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The Internet's role in getting people together
Internet users are actively involved in their community and in groups, with many of them using tools such as Facebook and Twitter to mobilize, a survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project said.
The report found that 80 percent of Internet users participate in groups, whether it be spiritual groups or professional ones. Social media users are even more active, with 82 percent of social network users and 85 percent of Twitter users getting together with others in an organization.
The Internet has also become a tool for members to communicate with one another, raise awareness and drum up support for their cause, fundraise and recruit new members.
The report found, for instance, that 62 percent of all Americans believe that the Internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to draw attention to an issue. About half said that the Internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to raise money.
About half also said that the Internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to recruit new members.
| January 18 2011 at 12:01 PM
Technology for caregivers
More and more people, from family members to hired staff, are being tasked to care for ailing seniors as the nation's population ages.
A new survey by the National Alliance for Caregiving and UnitedHealthcare finds that caregivers are tapping into tech tools to help them with their care.
Some 70 percent of the respondents said they search the Internet for information or support for caregiving.
It also found that nearly half of the survey respondents have used an electronic organizer or calendar to help them with caregiving and 11 percent have participated in a caregiving-related blog or online discussion.
On the top of their wish list for useful caregiving tech tools were a website or software to help track the patient's health records, a shared log to manage help from friends and family and a device to remind patients to take their medication, and to send an alert if the pills aren't removed within a certain time frame.
| January 15 2011 at 10:06 PM
Finding your online alter-egos
I'm sure most of us have done it at least once during a sudden slump into boredom. We lose Internet momentum, we forget why we were surfing the Web or we just need to kill a couple of extra minutes while we figure out our online raison d'etre.
So we search our names and see what comes up.
Associated Press
The two Kelly Hildebrandts met on Facebook. They will marry in October.
Doing just that ended with a marriage proposal for two Kelly Hildebrandts. Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt, 20, was curious to see who she would find if she searched her name in Facebook and came across the profile of Kelly Carl Hildebrandt, 24, so she e-mailed him.
"She said, 'Hi. We had the same name. Thought it was cool,'" Kelly Carl Hildebrandt said to the Associated Press. "I thought she was pretty cute."
The Hildebrandts aren't alone in succumbing to same-name online magnetism, according to the BBC. It seems there are clubs in Facebook of people who share name. For example, the David Nelsons of the world have assembled to form the "Our Name is David Nelson" group. A 52-member group called "We Are Paul Quinn" won't even accept Paulas or Paulines: only "pure" Paul Quinns.
So why do we do it? BJ Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, suggested there's a certain "fascination" to finding a person who shares our name and imagining what it would be like to growing up with the same name in a different place with different people.
So have you searched your name on Google or Facebook? What have you found?
| July 24 2009 at 03:44 PM
High-tech CEO's share holdings drop 36% in value
A recent study found that CEOs from the top 100 high-tech firms - several of them based in Silicon Valley - took a painful hit to their finances and lost in average $38.2 million from their total equity holdings as a result of the ups and downs in their companies' stock value in the last 12 months.
The average drop from $105.2 million to $67 million in the value of their individual holdings between June 30, 2008 and 2009 represents net losses of over 36 percent, according to a study by Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation firm.
"CEOs as a group lost a total of $3.8 billion in net equity value, driven by the net 23 percent average stock price decline," a press release said.
The study points out that a critical consequence of this blow to executives' pockets is the loss in incentive value of the companies' equity plans.
Companies often use these plans, which compensate top executives with stocks and stock options, to attract and retain top talent. By tying top-level employees' finances to the market value of the stocks, companies hope to ensure that executives will perform at their best.
"Such value erosion has left these companies without a 'carrot or hook' to hold onto or motivate their top executives," the release said.
But even though the drop in stock prices makes it more tempting for executives to look at other companies' offers, Steven Hall & Partners managing director Lawrence Robinson said many CEOs have actually acquired more shares in their firms.
"If you're an incumbent CEO, this is an opportunity to buy more stock if you have strong confidence in the company and the management team," he said.
Among the CEOs surveyed in the study were Cisco Systems' John T. Chambers, Hewlett-Packard's Mark V. Hurd and Apple's Steve Jobs. Dell, Google, Oracle and Microsoft were not included because the magnitude of their CEOs' holdings would have eschewed the average value erosion and their CEOs are unlikely to leave the company, Robinson said.
| July 23 2009 at 12:51 PM
Where did these companies get their names?
Mental Floss put together this fun little list explaining the origins of the names of 16 popular electronic brands and, by doing so, it answered questions we didn't ask - but maybe we should have.
It's not uncommon for us to embrace brands and turn them into household names. Soon some turn into verbs (like Google) and some become synonymous with the product itself (like Kleenex). And so we integrate them into our daily conversations but, unlike most other words in our vocabularies - for which we can sometimes produce some kind of limited definition - what can we really say about a brand's name other than conjuring the goods they produce?
For instance, have you ever wondered what Kodak means? It's common to hear companies named after their creators, so maybe you suspected there was a man out there that goes by "Bob Kodak". Actually, founder George Eastman, thinking like modern marketers, was simply looking for a word that was easy to pronounce and remember. He decided he wanted his company's name to start and end with the letter "K", because it "seems a strong, incisive sort of letter." There's no back story for the other three letters, other than they were easy on the ears.
Then there's Nintendo, which translates to "leave luck to heaven" and dates back to the company's origins manufacturing playing cards; Nokia, named after the Finnish town where it was founded; Canon, initially named Kwanon after a Buddhist goddess; and Cisco Systems, which was named after the city where it was founded - San Francisco.
| July 15 2009 at 01:44 PM
13-year-old's remarks on 30-year-old Walkman
BBC
13-year-old Scott Campbell and his mother.
What better way to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Sony's iconic Walkman than asking a teenager for some feedback on the device?
The BBC couldn't think of one, and neither can I.
I like to imagine that the experience was like an archeologist rediscovering how a recently excavated artifact was employed thousands of years ago.
But I'm well aware that it must have been different for 13-year-old Scott Campbell, who co-edits his own news Web site. For one, teenage impatience must have stood in the place where I fantasize scientific curiousity should have been.
"My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day," Campbell wrote. "He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book."
Sure enough, people on the street noticed the antique clinging from his belt with amusement and friends in his school bus were quick to come up with some witty remark ("No one uses them anymore," someone duly noted).
Campbell went on to criticize the portable cassette player's size, appearance, functionality and the "hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises."
Even when he discovered the cassette had more music on the other side (it took him three days), Campbell was still disappointed it could only hold a small fraction of what an iPod can.
"Did my dad... really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?"
Ouch. I thought it was pretty cool.
| June 29 2009 at 04:06 PM
Neil Young: Fork in the Road
Here's the latest from Neil Young, the Bay Area's favorite grunge rocker and green tech entrepreneur.
In an interview last month, Neil told the Tech Chronicles he was working on a new album that would have a track on it about electric cars. In case you missed the Chron's article on that, Neil is partnering with a Kansas outfit to retrofit old classics to run on electricity and compressed natural gas.
His personal conversion? A '59 Lincoln.
Beyond green tech, it looks like Neil is also sinking his teeth into the Great Recession. You gotta love Mr. Young's take on the bailout in his new song, "Fork in the Road."
There's a bailout coming, but it's not for me.... It's for all those creeps watching the ticker on TV.
There's a bailout coming, but it's not for you... it's for all those creeps hiding what they do...
Keep on rockin', Neil.
| January 14 2009 at 05:42 PM
Bernie Mac: Gone but not forgotten
Associated Press
Bernie Mac
If you've read obituaries online, chances are you've run across Legacy.com, where you can sign a virtual guest book for the deceased.
Well, Web sites are all about tracking traffic, and Legacy.com is no different. Today, it released its own Top 10 list for 2008, of the celebrities with the most entries in their guest book.
They are:
1. Bernie Mac (13,170 entries): Actor and comedian; died Aug. 9, 2008
2. Tim Russert (4,630 entries): Journalist, lawyer and moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press"; died June 13, 2008
3. Hudson Family (4,270 entries): Mother, brother and nephew of Oscar-winning actress and entertainer Jennifer Hudson; found dead Oct. 24 and Oct. 27, 2008, respectively.
4. Madelyn Dunham (3,900 entries): Beloved grandmother of President-elect Barack Obama; died Nov. 3, 2008
5. Heath Ledger (3,290 entries): Award-winning actor; died Jan. 22, 2008
6. Bill Keightley (3,280 entries): Three-time NCAA Champion and equipment manager for 48 years for the University of Kentucky men's basketball team; died March 31, 2008
7. Meredith Emerson (2,720 entries): Young hiker kidnapped in the mountains of Northern Georgia; found dead January 7, 2008
8. Richard Wright (2,710 entries): Pianist, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter for Pink Floyd; died Sept. 15, 2008
9. Paul Newman (2,560 entries): Legendary actor, director, entrepreneur and humanitarian; died Sept. 26, 2008
10. Skip Caray (2,550 entries): Sportscaster and son of legendary baseball announcer Harry Caray; died Aug. 3, 2008
According to the site, it receives nearly 800,000 new guest book entries per month -- or one about every 2.5 seconds.
Here's a full list of Legacy.com's notable deaths for 2008.
| December 15 2008 at 03:49 PM
Winners circle
The Bay Area showed well in the Wall Street Journal's 2008 Technology Innovation Awards, taking first place in six out of the 15 categories, plus silver and bronze awards for overarching achievement among 700 entrants worldwide.
Drumroll, please.
The Silver and individual semiconductor award went to Mountain View company Audience for its noise-suppression technology.
Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Lab won the Bronze and the environment category for the PhyloChip, a DNA application that speeds up the identification of harmful bacteria. (The Gold went to Texas-based Vidacare for its EZ-10, a turbocharged IV device).
Other Bay Area category winners: San Francisco's Salesforce.com for its cloud computing-based suite of customized business applications; Spot Inc., a division of Milpitas-based Globalstar for its hand-held Spot Satellite Messenger; Santa Clara's Applied Materials for its SunFab production line of large solar panels; Xsigo Systems of San Jose for its "virtual" connectors that can replace physical cables in a data center.
Runners up: Pleasanton-based Sanarus Medical for its nonsurgical tool for treating breast cancer; Optimedica of Santa Clara for its laser-based advances in treating eye diseases; and Palo Alto Networks (of Sunnyvale) for its network firewall application.
The awards ceremony, which will feature executives from Cisco, Chevron and Tesla Motors, among others, is to be held Oct. 21 at the Sofitel Hotel in Redwood City.
Poignant side note: One of the sponsors of the Silver award was the dissolved Heller Ehrman's Venture Law Group.
| September 29 2008 at 12:54 PM
Oxford University needs YOU!
Fancy holding court at one of the most prestigious academies of learning in the world? Punting on the Thames? (White flannels optional). If you're a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Oxford University's business school has a deal for you.
The school's 'Silicon Valley comes to Oxford' is looking for business leaders and VCs from the Valley and its environs to cross the pond in late November and give seminars, lectures and "master classes" to the school's eager beaver, would-be high-tech entrepreneurs. "Other classrooms empty out when these events are held," said the school's dean, Colin Mayer, during a visit to the Bay Area last week.
The program, which began in 2001, is the brainchild of veteran Bay Area high-tech journalist Mike Malone. It has drawn such local luminaries as Reed Lindsay, founder of LinkedIn, Bob Goodson, CEO of startup incubator YouNoodle, Kim Polese, the onetime "queen of Silicon Valley, now CEO of the open source software company SpikeSource, not to mention Craig Newmark of Craigslist.
Apart from the star quality of such visiting faculty, what's in it for a storied, 800-year-old British institution in the age of the knowledge economy?
"Historically Britain has been very good at inventing but not good at translating it into successful business models -- which Silicon Valley is very good at," said Mayer. "Silicon Valley has a lot to teach us."
| September 19 2008 at 03:03 PM
News and views from the digital frontier.
By Marcus Chan (moderator), Benny Evangelista, Casey Newton, James Temple, Read Bios
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