With the Holiday season arriving fast, it’s time to step back and think about others who are less fortunate. With all of the commerce happening online, it’s a perfect time for big companies to start Social Good campaigns to get gifts to those who can’t afford them. Social commerce site eBay has teamed up with Toys for Tots for the “Give-A-Toy Store” campaign.

Toys for Tots has been in operation since 1947, and is one of the most popular organizations to donate to around the Holidays.

With the tap of a button on your mobile device, you can give a gift to someone who deserves it.

Cheief Marketing Officer of eBay North America, Richelle Parham, had this to say about the “Give-A-Toy Store” initiative:

This holiday season, we’re giving people an innovative way to window shop for good that will benefit Toys for Tots. We’re leveraging our mobile technology to power The Give-A-Toy Store, which offers a differentiated, interactive experience for shoppers who wish to give using their smartphone.

You can donate anything from $2 to $25 for popular toys via eBay’s mobile app.

This isn’t just a mobile experience, as there is a physical Give-A-Toy store in New York City at 35th Street and Broadway near Herald Square, in addition to a location at 117 Post Street in San Francisco. You can even scan custom QR codes to automate the donation of your toy of choice. The QR codes cause the toys to animate, bringing you a feel-good experience when making a donation.

Here’s a video from the company, explaining the initiative:

If you’re not in NYC or SF, you can simply go to eBay’s “Give-A-Toy” website and donate there.

On Facebook, eBay is allowing its fans to customize toys, and $1 will be donated to Toys for Tots for every toy customization, up to $50,000.

Download the eBay mobile app today, visit the website, or visit one of the stores physically to make your donation. You could turn a child’s Holiday into an amazing experience, just by doing some Social Good online with eBay.

➤ “Give-A-Toy Store”

Digital music has transformed year after year since Shawn Fanning brought us Napster in 1999. The service allowed you to easily download music in MP3 format that you hadn’t paid for. Needless to say, the record industry wanted to shut it down immediately. It took them two years to do so.

By 2001, the “damage” was done. People realized that they shouldn’t have to pay over ten dollars to buy a CD for a song or two that they wanted to listen to from time to time. The record labels completely missed the point, and so did the outspoken band Metallica. Thousands of artists, mostly independent, saw the power that Napster brought to us. On demand music listening and sharing could indeed generate revenue. In near real-time.

Spotify vs. iTunes

iTunes was groundbreaking, there is no doubt about it. On January 9, 2001, Steve Jobs stood on stage and announced a virtual “store”, where you could pay only .99 cents per track. You could listen to a thirty-second preview of the song, so you no longer needed to waste money on an entire album. iTunes was the “happy medium” that record labels finally settled for after Napster upended the industry.

Steve Jobs could tell record labels that its music could be pirated and shared freely, or sold on a track by track basis on a platform of which the world has never seen. This could give control back to the record labels. He won and so did iTunes.

On demand vs. pay for play

What Napster uncovered was that people didn’t want to buy albums or tracks, they wanted to listen to music at the exact moment that they wanted to. They didn’t want to drive to a store, wait in line, and find out that 75% of the album sucked. Consumers heard a song on the radio and wanted to hear it over and over again. On demand.

Of course, people were doing this for free, and there’s no doubt that a lot of money was lost for artists during the hey-day of Napster. But bands like “Dave Matthews Band” has always adopted freely distributing its music, allowing fans to record and share music from its live shows. That band and many others realized that if people could listen to music when they wanted, and easily, they would buy more tickets and T-Shirts, as well as spread the word about their band.

It was almost a trade-off. Take our music, but if you love it, tell the world about it. It was a smart bet.

The state of online music

Numerous music services have seen the light of day since Napster was released. Napster is actually still alive and owned by Best Buy. Amazon sells MP3s on its site, even Wal-Mart has its own service. Pandora has taken the world by storm with its streaming music based on the Music Genome Project. But nothing beats the on-demand listening experience. Searching through an infinite database for that track that caught your ear or makes you remember a moment in your life is powerful. Spotify knew that, and Spotify has implemented it perfectly.

Since Sean Parker had an interest in disrupting the music business, he reached out to Spotify in 2009, letting them know what he thought about the company in detail. He expressed interested in investing in them, and told them that his friend Mark Zuckerberg liked its service. Mark Zuckerberg of course has access to over 800 million users on Facebook, most of which love music. Don’t forget, Sean Parker was the President of Facebook during its early years. Facebook will most certainly see revenue from Spotify subscriptions generated leveraging its open graph.

A match made in heaven for Facebook, a match made in hell for Apple

The partnership between Facebook and Spotify makes complete sense. Spotify was smart enough to know that the desktop music experience was important, so it has stuck with having a desktop app along with its mobile app. Paying a subscription price of $9.99 lets you listen to music on your mobile device, even when you’re offline. At Facebook’s f8 conference, the two companies dropped a bomb. Full integration of Facebook and Spotify, along with a new music section on Facebook. I’m not sure iTunes can compete with this powerhouse over the next five years.

The thing that Spotify does really well that iTunes cannot compete with, is social. Spotify is built around favoriting things, creating and sharing playlists, none of which iTunes supports. Apple attempted to create its own music social network called “Ping”, but I can without a doubt call it a failure to date. Appled failed to parnter with Facebook on connecting accounts, and it was obvious to me at the time, why. Spotify. Apple can’t compete with Spotify in that when you listen to a song, and we’re friends on Facebook, I can immediately listen to that song. For no cost. iTunes would like to charge you 99 cents to listen to the song. That’s too much friction for social music. After all, music sells more music.

This is of course my opinion, but I’ve been using Spotify for a few years now and am extremely passionate about music. I’ve not once felt a close connection to iTunes, and it wasn’t always about the money. The friction and lack of innovation in socializing music made it feel sterile to me. Spotify has changed all of that.

Apple should be working on bringing iTunes up to speed, because it has felt like a dinosaur for years. Almost as much as the record player feels like now.

Napster caused a problem, and Apple solved it. It only makes sense that Spotify does it best, with Sean Parker leading the way.

The New York Times Bucks blog reports that the web-only bank BankSimple is going to launch next month in private beta. The invites should be rolled out slowly in the hundreds the company says.

There are reportedly thousands of names on the waiting list to join BankSimple, which we’ve written about before. Banksimple isn’t a standalone bank, in the traditional sense, but rather takes on the role of replacing your bank. It aims to make banking a different experience, getting rid of surprise fees while still making bill paying, budgeting and saving a priority. As BankSimple’s Adam Erlebacher explains, on the subject of surprise fees:

“If a customer were to request an international wire transfer, we would simply charge the customer what the wire transfer cost us. We don’t profit from fees.”

The service aims to help you save money to budget for travel and bills, and put a huge emphasis on customer service, something most banks lack in consumers eyes. BankSimple also wants to answer all of your banking questions, and make banking less fearful for the consumer.

Having recently moved to Portland, the company is hiring on top of an already impressive team. Adding to an already impressive team, including the original platform developer at Twitter, former Director of Finance and Administration and Board Member of Strands, Ryan Hildebrand, has joined BankSimple as Controller.

We reported on cardless bank provider Movenbank who launched in alpha this week, so this space is getting hot.

On the heels of the wedding of William and Kate, the Beatification ceremony of Pope John Paul II will be streamed live on YouTube this coming Sunday.

YouTube announced on its official blog that on Sunday, May 1st, at 1:00am ET / 9:00am CET, people across the globe will be able to witness the event on YouTube’s Live browse page. The Vatican created its own channel to celebrate the late pontiff, which consists of videos that document his pontificate.

The Vatican’s own player will present the ceremony as well, which will see hundreds of thousands of people attending the Beatification ceremony in person in Saint Peter’s Square.

The live stream will end at 4:45am ET / 12:45 CET and the entire ceremony will be uploaded to the YouTube channel dedicated to the celebrant, allowing anyone a chance to witness the ceremony at their leisure.