Marketplace

Plugging electric cars

If you’re interested in the development of electric-car technology, you might enjoy C-Net’s video report from the Plug-In 2008 car conference in San Jose, Calif. It’s a good way to see a variety of products and approaches entrepreneurs are taking. There’s even a vehicle for off-road types sold by a company called Bad Boy Buggies. The thing, which looks like a golf cart with knobby tires and a roll cage, is being marketed to hunters with the slogan: “They’ll never hear you coming.” So, deer readers, you’ve been warned.

There’s also a report that “Google.org is investing $2.75 million into electric-vehicle maker Aptera and battery start-up ActaCell.” The announcement follows Google’s request for proposals from companies with electric car technologies. Here’s the Aptera, which is classified as a motorcycle:

• Jul 24, 2008 11:54 AM PT — Richard Core

• tags: electric cars

Moscow may be difficult for U.S. expats

The consulting firm Mercer reports the cost of compensating expats has jumped by nearly 20 percent in the past 12 months, thanks to a weaker U.S. dollar. The most expensive city on the planet to send employees to is still Moscow, which earns the title for the third year in a row. Tokyo and London are next. New York, the only U.S. city in the top 50, is 22 on the list.

If you’re a list junkie like me and you need an additional fix, here’s a list of the most expensive cities in the world and Mercer’s list on best places for quality living.

• Jul 24, 2008 6:03 AM PT — Melissa Kaplan

• tags: cost of living, expats, Moscow

Google does Wikipedia one better -- $

Wikipedia, as we’re sure you know, has become the encyclopedia of the Internet, with tons of information compiled by people who, for the most part, just want others to know what they know about particular subjects.

Google today announced it was opening a new site with a similar model, but with one important addition — a profit motive. The site, called Knol will allow the writer of an article — which Google is also calling a “knol” — to share in ad revenues.

“At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program,” the announcement says. “If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements… .

“The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It’s their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.”

With the ad revenue as an enticement, one would suspect that this model would tend to encourage authors to write about popular topics that would draw a larger audience and, of course, more interest from advertisers. Should be interesting to watch.

• Jul 23, 2008 12:58 PM PT — Richard Core

• tags: Google, knol, Wikipedia

Hershey's not melting away yet

A few chocolate snobs in our office turn their noses up at Hershey bars, but — at the risk of sounding like a pitch man — there’s still something special for me in sliding off that dark brown paper, unwrapping the foil and breaking off a piece — plain or with almonds. (I also had the fun as a kid of visiting Hershey, Pa. and touring the factory — so, more sentimental value.) As a result I’ve been interested in following the company’s challenges as it’s seen its costs rise and its market share fall in recent years.

Today, Hershey’s 2nd-quarter earnings report showed signs it may be turning things around.

“The Hershey Co. said it earned $41.5 million, or 18 cents a share, for the three months ended June 29, compared with last year’s second-quarter profit of $3.6 million, or a penny per share, as it spent heavily to transform its production lines. Sales rose 5 percent to $1.1 billion, slightly above analyst estimates.” That’s from an Associated Press report you can read on Yahoo.

Company President and Chief Executive David J. West said a new marketing plan, marked by a 30 percent increase in spending, is driving the company’s better performance in the relatively slow-growing, but dominant U.S. candy market.

“We’re not satisfied with where we are, but we’re pleased that we’re starting to get some traction,” West told analysts on a conference call.

The story quotes an analyst who expresses concern that the “increased spending on sales and marketing will hurt margins, that competitive pressure could curtail sales and the rising price of its premium products could dissuade repeat customers.”

The increased marketing must be behind what we’ve been seeing in grocery stores here in L.A. At the Ralphs chain, Hershey displays are everywhere with big boxes of bars standing near most of the check-out lines.

• Jul 23, 2008 11:06 AM PT — Richard Core
• 0 Comments

• tags: candy, Hershey, marketing

Bad days for newspapers, democracy

It’s almost not news anymore that newspapers’ revenues are plummeting, they’re cutting staffs of talented journalists, and the news — locally, nationally and internationally — just isn’t getting covered as well as it had been during journalism’s last several decades. But Christopher Hedges has a very thoughtful and detailed opinion piece on the dangers of this trend, posted on the TruthDig website.

The decline of newspapers is not about the replacement of the antiquated technology of news print with the lightning speed of the Internet. It does not signal an inevitable and salutary change. It is not a form of progress. The decline of newspapers is about the rise of the corporate state, the loss of civic and public responsibility on the part of much of our entrepreneurial class and the intellectual poverty of our post-literate world, a world where information is conveyed primarily through rapidly moving images rather than print.

As someone who grew up reading and delivering newspapers, writing columns and stories and editing his middle school, high school and college papers and spending most of his career working for newspapers before, yes, moving to the Internet, I think Hedges makes some very good arguments.

• Jul 23, 2008 10:10 AM PT — Richard Core
• 0 Comments

• tags: media, newspapers

Global warming? Just pass the lime

This news item may very well end up in the “Too good to be true” bin, but it has a magic-bullet allure for alleviating global warming…

The Shell oil company is sponsoring a project to determine whether the long-held idea of adding lime to ocean waters to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere is economically feasible, according to the latest issue of Chemistry & Industry magazine.

Shell’s project coordinator Gilles Bertherin told the magazine that “We think it’s a promising idea. There are potentially huge environmental benefits from addressing climate change - and adding calcium hydroxide to seawater will also mitigate the effects of ocean acidification, so it should have a positive impact on the marine environment.”

When lime is added to seawater it raises the level of alkalinity, which increases the seawater’s ability to absorb CO2 from the air.

As of this posting, the C&I website had still not posted the article. But the Environmental News Network site picked up on it and has more. ENN says Exxon did similar research in the 1990s. It also quotes a researcher who found the process involved significant logistical difficulties, including some steps that would create about as much CO2 as would then be reduced.

But members of the current project say they have ways of working out those problems. Their website, Cquestrate.com, says they are approaching the research “in an open-source way.” So, if you’ve got any ideas, they’re apparently willing to hear them. And if it works out, you can say you helped save the planet.

• Jul 22, 2008 2:33 PM PT — Richard Core

• tags: global warming

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