On Google and eBay

I wrote a piece this week about a spat between Google and eBay for Time.com:

"EBay is going gaga over Google. Less than a year after the two Web giants signed a billion-dollar advertising pact proclaiming a passionate partnership, a lovers' quarrel has broken out..."

It follows a number of others I've written about Google, including a story I wrote last October (06) about Google's strategic focus on developing partnerships and a briefer piece last September about some of Google's deals. It's a fascinating company.

Green Cities

In July of 2005, I wrote a short piece about local green initiatives noting that various places, including Chicago, San Francisco and Charlotte, were implementing environmentally-friendly programs:

"With the administration still dragging its feet on joining the worldwide battle against global warming, a growing number of U.S. cities have decided that environmental activism begins at home..."

Two years later, the movement is continuing apace. Here's a bit from a recent piece by John David Sutter of the Oklahoman...

"Tulsa has become the 500th city in the country to make a formal pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming....it is the 500th city to sign the agreement. At least one city from every state has signed the agreement, which requires participating cities to slash their city's carbon dioxide pollution by 7 percent between 1990 and 2012."

A Student Business Graduates...

In March of 2005, I wrote a piece that mentioned a struggling student room-cleaning business at Harvard run by Michael Kopko that had sparked campus controversy. Two years later, I read recently that Kopko has just won the New England section of the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards.

Here's the announcement:
BOSTON, May 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) -- the "Heisman Trophy" for the top undergraduate student business owners -- held its New England regional competition for 2007....

The winner of the New England competition was Michael Kopko, founder of DormAid and student at Harvard University. DormAid (http://www.dormaid.com) is a service that helps students enjoy their studies by handling the downsides of student life -- laundry, dorm cleaning, bedding, and more.

Kopko told his compelling entrepreneurial story of launching DormAid, which has received a great deal of media attention through its unique business model and challenges launching on the Harvard campus, and expanding it to dozens of campuses nationwide. "It's an amazing business," Kopko shared, "one day we'll be doing a student's laundry and the next weekend he's calling us at 3 in the morning on Sunday to clean up the messy results of a party. It's very fun."