This Ushahidi Crowdmap visualizes the Haitian earthquake aftermath The folks over at TechSoup/NetSquared have an end-of-year Net2Think Challenge is coming to a close on Saturday. People are submitting their reflections about the hottest trends from the world of innovation and social benefit in 2010. Here are some reflections — big and small — from the year. 1) The big news was the use of mobile as a legitimate grassroots platform in 2010. We first saw this with texting and the American Red Cross’s incredible fundraising drive during the initial Haiti relief drive. Then it continued with the DNC’s canvassing app on the iPhone, a new way to organize grassroots volunteers. And finally, we saw the Apple iPhone app donation issue …

This case study will be included in my next book, Welcome to the Fifth Estate (the follow up to Now Is Gone). The case study is a little more special than most, because it involves a friend, Mark Horvath. Connecting with Mark, a kindred spirit in many ways, has been one of the best results of my online career over the past two years. I wish Mark well with new his We Are Visible initiative (see the following video). Mark Horvath is a free agent, a one man army who has taken social media tools to fight homeless ness as a video blogger, and now because of his efforts as a veritable charity. What started and continues as InvisiblePeople.tv has …