Tag Archive for 'dopplr'

Earth Day, focus on CO2

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by
bru
7 monthes and 2 weeks ago
in Chaos
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In case you didn’t notice, yesterday was Earth Day. I’m not a big fan of whatever-days, but there’ve been a couple of interesting events in the last 24 hours that stimulated my interest.
First, Dopplr added a carbon calculator service. Discussing it last night with MattB, I mentioned the fact that for the first time a web two service makes me feel guilty, and felt a bit ashamed too when it prompted me to share the carbon profile with other travellers. He replied that the idea is to push people into starting conversations on the subject, and I think this is a good way to raise awareness. As Matt Jones puts it:

It’s not enforcing any particular course of action - it’s the weighing scales, not the diet.

What we all do with this information is up to us.

On a similar pattern, today in Milan at The Next Web Now (Microsoft event) FIAT presented Ecodrive: new FIAT cars are equipped with a sensor that register CO2 emissions; data can be stored in a USB drive and dumped in a PC for analysis and access by the driver.
The idea is kinda neat, and makes every FIAT 500 a potential 6 gears OpenSpime :)

Update: Information Aesthetics posted about this video today. Neat:

A conversation with MattB

Published
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bru
10 monthes and 3 weeks ago
in Coffee
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Last week I participated in a conversation with Matt Biddulph (Dopplr’s CTO) here in London. Since it was set-up as an interview to allow Feba to gather material for her thesis, I joined in with a few questions and here you’ll find my personal highlights about it (for detailed notes, see Feba’s posts).

Together with us there were also Alexandra and Massimo of Tinker.it, who contributed some good inspiration, but I’ll keep this for a future post, with a that it would be nice to attend one of the forthcoming Arduino for Beginners workshops…

But without further ado, let’s go back to the notes:

Bits of dopplr history

Dopplr was built by people who had a day job. Most of the thinking, early design and even a working prototype was built over a weekend.

The renting of the place was the only “cost” dopplr had sustain that far.

Dopplr releases are named after the next conference. That keeps the team on the edge, makes a good milestone date and automatically gives you a good time when to announce new features. Everybody loves announcement and “early access” at conferences

Dopplr and open source

The value of software companies is shifting from the code itself to the data. Google could proably let his search algorithm out in the open for free and yet not fear any real competition, because G has ten years of “history” behind it. Besides, everyone who worked in a fairly sized enterprise knows that software is always far too patchy, undocumented and/or business specific to be easily reusable “as it is”.
Releasing bits of software not only lets you benefit somehow from the crowd as well as providing useful tools (and ideas even more often), but it acts as a statement, and lets you also somehow model the industry and market in the way you believe in. Think OpenID.

Advices for young European Enterpreneurs

. Do something you know

. Do something you’re gonna use/need yourself.

. Do not spend months dreaming, just do it. You can start with a mashup that increase the value of what exist yet. And so, if you have to fail, fail early.

. Stay in touch with SF: go there, participate in events, dinners, show your face around. Or, if you’re not in London, stay in touch with SF through London.