Project 10 to the 100th
By Grant | September 25, 2008
Hello all! I’d be remiss to not comment on and raise awareness for Google’s new project 10 to the 100th. In celebration of their 10th anniversary, Google is looking for viable ideas to help as many people as possible. Ideas can range on innovations within any of the following categories:
* Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
* Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
* Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
* Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
* Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
* Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
* Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
* Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.
Google has $10 Million set aside to fund these ideas. I think this is such a great initiative, I’ve always had a passion for sustainable and social entrepreneurship. Having friends involved in sites from CSEF.ca to 3rdWhale.com there’s bound to be some ideas out there that could be considered. Please help spread the word about this exciting opportunity!! I know my readership has a lot of connections into social cause!!
Deadlines for submissions are October 20th, 2008.
Topics: Topical News, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Niche Tube
By Grant | September 24, 2008
I just came across a neat idea for a twist on a video site called TVLesson.com. After the meteoric rise of YouTube there have been many “me-too” video sharing sites pop up with the exact same model. I have to appreciate clever entrepreneurs who put a bit of a twist on an idea, even if it is slight. Enter TVLesson.com, the video sharing site for how-to videos.
I found myself perusing a number of the categories. They have a lot already: from marketing how-to to hair styling how-to. At first blush it looks like there are a lot of amateur-types in these how-to videos. (If I’m going to take the time to learn something, I’d appreciate it if I knew the methodology I was learning was quality). I think they need to get some community critical mass so that the rating system could actually start to be reliably used to separate the good from the bad / painfully average.
I leave you on this blog post, with message from Frank Furness of TVLessons.com fame… not sure why he has a bad graphic blue screen image of the Forbidden City in the background, but ce la vie!
Topics: Online Marketing, Web 2.0, Webhead | 1 Comment »
The New Facebook
By Grant | September 20, 2008
Unless you live under a rock or belong to quite an older generation, you’re probably a user of or, at least, heard of Facebook. Over the last several months on Facebook there has been a link to their new layout which radically changes how users submit and digest information from their friend networks. Several weeks ago the change became permanent and now the new layout is the only way to interact with the site.
In the clip below Robert Scoble interviews Mark Slee, Lead Product Manager at Facebook who is responsible for the new interface.
Personally, I am not a fan of the new layout and many people I’ve talked to don’t enjoy the new user interface either. Time will tell as to whether or not it’s more of a learning curve aversion or if the new layout actually doesn’t make as much sense to people. One thing I can say for certain though is that I’ve drastically reduced how often I interact with Facebook because I’m really not crazy on the layout. I log in maybe once or twice a week, whereas before I’d log in more regularly than that. I would love to know if I’m alone in this, or if the layout is impacting you in similar ways. Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you.
I would also love to see Facebook’s site-wide analytics to see what kind of an impact the new layout is having on the community site-wide. With over 100 million active users, the smallest change to the user interface which impacts usability and usage could potentially cost millions of dollars in foregone advertising revenue if that change decreases usage. Mark Slee looks pretty young, he must feel a lot of pressure to ensure the site’s usage grows with each product innovation his team delivers. What an intense and exciting opportunity for such a young technologist.
Topics: Webhead | 2 Comments »
Sergey Brin’s Blog
By Grant | September 18, 2008
I’m not sure if it’s a hoax or not, but apparently Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has a blog.
Topics: Webhead | No Comments »