Got this email from Carl today. Thought I’d pass it along to anyone out there in RSS land that hasn’t stopped by in a while….
Hey boys,
We’re live! Honestly I’m a bit shocked at how smoothly it seems to have gone (we made the switchover with zero downtime), so please go find something broken and restore my sense of balance ;-)
Carl
What do you think of the new flowers?
And what do you think of the fact that I just made the first CP blog post in quite a long time?
Scroll to the very, very bottom of this window. Below the dirt.
See the light grey letters? The address? Well, as of tomorrow morning, if it still says anything about South Creek Roads or little towns in southeastern Pennsylvania, it’s wrong.
That address is here, my grandfather’s house, where I’ve lived since my granny died.
Starting tomorrow, The Carrot Project and I live in LA. See all you California people soon.
Forbes Magazine named Exxon Mobil the Green Company of the Year for 2009.
Exxon Mobil (the one company whose gas stations I can’t help but actively avoid) has done some serious investing in natural gas. Forbes loves natural gas. And Forbes considers ExxonMobil’s investment the highest impact move any company has made since the beginning of this year.
The imaginary friend on my left shoulder tells me to add Forbes Magazine to CP’s expert database and note their high opinion of Exxon Mobil. They do claim to know what they’re talking about. What they’re presenting is an opinion for which they have a clearly stated reason. It is possible that no other company has done anything as potentially short- to medium-term impactful in 2008. And there’s an agnosticism at the heart of The Carrot Project concept that makes me want to be more inclusive than skeptical.
The imaginary friend on my right shoulder, however, doesn’t like the fact that a magazine historically focused on wealth suddenly considers itself an authority on sustainability.
Anyone have a strong opinion either way? An opinion as strong as The Columbia Journalism Review’s?
If anyone ever has a craving for numbers related to bottled water, fish and plastic, or corn, click those links.
The site’s called Simple Mathematics, a name inspired by Mos Def.
Up the Carrot Project alley for sure.
Thank you, Wiley, for the introduction.
And, Colin, welcome!
Been pretty quiet for a few weeks on this blog.
Gotta end that, so here’s an update…
Content is still our biggest, most immediate challenge. We need to get to a point at which we’re adding new product categories (and corresponding brand and expert info) consistently. One a week would be amazing. One every two or three would work fine. And I wouldn’t complain about one a month.
But we’re not there.
And that’s because I’m being tentative or careful or miserly or something. A little voice in my head is telling me to move slowly, get a few more of the technical details worked out, and pay the lawyers what I owe them before pushing harder for content, and I’m listening.
Maybe I’m crazy. We’ll see.
Despite that craziness, however, we have a couple of categories in the pipeline. Two people are working separately, evaluating the process as I described it to them (and as they’re experiencing it), and trying to figure out which main stream booksellers and toilet paper manufacturers we (book and TP consumers) should and shouldn’t support.
So there you go.
Content. We need it. And we need it to be good. Clear. Diverse. Accurate. Thought-provoking. Literary, even. If anyone has ideas or wants to have a go at a product category and help evolve the process, let me know.