While social media has generally been a force for good in our lives, especially for those getting the word out about sustainability, there has also been a downside: information overload. Sites like MySpace and Facebook try to be everything to everyone, and, in the process, leave us overwhelmed with a mountain of work to sift through that which is meaningful and relevant from that which is, well, frankly, meaningless drivel.
In order to keep control over our content, who sees it and when, we are left with complicated privacy settings, and the unhappy task of dividing our “friends” into categories which may not fit all cases.
Blasterous.com founder and CEO Tim Reeth hopes to change all that, at least as far as managing the communications you have with your genuine network of friends, family and neighbors. To him, that means providing users better controls over organizing their connections into custom lists, which are 100% private, to those people in the list.
For example, I recently created a Blasterous list called “Sergeant Steve’s Cigar Pals,” and invited all my cigar buddies to it. In this list, we talk about our favorite cigars, and share what’s going on with our cigar brands and cigar smoking, both local and world-wide. Because Blasterous is so location centric, when we’re “blasting” about cigar lounges in another city, members local to that city will know exactly where we are talking about. With Blasterous Place pages, members can also find detailed info about the location, or link the location to a blast.
Currently in Beta, Blasterous, is a hyper-location-based social platform, available on the web or on the go; currently with an app for iPhone, and Android. Users can share local and time sensitive information in the form of a “blast”; which, unlike Twitter’s 140, are 240 characters in length, can have up to 5 images per blast and contain hyperlinks. Additionally, those with permission to view a blast are able to add their comments, thereby generating a stream of dialog. What makes Blasterous truly unique, is that users have the choice whether to share blasts publicly, via their geographic location (“geos”), privately, via custom lists, or both.
Animation of the Transbay Transit Center Program, the visionary transportation and housing project that will transform downtown San Francisco and create a “Grand Central of the West.”
Besides the Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volt, charging infrastructure and charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles, were the hot product announcements at last week’s Plug-In 2010 Conference. One of the most interesting of these was the the unveiling of Plugless Power, “the worlds first hands-free, proximity charging system” by Evatran.
The two-part system, based upon the principle of inductive charging, works without any operator involvement. A driver can park his vehicle in a Plugless Power equipped parking space and walk away, as the system automatically begins charging the vehicle.
Earlier this week, I wrote about the launch of Nissan’s first fully-electric vehicle, the LEAF, and General Motors’ “parallel-hybrid” EV, the Chevy Volt. To briefly recap, the LEAF will have an MSRP of $32,780, leaving it close to $22,000 after Federal and State rebates. It has a range of 100 miles on a full charge, comes with an 8-year/100K mile battery warranty, and will be available for delivery to select cities starting in December.
I got a chance to test drive the LEAF, and, while I expected it to be a good car (Nissan quality, fully-electric drive), I hadn’t realized just how much I would like it. It’s fun to drive, and appears to deliver the experience that most small-car buyers expect and the range that they need, without sacrificing much. Perhaps the EV transition won’t be that difficult after all!
The Plug-In 2010 Conference in San Jose was the site of major announcements by major auto manufacturers Nissan and General Motors. During their Tuesday morning speeches, both Nissan North America’s executive vice president, Carlos Tavares, and General Motors vice president of U.S. marketing, Joel Ewanick, announced that their much-anticipated products would be available in only a limited number of cities, at first, and that both companies will begin delivering cars by the end of the year.
Even though there are many similarities and differences, both Nissan and GM are betting that U.S. auto buyers will embrace the plug with open arms.
A bus straddling the road, with cars driving underit sounds crazy, at first, but actually looks like a pretty reasonable idea.
As a matter of fact, it’s very easy to see how you could use several of these, in tandem to quickly implement a high-capacity rapid-bus system nationwide, on our existing interstate highway system.
This actually makes sense, because most of the Interstate system is build to the same specifications, as to road and lane width, overpass height, etc.
At the recent Taste of Ki eco-chic product showcase, I was lucky enough to be able to take a test-ride on a very nice electric bicycle, the A2B Metro, made by Ultra Motor.
What I discovered was an entirely new class of vehicle: an electric bike that is just as easy to pedal as it is to ride motor-only. While the bike itself appeared to be a well-constructed, well-designed and well-thought-out piece of personal transportation, I wondered exactly who would be buying it, given its whopping $3,000 price tag. The answer may surprise you.
The nice people at EarthSite liked our tweets so much, they’re offering discount tickets to A Taste of Ki, happening in Sonoma on Wednesday, May 19th. This is going to be a really fun event, featuring all kinds of eco-chic and innovative products. Taste of Ki is a preview of the showcase event, The Ki, in August. You can get the 50% discount by registering at EventBrite, and using the code “earthsite“. If you sign up by this Saturday, it will apply to the early bird rate.
A huge thanks to everyone who helped make the first GreenGarage event, hosted by PariSoma, a huge success! There was some very lively discourse on how to use mobile phone applications to achieve social good, from three companies that have all released the first versions of their apps. If you didn’t get to attend the event, you can watch a video of the entire discussion below.
“When explaining the motives behind why one would want to take some free beer, the evil man responsible for dumping the beer, Joe Priesmeyer said, ‘Beer is a popular product.’”–Treehugger article about three landfill employees who “rescued” fifty cases of beer that was slated to be destroyed.
Amen, brother Joe. You are a true American Hero.
We are never going to solve serious problems like climate change or peak oil while governments focus on silliness like this.
While social media has generally been a force for good in our lives, especially for those getting the word out about sustainability, there has also been a downside: information overload. Sites like MySpace and Facebook try to be everything to everyone, and, in the process, leave us overwhelmed with a mountain of work to sift through that which is meaningful and relevant from that which is, well, frankly, meaningless drivel.
The 
At the recent 
