John Doerr not up to run for governor – After San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom withdrew from the race for California’s top job, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article examining Doerr’s potential to pull the state’s Democrats together. Doerr, one of the star speakers at our upcoming GreenBeat conference, has put the word out that it’s no No NO.

But it’s yes yes yes that you can still get tickets for GreenBeat.

Obama’s people promise to speed up $7.2 billion in broadband grants – Officials at the Commerce and Agriculture Departments are working to “get the funds out the do0r faster” and create jobs. They’re also considering paying for rural lines that could be shared by multiple companies, rather than allowing mini-monopolies on those lines.

Finding flu vaccine information in one easy Googly place – google.com/flushot is your one-stop shop for finding vaccination locations and other information. Thanks again, 20 Percent Time.

The Go team says its big programming frustration has been the slowness of existing languages. Go changes that by compiling (i.e., turning programming code into an executable file) complex programs in a few seconds or less. Other features include the ability to use multicore processors to perform parallel tasks, and “garbage collection,” a system for managing memory issues.

Go started out as one of Google’s “20 percent projects,” ideas outside their regular job that Googlers are given time to pursue, but it has now graduated into a full-blown project, according to CNET. The language is still too young for the company to use in any of its core products, but it could eventually be used for server software and software in the browser.

Here’s a demo video.

Telecom analyst Mark McKechnie from research firm Broadpoint AmTech told Bloomberg reporters that Verizon began sales with 200,000 units in stock last weekend, and that most stores had sold roughly half their stock. That multiplies to 100,000 units sold. (Mark is not pictured at right. These guys just had the best Droid team spirit in a Google image search.)

The number is impressive, but the sales it doesn’t touch Apple’s million-unit first weekend for the most recent model iPhone — and remember, the Droid phone, which is the first device using Google’s Android 2.0 operating system, had literally been advertised as the anti-iPhone

Consultant Michael Cote, whose Cote Collaborative works on market strategies with handset makers and wireless carriers, says McKechnie, with all due respect, “is off by a factor of four.” 400,000 units puts the Droid to within striking distance of the iPhone for the next round of updates for both phones. That would be cool, because admit it, watching the iPhone beat up all other phones on the planet combined was getting pretty dull.

Now, the more extreme wing of the party is getting into the act, with the so called “tea partiers” who rained fire and brimstone on the Democrats’ health care reform efforts this summer turning their attention to the climate package — a trend spotted recently by Mother Jones magazine.

The same people who coined and flogged the phrase “death panels” and championed Obama’s congressional hecklers (Rep. Joe Wilson, we’re looking at you), are turning their considerable wrath against the bill, which (very roughly) would establish a carbon cap-and-trade system in the U.S., limit greenhouse gas emissions and set quotas for renewable energy generation.

A new viral video, titled “Not Evil, Just Wrong,” billed as a rebuttal to Al Gore’s Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth,” is making the rounds on the internet, circulated by conservative organizations like Focus on the Family, the Heritage Foundation and others. Calling itself a warning against “global warming hysteria,” the film paints climate bill supporters as extremists who are actively shutting down businesses and laying off workers in the name of environmental protection. Here’s a taste:

In addition to pulling at viewers’ purse strings, it taps several other patently tea-party tactics: Portraying environmentalism as a Hollywood, liberal, radical scheme — even trotting out electric-car enthusiast Ed Begley Jr. and GreenPeace; oddly, it chooses DDT as an example of the eco-elite (a caste defined by Gore) manipulating science to serve their ends. Apparently the World Health Organization lifted its ban on DDT, but remains blacklisted. And of course it caps it all off by inspiring disbelief in the very notion that global warming exists.

The next step for “Not Evil, Just Wrong” and its cohort is to encourage local tea party screenings. On the movie’s web site, you can buy a “Platinum Party Pack” that includes screen initations, t-shirts, posters, a small red carpet and a copy of the film for only $99.95. The group behind it claims that 400,000 viewers tuned into the online debut. But now that the initial fervor is over, they might have to turn to new strategies and slogans.

In the meantime, the Climate Bill itself is continuing its journey through the Senate, now with the full weight of the Obama administration behind it. But it’s not all smooth sailing. Moderate opponent Max Baucus (D-Mont.) threw up what could be a major roadblock today, calling for stringent trade protections so that climate measures won’t hurt domestic business.

One thing has become clear — whether it’s in a rightist movie or a moderate Democrat’s objection — when it comes to the Climate Bill: it’s the economy, stupid.

VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

That’s a relatively small amount compared to the $41 million that the San Francisco company has raised in all, but the new money is also noteworthy because it comes from Nigel W. Morris, co-founder of Capital One, a major credit card and banking company. (Prosper shared the investment size with us, even though it’s not in the press release linked above.) Morris made the investment through his firm QED Investors, and is joining Prosper’s board of directors.

Companies like Prosper allow individuals to make loans to each other online. Users post requests for loans of between $1,000 and $25,000, with the maximum interest rate they’re willing to pay, as well as the personal history behind the loan. Then lenders can bid on the loans. As part of efforts for greater financial oversight, federal regulators shut down peer-to-peer lending sites last fall, but Prosper reopened earlier this year, and now says its marketplace has 870,000 loans.

Competitor Lending Club raised $12 million in March, and has raised more than $22 million in all.

One such company offering these tools is Kaon Interactive, a Boston area company that specializes in 3D interactive sales and marketing solutions. Their v-brief platform gives presentations the extra spark they need to make an impression. The company was founded in 1996 with an undisclosed amount of funding and is quickly becoming an attractive resource to product manufacturers, distributors and retailers looking to deliver interactivity to customers. Some noteworthy customers include: Dell, IBM, Cisco.

While there are plenty of companies offering 3D software for presentations including Dryfork, which allows the presenter to integrate 2D, 3D, and video media in a single presentation, but only Kaon provides the ability to deliver presentations via the web. Today, Kaon announced the launch of Kaon V-Stream, a way for sales and marketing professionals to deliver presentations via the web, independent of the user’s local hardware. In the past, one could only view these presentations via Kaon’s v-OSK, a touch screen appliance, because of the size and complexity of the content. Now, with Kaon V-Stream these presentations can be delivered anytime anywhere as long as there is an Internet connection and access to a web-browser.

For example, a company with a large product portfolio might find it difficult to constantly keep products relevant and timely to customers. With Kaon, the company can produce interactive 3D presentations across their whole product line leveraged by their sales team for both online and offline use. That makes it easier for marketers and sales teams to create captive 3D virtual product demonstrations, interactive flow diagrams, videos, data sheets, slide presentations, and more, which are all needed for today’s elusive audience.

What’s the worst presentation you ever sat through? Bet it wasn’t developed through Kaon.

At its core, iControl makes software — software that plugs into the security hardware made by companies like General Electric, Honeywell and ADT, and manages data being channeled back via a network of sensors placed around the home. It even works with devices used for medical monitoring. Now it will also manage and display energy consumption data beamed back to a central hub by appliances and the like.

Its strategy is to team up with more big names on both the security and home networking sides of the business. GE, ADT, Cisco Systems and Comcast (all companies looking to get in on the Smart Grid and energy efficiency trends) have invested in the Palo Alto, Calif. company so far, but it is avidly looking to expand its reach.

Security might be providing iControl with entree into the energy arena, where it hopes to branch out with a software offering tailored to utilities that communicates with Zigbee-enabled smart meters (advanced meters equipped with radios capable of wirelessly transmitting energy consumption data). But it might meet with some stiff competition in this area — the home energy efficiency and monitoring space is getting pretty crowded, as noted in yesterday’s article on open-source home area network company People Power.

On one hand, consumers are faced with more choices than ever when picking a service to keep tabs on energy use and electricity bills in real time. OpenPeak, Tendril, OpenPeak, Silver Spring’s Greenbox, Control 4, Google PowerMeter, Microsoft Hohm — the list goes on and on. On the other, only a limited number of consumers are interested in monitoring their energy use. The mismatch between supply and demand will no doubt result in a rash of consolidation in coming months, and doesn’t bode well for late entries like iControl.

That said, if the company can attract enough interest and revenue with its broader security and home management offerings, it could keep its energy management operations on life support long enough to grow and gain some traction.

It is also planning to charge less for its energy management system than most of its competitors, only $50 compared to the $114 for AlertMe’s system and $200 for Control4’s.

iControl is generously funded, having raised $43.5 million over the last three years, also from Charles River Ventures, Intel Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and iFund.

VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

Weather.com, a subsidiary of the Weather Channel, has done well because of its focus. You want weather? It will give it to you, wherever you are. It has roughly 100 million viewers on TV, 40 million viewers on the web, and more than 10 million users on mobile devices.

Weather.com is the fourth most popular mobile destination in the U.S., only behind Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, according to the Weather Channel’s Cameron Clayton, vice president of mobile and international. As a purely “curated” content site, Weather ranks No.1, he said. Cameron spoke last night on a panel I moderated at MobileMonday in San Francisco.

But it turns out, Weather.com is actually dependent on Google and Yahoo for a significant amount of its traffic. If you type “weather” into Google, the search engine sends you to Weather.com. And on the mobile phone, with all kinds of people search for Weather while on the go, that traffic is huge. Compete shows that, on the web, 10 percent of Weather’s traffic comes from Google alone. In mobile, it might be more.

But here’s the rub: One notable ingredient of Weather.com’s success is its robust ad sales. It refused to deal with  ad networks like Google’s. It has its own salespeople, something Cameron says has become “religion” within the company. By default, that religion makes Google an infidel. Weather also shuns AdMob to serve mobile ads for its mobile offering.

This is all fine as long as Weather.com is just another content provider. But it isn’t. Weather.com has such a huge reach among mobile users that its ad-sales operations are now directly competing against Google’s (especially since Google now also owns the largest mobile ad distributor, AdMob). Google has ignored the conflict for a while, because it hasn’t dealt as much in mobile ads. It has spent most of its time developing Android for mobile devices, and apparently the AdMob deal had been in the works for two years. But now Google is going full bore on mobile. With the rise of the smartphone market, Google knows there’s huge potential for growth: In fact, a 200 to 300 percent per year potential, if AdMob’s recent growth is anything to go on.

I’m not suggesting Google will do anything drastic like cut off traffic to Weather.com in the short-term. Cameron tried to play down the threat last night, calling Google a “frenemy.” But Weather.com’s ad business certainly is the easiest target to attack among the big guys out there, if Google is really looking for a place to go. Why, Google may ask, is it sending Weather.com all that traffic? Why not send it to a source, perhaps homegrown, that serves Google/Admob ads?  There are other weather sources after all, such as the National Weather Service or Accuweather. One reason Google may be ok with the arrangement is that Weather.com makes Google its default search engine on its own site.

But one thing’s for sure: Google isn’t afraid of steamrolling people in its way. As we saw last week, when it launched Google Navigator, the future of navigation companies Tom Tom and Garmin suddenly dimmed. Their stocks plunged in the wake of the announcement. Fortunately, at least, for Weather.com, its URL is easy to remember, and will stick for a while in people’s memories — perhaps the one thing preventing it from becoming instant roadkill. At the same time, it’s hard not to see stormy days on Weather.com’s horizon.

Wikimedia’s head of communications Jay Walsh said the campaign has a different emphasis this year, too — it’s not just about paying the site’s operating costs for another year, but also figuring out ways to turn Wikipedia into something that will (yes, it sounds a little cheesy) stand the test of time. Hence the “Wikipedia Forever” fundraising theme. Specifically, Walsh said Wikimedia plans to spend more of the money on long-term investments, such as staff that can reach out to new communities of contributors and research into making the site easier to edit.

More generally, Walsh said, “This time of year, rather than just hoping to pay our bills, we want readers to think about what it means that all that information came from people who gave their time and energy.”

As far as getting attention for its fundraising efforts, Wikimedia will do more to outreach this year on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Walsh said, and people can also make donations via text message on their mobile phone. Still, the key promotion will be the same as last year — a banner ad at the top of Wikipedia asking users to give.

Those ads should be going up any second now. In the meantime, you can visit this web page to donate.

The decision — a major reversal in attitude and strategy — came from Fiat, which received a 20 percent stake in Chrysler from the U.S. government in exchange for its more fuel efficient chassis and engine designs. Ironic.

As of 2008, Chrysler had three electric vehicles in the hopper, and five EV concepts had been shown off at the Detroit Auto Show. One was even supposed to be launched as early as 2010. And the company went so far as to pledge that it would have 500,000 EVs on the road by 2014. As recently as August 2009, Chrysler accepted $70 million in government funds to supposedly pay for the development of a fleet of extended-range hybrids, an ideathat has since been tossed out.

Last week, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne slashed this estimation to 60,000 EVs, representing 2 percent of Chrysler’s sales. He made no reference to prior promises or commitments.

Under its former owner, Cerberus Capital Group, Chrysler had set up a fairly nontraditional in-house development group call “Envi,” short for environment. This group has been broken up and reassigned to Chrysler’s general talent pool.

The goal was to have its sports cars, trucks and commuter vehicles all hybridized or electrified, and in showrooms within the next several years. To date, Chrysler offers nothing beyond the “greener” models that get a highway mileage of 30 miles per gallon. There are only two of them, with 25 miles per gallon being the average for their sedans.

Fiat has considered bringing its plug-in van to the U.S., but the plans aren’t final. It will no doubt be lapped by Ford, which has announced plans for its own similar vehicle.

VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

There won’t be any new Google Airport technology. Google is simply picking up the tab on WiFi service already offered by other companies — Boingo, Advanced Wireless Group and others.

Google’s official blog post says over 100 million people will pass through the participating airports between now and January 15, 2010. They surely mean 100 million trips, many of them repeat customers, which still means millions and millions of potential users.

Yahoo is sponsoring WiFi for the next year in New York City’s Times Square, which has an estimated daily traffic of 500,000 people, for the next year. The LA Times has the best report, with photos.

Microsoft has already sponsored access at thousands of hotel hotspots nationwide — alas, none of the PR people I talked to wanted to give out the list without approval — as well as airport networks at Denver, Chicago’s O’Hare and others. Users are asked to perform one Bing search in exchange for free Internet use.

These sponsorships have a meaning beyond “free WiFi.” Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are trying to position themselves as gateways to the Internet. But unlike what Gmail did to email, Google hasn’t changed the price of WiFi access to $0.00 as part of a business model. Think of it more as complimentary WiFi snacks for travelers.

[Photo: LA Times]

Rogers, tasked with cleaning up one of the oldest and dirtiest utilities in the country, has become one of the boldest, and most active environmentalists in the utility industry. He’s made a point of listening to and adopting stances of advocates for alternative energies, clean coal technology and even carbon trading. In a New York Times profile last year, he was painted as a downright green movement stumper — a coal and oil baron with a heart and head for conservation.

Providing electricity to customers in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina and South Carolina since 1904, Duke is one of the most influential utilities in the country — setting precedents for smaller utilities that are closely watching and replicating its moves. Depending largely on coal-fired, gas-fired and hydroelectric plants, it also counts three nuclear facilities, one solar farm, and several future wind developments among its holdings.

When it comes to the Smart Grid, Duke is a fascinating case study for several reasons: It just received $200 million in stimulus grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy (the maximum allotment) to finance the roll out of smart meters, while almost simultaneously reporting a 49 percent plummet in profit for the third quarter (attributed to weak demand and a $400 million write-down of facilities in the Midwest).

On top of that, Duke, driven by Rogers, has been a vocal proponent of decoupling policies for public utilities that would separate their revenue from the amount of energy they actually sell — freeing them up to encourage conservation while still making money. It’s been dubbed the “Save-a-Watt” program. Duke has successfully won its decoupling proposal in Ohio, but the program has been rejected, revised and repitched several times elsewhere, including in North Carolina where Duke is headquartered.

The utility also has a see-saw of an environmental record, at once striving toward a smarter grid and expansion of renewable sources of energy (particularly wind power) while also being called out as the third biggest emitter of carbon dioxide of any company in the U.S. and the 12th biggest emitter in the world by the Energy Collective.

In 1999, the utility refused to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency enforcement of the Clean Air Act. After battling it out for more than seven years, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against Duke in 2007. But recently, Duke Energy threw its support behind the establishment of a carbon cap-and-trade system in the U.S., which could become a reality if the Kerry-Boxer bill pending in the Senate comes to fruition. The utility went so far as to defect from the National Association of Manufacturers because it wouldn’t support a more stringent climate policy.

Rogers has been pivotal in improving Duke’s environmental rating, spearheading the partnership with Smart Grid startup Ambient to provide wireless communication technology for its smart meters and sitting on the board of Cisco Systems’ new Smart Grid standards consortium. This Halloween, it promoted a campaign to stop “vampire” electronics like plug-in adapters and battery-powered devices from sucking power unnecessarily. And these are just the first stirrings of more clean energy and efficiency initiatives to come, the company says.

See what Rogers has to say about Duke’s environmental positioning, plans for its $200 million in stimulus funds, and strategies for both decoupling and rolling out accurate, interoperable meters — register for GreenBeat 2009 today. And for more news on Duke and the Smart Grid, follow @greenbeat2009 on Twitter.

VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

It could be helpful for small businesses and brands that want to deepen their relationships with followers. Twitter’s traditional 140 character limit is constraining, so offering richer media content might make a brand seem more personable. Vidly says its service is ideal for showing movie trailers, music videos and game trailers. (Of course, Vidly faces competition if brands decide to host their own content or YouTube makes its Twitter integration more seamless.)

The San Francisco-based startup, which used to be called TwitVid.io and is backed by angel investors including Ron Conway, released a video-sharing app on the iPhone a week ago. It lets you record short videos and post them to Twitter. The next version will post videos to Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and blogs and make it easier to share with select groups of friends.

We’ll admit to feeling the occasional sting of envy when we hear about the exciting events and opportunities taking place there from our headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. But we’ve also learned that there are some real advantages to being headquartered beyond the bubble – and that having a day-to-day presence there isn’t as important as it might seem.

Here are a few of the upsides we’ve discovered, as well as tactics for staying connected to the tech entrepreneur ‘mother ship’ while enjoying the benefits of your home base:

Avoid the “Valley premium” – Startups that set up shop in the Valley fork over a premium for the exclusive location. As one of the most expensive urban areas to live in nationwide (according to ACCRA), the Valley drives up basic costs, ranging from salary and benefits to rent and utilities. This means the $5 million in funding your Valley-based competitor receives may barely keep the lights on, while a smaller round of funding could mean major growth for your firm. Leverage this fact with investors that are interested in hearing about how you can do more with less.

Be the local rock star, instead of a dime a dozen - The Valley is like a modern day Gold Rush: the possibility of striking it rich draws the masses and every tech company wants a piece of the action. As a result, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. (And, to add insult to injury, there are no economic incentives or tax breaks for your business.) In contrast, local governments outside the Valley bubble often give entrepreneurs the star treatment and big cost-savings— such as tax breaks or subsidized health care—to stimulate growth.

Recruit Valley ambassadors - An industry influencer or PR agency based in the Valley can serve as an advisor, champion your technology and help you penetrate the exclusive bubble – giving you a “physical” presence despite being geographically removed from the Valley. They can also teach you the lay of the land, arrange networking meetings, alert you to local events and help fine-tune your Valley strategy.

Don’t be a stranger - Travel to the Valley at least once a quarter, timing your visits around major conferences/events to maximize in-person meetings and networking opportunities. Regular face time ties a personality to a name, which ultimately may be all people remember about your company. It’s also a key ingredient for maintaining relationships.

Be a joiner - Participate in local industry and entrepreneur groups – not only will they help you build a stronger presence where you’re based, but they can connect you with sister organizations or other entrepreneurs in your industry that are based in the Valley.

Give your startup space to stretch its wings - The Valley offers a high concentration of opportunities, but niche industries often struggle to get even a sliver of that pie. Consider opting for an area with a concentration of companies in your space that can help nurture your startup with good talent and resources. Colorado, for example, has a strong portfolio of UI and design startups and Canada is known for its video gaming industry.

Take advantage of the talent - When you are a company of 10, your talent is your business. Without resource-wealthy giants creating silos for incoming talent, startups outside of the Valley have a fighting chance to recruit and retain great employees without having to resort to alternatives such as outsourcing – an option that has become less cost-effective in highly-skilled industries. Target areas with academic institutions that groom the type of talent you seek or governments that allow you to import talent without heavy regulation.

Take advantage of the upcoming economic turn - Historically, investors have had a primary focus on the Valley, but with Bay Area deals falling by a much faster rate than the rest of the country last year (57 percent according to Dow Jones) investors are now more willing to look outside the bubble for innovation.

Photo by christian.rondeau via Flickr

The Marina Del Rey, Calif.-based company runs an online sports game web site, ActionAllStars.com. The company will use the money to expand its growth in sports entertainment and enhance its internal development capability.

The company lets players create their own sports athletes and enter them in competitions. Since the company launched its site in December, 2008, it has grown to more than a million unique users a month, said Minard Hamilton, chief executive, in an interview. Like rivals such as QuickHit, the goal is to build an online sports empire before video game giant Electronic Arts wakes up and invades the space.

Six Degrees has official licenses from partners such as the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. Now there are more than a million new athletes created every month. The site now has 14 games that target older kids and teens. Players start as amateur athletes and work their way up through five levels to become All Stars.

Hamilton started the company in 2007 with Ben Jones, who worked with Hamilton at Jamdat Mobile, which was bought by Electronic Arts in 2006. They had worked to secure deals with sports companies such as ESPN to use their brands in mobile games. Hamilton also served as a general manager at ESPN.com from 1999 to 2001. They started the sports game site because they felt no one was targeting older kids and teens with sports interests online.

At the new company, they were able to leverage those relationships and cut deals allowing the use of the NBA and MLB brands in their games. In the coming week, the company will add micro-transactions to its site, allowing players to challenge each other and customize their characters. The company plans to sell items to the players.

Other investors include Clearstone Venture Partners and Prism VentureWorks. To date, Six Degrees has raised $14 million. Both participated in the new round. The company was founded in 2007 and has 20 employees. Rivals include sports game sites such as QuickHit, UpperDeckU, Electronic Arts and NFLRush.