AllThingsD » pollution

Robert Scoble Explains His Attempted Worldwide Domination of Google+ (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:01:33 +0000

While at an event yesterday, I ran smack into Silicon Valley tech personality Robert Scoble, the man who never met a social network he didn’t try to hijack.

So, of course, Scooby-Don’t — as I like to call him — has been one of the more active users of Google+, the new offering from the search giant, which some have complained is breathtaking both in its speed and its scale of digital pollution.

Some have even blocked him, due to all the Google+ algorithms that surface around him a lot because of his massive popularity.

That’s because Scoble brings with him a noisy army of 43,131 people so far who have put him in Google+ Circles (he has 3,645 Circles himself), which he attends to as a good cult leader should — with lots of love and online chitchat.

Even Scoble has acknowledged the problem on Twitter, noting in a tweet: “Google+ is seeing noise effect I have never seen before. I totally would block myself.”

Fat chance! But at least he’s funny about his machinating to become King of Google+.

Here’s my video interview with him, which is vintage Scoobs:

[ See post to watch video ]

Internet Advertisers Say Internet Advertising Keeps America Strong

Peter Kafka — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:08:53 +0000

Congratulations! Just by reading this, you are contributing to a $300 billion industry and keeping America strong! Easy, right?

That’s one takeaway you can draw from a new study commissioned by an Internet publishing trade group, which concludes, astonishingly, that Internet publishing is an important and vibrant industry.

The data are being served up via the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which tells us the advertising-supported Web industry “directly employs more than 1.2 million Americans with above-average wages in jobs that did not exist two decades ago, and another 1.9 million people work to support those with directly Internet-related jobs.”

Note the “advertising-supported” modifier in the above paragraph, because that’s the real thrust of the IAB’s study/press release: The trade group is trying to get Congress and Washington to let members like Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL regulate themselves when it comes to hot-button issues like behavioral targeting.

Hence this quote from IAB boss Randall Rothenberg: “By understanding the total contribution of the Internet to the U.S. economy, we can more accurately assess the impact of potential legislative changes on the Internet’s operations, particularly the consequences of any actions that would alter ad-supported business models.”

OK. Fine. But regulation is tomorrow’s problem. Today, let us celebrate the fact that some of us have jobs! And also, according to the IAB, we’re providing the following:

Universal access to an almost unlimited source of information
Increased productivity (output per unit of capital or labor, or increased consumer utility at a lower cost)
Innovation in business practices, consumer behavior, commerce and media
Empowerment of entrepreneurs to start small businesses, find customers and grow
Environmental benefits derived from saving natural resources lowering pollution through the reduced use of petroleum-based fuels and paper

Cool, right? And all this time I thought I was just blogging. You’re welcome! And please keep reading.

[Image credit: respres]

IBM: In Search of…New Revenue

John Paczkowski — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:09:47 +0000

“We will not simply ride out the storm. Rather, we will take a long-term view, and go on offense.” That was the promise IBM CEO Sam Palmisano made in his annual letter to shareholders this week detailing Big Blue’s plans to forge new markets in infrastructure services. And here we are just a few days later and the company has already set about fulfilling it. IBM (IBM) announced a new water-management services effort today, one that will see it bringing its information technology acumen to bear on the systems used to monitor reservoirs, water pipes and the like. “There’s a lot of stress on water systems around the world,” Sharon Nunes, head of IBM’s Big Green venture, told The Wall Street Journal. “With a limited supply, you’d better be able to manage it.”

And better to manage it with IBM technology than not. After all, between $15 billion and $20 billion of the new stimulus package is aimed at water projects, which means the water-management services market will likely be worth at least that much in five years. Fresh water is becoming big business–especially as population growth and pollution further tax the resource.