Dan Spellman ( My Two Cents )

Turn Out The Lights

I don’t know if the lights went out in your house last Saturday night, but they went out in mine.  My wife had told me about Earth Hour earlier in the week.  I actually forgot about it until around 7:15 p.m. when I happened to be checking my Linkedin account and saw a question posted asking why Google had gone “black” for a period of time.  Conrad Warre posted an answer stating “Google turned black today as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation [effort]”.

    

While Google acknowledges that simply turning their screen black does not actually save any energy, they “believe in doing [their] part to help combat climate change”.  “Further”, their web site states, “we think the ‘lights out’ idea’s individual-centered nature is something that millions of people worldwide can participate in.  In short, we really like it.  So we did something about it.”

    

It started last year when the World Wildlife Fund worked with the city of Sydney, Australia and convinced the Harbour Bridge and Opera House (along with millions of Sydney’s citizens) to go dark for an hour. 

     

Well, we turned out the lights and, to the initial complaints of our children, played board games by candle light. It turned out that everyone had a great time.  I won’t tell you that I’m the most environmentally conscientious person in Chicagoland, but I’m trying.

      

You can visit www.WorldWildlife.org/Climat to find out how you can make a difference throughout the year to fight climate change.

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

    

    

Go Jayhawks!

Are you getting ready for March Madness?  At the end of this coming weekend we will all be able to work on our brackets - but you still need to get set up. 

   

   

You may be planning on using one of the many web sites to track your bracket during the tournament, but you should also get set up on ESPN360.  Check it out and you will find that you will be able to keep an eye on multiple games at the same time.  It’s very cool.  Right now I’m two college basketball games, a rodeo and a soccer game.

   

   

While you’re at it, set up your own MyESPN page.  It is still in the Beta stage and they are looking for your help.  You can use it to track your favorite teams.

   

   

Don’t forget to sign up for the ESPN Tournament Challenge.  You can fill out 10 brackets and have the chance to win $10,000!

   

   

Until next time,

   

   

Dan

Going Mobile

“I'm going home
And when I want to go home,

I'm going mobile”

    

When Pete Townsend wrote these lyrics, he wasn’t thinking about Yahoo! Go 2.0 Mobile Service.  But with Yahoo!’s announcement at CES last month that they would be making their mobile platform open to developers and publishers, it seems we will all be going mobile.

      

I’ve gone ahead and set up my phone with the 2.0 version and will upgrade to the 3.0 version once it is available.  “Unlike the 2.0 version,” Fred Aun of TechNewsWorld reports, “which was limited to mobile-optimized services created by Yahoo, the new Go is an open environment.”

    

Yahoo! has created a software development kit with guidelines for creating, testing and submitting widgets.  You can check out the guidelines and begin reading their blog.

    

Although the 3.0 version is still in Beta, they have just opened their testing servers for you to launch your widgets and check them out.  “Once you are ready to distribute your Widget to Yahoo’s large mobile audience, submit it to the Widget Gallery so people can find and use your Widget.”

    

“I'm an air-conditioned gypsy
That's my solution
Watch the police and the taxman miss me!
I'm mobile!”

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

      

Maybe It Is Easy Being Green

It’s no surprise that environmentally friendly products are beginning to find more “shelf-space” across the web.  The number of blogs and web sites dedicated to this cause seems to be growing at an exponential rate.  Even some of the larger retailers are getting into the act.

   

   

GreenBiz.com reports that the Retailer Industry Leaders Association (RILA), a group of 55 retailers that account for over $1.5 trillion in sales, “aims to develop cleaner and greener business practices while making sure customers and policymakers recognize the progress made by the group.”

   

   

Wal-mart, which is a member of the RILA, has taken steps to have their vendors develop greener packaging.  Not only is this good for the environment, but it’s also good for Wal-mart’s bottom line. 

 

   

In fact, as I write this blog post, the bottle of water I’m drinking is promoting their reduction in packaging and its’ related environmental benefit.    Ice Mountain’s new bottle “looks and feels different because it is purposely designed with an average of 30% less plastic to be easier on the environment.”

   

   

While more and more people are showing that they are eco-conscience by using canvas grocery bags and switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), many are asking what impact they can make on helping the environment.  InterCall offers a Green Quiz that will help you “test your knowledge and learn simple ways to be green at work.”  Through GreenConferencing.com, InterCall is using this quiz as a means of identifying prospective customers by offering to plant a tree for each quiz taken.  Although the promotional period has ended (12/31/07), you will find the quiz informative and fun to take.

   

   

GreenLights offers an interesting way to calculate the benefits (environmental and financial) of switching to CFLs.  “If every American home replaced just one incandescent light bulb with a CFL, we’d save enough energy to light 2.5 million homes a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.”  Check out their savings calculator by clicking on the image below.

   

   

With the additional information on the web helping consumers learn more about how they can make a positive impact, and the business community realizing that reducing their carbon footprint can be profitable, I think we will begin to discover that only Kermit will find it difficult being green.

    

    

Until next time,

   

   

Dan   

    

    

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

I recently saw an article in USA Today about Peer-to-Peer Lending (P2P) online.  Cathy Chu reported that  “Celent, [consultant to the finaincial services industry] projects that $5.8 billion in peer-to-peer loans will be made in the USA by 2010, an 800% leap from the amount this year.” 

    

         

Now I know it’s been a while since I’ve been in a finance class, but I was under the impression that determining risk and the associated interest level was a complicated process.  But apparently the market for unsecured loans has become part of the web 2.0 social economy.

    

    

The number of sites offering to facilitate these transactions appears to be growing.  Whether it’s Zopa, Lending Club or the upcoming Loanio, finding or making an unsecured loan is as easy as googling “peer loans”.  In fact, Lending Club has a presents in Facebook and several advertisements on YouTube.

    

    

    

      

I watched Larry King this week and his guest was Suzi Orman.  If you have ever watched her, you will find her message to be fairly consistent, “reduce your personal debt and increase your savings”.  With the reportedly large amount of credit card debt that the nation is now struggling with, I wonder how this new financial marketplace will effect the economy.

    

    

What do you think?

    

    

Until next time,

    

    

Dan