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Brand strategists Chris Bryant says the U.S.

A mobile app that lets people send gift cards to friends is not the work of a deals company. But it is using discounts to deliver customers--especially the specific demographics individual merchants want--into brick-and-mortar stores. Daily deals have exploded into a $4 billion industry almost overnight because there’s no shortage of merchants who would like to lure online customers into their real-world establishments.

Jen Bilik, founder of the stationery and gift business Knock Knock, considers herself the company's "creative monarch." Jen Bilik calls herself a productive procrastinator. She took time off from her work as a freelance book editor in 2002, intending to write an illustrated memoir about high school.

Inc. has covered the Daily Deal and Local Deal space quite extensively over the last year or so. In fact my colleague Eric Markowitz has reported on the death of daily deals (and their resurrection ) in the last few weeks.

A series of startups want to reboot selflessness with new ways to give gifts. The Internet, by and large, is a selfish place.

The grandson of the legendary investor aims to bring some private-sector savvy to the growing world of mega-philanthropy.

The popular geo-location app grew its total user base as it transitioned from nonprofit to for-profit--having more users to give to charity in the process. In a fascinating case study of how the for-profit industry can sometimes make a greater social impact than the nonprofit world, Shopkick , a popular geo-location app, has paradoxically created a more charitable community since it decided to ditch its charity business model and focus on giving people free stuff. The app rewards users with virtual currency for completing various check-in tasks at selected retailers which can then be redeemed for products or used to give equivalently to a charity.

This is the 61th year that the Nobel Laureate Meetings have been held at Lindau. The conference was held for the first time in 1951, funded by the wealthy count Lennart Bernadotte, as an effort to restore the international scientific ties that had been severed by the war. The count’s daughter, Bettina Bernadotte, has been the patron of the Lindau Conferences since 2007.

Whom do bold thinkers look to for inspiration?

Want to convince with your gift of gab? Sales people are hip to the tricks, stating everything as a question and doing more listening than yapping.

SeeYourImpact.org rewards acts of micro-charity with photographs and stories of the impact donors make.