ProjectX Blog

Ran into this again.

Heh heh!

Slashdot has posted a link (“Digital Waste Worth More Than Gold, Copper Ore”) to an article by Foreign Policy about the recycling of digital waste.

Scary numbers quoted in the article.

• Each year between 20 and 50 million tons of electronic waste is generated globally
• Its 10 times cheaper to ship waste to China than to dispose of digital waste properly at home
• One ton of computer scrap contains more gold than 17 tons of gold ore.
• Circuit boards can be 40 times richer in copper than typical copper ore.
• Lead, mercury, and cadmium are a computer’s most common toxic substances. When melted down, the machines release even more toxins into the air, ground, and water.
• Some disposal sites in China employ more than 100,000 people. In Guiyu, the average worker can earn between $2 and $4 a day.

It reminds of the infamous shipbreaking yards in India.

Scoble has just posted about Popfly – Microsoft’s new mashup builder. With Yahoo Pipes and Popfly, a new age of mashups is dawining where you can build a tools within minutes.

When I first saw this demoed a few months ago the Microsoftie who showed it to me literally built TwitterVision in two minutes right in front of me without writing code.
– Robert Scoble

Webservices will power the next generation of websites. If you’re building a new website, you should consider how webservices can increase traffic to business.

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford

“A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new. “ – Albert Einstein

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. “ – Albert Einstein

Performance

• 14 rules for fast web pages
• Scaling your rails app
• How facebook scaled
• How Livejournal scales (PDF)

Design / Innovation

• Jakob Nielsen on the state of web 2.0
• Steve Jobs on innovation at Apple
• Make your site mobile friendly
• The man behind Apple’s insanely cool products

Entrepreneurship / Business

• Eric Schmidt: Google buys a startup once every few days
• Only half of the bubble-era companies out of business
• Why mobile services fail
• Asking the crowd to spread the news
• Lucky things happen to entrepreneurs
• Traits of the best entrepreneurs

This news perked my interest ( from my start-up past). Yahoo is closing their US auction site (Yahoo are still the #1 auction site in Japan) . Yahoo has given up on being #2 in the US. No surprises really, Yahoo is getting caned by Google and it looks like they are focusing their resources on the challenges ahead.

Looking at the NZ market, it begs the question. Why the other the NZ auctions sites don’t get it? There is only ever one winner in each market for auctions. (They only market that isn’t true is China, they’re still fighting it out). You can’t have a marketplace without lots of buyers AND sellers. Its the old chicken and egg situation. Look at www.sellforfree.co.nz, there’s only about 50 items. (All the billboards have been put to good use!) Its going to have to work really hard to gain some traction against Trade Me!

If you’re thinking you want to build the next “trade me”. Stop! Buy some lotto tickets, its a better option. There is very little chance of real success.

OK OK that’s a bit harsh. If you still think you can do better, find a niche and become the dominant marketplace in that niche. That’s what the Hirething’s guys are doing and they are starting to get some traction.

Yesterday was a blur of cardboard boxes, packing tape and miles of cable, as we moved offices from Creative HQ at 25a Marion St to Agriculture House. Despite the rather bucolic name, it’s actually right in the middle of the suity end of town, with the entrance at 12 Johnston St just around the corner from Featherston St.

We’re still in the process of getting everything unpacked and back to normal (and sorting out minor things like phones), but we’ll update our website and ZoomIn pages very soon with our new details.

In probably the most bizarre news of the weekend, the register reports that MC Hammer has been selected to be on an expert panel for a tech start-up event.

Next we’ll be seeing Vanilla Ice as an interaction designer and Milli Vanilli as communication specialists !

The full list of winners is now up on the Gold Awards website, but we here at ProjectX always like to think in terms of maps, so here’s a ZoomIn group map that I created to show all the winners and their locations throughout the Wellington region.

Wellington-based international on-line mapping company ProjectX Technology
(www.projectx.co.nz) has been recognised for its bold ambition, technological
success and contribution to the community by being selected as one of four
finalists in the Cyber Gold category at this year’s Wellington Gold Awards.

Founder and CEO John Clegg say ProjectX is thrilled to be recognised in this way.

“We are proud to have been recognised and placed amongst Wellington region’s
best and brightest. To be one of four finalists is a huge boost for us as a young
start-up company and it’s a great incentive for us to do even greater things. Next
year we’re going for gold.”

The company, which is part of Wellington business incubator CreativeHQ, has
fingers in several pies. It specialises in developing online mapping tools for the
everyday person in the street.

Their flagship product is the free map website – zoomin.co.nz – which is about more
than just finding something on a map. Users can view or add photos and video,
read other people’s comments and reviews and add information of their own.

The company also created TradeMe’s Smaps product, which became the most
used mapping site in New Zealand within just three weeks of being launched.

ProjectX has already won two TUANZ awards (Telecommunications Users
Association of New Zealand) for craft and inspiration in 2006.