The internet was shaken to its core this week by the news that popular singer and girlfriend-puncher Chris Brown will no longer be using Twitter. Despite the terrible blow dealt by his absence on the popular social media site, Twitter shows no signs of shutting down their operation. In fact, they just released a list of their top-trending topics in 2009, revealing that, yes, people use the site for things other than reading tweets from Chris Brown.

The list of top Twitter trends is broken up into six categories: News Events, People, Movies, TV Shows, Sports, Technology and Hash Tags. Interestingly, they didn’t reveal actual numbers of tweets sent about each topic, but merely where it ranked on a top 10 list for each category. That’s probably good though, as we’d most likely all be embarrassed if we learned that, say, Adam Lambert prompted 50 or 100 times more tweets than something more traditionally discussion-worthy, like swine flu.

Speaking of H1N1, it showed up twice on the top 10 list for News Events, though it was surpassed by news about the Iranian elections. We can attribute a lot of that Twitter traffic to the fact that election protestors in that country were using the site as their main source of organization and communication. Incidentally, that fact may be the reason that Twitter, along with an Iranian pro-reformer site, were hacked yesterday by a group calling themselves “Iranian Cyber Army“.

In the People category of top-trending topics, the list was topped by Michael Jackson, with Susan Boyle and Adam Lambert rounding out the top three. And there, comfortably in the #5 spot? Chris Brown. Though given his behavior in the past year, it’s unlikely he’s in the top 10 because of his own fascinating tweets. So we can all hope that, somehow, Twitter can soldier on without him.

I love being introduced to new companies, especially innovative ones with good and original ideas. There’s  something about start-ups and newer companies that are gaining momentum that makes me really excited. Just recently I posted about Lendingclub.com who may be the closest thing we’ve seen to a profit generating social media business model. I also looked at another company called InTouch, who are revolutionizing the fitness industry through a cloud based sales and marketing platform that supplements and supports human capital with digital sales and marketing activities that engages clients while  keeping management well appraised of all sales and marketing activities, in real time.  It’s been a good month, because on top of those first two impressive companies I was just made aware of another company with an innovative online service that I think might completely change e-commerce.

GoEyeball is an online shopping service that saves shoppers time and money by searching for any item as specified by the user based on a price threshold and other particulars. Shoppers make their own eyeballs on the site to find the products they want to keep an eye on, name the price they want to find it at (or a close approximation) and then the eyeball does the rest. Currently the technology is used most on major shopping sites that are compatible with the software but it is being further developed so that the scope and range of the eyeball will increase to include the entire internet; finding you the best price on earth for the product you want.  And you don’t have to do a thing, GoEyeball will e-mail you and alert you instantly when your eye has found the product you want for the price you want. Just in time for the festive season and right in the middle of swine flu season your customized eyeball can do your Christmas shopping for you, everything from kids toys to real estate listings.

I’m pretty stoked that I don’t have to risk  swine flu or debit card fraud on Robson Street now.

As we continue to inch closer to the much anticipated second wave of global H1N1 pandemic, we are cautioned to wash our hands, cough into our sleeves, stay home from work if sick and above all else get vaccinated. I wrote an earlier post looking closely at vaccines,and new alternatives being developed, but don’t you worry about any of that anymore. The magic bullet has arrived. Vioguard of Bothell,Washington has introduced the world`s first self-sanitizing computer keyboard. It’s a simple “plug and play” tool that doesn’t require any additional software and uses ultraviolet germicidal irradiation to zap H1N1 and a whole host of other infections by retracting itself into its own clean, “light tight” enclosure and flooding the filthy keyboard with ultraviolet light. I wonder if it has a de-crumbing function too?

This is excellent news for healthcare workers in Vancouver and other major cities who are on the front lines of infectious outbreaks. The cleaning process takes 90 seconds, which is great if a healthcare worker doing data entry in the middle of a pandemic ever finds 90 seconds to stop and wait for their keyboard to take a bath. Sarcasm aside, it’s pretty relevant technology, but this is supposed to be a software blog today so let’s talk about Swine Flu software.

One of the most important weapons in outbreak management is accurate information about where outbreaks are and how they are moving. Upp Technologies and numerous other makers of software solutions have teamed with the Federal US government in an attempt to effectively deal with the logistics of a response to an outbreak. Taking statistical information from a variety of sources Upp’s Embedded Decision Support System can help EMS professionals and government to get vaccines or antivirals to where they are needed most. Logistical support from internet based data gathering platforms like Flu.gov now also aid different levels of government with needed support. Like most battles, military, legal, or other, information can be your most powerful weapon. This includes perhaps most poignantly the battle against disease outbreak.  The Upp Technology software is being used by the CDC to manage their statewide vaccine provider registration system. However, if you’re a champion of the free market and an anti big-government kind of person who is skeptical of taking bureaucratic channels for your swine flu needs, you can also turn to the Microsoft H1N1 Flu Response Center or YOU COULD READ the list of symptoms on any government web site. I don’t know why people think they need to fill out some kind of survey to be told whether or not they have swine flu symptoms. If you can read, you should be able to figure it out- but I guess we have a hard time trusting our own opinion. We like the finality of being told what we are, like in the hundreds of Facebook surveys telling us what city, fruit,car, or 80s tv-character you are. (Berlin,Orange,Toyota Prius, Alex P Keaton in my case) This brings me to my last point, one I’m hoping to explore more in the future. Any time we have private companies gathering information about the public I’m skeptical that there exists an absence of profit motive- although the Microsoft site does offer an opt-out for information being stored or shared if the user prefers- so that being said, Microsoft’s aims appear very decent. To alleviate the strain on the networks of our public services in the event of a major outbreak. But there still exists a huge profit potential in dealing with this much-anticipated outbreak. And I don’t say that in a critical manner, there are far worse things to be making money off of. It’s a simple fact that when information is both crucial to some and valuable to all- Swine Flu vaccine makers aren’t the only ones bringing home the bacon this flu season.

Much like “just-in-time production” revolutionized the nature of industrial manufacturing, a new process for developing influenza vaccines may do the same for the vaccine industry. Novavax, a Maryland based biotech company, has reportedly developed the technology and methods to produce effective vaccines, including one for H1N1, while bypassing the need for eggs to incubate and host the viruses. The traditional egg based method for creating vaccines has been often criticised as antiquated and time consuming, not to mention increasingly impractical if there were to be an outbreak of a seriously virulent strain of flu. If a lethal flu pandemic were to hit currently, it would take months to generate enough stockpiles of a vaccine using the traditional method- plus for every individual who receives a dose, three eggs would be needed. So to create a vaccine for Canada, it would take nearly 100,000,000 eggs. For the united states, just short of 1 billion- if the governments of both countries wanted to ensure the health of every single citizen.

The new method pioneered by Novavax uses a recombinant, cell culture based Virus-Like-Particle (VPL) technology to create a genetic match to a particular flu strain, instead of using live flu virus seeds that have to be adapted to grow in thos eeggs. Research thus far has shown that the vaccines created using this new method not only have a strong response but also have other positive benefits. The Novavax H1n1 vaccine showed a strong response to other flu strains as well- meaning it could be a dual purpose and broad flu season defense without being re-tooled or enhanced.  Also, because it is a recombinated and synthetic virus that the body is responding to, the Novavax vaccine eliminates the threat that the doses containing real H1N1 have where the virus can infect cells and replicate. Needless to say the company’s stock has soared.

New emergency management software from Upp Technolgoy of Illinois, is also giving flu response planners a boost in confidence. Their new management system streamlines the vaccine ordering processes so that large batches of antivirals and vaccines can be more effectively distributed, monitored, tracked, prioritized and analyzed during a pandemic response. So it all sounds good so far right? The testing for the Novavax vaccine is still being conducted, so we’ll find out in a year of two if the new style vaccine in fact protects against swine flu but transforms you into a flesh craving zombie.

In the meantime, if you’re scared of being transformed into a flesh craving Zombie by the Novavax vaccine, below is a list of the current companies working on vaccines using the traditional method- as compiled by Sam Cage for Reuters- complete with links to their h1n1 Swine Flu updates. The Canadian swine flu vaccine will apparently be here in October according to our chief public health officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones. Oh…and we’re supposed to stop calling it Swine Flu.

H1N1 Vaccine Producers:

GLAXOSMITHKLINE  (United Kingdom-US)        SANOFI-AVENTIS (France-International)

NOVARTIS (Switzerland-International)         ASTRAZENECA (only available in America)

SINOVAC (China)       CSL (Australia)         BAXTER (USA- International)

SOLVAY (Belgium-International)        GREEN CROSS (South Korea)

HUALAN BIOLOGICAL (China)        INOVIO BIOMEDICAL  (USA)

After years of recognition as a reputable PHP shopping cart solution ZippyCart.com recently announced that it would be increasing its services by expanding into a new role as a worldwide 3d party ecommerce resource provider. The new transformation may seem a little late in the game considering the volume of established competitors in the industry but ZippyCart has shown impressive growth, doubling its reader base, since its soft launch less than a month ago.

The new incarnation comes with new features that allow storeowners to start their own online storefront or add the new cart to existing fronts with ease, by offering a variety of shopping cart formats. The service also comes with useful analytical tools to compliment those several different carts, some of which offer unlimited bandwidth, nearly 8 gig disk space or unlimited product movement. Ranging in upfront costs and monthly fees from $0 to $1800.00 (upfront costs) to 0 to $250.00 monthly costs. But seriously let’s talk a little about the apocalypse now.

It’s estimated by the World Bank that the global economy could potentially lose as much as much as three trillion dollars (that’s $3,000,000,000,000.00) and shrink by as much as 5% in global GDP from a substantial swine flu outbreak. While there are several estimates done by federal and international bodies, this one from the World Bank is the most outrageously dramatic, and so I’ll gladly stick with it.  This presents retailers in particular with as strong an impetus as ever to create or strengthen their ecommerce services if they haven’t already done so. Some have suggested that ecommerce may in fact mitigate if not slow the economic damage done by a global swine flu pandemic as consumers turn to online storefronts- though we will have to rely on brave delivery truck drivers of particular mettle and valor to facilitate this. Therefore, ZippyCart and other ecommerce providers are well positioned to capitalize on the apocalypse and should perform well through the first three quarters of the apocalyptic fiscal year.