What's Your Vision...for our planet

Wikipedia Celebrates 10 Years, will it survive

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:22:27 +0000

Wikipedia is just the latest in a long line of encyclopedias. In fact, encyclopedias have been around in some form or another for 2,000 years. The oldest, Naturalis Historia, written by Pliny the Elder, is still in existence.

How do I know this? I looked it up on Wikipedia (Wikipedia), of course. Is it true? Possibly.

Ten years after its founding, it’s hard to imagine what life was like before Wikipedia. When I was growing up, our family had a dusty set of encyclopedias that were at least 10 years old, which is fine if you’re looking up dinosaurs, but not so good if you want to know, for instance, who the current president of the Congo is. But though the limitations of the old encyclopedias were obvious, they were authoritative in ways that Wikipedia is not.

Like most people, I’ll take the tradeoff. I have no desire to go back to the days of printed Funk & Wagnalls. If someone would have told me back in 2001 that, within a few years, there would be a comprehensive, free online encyclopedia, I wouldn’t have believed them. Why would someone do that? How?

Read Entire Article at Mashable.com

9 Ways to Connect With Santa on the Web

admin — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:38:58 +0000

You don’t have to head to the North Pole to hook up with Santa this year. There’s a sackful of online options that will let your little ones connect with the Claus from the comfort of your own home.

Whether you want to write to Santa online, receive personalized video messages and calls or prove the man in red is real, we’ve found nine sites and services to help you out.

So if you’ve got kids, or you’re just a big kid yourself, get in the Christmas spirit and have a read below to find the sites that will sort your online Santa needs this festive season.

Read the entire article

More Health Experts Are Embracing the Social Web

admin — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:17:11 +0000

Is your doctor easily accessible online, or does he or she believe that the Internet isn’t a resource for accessing health information?

If it’s the latter, it may be time to find another doctor. With nearly 90% of online Americans searching the Internet for health resources, it’s likely you and your friends and family already use the Internet to research health issues. It’s true that the web has a jumble of health information, and engaging online takes time, which most health experts don’t have. The good news, however, is that the increasing number of health professionals now embracing the Internet as an important and useful tool for health and wellness is beginning to change your options as a consumer.

An exciting new social media trend is emerging that disrupts the standard view of health care delivery and will have a profound impact on us all. Thousands of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and health advocates are publicly engaging with people online. In fact, nearly 40% of Americans turn to social media for health information.

Patients (and a few early adopter health pros) moved online years ago to share health guidance, give support and find answers. But until recently, many health professionals have avoided using the Internet and social media as a way to help patients. This reluctance is changing, as savvy physicians, nurses, dentists and other health pros are realizing that if their patients are online, then perhaps they should be too. Health practitioners who were once too busy, inexperienced or afraid to share their expertise online, now actively share links on Twitter () and Facebook (), blog, write for online medical journals, engage on Q&A sites, or contribute to online health sites and forums.

Read the entire article on Mashable

Starbucks Recycles Old Cups Into New Ones

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:03:58 +0000

SEATTLE, WA — Starbucks has completed a test showing its ubiquitous coffee cups can be recycled into new cups, and although only one facility can currently make that happen, Starbucks hopes this and other tests push more recyclers to accept trashed cups.

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) wants to provide only recyclable or reusable cups by 2015, and has run various recycling projects to see what its cups can be turned into. “For paper to be a valuable, marketable product, generally you have to find regionally-relevant solutions,” said Jim Hanna, Starbucks’ director of environmental impact.

The recent six-week project took about 8,000 pounds of cups collected in Ontario, where Starbucks already recycles cups and other materials, and sent them to Mississippi River Pulp, the company that provides the post-consumer content that’s been in Starbucks’ cups since 2006. All of the companies’ cups, including the new ones made partially with old cups, have 10 percent recycled content.

Mississippi River Pulp is the only company that can provide pulp for products that will come into contact with food or drinks, because its the only one to have gotten the OK from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA doesn’t approve companies and their processes, per se, but it basically says it has no objections. Mississippi River sends the pulp to various paper product companies, including International Paper and others that make Starbucks’ cups.

Facebook as Important as Facetime

admin — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:01:18 +0000

Uncertain at first, and still somewhat reluctant overall, small businesses are increasingly implementing social media into their marketing strategies. A recent survey conducted by Constant Contact revealed that 63 percent of nearly 1,500 small business owners cited Facebook as an important element of their activities during the fall, while more than 30 percent said the same about Twitter. Those numbers were up from 50.5 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively, when the survey was last conducted in March 2010.

The Fall 2010 survey also showed modest increases in more traditional small business marketing strategies such as email marketing, event marketing and online surveys, while direct mail, telephone conversations and in-person interactions all saw modest declines.

In fact, 62 percent of the respondents stated that a Facebook presence is now as important to their small businesses as face-to-face interactions with consumers.

While 2010 was a difficult year for small businesses, most respondents have high hopes for 2011. More than 50 percent of those surveyed have reduced their operating expenses in 2010: 39.7 percent have reduced their travel and entertainment budgets, and 39.4 percent have reduced their marketing expenditures. Nearly 75 percent expect their businesses to grow in the next year.

Source: Web Site Magazine

Malware Up, Spam Down

admin — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 12:27:52 +0000

It seems every bit of good news received about Web security is tempered with some bad.

McAfee unveiled its McAfee Threats Report for the Third Quarter (2010) today, which revealed that while spam levels decreased in volume this quarter (hitting a two year low) malware is soaring with an average of 60,000 new pieces of malware identified each day – quadrupling since 2007.

“Our Q3 Threat report shows that cybercriminals are not only becoming more saavy, but attacks are becoming increasingly more severe,” said Mike Gallagher, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Global Threat Intelligence for McAfee.

“Cybercriminals are doing their homework, and are aware of what’s popular, and what’s insecure. They are attacking mobile devices and social networking sites, so education about user activity online, as well as incorporating the proper security technologies are of utmost importance.”

One of the most sophisticated pieces of malware in Q3 was the Zeus botnet, the malware at the root of U.S. small businesses losing $70 million at the hands of Ukrainian cybercriminals. Recently, a Zeus botnet was unleashed that is aimed at mobile devices and designed to intercept SMS messages to validate transactions, putting at risk consumers bank accounts. McAfee also saw an increase in email campaigns attempting to deliver the Zeus botnet, under the disguise of organizations like eFAX, FedEx, Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, United States Postal Service and Western Union.

Botnet activity also remained strong in Q3, the most popular of which, Cutwail, accounted for more than 50 percent of traffic in every country. Cutwail bots engaged in distributed denial-of-service attacks against more than 300 websites, including United States government departments such as the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and businesses websites such as Twitter and PayPal.

Source: Web Site Magazine

Facebook’s Green Announcements

admin — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:29:05 +0000

Facebook, as you may have heard, is going green. Or, more accurately, they’re starting to communicate their green initiatives.

But it’s also fair to say that they’re still getting a grasp on exactly what it means to undertake a green program, and how exactly they do it.

After last week’s short item about Facebook.com/green, the home for all things environmental at the social network, I spoke with Kathleen Loughlin, a member of the company’s communications team, about the kickoff.

“We’ve been thinking about it a lot — asking, how do you tell the green story?” she explained. Now, they’re in the midst of gathering details about all of their disparate green efforts. “There are some that we didn’t even know about — employees would email and say ‘we are doing this on our team, you should list this’” on the “green programs” page of Facebook’s green site.

Improve Your Company’s Energy Management

admin — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:44:28 +0000

When Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu talks about energy efficiency, he has been known to repeat this mantra: “Energy efficiency is not just low-hanging fruit; it is fruit lying on the ground.”

As Director of Energy for a large corporation like AT&T, I must admit that my first reaction is slightly defensive: “Wait a minute, it’s not that easy.” However, the essence of what Secretary Chu is saying is absolutely true. Effective energy management helps reduce a company’s environmental impact and benefits the company’s bottom line. Below, I have outlined 10 ways that a company can be effective in improving its energy management and efficiency.

Read more: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/10/29/10-ways-improve-your-companys-energy-management#ixzz142PKVmiX

Yahoo’s New Flavor

admin — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:54:15 +0000

Facing increased competition from Gmail, Hotmail and social networks such as Facebook, Yahoo! is planning to revamp its Web-Based e-mail service. Internally code-named “Minty”, the new product is expected to arrive in the fall with a sleeker design, higher performance capabilities and better integration with social networking sites. Still the leading e-mail service in the U.S. with more users than Gmail and Hotmail combines, Yahoo! Mail saw its number drop from 107 million visitors in August 2009 to 97 million in August 2010. The outlook is worse overseas, where Yahoo! Mail users have fallen off by 7% while Gmail has grown 22% and Hotmail has grown by 3% in the past year.

Source: Web Site Magazine

Online Spending Up, Patience Down

admin — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:57:48 +0000

Consumers are spending more time online shopping than ever before, and spending more money, too. That, according to a survey from Tealeaf Technology (an analytics provider) and conducted by Harris Interactive, of 2,104 U.S. consumers.

The survey found that consumers shop online an average of 3.4 times per month (up from 3.1 times per month in 2009) and that 16 percent of consumers shop online four or five times per month, up from 14 percent last year. What might be most impressive is that just 29 percent of consumers shop online once per month - last year 37 percent shopped online just once a month. Maybe this is three different ways to say the same thing, but the message is clear: online shopping continues to grow as consumers become more comfortable with the practice.

There’s more good news: shoppers spend an average of $123.20 per transaction. That’s up from $101.60 in 2009 - a 21 percent increase, even during a continued economic lull. Whether that means people are spending more money or just shifting their spend online, it doesn’t really matter. As long as they are spending online.

One other important note from the study shows that, while spending more time and money online, consumers are becoming less willing to endure delays while shopping. Just 18 percent of consumers will try to complete a transaction again after a failed first attempt, down from 23 percent who said the same last year.

Source: Website Magazine