A New York City startup called Howcast is launching today that wants to be the YouTube of instructional videos. In fact, the three founders—Jason Liebman, Daniel Blackman and Sanjay Raman—are ex-Google employees who worked on Google Video and YouTube before they left eight months ago. They actually are going for a little more polish than YouTube, trying to bring some production values to the world of Web video.

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I remember reading, some time ago about the $3000 car. The notion behind it was to make four-wheels accessible to India’s fast-growing middle class. Some may ask how producing a vehicle at such a price can be sustainable. Well, profit-margins are thin but by shifting sheer numbers - numbers that are adequately supported by Indian’s population, it is quite a sustainable move; well according to the media reports by these car producers.

The way I see it is India has a demand for this car but I don’t know if they have the infrastructure to support it. How do people currently get around in India? Scooters and motorcycles are very popular due to their fuel efficiency and maneuverability in traffic. I would think they are pretty easy to park and store, also. So how will the country cope with a car that is set to ‘revolutionise the market of 1.1 billion people‘? To me, it seems like a situation of buying the vase first and table later.

Where are these cars meant to be parked? How will the roads cope in terms of both congestion and wear? How will the current refueling stations cope? How will the ports cope with bringing in fuel? Are there adequate service centres? I really could go on…

If the nation has, for so long counted on two-wheels as a primary mode of transport how do they all of a sudden cater for four? This is not to mention the already burgeoning environmental aspects.

[Side Note] It’s interesting what people have to say in the comments of the article, ‘$A2800: World’s Cheapest Car’ over at News.com.au. Concerns of how safe the Tata Nano is seems to be the general consensus. Doesn’t seem to be much thought into the safety of a moped though. Additionally, people seem to be critical of the cars chances in making it to Australian roads. Well that’s ok, as I don’t believe there are intentions. It’s built with a purpose and meeting Australia standards is not one of them.

I like this comment; it sums it all up:

“You nitwits are missing the entire point of the car. It is not meant for Aussies or any other western market. It is meant for third world markets where entire families manage to ride a 2 wheel scooter together. For them it is a step up. Safety wise also, it is far better than the scooter though very poor compared to a standard western auto. THINK, RELATE and stop being so ethnocentric. I can’t but shake my head at those who feel that third world populations should be denied products because they pollute. Why don’t you lot sell your cars and trash your air conditioning before you pass judgment?” - Thanks Andy of the USA…

This is more of an enquiry than claim: is Soundbuzz the backbone of BigPond Music? I just read a post over at TechCrunch claiming that Motorola has acquired Soundbuzz. It mentions that Soundbuzz has partnerships with Hutchison 3, Motorola, Airtel, SingTel, M1, Optus Zoo, Telstra/ BigPond Music and Microsoft.

I read today that Co-founder of Topix, Rich Skrenta is looking at taking on Google with new search engine, Blekko. I discussed this with a few people at work today and the response seems to be very negative. The responses I got: “Sif!”…”As if anyone can compete with Google”. To be critical of yet another so-called competitor of Google, I believe, is rational. It’s been tried before and giants like Yahoo! and Live haven’t even managed it. So what is so good about Blekko?

Well, one of the problems I think Skrenta and his team are trying to fix is when you type in a word like “Kylie Minogue” you get many pages of results: images, news, scholar, books, et al. Not to mention the hundreds of pages of search results. I feel, Blekko is trying to achieve a more integrated Google. One page and summaries of what you actually need (want) to know. And apparently no PageRank algorithm.

I’m really excited to see what Blekko has in-store. I am, admittedly a Google-aholic but I am also open to better ways of doing things. For example, I am looking at making the move from iGoogle as my home page to PageFlakes as the latter looks and moves a lot better, whilst still being integrated with the likes of Gmail.

Apparently, Blekko will not be live until 2009. At the moment by going to the domain you get a picture of some cute, puppet-looking creature. I wonder how cute and fun Blekko is going to be…

Yaro yesterday posted a blog on his achievements for the year over at Entrepreneur’s Journey.

Some of the highlights:

- Attending the Strategic Profits event in Florida.

- Attending the World Internet Summit in Melbourne.

- Buying his first house and a new car.

- Selling BetterEdit.com for a low-six figure sum.

- Continuing to enlighten, inspire and teach me more about online business and the opportunities it provides.

If you would like to read the blog post, and I highly recommend you do, click here.

This post is the first of three posts Yaro intends to publish on this topic. So add his blog to your RSS reader so you don’t miss out on the others.

Over and out…

P

In reply to Valleywag’s 25 Predictions for 2008, I shall do my own version. Well, lets make it 6 Predictions for 2008.

Telstra:-

I don’t think Sol Trujillo will be at Telstra by the end of 2008. Who replaces him: I don’t have the foggiest. I think Telstra will chip away at extending the reach of its HSDPA network and the other carriers will try their best to match all but its remotest coverage. Telstra won’t win the iPhone contract. I feel Vodafone will: the two align much better than Mac-unfriendly Telstra.

Apple:-

Hopefully Apple will release the iPhone to Asia by the end of 2008. It will be a 3G model and the battery issues will be worked out. The 13″ Macbook Pro will be announced at Macworld Jan. 08 (please let this be true).

Google:-

Google’s share-price will hit $800 (I agree with Valleywag on this). They will go on an acquisition-rampage.

The Internet:-

The whole Web 2.0 movement will charge ahead and brilliant ideas will continue to rise, survive and/or die out of Silicon Valley. Social networking will continue to be dominated by Facebook, MySpace and Linkdin (in order). There will be loads of consolidation and acquisitions in this space.

Telecommunications:-

All I have to say is one thing: ULL.

Pajago.com:-

We shall continue to tap-away at the keys - hopefully - producing content that you, the readers, enjoy to read. Again, feedback and suggestions is important for us to continue to produce quality. Contact us here: suggestions@pajago.com

Done.

P

“Mapping out routes for its drivers, drastically reducing the number of left-hand turns they make helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons”. - According to the NY Times…

THE surfwear and streetwear company Billabong International has snapped up the Tigerlily swimwear and clothing business from Jodhi Meares, the former wife of James Packer.

Billabong, which has a market capitalisation of $3 billion, has not revealed how much it paid for the operation but it said the acquisition would be earnings per share positive in the first year.

However, market sources said Ms Meares would be paid between $3 million and $5 million for the company she built up over the past nine years.

Continue reading about Billabong’s take-over of Tigerlily

BusinessGreen is a website of news, advice, reviews and blogs to help UK companies reduce their carbon footprint. As much as this is a UK site it is still absolutely applicable to the rest of the world.

The site contains news, in-depth essays, a regularly updated blog, audio/video, a user forum and links to many useful resources.

If you have an interest for the environment which, as you can tell by this blog, I do, I recommend checking this great site out. I hope soon the forum will become more active as I’d certainly like to contribute my thoughts on all things ‘green’.

A work colleague was talking today of a pair of jeans he has ordered from a French online clothing store. The jeans are being freighted to Australia by FedEx, the American logistics/supply-chain behemoths.

Our conversation moved to FedEx’s acquisition of new aircraft to service the increasing demands for airfreight.

FedEx have recently cancelled their order for 10 Airbus A380-800F. Apparently this was due to long-delays with Airbus churning out the popular A380. It’s interesting how airlines are still ordering the A380 even with the long-delays.

Obviously Airbus are operating at full-employment and demand is still increasing. This is a great opportunity for Boeing to capture even more market share. This is exactly what they’ve done with FedEx who now have an order in for 15 Boeing 777’s and an option to take a further 10.

Source: BBC