My name is Jonathan Young. I am 35 years old, live in Hamburg, Germany with my family and work currently as the German site executive for a large Internet-based travel company. Time and time again I have had ideas for Internet-based projects, ideas which could get noticed by many people and at the same time aim to reach a goal which would make me proud of my achievement. The idea of creating a social community with a donation funded virtual human chain around the whole world came early February 2007 and I haven't stopped developing the site since. "Give Earth a Hand" will allow me to create a network of people around the world to help support projects aiming at fighting global warming and the general ecological downfall happening on our planet.

The NSPCC - a child protection charity in the UK - is using Google Maps in the latest phase of the hugely ambitious Full Stop campaign to end cruelty to children.

The "Be the Full Stop" website shows how the actions of individual fundraisers, donors, campaigners, volunteers link up across the country "to create an unstoppable force against child cruelty."

To get on the map, you sign up to the following statement: I believe child cruelty can be ended and I want to get on the map and take action now

Once on the map you can:

I just sent an email introducing two organizations that I think ought to know about each other.

GhostCycle gathers information about bike accidents in the Seattle area, makes that info available to site visitors (including a very interesting GoogleMap) and uses public art to draw attention to particularly unsafe intersections. GhostCycle is profiled in the Net Squared in Action section of this site.

BikeTalk Radio is a radio show and podcast about bicycling that's recorded in Davis, CA.  The podcast can be listened to anywhere in the world online or by download.  Listeners can subscribe to receive new episodes automatically by RSS.  Recent topics include mountain biking, winter riding tips and California legislation concerning bikes.

Good visualizations of data probably light up entirely different synapses in the brain than almost anything else.  I have long wondered just how truly useful they are, though.  Over the past few weeks, I've been convinced that online maps in particular are a very important development.

GoogleMaps is a powerful new tool that people all around the world are utilizing for a wide variety of projects.  The system is highly functional, integrates data and imagery beautifully and is very nice to look at at the same time.  It is also very welcoming for people who want to manipulate maps to visualize their data.