Not for a lack of ideas, let’s see what the blogosphere has fpr you:
1. Jim Cramer is building a wind play (his mouth and ass have been stapled shut and he is being force fed beans) – go watch the video .
2. A broken, but interesting ‘China is getting Fatter, Fatser than us ‘ Play – MEND (sent in from a friend in the business that sells their product overseas.
3. Always lots of good new ideas coming from Jeff on StockTwits.
4. The Stock Jockey has been one of my favorite few finds (or he found me)-. He has a great blog too .
5. Dogwood is cranking out good ideas on Twitter and his blog as well.
6. The Fly remains hot, mean and filthy – like my third wife :)
7. One video site partnered with another which partnered with another whose assets were bought from a start-up, whose founder is 6 and from new Guinea. He had the idea while watching Sponge Bob. No source for this story just everyday headlines.
8. Umair has a ‘Manifesto for the NEXT Industrial Revolution ‘ (no, not ‘Fight Club’)
The next industrial revolution begins here. What happens when we think of using new DNA to reorganize structurally inefficient industries? A blueprint for the next industrial revolution emerges. Here’s what it looks like.
Organize the world’s hunger.
Organize the world’s energy.
Organize the world’s thirst.
Organize the world’s health.
Organize the world’s freedom.
Organize the world’s finance.
Organize the world’s education.That’s not an exhaustive list – it’s just a beginning. In fact, let’s open source it: please add to it
9. Last but not least, Investors Business daily has a story on Twitter. IBD is Always ahead of the curve and in this article, explaining once again how most of old media does not understand new media and are lazy.
Firms A-Twitter Over Microblog
BY BRIAN DEAGON
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 6/23/2008
More than a million rockin’ bloggers are going tweet, tweet, tweet on Twitter — a text-messaging service that has fans chirping.
But it’s not just technophiles who’ve embraced Twitter, which uses a bird for a logo and calls its short messages “tweets.”
Businesses are using the service to connect with customers. Dell, (DELL) JetBlue Airways, (JBLU) Comcast, (CMCSA) New York Times Co. and others are using Twitter to respond to customer queries, send word of promotions and provide service updates, among other things.
“Twitter has invented a new form of communicating that differs from short messaging services, e-mail, instant messaging and social networking, but serves as a compliment to all,” said Biz Stone, founder of the San Francisco startup.
Twitter falls into a category of services known as microblogging. With short updates that don’t take much effort to post, users talk about everything from what music is playing on their iPod to breaking news.
Users of the service first create an account at Twitter.com. From their computer or cell phone they can then send brief messages to other users of the service they’ve connected with. The messages, which appear on the user’s personal Twitter site or on the cell phones of the user’s “followers,” are limited to 140 characters or less.
A Business Model?
The service is free and, like so many Web 2.0 startups, the company has yet to clarify how it will make money. On its Web site, the company says it has “many appealing opportunities for generating revenue” but for now is focused on improving service and getting more subscribers.
“Twitter will be a long term success because it will blend into the background of our lives and become a basic utility,” said Stone, who responded to questions via e-mail.
The privately held firm is tight-lipped about how many users it has and how much money it’s raised from investors.
In March, news site TechCrunch reported that Twitter had more than a million users — 200,000 of those frequent users — citing a source close to Twitter. The service handles some 3 million messages a day.
In May, blogger Om Malik said Twitter received a $15 million round of funding, raising the total to $20 million and putting an $80 million valuation on the company.
Stone won’t confirm any of those numbers, except to say: “Twitter has taken funding from Union Square Ventures and some strategic/angel investors. When we have updates, we usually publish those to our Web site.”
The last funding update came a year ago, after the Union Square Ventures deal. Early investors included Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen and Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who was an early investor in Google, (GOOG) PayPal and Ask Jeeves.
Dell’s Experiment
Computer maker Dell began experimenting with Twitter about six months ago. It has a Twitter feed aimed at small business, another for channel partners, one for consumers and another for tech pros.
“We’re really just scratching the surface of what Twitter can do for us,” said Bob Pearson, Dell’s vice president of communities and conversations. “It’s a great way to have a conversation with our customers and talk about events or alert them to some deals.”
Twitter channel DellOutlet has generated about $500,000 in sales, says Pearson. DellOutlet sends announcements about special deals on refurbished computers to more than 1,200 people.
“I see more brand owners becoming interested in this,” said Peter Kim, an analyst at Forrester Research. “It’s been a proving ground with some hits and some misses.”
But Twitter also has a growing set of competitors. Last October, Google acquired Finland-based Jaiku, a Twitter-like service. Others microblogging services include Pownce and Plurck.
“Twitter is the one to focus on. It has the mass momentum,” Kim said.
Not Everyone Atwitter
While Twitter has been widely praised, it also has many detractors who call the service a waste of time. A common complaint: inane tweets about what people are doing at any given moment — like frolicking at the beach or watching TV.
“It’s for weird people that think about vanity more than anything else,” a reader posted on Silicon Alley Insider, a blog site, last April.
Other users send out more cerebral missives, sending Web links to insightful articles or highlights of an important speech they are attending live.
Among the most followed Twitter sites is one set up for presidential candidate Barack Obama. It sends out daily bulletins.
A recent Obama tweet said: “Made an important decision today and wanted to share it with you. Visit.”
It was posted on June 19 and contained a link to his site announcing that he would forgo public financing.
More than 39,800 people receive the Obama tweets, making it the third most popular Twitter account.
Twitter has also been widely criticized recently for the numerous times the service has crashed from a traffic overload.
“Twitter’s been one of the worst-performing sites ever in terms of uptime, and yet people keep coming back,” said Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNet, (CNET) the technology news Web site recently acquired by CBS (CBS) for $1.8 billion.
CNet created a Twitter account a year ago to deliver daily headlines to the more than 5,000 people who’ve now linked up as followers.
“Twitter was very easy to experiment with and it provides a very low-cost way for us to deliver our content,” Farber said.
Farber and several other reporters at CNet also have Twitter accounts. Farber has about 1,300 followers, and he follows about 50 people. Farber says he gets a few story ideas a week from Twitter messages .
“Twitter is a good example of a variation on a theme that gets people’s attention. It was built on top of short messaging services and instant messaging,” he said.
The New York Times has about 19 Twitter accounts, covering categories that include news, entertainment, music and food.
JetBlue uses Twitter to send daily updates on flight information and weather advisories.
For other companies, though, Twitter seems to be a work in progress. CNN has a BreakingNews Twitter with 22,600 followers. But its most recent posting is more than a week old. British Airways has sent only two tweets, the last one three weeks old.