Today, I went to check an old online workspace at Omidyar.net for Targeted Currencies, a project I co-founded back in 2004. And I found out that the Omidyar network had closed down.

The Omidyar Network (O/Net) was an early phase community collaboration site for progressive global activists, founded when Pierre Omidyar (founder of eBay and leading social venture financier) led the pack and switched his charitable giving from a .org to a .net (and for-profit) to allow the fund to invest in for-profits as well as non-profits, which was a major turning point in the evolution of social entrepreneurism. And I felt at the time that the network had an equally serious role.

I had abandon my O/Net account at least two years ago, because the internal political discussion had become too pervasive and it wasn’t clear that much action was coming out of the discussions. But I would occasionally lurk, and for the digitally minded activist, it was a pretty active discussion zone. Which is why I was surprised to see the end of OnlineSocialActivism 1.0.

The site has links to eight places where the discussion continues, which provides a quick look at the state of online activism today:

• Ned. This is built on the O/Net framework, and looks to have taken most of the soul of the site with it. Most interesting is their use of points (earned by participation) as a measure of reputation and impact in the community. This live lab for reputation currency might have been my favorite part of O/Net.
• WiserEarth. This directory of global activists has come on strong in the past six months, largely on the reputation of Paul Hawken, and is huge in terms of directory listings, mostly people and organizations. The discussions are not terribly active just yet, and it feels like it could recruit some of its own activists to generate some more excitement.
• Razoo. This SocNet for social causes is in beta, and has been since last fall. It’s hard to see a ton of activity in this network, or anything super-exciting going on, but has a pretty active blog.
• AboutUS. This one is a bit confusing – it’s a site with a wiki page for every website, allowing people to post their comments. Although I could elucidate a benefit statement, I’m not sure I ‘get it’ at a gut level. Who’s going to take the time to read the site? Why wouldn’t people just use wikipedia? TechCrunch tries to explain it here. Hmmm…
• Wagn. This is an alternate to a wiki platform. Do we need an alternate? Doesn’t seem to amount to much.
• Facebook Group and Better World Island. It’s smart to see people using existing infrastructure to stay connected. Being a Facebook refusnik (sue me), I can’t judge its activity. And the BWI site is a discussion community for the Second Life island, another massive social platform that doesn’t really interest me. But it seems to be populated by people who are actually doing work.
• Daily Appreciations. The stated goal is to have a home for appreciating the good things, which is easy enough to support. I wonder if this site isn’t a little too literal about changing the world. Who is the audience or community? People who already appreciate their life? That sounds like preaching to the converted. Seems like these good intentions may not manifest into real change, but I hope I’m wrong, and sincerely appreciate that they’re trying.

Mostly, today’s review reminds me why I’m so much more committed to social entrepreneurship than to social activism — it’s the subtle difference in approach, to outcomes, to activities. I think I am more tuned to the balance of energy that comes from the social businesses, which is reflected differently in each of these websites.