“BMW AG said it will conduct test drives of the world’s first mass-produced liquid hydrogen-fueled vehicles on public roads in Japan between July and December,” according to reports on ABC.

Currently there are 100 liquid hydrogen-fueled driving around the the streets of Europe and USA.

“The German carmaker will test two of the environmentally-friendly vehicles, which emit only vaporised water, in major Japanese cities. The company is aiming to appeal to consumers but problems such as the shortage of charging stations for hydrogen automobiles will need to be resolved if the vehicles are to become popular in Japan.”

BMW have done well in addressing this niche of green-transport currently dominated by Toyota. People in the position to buy a luxury vehicle will soon have at least one option. Soon I am sure we’ll see other prestige car brands offering their own green-models.

Photographers are well catered for on the internet. This is especially the case when it comes to displaying ones art. Yahoo and Google both have gallery sites for the happy-snapper, right through to the professional photographer to display their works. Yahoo’s free web gallery is Flickr, a very popular site. Google’s Picasa is also popular.

Read more about free websites for the budding photographer.

“Go at it hard and fast with a pounding drum and bass track or chill with the ambient classic” -the marketing brief for the new iGasm accessory that’s keeping the Apple legal team busy.

iGasm is a device that plugs into any music player and vibrates in sync with the beat. Certain to be controversial at the best of times. iGasm are using ads that look similar to those for the iPod. Copyright infringement looks on the cards.

Pajago

Source: SMH

Wotif.com, an online accommodation booking site, has severed ties with Ninemsn Ltd.

This comes as Ninemsn and Sensis recently joined forces. Ninemsn is a portal that brings both Microsoft (MSN) and Channel 9/PBL content -particularly news- together through the one interface. Currently, Ninemsn attracts around 11-million visitors per month.

Wotif.com’s chief operations officer, Robbie Cooke said in a letter to shareholders that “The withdrawal of Wotif.com from the Ninemsn site will have no negative impact upon the Wotif.com’s financial performance.”

Without the partnership (with Ninemsn) Wotif.com is likely to see a decline in visitors. I feel we’ll see advertising attempts increased by Wotif.com in the coming months.

Just a bit of a plug for my friends at Jumba. So far, and I’ve been with them for around 5-months, they have proven very reliable. At first, good customer service was hard to get, but after a few experiences with a chap named Shannon, my mood has changed.

Price-wise, Jumba are very economical. I am, by no means a “bargain” shopper. I much prefer quality/service over a discount, but Jumba have proven cheap yet they have plenty to back it up. Here is an example of Jumba’s prices:

Price: $7.95
Storage: 250MB
Bandwidth: 5GB

I host 3-sites on that plan through the beaut add-on domain feature.

Overall, very happy with Jumba. If you’re after the proverbial bang-for-the-buck check ‘em out.

MySpace is one of the first appliances of the Web 2.0 movement. MySpace is an online, social community that allows people to interact with one-another, host a personal profile and add friends to your profile. (This is a basic overview of MySpace as it’s so much more.)

Web 2.0 is the label for the second generation of the internet. Characteristics of Web 2.0 include social networking, user-generated content and open-source (user-editable) software. MySpace is mostly user-driven.

Being an active user of MySpace I can vouch for how addictive and fun it is. To me, the site doesn’t have a hell of a lot you can do, but I have found myself dabbling in it for hours on end. Of the things there are to do there is messaging, commenting and adding friends, searching bands, books and other entertainment, creating social groups, contributing to forums –all types of fun stuff.

Networking with existing friends is one of the main drawcards of MySpace. At one stage I had a group of around 20 “offline” friends added to my personal profile and we would message one-another, comment each others blogs and photos and so on. Now let me share an experience I’ve had on MySpace that I think has direct reverence to a theory known as Power of Context.

You’ll have to wait for part two though.

A greenhouse levy for domestic air-flights may be introduced to curb demand. A surcharge of $30 per ticket may apply.

Author of a study by the Australia Institution “think-tank”, Andrew Macintosh says the basic message of this initiative is for people to “fly less”: to do their part to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s common knowledge that passenger jets emit large amounts of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere and this levy would help achieve reduction targets.

“Unfortunately for aviation, there are no technological options that will allow us to drastically reduce aviation emissions.” says Macintosh. Due to the dense nature of jet-fuel a replacement or substitute is a long way off.

With the introduction of high-speed broadband, video conferencing, voIP and the like. It’s easier for business people to keep in touch without the need to fly. This has positive effects, both financially and environmentally for businesses.

Some references for this article sourced at ABC.

Microsoft’s latest purchase is NASDAQ listed ad company, AQuantive Inc. This news comes soon after Google acquired DoubleClick, also an ad firm.

According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, “[Microsoft buying AQuantive] increases the likelihood that the software maker will also buy Yahoo! Inc.”

Pajago

Boost Juice, founded by Janice Allis in 2000 became huge success with its beaut range of fruit smoothies and juices. When Boost hit the market, I always doubted it’s performance in the winter seasons. After all, who wants icey-cold smoothies amidst the cold of winter?

It was interesting to see Boost release a range of winter “hotties” as a reaction to the decline of sales in the winter months. I see this as a classic example of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunity and Threat) analysis. Let’s take a look at what a SWOT analysis is and how it applies to the above case study.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, so things that are directly controlled from the insides of a firm. Opportunity and threats, however, are external. According to Wikipedia, “A SWOT analysis, usually performed early in the project development process, helps organisations evaluate the environmental factors and internal situation facing a project.”

So now lets take a look at SWOT’s implication in the Boost story.

Strengths: Boost would have seen its customer base, and loyalty as a strength. The business already had a great supply of loyal customers repeat-buying it’s smoothies and juices, or what I will refer to as summer product-line. Boost also has a very strong, prominent brand. A brand that’s been molded to cater for it’s target market.

Boost’s product-line is also very healthy.

Weaknesses: The prime weakness in this case study is it’s lack of winter offering. Boost has a “chilled” product line that is most consumed during the warmer months.

Opportunity: The main opportunity for Boost in this scenario is to produce a healthy winter product-line to compete with the establish winter beverage market. A market that I see primarily catered for with caffine-based beverages.

Threats: Caffine-based, and other hot beverages dominate during the cooler months. People might not find a healthy option as desirable as the already established and dare I say trendy caffine products.

Boost’s answer to this SWOT analysis is its range of warm healthy drinks/s-meals (small meals), including: flavoured teas, oats, hot chocolate and soups.

I feel this range differentiates itself from the market by promoting health and by keeping with the Boost branding strategy. The range really plays on Boost’s existing customer base and is compelling enough to bring in new customers.

P.S -This article is written based on my own opinions.

I must say, I haven’t had a great deal of success with Google AdSense. I have AdSense installed on my tramping blog which is getting steady traffic, yet no clicks.

This was until recently. Now I am getting a few clicks every few days and they are paying quite well. I really think it’s back to the drawing board for me; to find a worthwhile advertising strategy for the site.

As you can see, this site hasn’t been monetised as of yet. There is an option to advertise via text link on the right-hand sidebar but that is all. So, on that note, feel free to click away and add your text link ad: I’d appreciate it and the site is getting ever increasing traffic.

Pajago