First Crack 102. Measuring Carbon Footprints with Tyler Patterson

Tyler Patterson just finished up a Masters Thesis project investigating adding all the University of Minnesota Twin Cities’ campus energy sources into the Chicago Climate Exchange.

In this numbers and stats intensive conversation, we discuss:

  • The methodology of the measuring the campus’ carbon footprint
  • The economics of the carbon trading and energy efficiency
  • The trade-offs in determining energy sources (fuel oil vs. coal vs. oat hulls vs. natural gas)

Listen to Measuring Carbon Footprints with Tyler Patterson [41 min].

First Crack 101. Time Traveling Journalism with Matt Thompson

Matt Thompson (Snarkmarket, vita.mn) and I discuss one of Matt’s most compelling memes – telling stories over time. via:

Listen to Time Traveling Journalism with Matt Thompson [28 min].

Turning the Radio Off

Last weekend was Chicago Trip #1. The drive put a pretty good dent in my Unlistened Podcast playlist – down to 17.5 days (from a high of 24). There were a couple of spots near the Wisconsin/Illinois border and around Schaumberg where the FM transmitter couldn’t hold a frequency.

Rather than scanning the dial, I turned the radio off.

“Nowadays I prefer silence to NPR” – Dave Slusher

Definitely.

We’re in the early stages of exploring what to replace our 10 year-old Dodge Neon with. Looks like every car comes with an AM/FM CD deck. Three things I don’t want. At all. I just want an auxiliary jack. That’s it.

Can anyone out there help explain the tight connection between automakers and broadcast radio?

Elsewhere:

“i told the mpr people i wouldn’t pledge again until the current played a phish song.”- Dave Cecchi

Ququoo.com: Twitter Timesheet Looking For Beta-Friends

Ququoo.com, my first Rails app is finally up and at a place where I’m happy with it.

Ququoo turns Twitter into a timesheet – by grouping your tweets and measuring the time between them.

As with any web app that was launched moments ago, there’s probably a few more things to tidy up and sort out. That said, Ququoo is looking for some beta-friends. If you’re interested and have a Twitter account; add ququoo

Elsewhere, Ed Kohler wonders if something like Ququoo.com can find an audience:

“I’m sure there are plenty of Twitter users who bill or their time on a consulting basis who would love to be able to Tweet their billable hours.” – Ed Kohler

Web 2.Over: Google Buys FeedBurner

Consistent with my hypothesis that Google is a social gesture company, they bought FeedBurner (a company finally reaching its only exit strategy, Thank god).

Four Predictions:

  • Six Apart now pulls auto-FeedBurning from TypePad blogs due to conflict of interest.
  • Google incorporates FeedBurners metrics into Google Analytics and sends the rest of FeedBurner to play with Dodgeball.
  • More than half of FeedBurner’s current customer-base will wonder why the hell they even used the service.
  • The downturn is in full effect

Elsewhere:

“Google is Buying FeedBurner this is pure Evil!” – Todd Cochrane

“For all of FeedBurner’s success, monetizing the feeds has been a struggle. The inventory they manage always seems to grow so much faster than the advertising they sell….FeedBurner fits like a glove into the Google advertising system, adding feeds to the growing number of places an advertiser can reach audiences through the AdWords system.” – Fred Wilson