Google Translate is helping to overcome language barriers online with its free online translation of texts, web pages and documents, and it’s progressed a long way since the early days of Babel Fish with its sometimes hilarious, nonsensical “roundtrip” translations. But the web is also facilitating language learning in a way that doesn’t require sitting in a classroom. As Eric A. Taub notes in a New York Times article, “The Web Way to Learn a Language“:
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OhMyGov! has a post by Amelia Hassani on the six top government social networking sites: Military.com, Govloop, ExchangesConnect, GovCentral, Our Border and The Federal Contractor Network.
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Over $2 million has been raised through mobile phone giving for earthquake aid in Haiti, according to the New York Times Lede blog. Awareness of the different ways to donate — text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross or “YELE” to 501501 donate $5 to Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean’s charity — has been helped by word-of-mouth publicizing on Facebook and Twitter:
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Expanding on the Democracy Video Challenge, the State Department launched a Twitter contest today.

The U.S. Department of State announces the launch of the global “Democracy is…” Twitter Contest. Tweet what you think democracy is using the hash symbol: #democracyis. The goal is to provide a worldwide platform in which people can discuss the meaning of democracy and exchange ideas from diverse perspectives.

The global “Democracy is…” Twitter Contest begins today at 5:30 p.m. EST and ends January 21, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. EST. To join the contest, become a Twitter follower of @demvidchallenge and tweet what you think democracy is in 140 characters or less. The contestant whose tweet with the greatest number of unique re-tweets will receive a Flip Video HD Camcorder. The winner will be announced on the Democracy Video Challenge Facebook fan page ^[1] on January 25, 2009. Only one re-tweet per user will count in the official tally. Additional contests will be announced throughout the year.

Marc Lacey of the New York Times has an article about Revolico.com, a site set up by two Cubans living in Spain to facilitate Craigslist-type exchanges. The similarly bare bones site is helping to facilitate black market entrepreneurship:

Two Cubans in their 20s who left the island for Spain have created a way to make all this secretive selling easier. It is a type of Cuban Craigslist, which allows the small but growing number of Cubans with access to computers and the Internet to buy and sell with less sneaking around.

But the authorities, despite loosening restrictions recently on the sale of computers, have repeatedly blocked access to their Web site, Revolico, whose name means commotion. One of the programmers who created the site (www.revolico.com) said in an e-mail message that he and the co-founder were in a constant scramble to get their site past government censors.
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