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The Green Grid Issues New Guides We’ve discussed The Green Grid before. They’re the “consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to improve energy efficiency in data centers around the globe.”

There isn’t really a voice of authority just yet in the green IT issue, which tends to be a problem among companies touting their “green” services, or more importantly among the customers attempting to discern the value of one “green” claim in comparison to another.

The Green Grid may not quite have it’s eye on that voice-of-authority position, but it is certainly setting itself up at the center of some consensus-based thinking about the environmental considerations of hardware and data center building.

And while involvement in the organization is a paid-for privilege, the products of that thinking aren’t always kept under lock and key.

Last week, The Green Grid posted three new white papers on its site, available for free download to anyone who wants to look at them. Their rather lengthy and descriptive titles are as follows:

“The Green Grid Data Center Power Efficiency Metrics: PUE and DciE”

“Existing Metrics, Guidelines and Programs Affecting Data Center and IT Energy Efficiency”

“Qualitative Analysis of Power Distribution Configurations for Data Centers”

And they can all be downloaded from this page.

There isn’t a ton of freely available hard-numbers analysis or nuts-and-bolts instruction on measuring or improving data center efficiency out there. And that alone should make the white papers worth perusing.

Whether the standards and metrics that the green grid proposes here are destined for widespread recognition and adoption isn’t a sure thing. But metrics and practices such as these have a built-in value that exists independent of any official adoption or endorsement.

Today we wrote about Go Daddy's newest set of commercials starring the company's newest Go Daddy girl Amanda Beard, which will be airing for the first time this weekend during the ESPN2 Saturday Night College Football Primetime.

As with previous Go Daddy ads that have been known to leave audiences short of breath and the FCC in a fit (mainly I'm thinking of the ones starring WWE's Candice Michelle) Amanda Beard's ads seem to focus on her novelty as a seven-medal winning Olympic swimming champion, more so than her novelty as a "smokin' hot" member of the female sex (Thank you for saying it first, Bob Parsons).

Although let's be serious, clearly the ads showcase her assets (one of them has a shot of the Go Daddy logo conveniently placed on her backside) and the one we're about to show you here entitled "Shock" is definitely not shy with its innuendo. But really, how Go Daddy-esque would it be if it didn't insert a little bit of eyebrow-raising humor here and there?

All in all, this ad is DEFINITELY something you would expect from Go Daddy, but don't take my word for it. Check out the TV-approved ad we've posted or go to the Go Daddy site to take a look at the other Amanda Beard goodies.

Whatever your opinions may be about the ads, clearly Go Daddy is doing something very right with its use of videos if it is able to have such a stronghold on the domain name industry.

And honestly, I can't wait for the day Go Daddy signs on a male specimen to sell its domain registrations because its high time the company started catering to the ladies out there that may be interested in starting a website.

"Go Daddy"

"Amanda Beard"

With all the recent discussion surrounding SaaS, I thought this would be a perfect time to highlight a creative use of Web application technology that fits squarely into the SaaS definition without competing with the traditional software licensing model.

Google is great. Why? Because love 'em or hate 'em, they give us something new to talk about almost every day, and that makes a blogger happy! It's latest innovation is a natural extension of a service it has been perfecting for a while now.

Google Maps is coming to a gas (petrol) station near you! Google is licensing (or providing free?) software that allows gas station owners to set up monitors on their pumps, connected to Google Maps, which patrons can use to locate, well, anything the station owner wants them to be able to locate, while they pump their gas.

The genius is in its simplicity, both how natural it was to do this and how well it works for all parties involved:

1. Someone at Google realized gas stations are likely the most common place people ask for directions. That same person realized Google has an application that helps people get directions. Duh!
2. Service stations that offer Google maps are more valuable to customers, most likely drawing a larger customer base.
3. Because the gas station owner can program points of interest into the system, he/she has additional revenue opportunities.
4. Google might charge for the software, or it might use advertisement deployment to profit from the system (I don't know the pricing models for this, if they've even been released yet). If the gas station makes substantially more money as a result of the system, the cost is justified. Is the additional income is less than licensing costs, ad deployment could make the system free, and all additional revenue is strictly profit.

Here's the best part: no other map sites or PC software vendors were harmed during the production of this system. Kudos to Google for putting 1+1 together before anyone else, particularly since they're one of the last mapping companies to go live with a stable service. Mapquest could have done this seven years ago. Maybe they never thought of it? Maybe they thought of it, but didn't think it could work? I guess you don't become a pioneer in an industry unless you...well...pioneer something, eh?

SaaS at its finest, folks!

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