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How Green is that app?
Posted on 22. Feb, 2010 by admin.
1) GreenMeter GreenMeter measures your vehicle’s acceleration and computes engine power, fuel efficiency, your carbon footprint and how many barrels of oil you’re consuming. You can also input info on driving conditions, your driving habits, weather conditions and fuel type. Price: $5.99
2) GoodGuide With over 70,000 item ratings, GoodGuide recommends safe, healthy and green products, ranging from household cleaners to food to toys. Price: Free
3) Ecobee Smart Thermostat Use your iPhone or iPod Touch to remotely adjust your Ecobee thermostat temperature, schedule a vacation, change the system and fan settings and receive alerts. Price: Free
4) Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch The official list published by the aquarium to help make sustainable seafood choices wherever you are. Choose a region and it provides a list labeled “Best Choice,” “Good Alternative” or “Avoid.” Price: Free
5) Find Green Find Green assists you in locating green and sustainable businesses by industry (i.e., health and wellness), type (fitness, nutrition, doctors, etc.) and distance (walking, biking or driving). Powered by the GenGreenLife.com database. Price: Free
6) iRecycle Find recycling locations anywhere in the U.S. with this search engine, based on what item you need to recycle. Price: Free
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100 Million Users Access Facebook via Mobile
Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by admin.
A recent entry on Facebook’s official blog states that more than 100 million people are “actively using Facebook from their mobile devices every month.” This figure is growing fast, and it’s not just limited to those entering via a Facebook app on the iPhone and AT&T. From the blog post: “This usage happens on almost every carrier in the world and comes less than six months after we announced 65 million people on Facebook Mobile.”
Contributing to the uptick in mobile users are the Facebook mobile apps available across a variety of carriers and mobile devices, enhanced Facebook mobile-ready Web pages (m.facebook.com, for example) and the ability for users to post to Facebook via SMS (including Facebook’s new link-shrinking capability with FB.ME). Should Facebook start providing analytics to users with their URL-shortening service, you might see even more mobile activity.
For businesses, this news puts even greater importance on marketing within the world’s largest social network. Mobile is a tricky proposition. But if you can merge mobile with social - and with Facebook, you can - you have a win-win situation. You gain access to the social sphere, as well as mobile users. Consider this when updating Facebook Pages for your business.
To target the Facebook mobile user, keep updates relatively brief and include mobile-friendly calls-to-action, such as brief blog posts, links to maps, and links to specific, mobile-friendly Web pages. Want users to call your business? Link to an offer on a landing page with a highly visible phone number. Many devices will automatically enable click-to-call. Brick and mortar businesses have a great opportunity here to drive foot traffic by providing instant coupons through Facebook updates, for example.
Source: Web Site Magazine
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Kraft Sheds 150 Million Pounds From Products
Posted on 09. Feb, 2010 by admin.
Northfield, IL — Kraft Foods has met its goal to reduce its packaging by 150 million pounds two years ahead of schedule with a variety of lightweighting and material replacement efforts.In 2005, Kraft set its packaging goal, hoping to achieve it by 2011 along with other goals.
The company developed a tool, the Packaging Eco-Calculator, to help develop efficient and optimized packaging, and by 2008 Kraft had cut its packaging by 116 million pounds. A number of packaging redesigns in the last year helped put it over its goal.
Some of the packaging changes include: covering energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, waste creation and water use.
- Oscar Mayer Deli Creations packaging in the U.S. was redesigned with 30 percent less paperboard, making it smaller and taking up less shelf space. The change is expected to cut out 1.2 million pounds of paperboard a year.
- The packaging for Oreo Cakesters was reduced by 12 percent and now uses 100 percent recycled paperboard.
- Packaging layers were removed from Milka chocolate bars in Europe (a change that will also be used in Latin America), cutting the product’s weight by 60 percent less weight and eliminating 5.7 million pounds of packaging a year.
- A redesign of Kraft salad dressing bottles in Australia is expected to reduce their packaging by 100,000 pounds of plastic a year.
- A redesign to the zipper on Kraft Natural Cheese bags has eliminated more than 1 million pounds of material a year.
In addition to reducing materials, Kraft has chosen different material for some products. In North America, the steel coffee cans for Maxwell House, Yuban and Nabob have been replaced with composite paperboard, which weights 30 percent less, contains 50 percent recycled content and reduces packaging needs by 8.5 million pounds a year. Kenco coffee in the U.K. is now being sold in refill bags, which use 97 percent less packaging by weight than previous glass jars.
Images courtesy Kraft Foods
Source: Greener Design
