Back to Sling Plan.  It’s simply a better way to stay organized and connected.  All of the sites and productivity tools you use rolled up in one!  How awesome is that?

SlingPlan.com was designed for individuals, entrepreneurs, professionals, and up and coming business organizations to manage all business and personal information such as contacts, emails, calendar activities, files, and much much more all from a single tool.

Check it out here and spread the word to your friends!

http://www.slingplan.com/index.html

http://www.facebook.com/SlingPlan

http://www.looxcie.com/

Good little video describing what Google TV is:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diTpeYoqAhc&feature=player_embedded

Sneak peek on some of the apps:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDeX_oIfEeQ&feature=player_embedded

Control your TV thru an iPhone or Android device.

http://www.google.com/tv/

Get in line folks…

Reason to Jailbreak Your iPhone: Use FaceTime Video Chat, Anywhere You Want

Jailbreaking is the term used specifically for Apple‘s iOS products (iPhone, iPod Touch, andiPad) that’s essentially a synonym for unlocking. Jailbreaking an iPhone isn’t just a nerd trick; it allows you to do all kinds of stuff Apple doesn’t like, including full multitasking, running unapproved third-party apps (including those porn apps Steve Jobs hates so much), and even tweaking key features of the iOS device to your liking.

Jailbreaking is also incredibly easy, much easier than Android’s equivalent, “rooting.” Rooting an up-to-date Motorola Droid, for example, requires downgrading your firmware to a previous version, which can irrevocably break your phone. Then you have to load an alternate firmware onto the Droid, which can also irrevocably break your phone. The whole process is very messy and intimidating, not to mention risky. But that’s not a problem with iOS.

Jailbreaking doesn’t even require any downloading anymore–it used to be a one-click process, but I suppose even that was too tricky. Now you can just visit this site from your iPhone’s browser, follow the on-screen instructions, and be jailbroken in no time. And if you’ve got an iPhone 4, there’s a great reason to do just that: 3G FaceTime support.

When FaceTime was announced, we all wondered if AT&T would let Apple (further) destroy their network by allowing the data-heavy service to be used over 3G. It was no surprise when FaceTime was limited to Wi-Fi, though still disappointing. But now, you can jaunt over to this page with your newly jailbroken iPhone 4, download the My3G app, and enjoy video chat wherever you are. It’s pretty amazing.

Of course, if you’re on a tiered AT&T data plan, watch out, because this is, as expected, very hard on data. 9to5Mac figured out that 3G FaceTime uses about 3MB per minute–so if you’re on the lower 200MB plan, you might want to rethink that hour-long video chat.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1677115/reason-to-jailbreak-your-iphone-use-facetime-video-chat-anywhere-you-want?partner=homepage_newsletter

http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/

Quick Pitch: Nadanu transforms the electronic giving into a simple, fun and accessible experience.

Genius Idea: Based on the ancient Sumero-Akkadian word for “giving”, Nadanu seeks to make the currently complex setup, management, deployment and usage of electronic giving and interaction with donors into a faster, better experience for users and charities alike. It helps organizations reach out to individuals who care in order to secure the funding they need.

For donors, the process is as simple as dropping virtual “coins” into a custom receptacle; the service eliminates the long, prohibitively complicated donation forms we’re used to seeing. Donors can also create reminders to give and set recurring micro-giving schedules for themselves.

Nadanu’s Push-K platform lets donors to give to their charity at anytime through a fun interface. With Nadanu, donors enjoy a simpler giving process, and non-profits or charitable organizations can deliver content such as video, audio and text messaging through a single system.

Here are some examples of the user-facing apps for iPhone, Facebook and desktop:

Now that the iPhone 4 has been announced, your relatively new iPhone 3GS might feel strangely outdated to you. If you’re dying to be the first on the block with a shiny new iPhone 4, but can’t afford to spring for one, NextWorth, a consumer electronic upgrade and trade-in site, might have the solution for you.

NextWorth’s trade in program for the current iPhone 3GS offers between $208 and $260 for used 16GB iPhone 3GS units, depending on the phone’s condition, and up to $296 for the 32GB model. With the upcoming iPhone 4 prices starting at $199 for the 16 GB model—with a new AT&T contract, of course—NextWorth can potentially make your upgrade to the iPhone 4 not just free, but even profitable.

The way it works is simple: visit the NextWorth site and enter in the iPhone model you wish to sell. Then, describe the condition of your phone as “New in Box”, “Like New”, “Normal Wear”, or “Heavy Wear”, and answer a few questions about the condition of the phone’s core functions (Wi-Fi, headphone jack, battery, etc). NextWorth will immediately provide you with a quote and a prepaid shipping label. Print out the shipping label, carefully pack your iPhone, and send it off to NextWorth, and you’ll have the money deposited in your PayPal account or a check sent out to you within ten days.

Of course there’s always the issue of whether or not NextWorth agrees with your appraisal of your phone, but assuming all goes well, this could be a great way to upgrade to the newest, shiniest iPhone. By the way, if you’re thinking about selling your iPhone, you better act fast—NextWorth’s prices are subject to change according to market demand, and we have a feeling that the value of your iPhone 3GS has nowhere to go but down at this point.

 http://www.nextworth.com/

http://www.macworld.com/article/151885/2010/06/nextworth.html

- Fast Company

In the Interwebs era, there seem to be as many business models as colors in the rainbow … yet few have the charitable cachet of “Causium.” This is a wildly successful and public-spirited invention by software company Atlassian.

Just the other day Atlassian announced that through their Causium software distribution model they’ve amassed a grand total of $500,000 in charity donations. In this case the charity is Room to Read, a literacy improvement program that’s a personal favorite of the company’s founder. This has turned Atlassian into Room to Read’s largest single donator, and the money will go to educating readers in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Cambodia, including establishing “34 libraries, four schools, and two local language books” as well as scholarships in the Girls Education program.

It’s an admirable program, and amazing news for two reasons: First, it took just seven months to raise $400,000 of this amount. Second, Atlassian raised the cash in an unusual way, by sort of giving away a high-quality, technically supported software product to tens of thousands of customers. This, explained Atlassian’s Director of Product Marketing Daniel Freeman, is the “Causium” business model.

The Causium notion began when Atlassian did a deep dive into its business and realized it wasn’t achieving significant sales of its software in the small businesses segment. “We were hurting in market share,” Freeman said, and the team realized “we were doing so poorly we could give away a product in this segment and not hurt our bottom line.” This is a great PR kick that many companies have tried, but the team wanted to apply some lateral thinking, supported by the companies existing “1/1/1″ model (where 1% of employee time goes to volunteer work, 1% equity goes to the Atlassian Foundation and 1% of products are donated to nonprofits). Instead of giving away a product, which tends to result in customers perceiving little value in it, or charging a medium-scale but discounted price, Atlassian decided that a micropayment was a good idea, with 100% of the cash going to charity.

That’s not all, though, as Atlassian decided it wasn’t going to “be that company” that gives away a freeish product that was “bastardized” with crippled capabilities and no ongoing support. Nope–the software would be the full system, and come with completely “free technical support.” After briefly panicking that this effort might “explode” Atlassian’s systems, the company launched a five-day trial that sold two products to the small business market for $5 for five seat licenses. They hoped it would raise $25,000, but it ended up reaching $100,000, with some days seeing 20 times the normal purchase event volume going through the company’s servers, frenzied tweeting about the experiment, and even some people purchasing the package just to aid the charity.

A success, evidently, one that even motivated some of the company’s staff to work extra hours because they felt “it was the right thing to do.” Learning from this five-day event, the company added more products to the Causium model, upped the price to $10 for 10 seat licenses and launched it as a permanent system in October of 2009. Strong sales between then and now led to that $500,000 charity figure.

Freeman was careful to note that this event has actually had massive knock-on effects for the company, acting as a huge PR vehicle for the firm, resulting in millions of dollars of upsell business as purchasers of the Causium-priced software bought extra software from Atlassian. It also resulted in improvements to the way the company worked as it had to perfect and streamline its tech support to cope with the un-revenued burden of supporting the “free” products. He said he’d definitely advocate the Causium model for all of these reasons, but it wasn’t intended to have these knock-on effects, and originally was a novel way to “do the right thing” that ended up as a big “bunch of right things” instead.

And if your company’s heart has a somewhat ethical beat, then maybe Causium is a new sales model to try out. Which then got us thinking: If even some of those millions upon millions of free iPhone apps had a minuscule micropayment attached to them, bumping their perceived value to their customers, what huge piles of money could be raised for charities of all sorts around the world?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1653209/causium-charity-business-model-micropayments-atlassian-quality-freeman?partner=homepage_newsletter

- Courtesy of CNN

Saying it will “change the future of television,” Google on Thursday rolled out Google TV — the internet giant’s venture into web-TV integration.

The application, run by Google’s Android operating system, lets users search for content from their television, DVR and the web.

“Here we are folks — the multimillion-channel TV,” said Google project director Rishi Chandra during a two-hour keynote on Google’s Android operating system at the company’s annual I/O conference in San Francisco, California.

Even as sites like Google-owned YouTube have emerged as viable entertainment options, the move is a nod to a basic truth of leisure time: The estimated 4 billion television users worldwide is still a much bigger customer base than those using the internet.

“There’s still not a better medium to reach a wider and broader audience than television,” Chandra said.

The platform will let users search for content, from the name of a TV show to the name of a network, in much the same way a Google search works. They’ll get results from TV and the web and be able to watch either on their TV screen.

It also will have voice recognition, letting users speak the name of a show or other content and have it pop up on their screens.

“Videos should be consumed on the biggest, best, brightest screen in your house,” Chandra said. “That’s your TV.”

Devices for Google TV will be sold at Best Buy and on the market this fall, in time for the lucrative holiday shopping season. No prices were announced on Thursday.

The system will allow Android smartphone applications to be displayed on television screens and such integration as being able to watch a show on TV and a Twitter stream of people talking about that show at the same time.

A Google TV home screen will let users organize their content, like shows they’ve recorded on their DVR, and integration will let users view photos from such sites as Flickr and Picasa on their TV screens.

In addition to Best Buy, other partners include Sony, which will launch a line of TVs that optimize the Google service, Intel, Logitech and DISH Network — which also will offer features specifically for Google TV.

Developing for the system will be open, a fact that let Google’s top brass take several shots at Apple’s iPad and iPhone. They pointedly noted that Adobe’s Flash media player will be integrated into the system’s Web browser.

Adobe and Apple have been feuding publicly, and loudly, over Apple’s refusal to run Flash on its products.

“We’re thrilled to be part of the Google TV initiative with other industry leaders who share a common vision of enabling access to the best web experiences possible,” said Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who attended the event.

Google isn’t the first company to meld web and TV content.

In March, TiVo rolled out TiVo Premiere, which lets subscribers pull internet content, music and movies onto their televisions more easily.

The Boxee Box, a cubelike device that shares internet content with your TV, was awarded the title of “Last Gadget Standing” at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

And California-based company Roku also offers a digital video player that integrates television, Web content and a video library. It retails for about $100.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/20/google.tv/index.html?hpt=T2

Name: SeatGeek

Quick Pitch: SeatGeek is a free, innovative search and forecasting web application that helps users save money on sports and concert tickets. 

Genius Idea: SeatGeek is a website that analyzes ticket sales for events and makes predictions as to the best time to buy in the resale market. 

Ticket prices tend to fluctuate as events get closer; that’s based on a number of factors, but SeatGeek doesn’t go out of its way to explain the reasons for the fluctuations. Rather, it uses behind-the-scenes algorithms that the company claims lead to 80% accurate predictions of where ticket prices will go. Here’s a picture of the tools in action. 

As you can see, SeatGeek tracks ticket resellers and compares their deals much like a site like Price Grabber does for consumer products. You can buy these through the SeatGeek website, or look at its predictions to decide when you’ll save the most money. There are also sharing options for Facebook(), Twitter(), e-mail and MySpace(). 

The New York-based site was launched just in time for the 2010 Major League Baseball season, but it works with other sports and concerts too. Visit each week and you’ll see top 10 lists for events, too.- Courtesy of Mashable.