I’m crashing after Election Night, two days of Web 2.0 Summit with one to go, plus speaking on a panel Saturday in Berkeley at Social Summit 2008. So, today:
• Here are a few dozen photos from my Web 2.0 Summit Flickr photo gallery, with many more to come. That’s Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, above.
• Follow my Twitter stream for coverage of today’s proceedings.
• Had fun appearing on Sarah Austin’s Pop17.com live Webcast this afternoon. She’s among my favorite Internet TV personalities.
• I do love the Launch Pad segment, featuring seven tech startups, that Web 2.0 brought into prominence before being emulated by other conferences. Today my favorite, far and away, also won the audience award for top startup prospect: GoodGuide.
GoodGuide provides the world’s largest and most reliable
source of information on the health, environmental and social impacts
of the products in your home. Founded by a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, GoodGuide rates a wide range of products across 140 criteria, such as carcinogen levels, carbon footprint and so on.
Today the company unveiled a new application for the iPhone. Download GoodGuide at the iPhone 3G App Store (I couldn’t locate it) and you’ll be able to browse top categories and products while walking the aisles of your favorite supermarket. The return message will tell you the top-ranked products (say, shampoos) as well as those to avoid. “I’ll know the best sunscreen to buy for my daughter,” said founder-CEO Dara O’Rourke. The service works for other mobile devices as well.
“This will change how millions of Americans shop,” O’Rourke said. “You’ll be able to find safe, healthy and green products, based on the best science in the world, screened for your personal preferences. This will shift the balance of power and ultimately transform the marketplace.”
We knew this was coming, so it’s a great day for consumers that the day has finally arrived.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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