the val gets its own dedicated page

check out the new page for "the Val."

first show teaser

Things are moving along -- we are about 3/5 of the way through completing the full rough cut for the harm reduction special.

Day 2 - HRS in Oak Park

Day 2 of filming at HRS in Oak Park is complete with some really good interviews with staff, clients, and volunteers and a few surprises in between. More filming to come in the next week and a half. Also on tap: we're going to begin filming a cool new episode on vegetarian diets and how to stay veggie as you ramp up your exercise regimen with the better weather looking like it's here to say (fingers crossed).

sacramento / flip-side filming begun today

Wow, it's been almost a month longer than expected to get started with filming, but we finally did it. What an amazing spring day to start! Nearly 80 degrees outside, clear, and a slight breeze. Today, courtesy of Harm Reduction Services Sacramento, we visited some of the homeless camps down by the river and interviewed several people. Discovery Park is still submerged, and a lot of the bike path by Northgate is also under water. Some bicyclists waded in up to their waists and pedaled through, while others hiked up the levee for higher ground.

Tomorrow, we'll be filming at HRS's office in Oak Park.

Countdown to filming for "toast"

We've been putting together a series of pilots for the launch of our upcoming channel, "toast." Why "toast?" There's the obvious one -- Sacramento produced the band, Cake, so sticking with that theme of wheat-based edibles, toast is a natural companion. Toast is what you eat in the morning. Cake is what you eat after dinner. There's also a lesser-known historical connection. A long time ago, video editing afficionados found a way of turning their Atari game consoles into video editors. They called these "toasters."

Episode 1 - A Startup On Life Support

What better time to begin the first season of "The Val" than April 1!

Thanks to everyone who has been a part of this project - kendall, susan, sara, glenn, and ian! The first episode will go out tomorrow with subsequent episodes going out every week after that. We wrote, acted, filmed, and edited the first four episodes, along with a mash-up of outtakes that I'll put up after you've seen all the episodes. Season 1 in its entirety is now on Vimeo at:

http://vimeo.com/18901077

Advantaging the Greenfield

What makes Pollux different from other companies? For one, we're advantaging the greenfield. That means that we are seizing on new opportunities by leveraging synergies.

Pollux delivers software and technology-enabled services to help global “virtualers” communicate, understand, and live together with one another, around the world, around the globe, real-time, on their Internet-enabled mobile Internet devices (also known as cell phones with bigger screens and QWERTY keypads, or “smartphones”)

We believe that virtual worlds have a promising future for becoming markets for virtual goods, and that platforms that rightly scale to synergies will prove to show unlimited potential for the here-is-now immediacy of the global marketplace for all things virtual.

Pollux is looking to raise $200,000 in order to:
Develop a prototype service where beta users can live in the virtual world and buy their virtual goods
Make $2,000,000 in profit by Year 2

This is based on:
1. Today, everyone plays virtual worlds
2. Nobody does a virtual world like we do
3. Our monetization path is unique and scalable
4. Our experienced team has a combined total of 50 years experience in virtual worlds and mobile phones

The market opportunity is huge.

1. 500 million people will be using iPhones in a number of years
2. Everybody uses Facebook
3. Some people spend $1,000s of dollars in virtual worlds
4. Facebook is considered cool. So is MySpace

Avatars and business meetings is an un-tapped B2B market opp.

Nobody else is doing vampire zombie speed skaters with organ farms in a virtual world.

Advantage the greenfield.