slamboard

I was just thinking about a really cool business idea. I can’t discuss it because it is another one of those first one out of the gate things.

While I was sitting here wishing that I could talk about it and get some kind of critique from a disinterested party…I came up with another plan. I should start a service where I confidentially critique hare-brained ideas while promising not to steal them. I don’t know if this has been done yet or not. If anyone has an idea, I am very good at coming up with reasons why it might not work.

I was curious about the present value of civil war era Confederate bank notes. Here is a $1 bill that is valued at $145 by collectors.

This is in sharp contrast to the devaluation that this note, that was never actual legal tender, underwent as the South was losing the stupid war. The lowest exchange rate was 1,200 for 1. People used them as wallpaper for their outhouses.

I am curious as to whether paper money from EU member states that have recently or soon will adopt the Euro will have much value to collectors. I think the history surrounding the Confederate notes makes them a special case. The currencies that are being retired in Europe are for the most part returned to the respective governments during an orderly transition. There has been inflation to various degrees during this change. I have heard a theory that unclaimed money from underground economies are frantically liquidated in the lead up to the change to the Euro.

I joke sometimes about how we were supposed to have Transporters like on science fiction TV by now. I stole that quip from a Dave Eggers novel. But I really do feel entitled when it comes to solar energy. I am starting to get suspicious that that patent holders are on the take from the providers of various other sources of energy. the news earlier this year about a breakthrough in solar panel technology has yet to translate to products, at least as far as I am aware.

I once attended a brilliant presentation by the man in charge of government research into coffee production in India. Part of his time was spent airing a great promotional video for monsooned coffee.

Something he said that caught my imagination was that if he could get 1% of Indians to become coffee drinkers, there would be no export of Indian coffee. They are not one of the leading producers of coffee, but they are not insignificant by any means either. And they mostly drink tea.

IndiaCoffee.org has a really cool flash intro.

Forget about all the tea in China. I want to talk about coffee in China.

China is an undemocratic country with a dodgy human rights record yet almost every major trading country desperately wants to cosy up to them because they represent such a huge market. I am aquainted with some experts in specialty coffee who have been poised to be the first ones out of the gate when businessmen in China decide en masse that they need to start drinking good coffee.

And as far as I know, they have been in a sort of holding pattern for years because of the way Chinese government and business is run. It’s ironic that the specialty coffee trend does exist microscopically in China and the rarity is part of the attraction. If retail chains were allowed to pour in, they might be met with a lukewarm reception. The famous documentary about the Cola Wars focused on China for one segment and it is obviously a hard sell to get most Chinese people to change their beverage rituals.

I was wondering how the tainted pet food scandal would affect trade negotiations. American officials seem to be intensifying their trade talks with China, and they recently talked of progress without showing all their cards. Human rights is always the counterpoint to public trade talks. Private businessmen tend to walk back and forth to China on egg shells.

No big news really, I’m just noting the fact that the Alexa ranking of this site is set to finally drop below a million. My experience with another blog has been that adding the Alexa widget and taking part in a normal amount of blogosphere social networking will quickly get your number below 500,000. As you rise in the ranks, gains are much harder to earn. I have a blog in the neighborhood of 300,000 and it is updated multiple times every day and I take part in lots of self promotion. I used to get improvements of over 10,000 every time Alexa updates. Now it is more like 3,000.

Alexa works quite a bit like the Nielson ratings, except for one crucial difference, if you find out about a group of people that have the Alexa toolbar, you can shamelessly target them, thus giving your website a misleadingly good ranking.

I am too lazy to actually test out a whole bunch of video uploading sites. Read DVGuru’s rundown. He compared ten sites based on several criteria. There is no arguing with YouTube’s potential for exposing your content to a large number of viewers, but if that is not your goal, you might want to shop around.

Videoegg is supposed to be very simple to use. It seems to be a fairly purpose specific site for people who simply have content that they want to upload for embedding on their own sites. BEBO, Dogster and Hi5 all use VideoEgg.

When a BUZZ word becomes such in the present, I tend to closely examine any content that uses that word. I am always suspicious that the writer might not be using the new flavor of the month word or phrase correctly.

Tipping Point?

Grass Roots?

Meme?

Being under 40, I was unaware until today that relevance was a BUZZ word. According to a certain source that doesn’t wish to be considered as a reliable source, its present use became fashionable in the 1960’s.

The meaning that the word became imbued with then does not have any relevance to it’s use in blogging circles. When you add the word links after the word relevant, you get something that is considered to have value to search engines.

If I include the term Florida Life Insurance in this post and talk about getting insured in Florida, I am in effect, providing InsuranceSalesman.com with a relevant link. The fact that a human being reading this post can see that I am primarily talking about relevance is simply not relevant.

Florida Life Insurance must be an interesting business to be in considering the fact that many residents have moved there from other parts of the country at retirement age, and the other three people wrestle alligators and/or tarpon to entertain them.

This is big news and it involves BIG bucks. $6 billion bucks, which equals an 85% premium.

My first thought was , “Wow that’s a lot of money.”

My second though was “What is Aquantive?”

Ok, it is a huge digital marketing firm that is the parent company of some things that I have heard of.

The 100 Mile Diet is gaining momentum as a movement. It involves simply eating foods that are grown in your region. For some of us this seems relatively easy, until we try to be absolute about it. As a force for social and economic change, I think a best effort plan with a small list of compromises is still a valid lifestyle change.

Some foods simply can’t be grown just anywhere. You can decide to cut those out of your diet, but how about sourcing organic, fair trade sources instead? I like the ideas put forth on 100milediet.org, but I am addicted to coffee. I really like pineapple, but I could go without.