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Gapminder and Google share an enthusiasm for technology that makes data easily accessible and understandable to the world. Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software unveils the beauty of statistics by converting boring numbers into enjoyable interactive animations. We believe that Google’s acquisition of Trendalyzer will speed up the achievement of this noble goal. Trendalyzer’s developers have left Gapminder to join Google in Mountain View, where Google intends to improve and scale up Trendalyzer, and make it freely available to those who seek access to statistics. The Stockholm-based Gapminder Foundation will continue to spearhead the use of new technology for data animations. The goal is to promote a fact-based worldview by bringing statistical story-telling to new levels. In collaboration with producers of accurate statistics that are eager to give the public free access to databases, Gapminder hopes to recruit and inspire many users of public statistics.

One of my favorite business model suggestions for entrepreneurs is, find an old  UNIX command that hasn't yet been implemented on the web, and fix that.  talk and  finger became ICQ,  LISTSERV became Yahoo! Groups,  ls became (the original) Yahoo!,  find and  grep became Google,  rn became Bloglines,  pine became Gmail,  mount is becoming S3, and  bash is becoming Yahoo! Pipes. I didn't get until tonight that Twitter is  wall for the web. I love that.

All of these programs link to myriad open APIs--advanced program interfaces that serve as building blocks for new applications--and data on the Web from Amazon (Research), Google (Research), and others. Thus can the information on your desktop be fused with the entire Web through a powerful and increasingly invisible bridge between the two.

It's been a long time -- all the way back to the dawn of desktop computing in the early 1980s -- since software coders have had as much fun as they're having right now. But today, browser-based applications are where the action is. A killer app no longer requires hundreds of drones slaving away on millions of lines of code. Three or four engineers and a steady supply of Red Bull is all it takes to rapidly turn a midnight brainstorm into a website so hot it melts the servers.

Working via networking Dear Helen, thank you! Yes, it's actually amazing! Currently our company is in some projects and we are responsible for a lot of things. I'm practically alone in my office for days on end, at the same time virtually I'm extremely busy networking with project partners and my employees constantly. We interact via Skype, email, wiki and phone, and sometimes it amuse me with how much people from different countries I contact at once. But what's become clear to me after all - an idea that virtual collaboration could be effective only when it is supported by periodical face-to-face (or at least, vocal via phone/Skype) conversation. Otherwise, a level of trust and mutual responsibilities is reduced even you were a good partner earlier. Helen Baxter, 10-Oct-06 @ 03:41AM Networking = Happiness & Higher Productivity I now run two networked companies, a record label and 3D/TV production house. We have studios interconnected with a combination of free Google Tools and the wonderful Basecamp PM system. Innovators & Creatives don't keep office hours and tend to work on a results not time basis. Overall I think my crew are much happier and far more productive than if we all tried to work out of the same office. This way I never feel like I'm herding cats ;)