founded in 2005, it enabled 687,569 lenders to loan $283 million to micro entrepreneurs in 61 countries at a 98.88-percent repayment rate.
Now, if Kiva is a great cause that creates a lot of change in the world, anyone with another great cause can find support to propel change and make their cause a real mover and shaker through another San Francisco-based fund raising platform. Rally is a social fundraising tool that uses the power of storytelling to engage donators and supporters, helping causes raise money. Rally was created by the team that built Piryx, one of the largest online fundraising platform in the U.S. And they are backed by some of the first investors in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and PayPal.
But not only social causes are in luck these days with the power of the Web to harness support energy. Creative projects and artists have a home in Kickstarter, a fundraising platform focused on creative projects. As they say, they are "a great way for artists, filmmakers, musicians, designers, writers, illustrators, explorers, curators, performers, and others to bring their projects, events, and dreams to life." It is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully funded or no money changes hands. They count on the adrenaline of a race and the pressures of a deadline to get things done. And donors that pledge to projects get to receive rewards - besides the feel-good, heartwarming sensation of helping out.
IndieGoGo is another San Francisco-based fundraising platform that can be used to raise money for creative ideas, business, and causes, all the same. And it is also global - while Kickstarter only allows U.S. citizens to raise funds, IndieGoGo is a global crowdfunding platform. Since 2008, they've set foot in over 100 countries with over 3,500 projects.
Of course, all these campaigns and projects gain leverage and voice through social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, Facebook deserves all the money love it's getting, since it has been helping as a tool for social change and revolution. But while eyeballs all over the world are popping over the $5 billion Facebook spring IPO, I am more interested in the five bucks that can change billions of lives.
Isabel Bonfatti is a San Francisco journalist with a wandering eye for art, food, music, and sustainable living.
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