Connecting the dots ...
STRANGE though it seems, a typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food.
Leaving our appliances – DVDs, computers, etc, – in stand-bye mode costs energy worth $3 billion and causes pollution equivalent to 18 million cars.
Read the Economist article for details.
Everyone who speaks a language, speaks it with an accent. When people listen to someone speak with a different accent from their own, they notice the difference, and they may even make certain biased social judgments about the speaker.
Browse 500+ sound clips from all over the world. Released under a Creative Commons License.
I suppose I can now officially declare my test a failure. My “Zoli 3.0 Launched” post resulted in a spike of traffic, but few responses, and some of those were quite surprising.
Inspired by a Scoble post and a few cases where I’ve seen it work, I wanted to test how effectively I can find a job by posting it on my blog, vs. the traditional route of sending out resumes. (More then just a test, I am actually looking for a job or consulting gig). Trying to stand out, I announced my availability as a mock product launch. I thought it was a humorous approach, that still left my intent clear – especially since the detailed product specs pointed to my professional profile.
Apparently some (many?) of my readers took it literally. Imagine my surprise receiving responses like these:
So, other than it did not really work, I’m not sure what conclusion to draw:
Update (4/20): Tom Raftery tries the same: (good luck, Tom!)
Tags: blogs, blogging, resume, jobsearch, humor, product launch
This is cute: The Oracle FAQ site OraFAQ runs on… MySQL! (via Zack Urlocker). Oh, the “r” in the title? That’s just for 2.0 compatibility.
Tags: Oracle, MySQL, databases, Open Source, Humor
It’s raining … and one of these giant Street Sweepers just passed my house. Gotta put in those hours… after all WE are paying for it.
“LONDON – A British court awarded six prison officers damages and legal costs reported to be in excess of 1 million pounds (US$1.75 million, euro1.45 million) Wednesday for “walking into a scene of gothic horror” where an inmate had strangled his cellmate and then disemboweled him” (full article here).
Wow. I hope this does not create a whole new wave of lawsuits in the US. Can you imagine the ripple effect through the economy of damages paid to police, emergency services, doctors ..etc who have to see crime scenes, accidents, casualties?
Update (3/16): Jury awards $6.5M to panic disorder patient in job bias suit
Tags: lawsuit, legal system, damages, police, law enforcement, emergencies, casulties
Isolatr, Snubster, Socializr – which is the odd one out?
TechCrunch has a humorous post about Isolatr and Snubster (hey, what’s with the “e”?
).
I’ve previously written about Socializr – Friendster 2.0? when all it had was a suspicious job post, a funny caricature on flickr, and the rumor that it’s started by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams. I emailed my post to Jonathan, hoping to get clarification. After a few weeks of silence I leaned towards considering it a prank.
Well, it may just be real. Nothing confirmed, just a few signs of life:
“Socializr’s Raising About Half a Million Funding: A new stealth social network, Socializr, founded by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, is raising about $0.5 million seed funding, and has raise about $0.35 million out of that, a birdie told me at the conf. “
“Toni’s Companies: Socializr, Inc, San Francisco, CA US, Executive Assistant, Office Manager” Wow, the job post was not a fake! Way to go, Jonathan, she is hot and sings in a band!
“Examples include eVite’s latest attempts to include pictures and matching, Zvents, Socializr (the next great thing from Friendster founder, Jonathan Abrams. The funny graphic at this URL I think is Jonathan’s stealth-mode dose of healthy cynicism at what’s going on in this space.) Jonathan is not showing Socializr publicly yet, but it’s very cool”
So now I am starting to believe Socializr is real. And we know they will be big, they have the secret formula that Friendster probably missed, the hot blonde who sings! I’m proud that it was first announced here! 
Update (3/15) Related posts:
Tags: Social Networks, Social Networking, Social Software, Friendster, Socializr, TechCrunch
Another SVASE VC Breakfast Club session is coming up on Thursday, March 16th in San Jose. It’s an informal round-table where up to 10 entrepreneurs get to deliver a pitch, then answer questions and get critiqued by a VC Partner. We’ve had VC’s from Draper Fisher, Hummer Winblad, Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Mohr Davidow, Emergence Capital …etc.
Thursday’s featured VC is Jake Seid, General Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners. The Zvents post has all the info and a map, but please remember to click through to register either from zvents or directly here.
These sessions are an incredible opportunity for Entrepreneurs, most of whom would probably have a hard time getting through the door to a VC Partners. Since I’ve been through quite a few of these sessions, both as Entrepreneur and Moderator, let me share a few thoughts:
See you on Thursday! 
Tags: Venture Capital, VC Breakfast, Funding, VC Funding, Startups, Entrepreneurship, SVASE
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. We are currently 30,000 feet over Los Angeles. Fuel prices have risen 2.7% during this trip down from Seattle. Please insert your credit card into the seatback in front of you in the next twenty seconds if you want to avoid being ejected before San Diego. Thanks.”
Relax, dear reader, it’s not real life (yet), just Paul Kedrosky extrapolating the trend shown by Northwest’s announcement that they will charge extra for certain prime seats in coach — exit-row seats or aisle seats near the front of the cabin.
As much as I hate the degradation of air travel (for someone having flown a lot in Europe and Asia, our domestic air travel is like taking a Greyhound bus), and being nickel-and-dimed, in this case I happen to agree with some of Paul’s commenters: if there are seats that passengers “fight for”, that means those seats represent premium value, why not use a market-mechanism to assign them, vs. random luck. I still love the post, one has to appreciate Paul’s humor.
Tags: airlines, air travel, airline pricing, NorthWest, humor
(GUpdated)
In a comment to Robert’s Scoble’s “resume vs. blog” post I promised to launch a “scientific”
test soon … here we go; except that it’s not a test. It’s real: I’m pleased to announce the limited, invitation-only launch of Zoli 3.0.
Unlike some perpetual Beta products,
(see update below) Zoli 3.0 is not a beta, this is the final, stable release.
The Application is strongly recommended for software companies that have a core technology / product and are about to scale up, conquer their market, specifically needing help in one or any combination of the following areas:
Zoli 3.0 has been field-tested in both the Enterprise Software world (SAP, IBM, Deloitte, KPMG…etc), as well as with several startups. It is available for traditional on-premise implementation, or can be served up as SaaS ZaaS. Either way, there are no upfront costs, just pay-as-you-go.
Please check the detailed product specs (click on Full Profile) and some additional info (scroll down). If you’d like to put the power of Zoli 3.0 to work for you, remember, availability is limited, so please either comment at the end of this post, or email zoli3.5 at gmail. Why 3.5? Because for a very limited time we are running a promotion: for the price of 3.0 you will receive the upgraded 3.5.
For additional information please scroll through the Release Notes.
Release 3.0
Current release, see above
Release 2.0
The original robust enterprise product was completely reworked to support the new entrepreneurial environment. New communication, marketing, PR, collaboration modules were added, incorporating the use of blogs and wikis. It’s AJAX-driven, earlier sharp edges were replaced with rounded corners, and it comes in a variety of pastel, opaque colors.
Release 2.0 has been successfully deployed at several startups, full-time or on a part-time basis, and it also proved useful in a non-profit environment. In true Web 2.0 style it was made available for free, which presented a problem for its creator, when it turned out that the brick-and-mortar world (banks, gas stations, groceries) had not joined the 2.0 revolution yet. The need for a profitable business model resulted in the creation of Release 3.0.
Release 1.0
This is the original enterprise version that got deployed throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Canada and all over the US. Although it was predominantly used by large corporations, but typically in new, startup-like business units, where its application resulted in growth from 0 to the $8–$13M range, in several cases leading to acquisition.
Releases 0.1 – 0.9
Ahh, the early, experimental, careless years! The (Artificial) Intelligence module was enhanced through application at University, worldwide field-tests, and the product was put to some experimental use like the creation of a free professional Association in a then-communist country, and backstage – offstage personal translation for visiting performers (Peter Gabriel, Sting, Brice Springsteen, the Queen and Cliff Richard).
We’re all exited by the anticipated momentum this new launch will bring to your business and again ask for inquiries either in thee form of comments below, or via email to zoli3.5 at gmail.com.
Update (3/13/2006): In response to several email inquiries: even though I chose a humorous way to post it, I really am looking for an opportunity matching the above criteria.
Update (3/15/2006): OK, you no-evil company, I really don’t like you. As soon as tease you for being perpetual beta, you “come out“. (hat tip: OM Malik and Jeff Nolan). Oh, well, here’s another Forever Beta, from the same folks.
Update (3/5/2007): Apparently I’m not the only one with version numbers. Anne Zelenka has just incremented her version number to 2.1 🙂
Tags: resume, blog, jobsearch, blog as resume, career, listing, humor, startup, startups, enterprise software, web 2.0, sap, erp, SaaS, ZaaS, On-Demand, Sales, Business Development, Product Management, Marketing, Alliances, General Management
Publisher / Editor of CloudAve and Enterprise Irregulars.
I do most of my business blogging there, with occasional asides here. More...
Recent Comments