Al Gore is a Meme for Environmentally sensitive business, results at IBM and Apple events

I have modified one of “M” in what is GreenM3 to represent Memetics.

Memetics purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer.

Al Gore acts as a Meme.

A meme (pronounced /ˈmiːm/, rhyming with "cream"[1]) is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.

Al Gore represents environmentally sensitive business, and just presented on Feb 24, 2010 at IBM Pulse 2010 conference. 

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Below is a video from the beginning of his entertaining presentation I sat in.  Al Gore was good salesman for the concepts of IBM’s Smarter Planet, and the audience said good things about his presentation.

Two days later in Cupertino, Al Gore attends the Apple shareholder meeting, and his meme follows him.  Environmentally Sensitive Business.  But, does Steve Jobs want environmental issues brought up in his shareholder’s meeting.

February 25, 2010 12:40 PM PST

Al Gore a lightning rod at Apple shareholder meeting

by Erica Ogg

CUPERTINO, Calif.--The presence of one of the world's pre-eminent environmentalists at Apple's shareholder meeting Thursday was the subject of much of the morning's pointed discussion.

As expected, Apple's attitude on environmental and sustainability issues was one of the main concerns of the stockholders present Thursday, followed closely by the company's immense pile of cash. But early harsh comments about former Vice President Al Gore's record set the tone.

Gore was seated in the first row, along with his six fellow board members, in Apple's Town Hall auditorium as several stockholders took turns either bashing or praising his high-profile views on climate change.

At the first opportunity for audience participation just several minutes into the proceeding, a longtime and well-known Apple shareholder--some would say gadfly--who introduced himself as Sheldon, stood at the microphone and urged against Gore's re-election to the board. Gore "has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted," Sheldon said, referring to Gore's views on global warming. "If his advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn't need to be re-elected."

Another shareholder immediately got up to defend Gore and endorse his presence as an Apple director. And that wasn't the end of it. Two different proposals from shareholders were presented in regard to Apple's environmental impact. One was from the nonprofit As You Sow, which for the second straight year asked Apple to publicly commit to specific greenhouse gas reduction goals and publish a formal sustainability report; the second came from Herrington Investments, which proposed that Apple's board establish a sustainability committee, just like a compensation or personnel committee.

As You Sow's representative, Conrad MacKerron, praised Gore, but also challenged him on not doing more to encourage the company to set specific public commitments. Forest Hill, Herrington Investment's senior portfolio manager also addressed some of his comments directly to Gore, saying making board members responsible for Apple's envronmental impact "would make Apple a corporate leader."

This was not a serious enough issue to jeopardize Al Gore’s Board position.

Despite his apparently polarizing nature, Gore was re-elected with the rest of the slate in preliminary results.

BTW, at IBM’s Tivoli event every IBM employee had a Lenovo Thinkpad except the creative designers who had Macs.  I know a few Apple employees would grin knowing even the creatives at IBM choose Apple Computers.

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Apple’s Data Center Video goes from 25,000 to 73,000 views in 24 hrs, then 92,000 another 24 hrs

I blogged two days ago about Apple’s Data Center Video reading 25,000.  Well 24 hours later it has reached 73,000 views, and in another 24 hrs 92,000.

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Apple Security is going to have an interesting challenge keeping pictures from leaking out of Apple’s new data center in Maiden NC.

Apple is famous for its tight security.

Inside Apple's Secret Manufacturing Plants

Reuters

Ever wonder how Apple manages to keep security so tight around products like the iPad? It all comes down to fingerprint-recognition scanners and lock-down security at the industrial forts that make its products. Here, a behind-the-scenes look at life in those high-tech fortresses.

And, even has a rule of no metal taken out of the plant.

"Security is tight everywhere inside the factories," said a uniformed worker outside the Foxconn factory in Longhua, about an hour from Hong Kong. "They use metal detectors and search us. If you have any metal objects on you when you leave, they just call the police," he said.

When will we see a mobile camera shot from inside the Apple data center?  I don’t think Apple can have a rule that there are no cell phones allowed in the construction site.

The silly thing is a layman wouldn’t know the inside of a data  center.  And, during construction it isn’t too exciting.

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And, even when you do look in a data center finished with equipment how exciting is this?

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Microsoft had a data center tour with the BBC in Oct 2008 to try and make it exciting to the BBC audience.  The Apple data center video is probably 10 times the amount of viewership of the BBC video below, because it had the viral aspect of being discussed by a bunch of other media and bloggers.

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25,000 views of Apple Data Center video

The above YouTube video has reached 25,000 views in 3 days.

and there has been plenty of news/blogs about the video.

Video flyover: Apple's new cloud computing center

CNNMoney.com (blog) - Philip Elmer-DeWitt - ‎21 hours ago‎

The 500000-sq.-ft. facility is nearly five times the size of Apple's current server farm Apple's Maiden, NC, data center. Video: Bill Wagenseller According ...

Weekly Poll: Why Is Apple Building a Massive, $1 Billion Data Center

ReadWriteWeb (blog) - Alex Williams - ‎9 hours ago‎

This post is part of our ReadWriteCloud channel, which is dedicated to covering virtualization and cloud computing. The channel is sponsored by Intel and ...

Aerial video shows Apple's 500000 sq. ft. server farm in NC

MacNN - ‎17 hours ago‎

An aerial video, captured from a helicopter, allegedly shows Apple's new data-center located on 225 acres of land in Maiden, North Carolina....

Aerial Footage Of Apple's New North Carolina Data Center Shows Massive Facility

Cult of Mac (blog) - ‎19 hours ago‎

Aerial footage of Apple's massive data center in rural North Carolina clearly show how large the $1 billion complex is. Shot recently by a local realtor, ...

That's Apple's New Data Center? Where's the Giant Glass Cube?

All Things Digital (blog) - John Paczkowski - ‎20 hours ago‎

When plans for it were first announced, Apple's North Carolina data center was described as “as big as they come” and in more colloquial ...

First Look: Apple's Massive iDataCenter

Data Center Knowledge - Rich Miller - ‎Feb 22, 2010‎

How big is Apple's new iDataCenter in Maiden, North Carolina? It's plenty big, as illustrated by this aerial video posted to YouTube (apparently taken by an ...

I joked  in a Aug 2009 post that Apple is the Data Center Paparazzi target and a helicopter fly over fits the pattern.

Aug 18, 2009

Data Center Paparazzi Target was Google, now Apple, Watch the Rumors

Remember when we speculated on Google Data Centers?  People took pictures like the paparazzi of Google’s data centers and posted pictures to drive traffic.  But that is old news.

Now Apple is the new star.

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GOOG, AMZN, AAPL are the media distributors, MSFT lost this ability in the DOJ/EU court

I am back in the bay area for a couple of days coming from Seattle, and it hit me after visiting a company yesterday that Google, Amazon, and Apple are the top companies in each of the areas – Search, eCommerce, Media who combined are defining media distribution.  What Microsoft lost in the DOJ/EU court cases is the ability to be in control of Windows as a way to define the user experience on PCs for these areas.  If Microsoft didn’t have the consent decree restraints it could be more powerful in search, ecommerce, and media.

But, even if Microsoft had not lost the DOJ/EU court cases would they have moved to Mobile, Search, and e-reader type of devices like its competitors?

Microsoft VP recently left Microsoft to Amazon to work on the Kindle.

Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President of Windows Platform Strategy, will be leaving the company in February. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed his departure when I asked. From the e-mailed statement:

“We can confirm that Mike Nash is leaving Microsoft in a couple weeks. In his 19 years, Mike made an impact in number of key roles at the company. We appreciate his service and wish him well.”

Update: Nash will be joining Amazon.com to work on the Kindle, I hear. I’ve asked to see whether Nash will be replaced. No word back yet on that one…. Microsoft officials declined to comment (at least for now) on when and if that will happen.

There have been plenty of people who have left Microsoft to go to Google as well.

But, few who leave Microsoft to go to Apple.  I know plenty including myself who left Apple to go to Microsoft, but not the other way around.

Google, Amazon, and Apple are all trying to define the new media experience which as much as the content creators are in despair, I think throughout history the distributors, those who owned the channel defined the business model.

The content Publishers used to own the channel, now it is in the hands of Google, Apple, and Amazon.  Whoever who can define the best business model will win.

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Owning the Network commoditized, as Apple & Google’s Mobile browser devices with data centers drive customers

Newsweek has an article on Apple and Google’s move to wrestle control away from wireless carriers which commoditizes the network.  Verizon started the battle discussing the 3G network with videos like this.

ATT fires back with Apple’s help.

But, how many people really like being locked into one carrier for 2 years?  Did all this advertising really work or did it just piss off people more as they knew their networks didn’t work as well as advertised.  Apple and Google are changing the game by having users buy devices, and the network is a lower priority.  How many users who bought iPhones really wanted to be on the AT&T network? We’ll see if Google’s strategy to be on all the networks works vs. Apple.

Buh-Bye, Wireless Guys

How Silicon Valley conquered the carriers.

TECHNOLOGY
Handheld History

Remember life without your iPhone, Blackberry or Treo? From the Apple Newton to the newest Palm Pre, here's a look at the evolution of the personal digital assistant.

The Best of Apple's Innovations

By Daniel Lyons | NEWSWEEK

Published Feb 4, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Feb 15, 2010

I like to imagine that it happened this way: One day the computer guys in Silicon Valley looked over at the mobile-phone industry and realized those carriers have figured out the ultimate racket. They sell you a phone, lock you into a two-year contract, and anything you want to buy for the phone—accessories, ringtones, games—you have to buy from them. They control the whole thing, from top to bottom, and instead of getting a one-time sale, they get a recurring revenue stream. "Wow!" the computer guys said. "Why aren't we doing that? "

Well, now they are. Slowly but surely, companies like Apple and Google are wresting control away from the mobile carriers. Instead of a world where the companies that make the phones are just dumb hardware makers—silent partners who never get to touch the customer—Google and Apple are using the transition to smart phones as a way to flip the mobile-phone business model on its head.

But, as the article mentions this is just changing customer behavior from wireless carrier to device maker.

Eventually, this means that we'll all be able to buy a phone and run it on any network we want, which is what we should have been able to do all along. There's a risk, however, that we're fleeing one cage only to run straight into another, and the only thing that will change is the name of our jailer.

Part of the reason why Apple and Google have been able to do this is how well their device works with data centers that the company owns to provider a richer experience that consumers want.

RIM made the same mistake Windows Moblie did in having a browser that sucked.  Windows Mobile 7 will fix this problem, and RIM is joining as well.

The latest info we’ve heard has the browser being completely re-developed from the ground up and based on Webkit — a far cry from the POS Java relic BB’s currently run. RIM is gunning to take it even further than “just a webkit” browser however. Previously leaked documents and other claims from various sources have RIM tightly integrating their BIS/BES services and server side technology into the mix (which any Opera Mini users should know…) greatly speeds up browsing speeds, rending accuracy, and manages to drastically cut down on bandwidth.

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