Author ArchiveLet’s hope Yahoo has finally learned that the maxim “If you build it, they will come” simply does not apply to a social network. The Silicon Valley mainstay and onetime Microsoft shopping-spree target is quietly shutting down Yahoo Mash, its latest foray into creating a general-interest social network like …
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Technorati acquires ‘online magazine’ BlogcriticsPosted by: admin in Social Media and Tech Technorati Media, parent company of blog search site Technorati, has acquired Blogcritics.org. The newly purchased site is a user-fueled “online magazine” for bloggers that was already a member of the newish Technorati Media ad network. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Technorati has stated that it …
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2008
Bank of America Huddles NFL Fans and Challenges Them To Now Prove ItPosted by: admin in Investment NewsBank of America Huddles NFL Fans and Challenges Them To Now Prove It Contest tests the limits of fans’ loyalty as a party of 2008-2009 NFL season kick-off NEW YORK, Sept 03, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — As the Official Bank of the National Football League, Bank of America is celebrating the 2008 season kick-off by issuing the Now Prove […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net
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2008
‘Facebook: The Movie’: Now, who should play Mark Zuckerberg?Posted by: admin in Social Media and Tech (Credit: Facebook)If a recently created group on Facebook is to be believed, entertainment stalwart Aaron Sorkin–creator of The West Wing and A Few Good Men–is working on penning a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about the origins of Facebook. Someone claiming to be Sorkin’s researcher …
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2008
WorldMapper: The world as you’ve never seen it beforePosted by: admin in Investing World
The United Nations works hard creating vast tables of data showing everything from traffic fatalities to at-risk mollusk species. The trouble is, that data is vastly boring. It might have an effect on UN policy, but it certainly won’t have an effect on the average person. But now it just might. The geeks at WorldMapper.org have created a system that graphs this UN data into maps. Suddenly the data become ridiculously easy to comprehend. The map above, with the over-inflated United Says and Japan, you might have guessed, shows CO2 emissions per country in 2000. One of the most fascinating things I discovered is how closely that mirrors the map of wealth per country. The map below, on the other hand, shows population (we don’t know why Antarctica shows up at all, but there you have it.)
The project is run by Danny Dorling and Anna Barford of the University of Sheffield, UK and they already have over three hundred maps. Aside from being an extremely fast way to brief yourself on the state of the world, it’s also simply fascinating. The statistics on teenage mothers blew me away, and the series on centers of world wealth from 2000 years ago to 2015 on tells a story that couldn’t be told in 100,000 words. It’s becoming clear that understanding data is much more important than simply having data, so we’re happy to applaud worldmapper’s efforts. Now that we have the ability to see the problems clearly, there’s nothing in the way of all the affected countries actually doing something about it, right? To my mind, the killer feature of Google Docs is not that it is Web-based, per se. It’s that it makes real-time collaboration easy. You can invite a user into a document you currently have open, and you both can edit the file at the same time. It’s not a feature you’re going to need all the time, but when you’re on a deadline and need to get sign-off from one or more other person on a document right away, it’s a life-saver (see also: Zooos). 
Plutext adds new collaboration functions to Word. (Credit: Plutext)
Fighting this killer feature is Microsoft Word’s own killer feature, which is: Everyone in business has Word, and most people know how to use it effectively. There are plenty of people who would use a simultaneous editing feature in Word if it had one, and who aren’t going to switch to Google just because it does. A new service, Plutext, currently being developed, will bring nearly live editing to Word documents. I saw a demo at the Office 2.0 conference. The service works as a plug-in to Word, adding a collection of buttons in the “Review” tab. These new functions let you invite users into a document, push your changes to the Web, and read in new changes. While Plutext does not support strictly simultaneous editing (you have to intentionally publish your changes and get new updates), neither does it let two users get out of sync by letting them work on different versions of the same file. You really can have a dozen people in the same document at the same time. Plutext uses Word’s existing Accept and Reject Revisions function to review changes other people have made on your open document. With Plutext, you won’t have the problem of multiple versions of the file floating around with different revisions in them, nor will you run into the issue of trying to open a document to edit it only to find that some other user has it opened and locked for changes, and is out to lunch. There’s also a wiki-like revision history that acts as an audit trail of all the work done on a document. Revisions in this report are flagged either by paragraph or section heading (user’s choice); the latter could make reading updates on technical and legal documents much easier than it would be otherwise. 
The system creates readable audit trails of changes. (Credit: Plutext)
Plutext Managing Director Jason Harrop told me that real-time co-editing is technically possible with his platform, but that his research says users want the level of control that the intentional publishing gives them. Plutext is also going to release a free Java-based editor, Docx4all, that natively supports Word .DOCX files as well as the Plutext system. It’s not a pure Web-based editor, but it will grant document authors to send links to active versions of their files to users who don’t have Word. The demo I saw was early and a bit rough; taking a file from standard single-user mode to collaborative looked complicated; Harrop states the system will be cleaner when it ships in October. Plutext will be available as server-based software for companies that want their documents stored inside their own firewalls; a cloud-based Plutext service may also be forthcoming. See also: Expresso, EditGrid, Sharepoint. And keep an eye on Docverse. Google Chrome will work with NetSuite’s online record-keeping and customer-relations software, the company said Friday. Elements of the company’s online tools, including editing text and drag-and-drop operations, benefit from Chrome’s fast JavaScript, NetSuite stated. However, Google’s assertions of compatibility with Apple Safari notwithstanding, NetSuite stated it will gradually extend support to its customers, finishing by mid-October. The company boasted it’s the first on the internet business application to support Chrome, just as it was the first with native support for the iPhone’s version of Safari and the new Firefox 3.0. But that sort of support seems more like a reasonably clever attempt to capitalize on the Chrome buzz than anything customers truly are clamoring for. After all, NetSuite is geared toward businesses that typically are the kinds of conservative and technologically unadventurous customers who aren’t first in line to try the latest beta version of a Web browser. One of the reasons Microsoft won’t frog-march us all to Internet Explorer 7, much less IE 8, is that many businesses have set up operations using IE 6, even though it was introduced in 2001. Click here for full coverage of the Google Chrome launch. Google Chrome will work with NetSuite’s on the web accounting and customer-relations software, the company stated Friday. Elements of the company’s on the internet tools, including editing text and drag-and-drop operations, benefit from Chrome’s fast JavaScript, NetSuite stated. However, Google’s assertions of compatibility with Apple Safari notwithstanding, NetSuite stated it will gradually extend support to its customers, finishing by mid-October. The company boasted it’s the first on the web business application to support Chrome, just as it was the first with native support for the iPhone’s version of Safari and the new Firefox 3.0. But that sort of support seems more like a reasonably clever attempt to capitalize on the Chrome buzz than anything customers truly are clamoring for. After all, NetSuite is geared toward businesses that typically are the kinds of conservative and technologically unadventurous customers who aren’t first in line to try the latest beta version of a Web browser. One of the reasons Microsoft won’t frog-march us all to World wide web Explorer 7, much less IE 8, is that many businesses have set up operations using IE 6, although it was introduced in 2001. Huddler’s tight-knit community of eco-minded consumers share their knowledge about sustainable products and services ranging from electric vehicles to organic toothpaste. Click here to participate. What is TerraCycle?TerraCycle is one of the best examples of eco-capitalism in action. The company was founded in 2001 by two Princeton students, Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer. They started out with their flagship product, TerraCycle Plant Food, which is a liquid plant food. The catch, however, was that their product was made entirely from waste (worm poop, as it so happened) and packaged in waste (old soda bottles). From there, TerraCycle blossomed into the great upcycling company it is today. They currently take a variety of waste products (think KoolAid containers, Capri Sun juice packs, cookie wrappers, soda bottles, and more) and turn them into new useful items (like tote bags and pencil cases). TerraCycle ProductsHere’s just a small sampling of three of TerraCycle’s product repertoire:
Huddler.com Interview with CEO and Founder Tom Szaky
Between July 14th and 20th, 2008, Green Home Huddlers got the chance to post and vote on questions for an interview with Tom.
To get all of Tom’s insights on the ins and outs of eco-capitalism and TerraCycle’s unique business, read the full interview.
Q: Hi Tom, thanks for taking questions. You’ve got a pretty big range of products I see (everything from rain barrels, to tote bags, to cleaning products). How did you get there from just starting with your original plant food product? (by Eli) A: Thank you for participating! Our development and growth is definitely faster than your average company. At TerraCycle, our mission is to find a meaningful use for waste materials (read: smelly garbage). That mission led us to identifying so many different waste streams that needed addressing. From drink pouches to wine barrels to plastic bags, so much material is wasted. Because no one wants these materials, they’re simple for us to come by; because sustainable products are ‘all the rage,’ retailers welcome us with open arms. This combination has granted us to develop an amazing number of products quickly. Unlike most companies, which spend years in product development and testing, TerraCycle moves through these stages very swiftly. First we identify a waste stream, then we figure out what we have the ability to make from that material. This is our strength — creatively solving the “what the hell do we make from it” issue. If a retailer bites, we’re in full production in a matter of weeks. Q: What’s the typical product development process for TerraCycle? I’m especially interested in material selection. Do you begin by selecting the ideal material for a new product and then do some product design and testing? How do you evaluate if there will be adequate quantity of the waste (while there are obviously more than enough 20oz. plastic soda bottles, I imagine it’s a lot tougher to determine if you’ll be able to reclaim enough cookie wrappers)? Where do the materials ultimately come from? (combined question by teej and dana1981)
Great observation, waste stream sourcing is difficult because it’s not consistent. If you need to order 1000 rolls of a cloth, it can be made for you, but we are restricted to using materials that already exist. The waste streams we use by definition are in abundance. We’re addressing the largest waste streams, the ones that are doing the most ecological damage, so that means there are 100’s of millions, if not billions, being produced every year. Still, the issue remains that we have to make a ship date for Target and how can we assure the collection of enough cookie wrappers in time? Luckily our partnership with Kraft Foods solves that issue. In addition to Kraft, or in this case the brand Nabsico specifically, providing enough funding to collect millions of wrappers post-consumer. We also have deals to take all of the brand’s post-industrial ‘kick offs.’ Any packaged goods manufacturer has some small percentage of off-spec, end run or unused packaging. That small percentage translates to millions of unusable impressions. These post industrial streams help us solidify our manufacturing needs and are just as eco-friendly. If not upcycled by TerraCycle, these ‘kick-offs’ go to a landfill or are incinerated to create energy.
A: Thanks for the kind words! Surprisingly it is much much cheaper. Keep in mind the following figures are rough estimates. To purchase a standard plastic bottle to package your cleaners is (let’s say) 5 cents. To get a 50% post consumer plastic bottle, it jumps to 9-10 cents, for a compostable bottle made from corn plastic you are now speaking 20-25 cents per bottle. For our reused bottles, we pay an average of one half cent per bottle, all bought from local recycling centers. We can clean 100’s at a time and are left with a bottle that cost about the same as a regular bottle, but is the most eco-friendly version possible. This is why TerraCycle prides itself on providing eco-friendly alternatives at no premium. Q: Can you tell us what the single most important thing an ecopreneur should know before moving forward? Is there one piece of advice you wish someone had told you when you were starting out? (by jenGreenhance) A: To a young ecopreneur? To always stay true to your mission. In its formative years, TerraCycle was broke and operating out of a dingy garage. Still I turned down a million dollar business plan contest, because the VCs providing the capital wanted me to move away from used soda bottles and our green focus and instead become a traditional fertilizer company. If I had concurred and gone with the money and the suggestions of the more experienced business men telling me what to do, I never would have moved from fertilizers to all the wonderful items were are manufacturing now. If you’ve a plan and a dream and you believe it will work then stick with it, no matter what. It won’t be simple or swift, but the payoff is endless if you see it through.
For the complete interview, head on over here.
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2008
‘Facebook: The Movie’: Now, who should play Mark Zuckerberg?Posted by: admin in Social Media and Tech(Credit: Facebook)If a recently created group on Facebook is to be believed, entertainment stalwart Aaron Sorkin–creator of The West Wing and A Few Good Men–is working on penning a motion picture for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about the origins of Facebook. Someone claiming to be Sorkin’s researcher … |
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Great follow up question to build off my answer to Eli. Actually, contrary to traditional manufacturing, our first step is identifying the waste materials. Because we are upcycling, not recycling, we have to come up with a completed product that utilizes the original shape and composition of the material. Once we have a material identified and product concept in mind, we test to see if our production costs and needs are environmental and economical. 
