Americans spend 200 billion hours per year watching TV. Even a tiny fraction of that used for productive, collaborative activities would create tremendous value. Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink in Wired http://bit.ly/b0mXPv
Betting on everything -- with new sophistication and better user interfaces. Example site: Iowa Electronic Markets http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/
Economist Magazine reviews how online services how allow you to share your house, your car, your tools -- even your clothes. http://econ.st/WMXr0o
Organize volunteers to frame and research important stories, as done on Talking Points Memo http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com . From NY Times Magazine archive http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas_section3-3.html
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have shown that in some cases, analyzing data from Twitter provides the same conclusions as public opinion polling. Mashable http://bit.ly/a7Aud7
Researchers can demonstrate that individuals making multiple guesses at a problem can have more accurate answers under certain circumstances. Scientific American http://bit.ly/cVbGhi
Through diplomacy and public cajoling, the rest of the world needs to encourage China to join global social networks (currently blocked) so it has a voice on important issues. http://ow.ly/qzxM
Want a little extra publicity? You can copy a ploy of the #Promise conference, which named the event with a Twitter hash tag. This will play well in social networks. CNET http://bit.ly/d1ZJLR
Researchers have shown that combining search data with an awareness of social networks, better early detection systems for disease outbreaks can be designed. Economist.com http://bit.ly/dzowbl
Citizen (and student) scientists, armed with an iPhone, can collect, share, tag, photograph and geolocate data across multiple disciplines. A MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning winner 2009. http://bit.ly/6LLMIr
Benetech provides tools and technologies to allow crowdsourced human rights and genocide reporting and analysis. http://bit.ly/5E2Aux
Mingly creates an address book and portal for key social media sites. Winner of Startup Weekend LA. http://bit.ly/6oQF7S