There’s an excellent new Volkswagen TDI Truth & Dare consumer blog and video marketing campaign attempting to educate American’s about ‘clean diesel’ cars. Volkswagen seeks to build on diesels reputation for economy, longevity and resale value by putting to rest the connotation that they are also slow, loud and dirty. The great videos associated with this marketing site should keep my diesel friends smiling, at least a couple minutes — they certainly made me smile. I’ll string together the YouTube clips from ‘mydubs‘ below suspecting they may eventually disappear from the tdi.vw.com website.
I’ve noticed increased number of programs proposing to consolidate social networking sites with software or websites. This weekend I thought I would give a couple of them a try, even though I don’t really use too many different social networking platforms.
First, I installed Skimmer by Fallon, and then Seesmic Desktop, both which are Adobe AIR apps. The first one does a pretty good job of accessing several popular services: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Blogger, but I wasn’t comfortable with the interface (probably didn’t give it enough time?). I did use it to update the small avatar photo (above) to Flickr and send to my Blogger account though.
The second, Seesmic Desktop, was pretty interesting in that it reminded me of the TweetDeck app that I use primarily for Twitter and Twitpic, although it looks a bit more powerful. There’s support for multiple Twitter accounts and offers drag and drop and has functional column views as we’ll as making the detachable. I’m reluctant to give up Tweetdeck at the moment, but it does look as if this Adobe AIR app has one upped them? (check out the Seesmic Desktop video below.
I’ve noticed that the neighborhood gazebo project is coming along nicely while checking in with the live ustream.tv feed over lunch. We now have the cupola and the railings are starting to appear. (and the water level in the lake is rising too!)
My wife has dubbed the morning gathering of male only Mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos), “the men’s club,” as at least six males gather in front of our house. They don’t seem to be doing anything more than “hanging out” on the lawn only a few feet from the front door — I suspect the females are nested somewhere around the lake on their eggs. Hopefully we’ll see the duckling shortly and that they will survive the combination of dogs, cats, racoons, possums, snakes, hawks and turtles that yearly pick them off one by one. For whatever the reason they gather, they are handsome with their attrative plumage.
Biodiesel advocates are smiling in and for Minnesota as the state has increase it mandated 2 percent biodiesel blend (B2) to a 5 percent (B5) blend as of May 1, 2009. This make Minnesota the first state to require all diesel fuel being sold in their state to contain 5% biodiesel — fuel made from grown or recycled vegetable oils ( the mandate will rise to 20 percent by 2015). The aggressive step by this state has made, along with Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Mexico and Massachusetts who also have passed biodiesel requirements, has them legislatively leading the way in helping our country to achieve energy independence and in being more environmentally wise in using our natural resources. I’m looking forward to the day when our entire nation moves from unhealthy, finite petroleum based fuel sources to domestically produced, cleaner, renewable fuels including biodiesel.
Watching and archiving the hot topic and some better information as it relates to H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu is a misleading “pork” hindering name). Hopefully this pandemic will only lightly impact our population due to good planning and early information (see Google map in previous post) I do see over the top hype coming from some in the media, although realize that containing the spread of this infectious strain of flu is achieved by care and concern. The United States Department of Health has an excellent PlanFirst Webcast (below) on HiNi Flu with HHS Secretary Sebelius and DHS Secretary Napolitano; I particularly appreciated the calm advice from Acting Director of CDC, Dr. Richard Besser.
I’ll also use this post as an opportunity to link to a photo from a very talented professional photographer (click above photo for larger version)Catherine Hall as she has an extraordinary eye for people and way of using light for still photography. (she uses the Canon 5D: Mark II — my choice of cameras if price was no object— I need to ask about her lens selection.)
If you pay attention to technology news at all you’re probably getting fed up with Twitter — even if you find yourself tweeting, blogging and talking about it. At least once a week I hear someone say, “I don’t care what someone had for lunch.” I use to try and explain that Twitter is not just social chit-chat as it as to do with who you follow. I would go on to mention major and minor news sources, business marketers and public announcements … but I’ve given up since the anti-Twitter crowd has really already made up their mind.
Since I travel a bit, I’ve found Twitter is something simple enough to access on my Treo even if I’m just using it to kill a minute or two while interacting with friends. Other times I do find myself enjoying 140 character news briefs, weather briefs or political updates. Interestingly, earlier this week I used a short Twitter conversation to negotiate with a laptop battery company (@batteryfuel) and ended up buying a replacement from them — Batteryfuel.com.
Still, I’m wondering just how far this simplistic social networking phenomenon can go without making a profit or even having a solid business plan besides finding angel funding and selling the company to the highest bidder. If not for that latter part, I wonder what their business plan is going to be like besides telling the media that its about “creating value” rather than “making profit.”
Kara Swisher at All Things Digital at had a chance to talk for a few minutes with Twitters’ founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone earlier this month after Mr. Stone’s appearance on the Colbert Nation.
Since I’ve posted a couple times about the online “web-video aggregator” Hulu.com, the latest news that Disney has reached a deal to buy a significant share of the company and put full episodes of its ABC TV shows on the site is pretty big news. The advantage for Hulu is that Disney will invest capital and marketing dollars as the Internet continues to grow in an audience who chooses to get their television programing online. (READ the Hulu Blog)
While adding a new Twitter feature call Tweetmeme(see retweet button at bottom of post), I stumbled across an interesting statistic compiled by Nielsen which concludes that 60% of Twitter Users Quit within the First Month, at least that is how Mashable writer Pete Cashmore sees it. I’m not sure how that stacks up to other social networking media avenues, but believe that Nielsen measures numbers in terms of access to the Twitter URL — their website — they don’t take into account the number of non-website interfaces used to access and update Twitter (ie. TweetDeck, etc.)?
Have you ever need to get a group together and try to schedule the best time for a meeting or conference call? If so, you know what a pain this can be sending emails or making phone calls to everyone.
Try this simple, innovated and FREE website service next time you’re faced with finding “When is Good” for your group — no registration or log in required.
BTW … if you are interested in testing my new D-Link DPH-50U Skype to landline phone set up by helping me with a Skype call on Monday or Tuesday next week, then try this “When is Good” link.
I’ve noticed increased number of programs proposing to consolidate social networking sites with software or websites. This weekend I thought I would give a couple of them a try, even though I don’t really use too many different social networking platforms.
Since I’ve
