Easily the funniest video of the week. Enjoy!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KeG_i8CWE8]
Author: golf Page 1 of 22
By July, Facebook, Google, Tumblr and others will likely be forced to remove photos, audio recordings or other personal identifiers of children — or else face stiff fines, thanks to updates to a 15-year-old law.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA
) was enacted in 1998. In 2011, the FTC beefed up the measure, preventing sites from collecting personal information from kids such as name, location and date of birth without a parent’s consent.
This July, new amendments for kids under 13 will go into effect, approved by the FTC in December
There are also new restrictions on tracking data, with cookies or a unique identifier that follow registrants from one site to another.
via www.foxnews.com
Hot, new Washington D.C. tech accelerator known as The Fort is debuting its inaugural class of startups today. The organization grew out the efforts from early stage VC firm Fortify Ventures LLC, also known as Fortify.vc (that’s its URL, too), which had previously invested in nearly dozen D.C.-area tech companies.
Over the past 9 months, The Fort’s co-founders, Jonathon Perrelli and Carla Valdes, have been busy trying to spark innovation in the nation’s capital. They set up the fund, invested in group of startups, created the accelerator, hosted a pitch competition called “Distilled Intelligence” which handed out $25K to winners, and selected a dozen more startups for The Fort’s first program.
“D.C. is not a place where people are always working together,” says Perrelli of the group’s efforts, “but now there is this uprising. People are trying to build something here.”
via techcrunch.com
It is great to see the startup vibe growing in DC. Jonathon Perrelli and Carla Valdes are doing a nice of leading here. Well done everyone.
The stupor of alcohol, like the haze of the early morning, makes it harder for us to ignore those unlikely thoughts and remote associations that are such important elements of the imagination. So the next time you are in need of insight, avoid caffeine and concentration. Don’t chain yourself to your desk. Instead, set the alarm a few minutes early and wallow in your groggy thoughts. And if that doesn’t work, chug a beer.
via www.wired.com
This is an interesting article about how the brain works. Looking for inspiration? It can come at very unexpected times!
Every entrepreneur has met them. Big company executives with big company swagger. They ignore you. They dismiss the business problem you spent your life solving. They think they can crush you.
Then the tables turn. They push for strategic relationships. They want to give you money, frequently at irrationally high valuations. Finally they shell out enough scratch to buy you.
It is no easy task turning big company hesitation into commitment. But several key steps will help you manage this potentially make-it-or-break-it relationship. Through it all, be sure to drill into their heads every step of company progress as sales begin to multiply.
A great article that every entrepreneur should read. Good stuff.
After a very successful HubSpot Twitter chat on Tuesday (join us for the next one on January 24th at 3:30 PM EST!) about business blogging and content creation, one discussion point stood out among the rest: everyone we spoke with acknowledged the importance of business blogging for inbound marketing success, but many people said that, despite their best efforts, it's really hard to find enough time to do so on a regular basis.
It's a common refrain, and this wasn't the first time we'd heard the complaint. But over the years, we've figured out some creative ways to keep our blog fed with content even on days that are jam packed with meetings, weeks with days lost to vacations and holidays, and times when we're just plain not feelin' it.
Because we really want our readers to adopt business blogging as part of their daily (or weekly, depending on your competitive needs!) regiment, we'd like to share with you some of the tactics that can save you some significant time when creating blog content. We still recommend writing pieces that are further outside your comfort zone and really require that you set aside time for critical thinking. But for those days when you just don't have the time for it, these tactics will help you publish valuable content to your blog and keep your content creation machine chugging along at a consistent rate.
via blog.hubspot.com
Good advice here. A blog can be very valuable on the SEO front and in positioning your company as a subject matter expert. Every company should make it a part of their weekly routine to write at least one, simple blog post per week. Again, good advice.
The U.S. Department of Education released today Analysis of State Bullying Laws and Policies, a new report summarizing current approaches in the 46 states with anti-bullying laws and the 41 states that have created anti-bullying policies as models for schools.
The report shows the prevalence of state efforts to combat bullying over the last several years. From 1999 to 2010, more than 120 bills were enacted by state legislatures from across the country to either introduce or amend statutes that address bullying and related behaviors in schools. Twenty-one new bills were enacted in 2010 and eight additional bills were signed into law through April 30, 2011.
Out of the 46 states with anti-bullying laws in place, 36 have provisions that prohibit cyber bullying and 13 have statutes that grant schools the authority to address off-campus behavior that creates a hostile school environment.
"Every state should have effective bullying prevention efforts in place to protect children inside and outside of school," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "This report reveals that while most states have enacted legislation around this important issue, a great deal of work remains to ensure adults are doing everything possible to keep our kids safe."
via www.ed.gov
Instant messages are ubiquitous and convenient, but something primal may be lost in translation.
When girls stressed by a test talked with their moms, stress hormones dropped and comfort hormones rose. When they used IM, nothing happened. By the study’s neurophysiological measures, IM was barely different than not communicating at all.
“IM isn’t really a substitute for in-person or over-the-phone interaction in terms of the hormones released,” said anthropologist Leslie Seltzer of the University of Wisconsin, lead author of the new study. “People still need to interact the way we evolved to interact.”
via www.wired.com
A very interesting study about the power of the voice in communications.
Tweens and teens often spend hours grooming their blog or Facebook profile until it perfectly reflects their personalities. In fact, that is today’s teenager’s preferred form of self-expression. But is there a way for your kids to do it safely?
This uKnowKids.com article provides parents with tips on how kids can blog safely. Good stuff for moms and dads of digital kids.
The death this weekend of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, who ruled the country with an iron fist since his father’s death in 1994, had immediate repercussions throughout Asia and beyond.
The New York Times reports that South Korea — which has been at war with North Korea since the early 1950s — immediately put its military on alert, “boosting surveillance along the 155-mile border between the two countries, one of the world’s most heavily armed frontiers.” The tension between the two countries escalated during the past several years after North Korea demonstrated nuclear capability.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Asian stock markets took a dive in response to the news, “with South Korea’s stock market and the won tumbling to multiweek lows…. With markets already reeling from the European debt crisis and global growth concerns, Kim’s death has added a dangerous layer of instability to the Korean peninsula,” the Journal noted, adding that “many Asian neighbors [are] uneasy about the leadership transition phase in one of the world’s most reclusive regimes.”
That unease was further heightened by the announcement that Kim’s son, Kim Jong-un, has been named the country’s new leader, despite his youth (he is in his twenties), lack of experience and isolation from other governments.
via knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu
A 27 year old kid with nukes. Pretty scary stuff.