Barnes & Noble is entering eBook battle with new $249 tablet. The New York based firm is competing Apple and Amazon and tries to avoid the fate of Borders http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/11/barnes-noble-fights-kindle-fire-with-249-nook-tablet.ars

Remy, thank you for sharing this example where social media can help accelerate up-take of clean-tech solution. We covered part of that on a study with eCairn on most effective social networking community for B2C and B2B solutions: http://greenfrog.typepad.com/weblog/2011/01/smart-infrastructure-marketing-who-to-target-to-influence-hig-tech-infrastructure-sectors.html I remain skeptical that social media can make a bigger difference in clean tech than in other consumer verticals because of the existing green washing. Many clean-tech decisions are done at infrastructure level, involving utilities and others. OPower has used very successfully existing billing report to convince to switch to their more energy efficient solutions. They did not use social media. The convergence of technology solutions and green activism makes social networking an interesting tool indeed. Unfortunately, social media and cleantech have been put at odds by some tech writers (Earth2Tech, etc.) and VC community in terms of business model (fast pay-out and advertizement model to get cheaper service). Cleantech is much bigger than the US, led by China, and I think this is issue is mute (cleantech is growing). What is your tale on effectiveness of social media on cleantech solutions in countries like China where decisions are centralized?

Pradobh, you make a very good point about cost factor. Wind has established as cheapest renewable energy. It remains to be seen if off-shore projects can be as sound to justify economically not supporting domestic solar market

Benoit, Great report on the status of FTTH, and you lost your bet by a motch (500Mbps vs. 1Gbps) I find the situation in Italy very interesting. Here ismy take on where things are going: www.greenfrogfromsiliconvalley.com See you in San Francisco! Olivier