Continuing upon what we talked about last night, I came across www.climber.com in the WSJ today. Excerpt from WSJ – “Visitors to 9 month old climber.com are prompted to answer about 25 questions on qualification topics… and results in a personal profile. Climber works with roughly 40 corporate clients and sends them profiles of job hunters that closely match their hiring needs.

Here you have a chance to portray yourself and find entry level positions.  A great example of an internet entrepreneurship company that has already partially identified the need we discussed last night.  Maybe it will put somebody on the career track.  Best of luck!

Kiva is a nonprofit, p2p microloan company designed to promote entrepreneurship in developing countries.  Founded in October of 2005, Kiva has financed US$21 million worth of loans coming from 242,000 lenders.  You can be a lender.

The Kiva team initially focused its funding on the country of Uganda but has since opened up the offering nationwide.  At Kiva.org you’ll find a loan profile and will have the opportunity to lend an amount as small as $25 to the cause.  In the name of promoting entrepreneurship, no interest rates are charged, but 99,7% of donations are repaid within 12 months.

A sample loan profile from Wikipedia is available below:

Fisherman seeks refrigerator

• 51 year old fisherman with three children in Azerbaijan
• 12 years of experience
• Seeks 12 month loan for $725 USD in order to purchase a refrigerator
• Has already successfully repaid two prior microloan

Kiva.org represents the ultimate aha!  By leaving our money in 1-2% checking and saving accounts we’re actually losing money to inflation on a yearly basis.  By donating a small sum to a developing venture you have the chance to be part of an international phenomena – Kiva.org “loans that change lives”

 http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/

Provides daily updates on new tech ventures, and where they are receiving funding from.  There’s still a lot of money to be made in Web 2.0 and this site shows you where the funds are being invested.  The AlarmClock team does a great job keeping tabs on international developments.  While Facebook, Youtube, Ebay and Google dominate the market here, imagine the market potential in China.

As we examine the auctioneer monster that is Ebay, it’s important to consider what else the company is doing to stay competitive in the marketplace.  As Google has set the standard by acquiring literally hundreds of internet startups, Ebay has followed suit and made some allies of their own.  Consider Paypal, Skype and most recently Fraud Sciences a company acquired just yesterday.

PayPal To Pay $169M For Fraud Sciences

PayPal will pay $169M in cash to acquire Fraud Sciences, an Israeli company that develops online risk and security tools.

PayPal, a unit of eBay (NSDQ: EBAY), will use Fraud Sciences’ technology to enhance the fraud management systems of both PayPal and eBay.

FraudScience has raised $7M from BRM Capital (which holds a 40% stake), angel investor Guy Gamzu, and Redpoint Ventures.

Founded by former Israeli intelligence experts, Fraud sciences set itself up to sort out legitimate bidders from suspicious bidders. The company was founded in 2001 but didn’t launch until the end of 2006.

By expanding their offerings, Ebay remains a forward looking company with growth potential.  Often times these strategic acquisitions occur not only to expand one’s own market but to stop the competitor from expanding theirs.  For instance, when Microsoft acquired just under a 2% stake in Facebook they did it with a strategic objective.  When Intuit bought billpay systems, they did it to block Microsoft from the market.  Ebay continues to be a power player in the market.

When Facebook was released to the Ivy League schools, it benefited from a powerful group of early adopters. Zuckerberg isolated a need, and offered a standard solution. Facebook presented a simple approach to networking.

When individuals refer to “opening” up Facebook, they refer to the decision to make the service available to everyone, but this wasn’t the first “opening”. Prior to this, Zuckerberg made the unpopular decision to open Facebook to non-Ivy league participants. By breaking from the elitist ranks, he alienated a number of early adopters but transformed Facebook from a useful application to a billion dollar success.

What the average student doesn’t like about Facebook is exactly what propels the company’s growth. Students disagreed with the expanding community, students were upset with news feeds, upset with the onslaught of applications, and upset about the Beacon advertising strategy.

Yet these new features are the cause for some major keg parties at Facebooks youthful Silicon Valley headquarters. The expanding community quadrupled the user base, and the new applications mean users spend more time on the site.

In the world of internet advertising, if a user goes to facebook, logs in, checks messages, and leaves, he or she may have spent three minutes on the website. Now if a user logs on to do battle in Jetman, before ranking their friends from 1 to 1,000, a user spends hours a day during each login.

This propels growth, and is vital to Facebook’s revenue model. The longer individuals spend on the site, the grander the Silicon Valley Keg parties are becoming. Each time you set a personal record in JetMan a twentysomething, software engineer pulling in 6 figures a year while working half days in shorts and sandals raises his glass to you.