EMAILEmerging Markets
Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc (commonly referred to as Linden Lab), which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.
Second Life is one of several virtual worlds that have been inspired by the cyberpunk literary movement, and particularly by Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash. The stated goal of Linden Lab is to create a world like the Metaverse described by Stephenson, a user-defined world of general use in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate. Second Life's virtual currency is the Linden Dollar (Linden, or L$) and is exchangeable for US Dollars in a marketplace consisting of residents, Linden Lab and real life companies.
In the virtual world of Second Life, there are a number of in-world business and user-groups founded specifically for the virtual world, some of which have become legal entities in their own right, as well as preexisting companies and organizations that have involved themselves in the world.
Second Life is an exciting new venue for collaboration, training, distance learning, new media studies and marketing.
Build a new world that allows Second Life residents to interact with your products or services and enables you to test out new designs and concepts before introducing them to the real world. Or perhaps you have a product that you would like to sell in Second Life. Plan an event to promote your product: a concert, a class, a famous speaker, a party, a contest.
With Second Life, you are only limited by your imagination.
Second Life is a 3D platform that can be used for:
- Presenting, promoting, and selling content to a broad online audience
- Collaborating and communicating in real time between multiple participants
- Researching new concepts/products
- Training and educating in virtual classrooms
Residents are the users of Second Life, and their appearance is their avatar (often abbreviated to av). The basic avatar is human in appearance, but avatars may be of either sex, have a wide range of physical attributes, and may be clothed or otherwise customized to produce a wide variety of humanoid and other forms. Avatars may be completely creative or can be made to resemble the person whom they represent.
Sustainable Business (back to top)Los Angeles Web Design is a big supporter of Green businesses including those progressive companies migrating to a more sustainable business model and companies with a low-carbon economy initiative.
A business is sustainable if it has adapted its practices for the use of renewable resources and holds itself accountable for the environmental and human rights impacts of its activities. This includes businesses that may want to operate in a socially responsible manner, as well as to protect the environment. Many profit-oriented corporations will forge an image of social responsibility through various marketing and public relations techniques, although this apparent image does not necessarily mean that they are sustainable.
The triple bottom line, a.k.a. "TBL", "3BL" or "People, Planet, Profit", captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success; economic, environmental and social.
In practical terms, triple bottom line accounting means expanding the traditional reporting framework to take into account environmental and social performance in addition to financial performance.
"People, Planet and Profit" are used to succinctly describe the triple bottom lines and the goal of sustainability.
"People" (Human Capital) pertains to fair and beneficial business practices toward labor and the community and region in which a corporation conducts its business. A TBL company conceives a reciprocal social structure in which the well being of corporate, labor and other stakeholder interests are interdependent. A triple bottom line enterprise seeks to benefit many constituencies, not exploit or endanger any group of them. The "up streaming" of a portion of profit from the marketing of finished goods back to the original producer of raw materials, i.e., a farmer in fair trade agricultural practice, is a not unusual feature. In concrete terms, a TBL business would not knowingly use child labor, would pay fair salaries to its workers, would maintain a safe work environment and tolerable working hours, and would not otherwise exploit a community or its labor force. A TBL business also typically seeks to "give back" by contributing to the strength and growth of its community with such things as health care and education. Quantifying this bottom line is relatively new, problematic and often subjective. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has developed guidelines to enable corporations and NGO's alike to comparably report on the social impact of a business.
"Planet" (Natural Capital) refers to sustainable environmental practices. A TBL company endeavors to benefit the natural order as much as possible or at the least do no harm and curtail environmental impact. A TBL endeavor reduces its ecological footprint by, among other things, carefully managing its consumption of energy and non-renewables and reducing manufacturing waste as well as rendering waste less toxic before disposing of it in a safe and legal manner. "Cradle to grave" is uppermost in the thoughts of TBL manufacturing businesses which typically conduct a life cycle assessment of products to determine what the true environmental cost is from the growth and harvesting of raw materials to manufacture to distribution to eventual disposal by the end user. A triple bottom line company does not produce harmful or destructive products such as weapons, toxic chemicals or batteries containing dangerous heavy metals for example. Currently, the cost of disposing of non-degradable or toxic products is borne financially by governments and environmentally by the residents near the disposal site and elsewhere. In TBL thinking, an enterprise which produces and markets a product which will create a waste problem should not be given a free ride by society. It would be more equitable for the business which manufactures and sells a problematic product to bear part of the cost of its ultimate disposal. Ecologically destructive practices, such as over fishing or other endangering depletions of resources are avoided by TBL companies. Often environmental sustainability is the more profitable course for a business in the long run. Arguments that it costs more to be environmentally sound are often specious when the course of the business is analyzed over a period of time. Generally, sustainability reporting metrics are better quantified and standardized for environmental issues than for social ones. A number of respected reporting institutes and registries exist including the Global Reporting Initiative, CERES, Institute 4 Sustainability and others.
"Profit" is the bottom line shared by all commerce, conscientious or not. In the original concept, within a sustainability framework, the "profit" aspect needs to be seen as the economic benefit enjoyed by the host society. It is the lasting economic impact the organization has on its economic environment. This is often confused to be limited to the internal profit made by a company or organization. Therefore, a TBL approach cannot be interpreted as traditional corporate accounting plus social and environmental impact.
Several books are available on the topic. Among them, Harvard Business Review on Corporate Responsibility by Harvard Business School Press; The Soul of a Business: Managing for Profit and the Common Good by Tom Chappell; Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World's Most Difficult Problems by Professor Stuart L. Hart; The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success -- and How You Can Too by Andrew W. Savitz and Karl Weber; The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line (Conscientious Commerce) by Bob Willard.
A low-carbon economy is an economy in which carbon dioxide emissions from the use of carbon based fuels (coal, oil and gas) are significantly reduced. The full reduction appears later only in the zero-carbon (also called post carbon) economy.
Such a low-carbon economy is reached by many states and proposed by organizations as a necessity in order to mitigate the effects of global warming. It might also be hastened by future shortages of oil (Hubbert peak theory) and the associated increases in energy prices that are predicted to come, coupled with anticipated increases in energy demand as countries such as China and India continue their industrialization and coalization.
A low-carbon economy might be brought about through the use of energy conservation measures, and the substitution of renewable energy sources for fossil fuels, including transport electrification. New technologies such as hydrogen power may also be involved, while carbon capture and storage and the controversial nuclear power might play a role as bridging technologies. It is proposed that the right to emit carbon dioxide would be a traded in carbon emissions trading schemes, and perhaps also be subject to carbon taxes.
A low-carbon economy maybe judged to be not as economically efficient (cost-effective) as a high-carbon economy (especially when assessed using traditional-only cost effect analysis). However, higher energy efficiency of post carbon energies, nowadays existing technological improvements, increases in the costs of carbon fuels, and the introduction of carbon trading or carbon taxes may change this efficiency ratio to favor a low-carbon economy.
Los Angeles Web Design designs websites specifically to meet the standards and needs of mobile devices such as cell telephones and PDAs.
The Mobile Web refers to the World Wide Web as accessed from mobile devices such as cell phones, PDAs, and other portable gadgets connected to a public network. Access does not require a desktop computer.
Today, many more people have access to mobile devices than a desktop computer.
The .mobi sponsored top-level domain was launched specifically for the mobile internet by a consortium of companies including Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, and Vodafone. By forcing sites to comply with mobile web standards, .mobi ensures visitors a consistent and optimized experience on their mobile device.
Since 100% of .mobi sites must be optimized for viewing on a mobile phone, the main advantage of .mobi, from the users' perspective, is that they are guaranteed a site optimized for their smaller screens. Although a .com or any other extension can be optimized for mobile phones, in practice, only a fraction of them are, thus necessitating content adaptation solutions.
DotMobi is backed by mobile network operators, mobile phone manufacturers, and Internet search and content providers including Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, Vodafone, and T-Mobile.
