If you haven’t checked out MyBlogLog yet, you’re missing out on one of the new trendy ways for bloggers to develop communities. MyBlogLog originally started out as a simple stats service, but in the last few months, they’ve blossomed into an exciting tool for bloggers to connect with readers and readers to find other interesting blogs.

Also, if you haven’t checked it out yet, this is your lucky day: if you go and join Steve Olson’s community, you’ll help an entrepreneur in a developing country. Here’s why…

My friend Wendy Piersall has made a bet with Steve Olson that she can get more people to join his community than he can get to join hers. The loser (and really, with a charity push like this, there aren’t any losers) will donate $25 to Kiva. Wendy’s also “bribing” bloggers to write about their competition by donating more for every blogger who does so.

In case you’re not familiar with Kiva, it’s a brilliant organization that makes it possible for those of us in wealthy countries to make “microloans” to budding entrepreneurs in developing countries. Often a small capital investment is all that is needed to propel an ambitious soul from poverty to prosperity, and the cool think about Kiva is that you can lend the same money over and over as the entrepreneurs pay it back. I’m on my second round of loans with the money I initially put into the system.

Anyway, this is a fun effort with an interesting tool for a great cause, so I hope you’ll go join Steve Olson’s MyBlogLog community right now.