DonorsChoose and Social Media: New Twitter Integration

DonorsChoose makes great use of social media in their work to help teachers get their classroom projects funded via community donations. Their Twitter integration is pretty novel IMHO - you can either tweet your donation from your account, or just fill in your Twitter username to have them tweet as well.

(also noticed that HP is on DC and donating to projects where a computer or other technology is desired. Good for them!)

Iraqi Gov't Launches a YouTube Channel!

When we visited Baghdad in April, Jared Cohen from the State Department emphasized the trip would only be successful if we were able to help with deliverables, not just talk. Well, Google has been hard at work and this week was able to announce two amazing initiatives.

1) Google will work to scan and digitize the artifacts of the Iraqi National Museum, an awesome collection of some of the Middle East's oldest artifacts.

2) The Government of Iraq has set up a YouTube channel. When in Baghdad, government officials stressed to me how important communication and transparency would be in this new era to build trust among citizens and help the world understand Iraq's evolution. We at YouTube are incredible proud to support this effort and make available the tools they need to broadcast themselves to the world.

Earn College Credit for Watching YouTube

"Richard Buckland is a computer science lecturer at the University of NSW who has pioneered the use of YouTube videos as learning aids at Australian universities. Seeing a need for more challenging computing classes in high schools, Buckland is now offering a class for high school students based almost entirely on the recordings of his first-year computing lectures.

High school students who want to learn more about computing and mathematics can take this advanced, first-year university level class for free. While studying the video lectures at home, participants will only have to come to the university one night a week for a two and a half hour lab where they can ask questions and socialize. To get course credit, the students just have to complete the same assignments and tests as Buckland’s in-classroom students."

- via PSFK

Classic Warren Buffett Line re: Latest Acquisition

Warren Buffett purchased Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad this week for $26b. In addition to all the strategic reasons for the purchase he joked that he acquired the company because “my father didn’t buy me a train set as a kid.”

Spike Jonze on making movies (and great products in general)

From an interview with Spike Jonze where he relates experiences from his first run-in with big hollywood movie-making: 


"It had slowly, day by day, moved away from what i was trying to do. I didn't realize how things get corrupted not all in one fell swoop, they get corrupted millimeter by millimeter by millimeter, and only when you look back and see where you were trying to go and where you game from, only then do you really realize how far adrift you've gone." 

TownMe (ex-Googler Local startup) launches API

Yipee - Elad and Othman's TownMe launched their API so get crackin' all you developers.

Too many people or too few: coffee shops and crowd density

Picture this: you're walking by a new coffee shop and pause to take a look. Hmm, how can you figure out whether they have good coffee - maybe the # of people inside? Too few customers and you might think "boy, this place probably sucks." Too many and you're no longer interested in fighting the crowds for just a cup of coffee. 

On the web we'd just multivariate test to find optimum page layout. But the darn physical world is so much more complicated. I threw together a short survey and farmed it out to 100 US consumers via mechanical turk (side note: using turk is addictive). All the usual disclaimers reply WRT survey bias and construction - i know my questions were a bit leading...

Imagine you were going to try a new coffee shop....


1. If the cafe was empty, would that make you more likely to enter, less likely or no change?

No Change: 52%

Less Likely: 26%

More Likely: 22%

2.  If this new cafe had good coffee, how many other customers would you expect to see?

Avg: 11.1 

> those who answered 'less likely' in Q1 avg'ed 14.5

> those who answered 'more likely' avg'ed 9.6

0 - 5: 30

6 - 10: 40

10 - 19: 12

20+: 18

3.  How many people would need to be in a cafe to make it "too crowded" for you? 

Avg 25.7

> those who answered 'less likely' in Q1 avg'ed 30.8

> those who answered 'more likely' avg'ed 22.9

0 - 10: 11

11 - 19: 23

20 - 29: 35

30+: 31

So it would suggest that the average cafe owner would want to have ~11 - 19 visible in their cafe to people on the street. Any more than that and you should conceal them in a back room or out of sight of the front windows and register :)