Zebrafish

Librivox audiobooks in the public domain
Librivox is an interesting idea, they have free audio books available to download and listen on your music player, they are free because the copyright laws on a piece of work disappear after a certain period after an author dies. Librivox gets people to volunteer to read the stories aloud from the public domain.
http://librivox.org

Use Jajah from your handset to make cheap internet calls
Jajah is the best way of making phone calls over the Internet. Its different to Skype because you can call from your own handset. You pay online to set up a call then it calls you and your destination at the same time so that you don´t pay anything on your phone. I use this effectively while in foreign countries, I buy a cheap local pay as you go SIM card for my mobile then jump on the internet to initiate a call, then you can wander down the street in say the highlands of Guatemala while chatting to your friend back at home. I combine this with my Palm computer which I can pick up WiFi in cafes so I can just sit in a cafe and call internationally too.
http://jajah.com
http://mobile.jajah.com

Kiva is a charity that works with micro-loan companies and allows you to give loans from $25 upwards to individual people and projects that you can read about and track through their website and they pay you back over 12 months. And because of the nature of the site only as little of 1.9% of these default.

So you could pay $25 to help a carpenter in Nicaragua buy tools, he will pay you back $2 per month, as the money is paid back into your PayPal account you can lend that money to someone else, or reimburse yourself. It is also possible to buy loans as gifts for your friends and family through the website.

http://www.kiva.org/

My Kiva Profile
http://www.kiva.org/lender/stephen2637

[the US] .... since 1945, has overthrown 50 governments, many of them democracies, and bombed 30 nations, destroying millions of lives.

John Pilger
The Danse Macabre Of Us-Style Democracy / Jan 23
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3334

Resonance FM
Resonance 104.4 fm is the world’s first radio art station, established by London Musicians’ Collective. It started broadcasting on May 1st 2002. Its brief? To provide a radical alternative to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting. Resonance 104.4 fm features programmes made by musicians, artists and critics who represent the diversity of London’s arts scenes, with regular weekly contributions from nearly two hundred musicians, artists, thinkers, critics, activists and instigators; plus numerous unique broadcasts by artists on the weekday “Clear Spot”.
http://resonancefm.com
 

Rebel Frequencies Blog
"We want Rebel music, street music. Music that breaks down people's fear of one another. Crisis music. Now music. Music that knows who the real enemy is."

This person knows his music, excellent fresh intelligent music journalism
http://rebelfrequencies.blogspot.com

Beat the traffic blues, keep fit and reduce CO2 with these excellent route mapping websites

Bikely
Bikely helps cyclists share knowledge of good bicycle routes.
http://www.bikely.com

WalkIt
A step in the right direction
http://www.walkit.com  

Some really interesting alternative media has been developing on the Internet in recent years and I wanted to blog a little about them so hopefully other people can get to know about them more.

Democracy Now is a free online TV news service broadcasting for 1 hour a day. It claims to be independent unembedded media that challenges the mainstream media and an 'exception to the rulers'. You can watch each show daily or search their archive for interviews and subjects. Each show focuses on only 1-3 subjects in detail and after watching it is quite clear what a breath of fresh it is. It really makes you realise how uninformative a supposedly respectable organisation like the BBC is.
http://www.democracynow.org

The Real News "will investigate, report and debate stories that help us understand the critical issues of our time. We won't blindly follow wire services or official press releases that attempt to set the news agenda. We will cover the big stories of the day, but we will broaden the definition of what's important."
http://www.therealnews.com  

Znet media is a collective of the best in independent journalism from around the world but with a slight US focus. Its by far the best and most critical source of journalism to be found on the internet and was created by economics visionary Michael Albert who had been inspired by his lecturer Noam Chomsky at MIT.
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet

MediaLens aims to 'correct the distorted vision of corporate media', it also ignores the soft tabloid targets and goes straight for organisations such at the BBC, Guardian and Independent UK media.
http://www.medialens.org