Act II llc - Craig Fleishman

Journey

Craig — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:06:12 +0000

Social curation

Craig — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:41:45 +0000

Today’s GigaOM has an interesting article on “curation” sites. We’ve all seen Facebook evolve from a place where we share our status updates and our vacation photos to a place where we curate the wider library of images, links, and content that we “like”. And the past few years have brought an explosion of new tools for curating content on the internet, led of course by Pinterest. The GigaOM article highlights the degree to which sites like Pinterest represent the latest evolution in a fundamental human interest.

Check out the link here.

LocalResponse – Targeted Real Time Offers

Craig — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:17:19 +0000

Poking around on the internet this morning, I found a company called LocalResponse. LocalResponse is apparently the first platform to use tweets and check-ins to push sponsored tweets and offers back to consumers in real time. (e.g., you tweet that you’re in a store and they push an offer back to you). Coupled with the targeting data they’re inevitably compiling, this could prove to be a fantastic way to upsell.

Check it out here.

Bill and Hillary

Craig — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:02:37 +0000

Causecart – Donate to Charity Every Time You Buy Online

Craig — Wed, 30 May 2012 21:12:21 +0000

Just saw a posting on Causecart, a new browser extension which captures a portion of the referral fees they generate when you buy items online through the extension and donates it to the charity of your choice.

What will you give, if we make it easy for you, and if we make it free? Here’s another group trying to find.

Check out the link here.

Craig — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:51:36 +0000

[Check out the great new Marley documentary here.]

Google+ Local

Craig — Wed, 30 May 2012 13:40:32 +0000

Google today announced that they’re adding Zagat reviews to Google+. Users will be able to see information about nearby restaurants whether or not they’re logged in, but users who are logged in to Google+ will also be able to see reviews and information from people in their circles.

Google+ is taking baby steps towards monetizing an untapped market – local commerce. I’ll bet you a dollar we’re going to see an enormous amount of local commerce integration into social media networks in the next year or two, and that this integration (properly understood and executed) will help level the playing field between small businesses and national retailers.

Check it out, via Mashable: Google+ Unlocks the Power of Zagat With ‘Local’ Tab.

Market-Based Solutions to Childhood Malnutrition

Craig — Tue, 29 May 2012 19:17:29 +0000

Today’s GOOD blog has a great article on Nutriset’s “Plumpyfield” franchising system for Plumpy’nut, a fortified peanut-butter like product designed to treat acute malnutrition and save the lives of starving children at low cost. Under the program, they’ve franchised production of their core product to local producers in markets like Haiti, Sudan, and Uganda, empowering local producers to build their own market-based distribution networks and businesses while helping save lives.

The article also talks about Living Goods, which uses an Avon-style army of door to door saleswomen to sell cooking products fortified with nutrients that are often missing in poor families with access to only or two staple foods. In both cases, local entrepreneurs are being tapped to created a broader market for important products.

Check it out: Should Fighting Hunger Be a Franchise Business?.

With ‘Dashboard,’ Obama Campaign Aims to Bridge Online and Off

Craig — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:55:05 +0000

Today’s Atlantic has a great piece on the release of the Obama campaign’s 2012 organizing tool, “Dashboard”.

In a nutshell, Dashboard tracks and quantifies the efforts of campaign volunteers. By fitting volunteers into a formal hierarchy and giving them access to information generated by other volunteers on their teams, dashboard muddies the distinction between volunteers and staffers – volunteers get to know what they need to know, and if they’re active (as community or team leaders), they’re getting a lot more information than they would get in a typical campaign hierarchy.

As always, the Obama model depends on carefully controlling the message and efforts on behalf of the message, but allowing individual volunteers to feel informed and empowered within their spheres of influence. Although I’ll be sitting this one out, I look forward to watching how the campaign’s new tools (and the access to information they provide) change volunteers’ perception of their roles in, and privileged access to, the campaign.

via With ‘Dashboard,’ Obama Campaign Aims to Bridge Online and Off.

Donate via Tweets and Texts With Givey

Craig — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:23:07 +0000

Today’s Mashable has an interesting article about Givey, an online platform intended to make it easier for people to donate to charities in the U.K. So far, they’ve signed up 6,000 charities.

What’s interesting to me is the fact that they’re creating a centralized record of the time and money users donate to charitable causes. As Robert Haslam of Givey put it, “[b]y creating a way to keep a record of everything that users have done to help, they will be able to fully understand the impact their small actions have on the world around them.”

Check out the link here.