We’ve pulled together a short video to recap last week’s kickoff of 18Seconds.org, the campaign we launched in conjunction with Lawrence Bender (who we can now officially refer to as the Oscar-winning producer of “An Inconvenient Truth” — way to go, Lawrence!), the EPA, Department of Energy, AC Nielsen, Wal-Mart, Environmental Defense, and others to educate Americans about the cost-saving and environmental benefits of switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Have a look below. Then check out the Flickr set from the launch event. And then go change a light bulb.

Every dog has its day, especially on International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day! While your pup is basking in a biscuit-induced coma, take a look at the treats we’ve rounded up.

• Groupies for life: Sharing with fellow Yahoo! Groups moderators just got easier with Moderator Central. Join various discussions on building membership or editing member information. For those who are green, there are helpful tours on getting started or you can click through featured photos submitted by other moderators for inspiration. Read more here.
• It’s plug-crazy: Yahoo! Messenger users (on 8.1 version or higher) can now share their desktop virtually with a new plug-in. Invite your Yahoo! Messenger friends to “see” your desktop in real time (literally, as you type). Ways to use this nifty tool? Review homework, play games, edit documents, or give presentations without leaving your chat session. Download here.

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When I first saw Al Gore present his slideshow on global warming in L.A. in 2005, I thought we could create a tipping point from his message if we created a movie out of it. Today, I hope a new tipping point is making its debut.

So many people coming out of the theater after seeing “An Inconvenient Truth” told me how deeply affected they were and that they were looking to figure out what they could do to make a difference. It became clear to them from the overwhelming evidence that the debate about this climate crisis is over and it’s just a matter of “What can I do?”

My message today is this: You can do one thing right now and it only takes 18 seconds. That’s how long its takes to switch to an ENERGY STAR compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). That simple action will put money in your pocket and at the same time reduce greenhouse gases and our dependence on energy. If every American swapped just one bulb, it would save more than $8 billion in energy costs, prevent the burning of 30 billion pounds of coal, and keep the equivalent of two million cars worth of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere. We’d save enough energy to light more than 1.5 million homes for an entire year!

Today, a group of companies, government entities, non-profits, religious groups, academic institutions and individuals are launching a campaign to educate Americans about the cost-savings and environmental benefits of CFLs. 18Seconds.org is a movement about empowering the individual: Every person in America can literally change the world in one easy step.

If flickering, buzzing tubes come to mind when you think fluorescent, you’ll be surprised by today’s CFLs. They now rival the warm light of traditional incandescent bulbs and they work just about anywhere. They do cost more at the checkout counter (about $2.50), but you save it back in your electric bill in a matter of months. Simply put, CFLs are a win-win for your wallet and the environment.

Yahoo! has built a powerful tool in www.18seconds.org, which tracks data for CFL purchases nationally and locally. You will be able to see the amount of CFLs sold across the country, by city or state — along with the equivalent dollars, energy and greenhouse gas emissions saved. By the way, I have to give a shout-out to the amazing engineers who were given a sabbatical from their day jobs to pull it together. 18Seconds.org is a great feedback tool to see how we’re doing. AC Nielsen has collected purchase information for most grocery store, drug and mass merchandise retailers and is feeding it to the site. Hey, all you bloggers out there, grab the 18seconds badge and you’ll have your own personal ticker.

I believe the CFL is the Trojan horse into the minds of the American public — once you get somebody feeling good about making a difference while also saving money, you have them thinking about what else they can do. Every CFL represents an opportunity for ordinary people to take a stand.

Policymakers are beginning to embrace CFLs as an energy-saving solution. The Australian government just announced plans to ban incandescent bulbs in five years and similar legislation was proposed here in California by Assemblymember Lloyd Levine. And 12 U.S. mayors have already signed on to promote the 18Seconds mission in their respective cities — from San Jose to Seattle to Trenton. With proven cost savings and environmental benefits, and endorsements from leading scientists, non-profits, corporations and government entities, the popularity of CFLs is reaching a tipping point.

Global warming is potentially the greatest threat we’re facing this century. There’s a lot that has to be done. We need more fuel-efficient cars; more solar, wind and other renewable-energy technologies; and reduced carbon emissions from manufacturers. But don’t underestimate the power of simple collective actions. Change a bulb, change everything. Today.

(And weigh in on my Yahoo! Answers question today with your creative ideas on growing the movement.)

Lawrence Bender
Producer, “An Inconvenient Truth”

Photo from tedconferencephotos

Give it up for Wallace H. Carothers, who created and patented nylon 70 years ago, and then dig in to this week’s inventions:

• So happy together: The Yahoo! Mail Beta just took multitasking to new heights. Without even firing up your Yahoo! Messenger client, you can now IM your pals right from your Mail inbox. Watch a screencast of all the cool ways you can be that much more efficient in your communications here.
• Yodel Kappa Gamma: OK, so we’re not launching a new fraternity, but the recently announced beta for Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 is going gamma. What does this mean? You can use your mobile phone to access Yahoo! News and use oneSearch to further search a specific topic or share the article directly with friends. Check here to see if you’re gamma-ready. We also announced that a whole lotta (tens of millions to be more exact) LG mobile phones around the world will come pre-loaded with Yahoo! services, including Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0, oneSearch, Yahoo! Mail, and Yahoo! Messenger. Stay tuned.
• Internet milestone?: Tim O’Reilly seems to think so. Unless you’ve gone AWOL, you’ve probably heard about Yahoo!’s new experiment that allows you to remix feeds and mash up web data. Pipes is still in beta, so keep the suggestions and feedback comin’. And make sure to check out some of the cool stuff your peers have already mashed up or read on to find out what the team has coming down the pipe (pun intended).
• Fantastico futbol: Whether it’s fantasy sports (espanol-style) or up-to-the-minute stats that you crave, here are two more reasons to get your game on at Yahoo! Telemundo Deportes. View detailed league news and stats at the new Mexican National Soccer League site and build your virtual roster at Liga Fantastica Mexicana, the first of five Spanish-language fantasy soccer games set to run this year.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel: Er, codes I mean. Developer newbies or programmers extraordinaire will do a happy dance when they check out Krugle on the Yahoo! Developer Network. Use it to find, save, and share codes written in six languages (think ActionScript, JavaScript, .NET, PHP, Python, and Ruby) before duking it out with your inner Code-zilla. Read more here.
• Play ball!: Fantasy Baseball ‘07 is officially open, ya’ll. So start finger flexing your way to playing GM of your own team. Any Yahoo! Sports fan can game in for free and access the new drag-and-drop roster and player ranker. For you fantasy fanatics, we’ve got Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball PLUS, which includes scouting reports, pre-draft player selections, and prizes for winning teams. Hot dogs and brewskis coming right up!

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When you find something broken on the Web, product folks at small web sites are usually easy to connect with. But visitors to sites with significant traffic usually have a tougher time lobbing input directly to site development teams about the good, the bad, and the screwed up. That’s changing for Yahoo! — we’ve brewed up a swanky new community-based recipe for collecting feedback that’s making its way across a number of our sites. It started with Yahoo! Autos and has proliferated across 14 other properties.

We call it a Suggestion Board — you can browse suggestions from other site visitors or post your own. Digg-style voting means we can quickly discover what’s most important to users. In addition to reading feedback from other users, you’ll find responses from Yahoo! employees about the issues. Product teams regularly read and take action on your feedback. Though we aren’t always going to immediately act on it, it’s incredibly helpful to us in making the best sites we can… and we’ve even been known to reward great suggestions with some Yahoo! schwag.

Check out the Suggestion Boards that are now live: Answers, Autos, Autos Custom, My Yahoo!, Pipes, Real Estate, Site Explorer, Travel, TV, Upcoming.org, Yahoo! Developer Network, and Yahoo! Developer Network Gallery. (You’ll also find links for these in the footer of each site’s homepage and a complete list is here.)

A special shout out to the Yahoo! TV gang, which scores big for bravery in launching a Suggestion Board in the face of an angry mob. That board has proven to be a productive place for us to exchange ideas with you about our TV listings makeover and other changes, and be sure we hear it all. The team is working on continuing to improve the Listings section to make it even better than ever.

The Tango Project (as it’s known internally because, after all, it takes two to tango) became a reality through the magic of Yahoo! Hack Day. We built a simple prototype of the site during our internal Hack Day last June and then built it out with help from engineers in Yahoo! Autos, HotJobs, Personals, Shopping, and Travel.

The Yahoo! Suggestion Board was inspired by a great presentation I saw in the fall of ’05 by Josh Ledgard from Microsoft at the Online Community Summit about their MSDN Product Feedback Center. Also of note is the feedlounge voting system.

More boards should come online on Yahoo! properties in the future (Hotjobs, Groups, and Local/Maps are already waiting in the wings). We hope you’ll weigh in.

Michael Olivier
Senior Engineering Manager, Yahoo! Autos

Have you booked your waterfront view for “love day” yet? If you haven’t, here are two gift leads for the big spender and the penny pincher.

• Rolling with the homies: Pontiac enthusiasts, owners, and future owners now have their very own haven at Pontiac Underground. Whether you’re looking for an open dialogue with other Pontiac owners or the “Inside Track,” the new site offers you familiar ways to get and add more info through Flickr photos, Yahoo! Videos, and Yahoo! Answers for all your Pontiac queries.
• Don’t throw away that bottle: Make sure to look under the cap or rim of your next Pepsi drink, whether it’s Diet Pepsi, Sierra Mist, or Mountain Dew, to check for a special code that may get you a new car! One winner each day could be riding a new 2007 Customized “DUB Edition” Subaru Impreza WRX Limited or get free cash for gas here. Happy cola drinking.

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While Phil the woodchuck puts Punxsutawney on the map today, we bring you a bite-sized round up so you can gorge on the chips and dip this Sunday. By the way, it’s going to be an early spring, folks!

• Hut, hut, huuut!: Root beer floats and chili cheese fries are the perfect accompaniment to the new redesign of Yahoo! Sports. The big weekend is around the bend, so make sure to check out original video clips of Super Bowl pre-game buzz and the extended selection of stories up top. There’s more. More personalized fantasy game features, such as a pull-down menu with direct access to your fantasy teams and a “My Teams” tab that shows you the latest scores of all your fave teams in one snapshot.
• Showing Vista love: Earlier this month, we mentioned that Yahoo! Messenger for Vista was coming. Well here are a slew of products that’ll get you ready and rarin’ to run on the new platform. Need an instant fix? Try out some of the more than 3,700 Yahoo! Widgets that are compatible now, and read the Yahoo! Widgets team crib sheet on the burgeoning world of Widgets. And don’t forget to check out the (really) shiny new Yahoo! Search Gadget for your Windows sidebar, which puts web search, Yahoo! Answers, Yahoo! Local, and more just a click away.
• Up close and personal: From Danny Glover to India Arie, UNICEF’s top ambassadors are posing some burning questions about child mortality and safe access to water on Yahoo! Answers. Chime in with your two cents or just check out all the cool work UNICEF is doing around the world. And read up on what’s up next for Yahoo! Answers here.

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The crisp January air in Washington, D.C., is filled with the chatter of politics and foreign affairs. Ask a cabbie to drop you at the State Department — that venerable institution founded as the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1789 — and you’ll get an unsolicited, loud, and lengthy opinion on U.S. foreign policy! Over the past year, I’ve visited the State Department a number of times for Yahoo!, principally meeting with Ambassador David Gross, Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Krilla, and their expert teams, all of whom are the lead thinkers behind the State Department’s Global Internet Freedom Taskforce (GIFT) created in early 2006.

On Tuesday, I spoke on a GIFT panel on global free expression and the free flow of information. It was a special honor for me since I’d worked as a law clerk at the State Department Legal Adviser’s Office nearly 15 years earlier. Back then as a wide-eyed intern, stepping into the State Department halls I pictured myself as a character in an elaborate John le Carré international mystery. This week’s panel at the State Department was more technical Tom Clancy thriller, a state-of-the-art auditorium and an expertly moderated and sometimes provocative discussion on human rights, censorship, surveillance, encryption technology, data flows, and privacy rights.

A good-sized audience of about 80 people came to observe and participate, with many asking thoughtful and tough questions. In the crowd were technology and media companies, human rights groups, investor groups, academics, government officials, press, and concerned citizens. Despite spending nearly a year focused on this area for Yahoo!, with the diversity of participants and the passionate views on human rights, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the discussion or the audience. Friendly? Hostile? New issues? Re-packaged ones?

On the first panel, a Ph.D. from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society gave a technical view of filtering and censorship challenges globally. A former State Department official and current senior vice president at investor Calvert explained just how an effective multi-stakeholder process can work. An analyst at investor F&C expounded on the findings of a recent study on access, security, and privacy. A senior leader at BSR compared previous voluntary initiatives and showed how complex questions involving sophisticated Internet technology may require new approaches to traditional human rights challenges. The tense moment on the first panel arrived when an Amnesty International representative opened his remarks by directly accusing Yahoo! and the other companies of cooperating with repressive regimes, including handing over information on political dissidents and limiting the free flow of information.

On the second panel, I joined representatives from the Center for Democracy and Technology , Human Rights First, Google, and Microsoft, and we each raised some of the vexing questions we all wrestle with in the field of business and human rights. Partly in response to comments from the first panel, I explained that we condemn the punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression and that the relationship between law enforcement entities and technology companies around the world is more complex than commonly understood. Rarely, if ever, will a company know the name, identity, or occupation of an individual connected to a user ID demanded by a law enforcement agency, whether in Munich, Mexico City, or Mumbai. What we do know is we protect user privacy through rigorous compliance practices and careful adherence to law governing government demands for user information.

In response to questions on challenges companies face where the free flow of information is restricted, I discussed our belief that the presence of companies like Yahoo! in markets abroad can have a transformative effect on peoples’ lives and on local and national economies. Information is power. Access to information, especially through the Internet, has changed what people know about the world around them and about events, people, and issues that directly impact their lives day-to-day. People know more about local public health issues, environmental causes, politics, consumer choices, and job opportunities. They communicate and interact like never before with family, friends, neighbors, and people locally, regionally, and even globally with similar interests. And the Internet drives innovation across sectors, including in science, medicine, business, and journalism to name a few.

In a thoughtful Wall Street Journal piece from January 27, journalist Emily Parker noted that because of virtual assembly, or online gatherings, a democratic consciousness has developed inside places like China, despite broad limitations on free expression and the free flow of information. In short, information is empowering in both ordinary and extraordinary ways. It can be disruptive or even revolutionary. It’s the single greatest reason certain governments fear open use of the Internet and the free flow of information.

The common theme from both panels was that responding to the challenges of restrictions on free expression and privacy globally requires collective action. At Yahoo!, we’re fully committed. The more broad-based the response, the more effective and sustainable. The State Department’s engagement and support through their own complimentary global initiatives, including GIFT, reinforces our belief we’re moving in the right direction on behalf of the global community of Internet users. The positive partnership formed between companies, human rights groups, socially responsible investors, and academics — facilitated by BSR and CDT — makes us cautiously optimistic about the development of guiding principles and operational standards, for companies in our sector and eventually beyond, that will allow us to continue making profits with principle.

I know better than to call my mom on Sundays during football season. This is a woman who spends her time organizing chamber music festivals, laboring over intricate French sauce recipes, raising honeybees, reading Marcel Proust aloud on long car trips and weeding between her delphinium and dianthus. But give her a good NFL match-up and a cold one and even a transcontinental call from her grandchild won’t break her loose from her television.

That’s because my mom learned that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. As Paul Reiser said in “Diner,” “We all know most marriages depend on a firm grasp of football trivia.” That’s exactly what Yahoo! Mobile Business Operations Manager Susan Gagnier was after when she decided to write “Putting on the Blitz: The Football Book for Women” (Action Press, $39.95).

Football widows everywhere — sneer from the kitchen no more. With this coffee-table book, you’ll not only know your “button-hooks” from your “crackbacks,” you’ll discover that “eligible receivers” are quite different from “hot men” (defined in the glossary as the only two men allowed to immediately leave the punt formation when the ball is snapped). The book covers the gamut from understanding the psychology of men and sports to basic game strategy (making sense of those Xs and Os) to football history. Susan explains the roles of the seven referees (complete with handy drawings of their signals), provides an overview of each NFL team (covering names, logos and uniforms) and gets into football fashion, dissecting the more than a dozen pieces of gear designed to fortify against collisions of 66,000 pounds. Susan even ultimately added a section on cheerleaders, described as unsung athletes (did you know they earn just 50 bucks a game?).

And what football book is complete without a chapter on “Entertaining with Football Flair?” Susan provides recipes and menu suggestions for each team’s region. Fortunately for you, the Bears and the Colts both hail from the Midwest, so you can confidently serve anything from veal scaloppini to whitefish baked with mashed potatoes to pork roast with prunes.

Susan, who writes under the pen name Suzanna Gagnier, learned football the hard way: running up and down a football field as a high school varsity statistician, which she learned wouldn’t get her much attention from cute guys. She quickly knew as much as the next guy about sweeps, pitch-outs, clipping and shooting the gap. In fact, her inspiration for the book came when she was arguing with a guy about which team had the best Super Bowl chances and he responded, “I wish my girlfriend knew as much about football as you do.”

A die-hard Seahawks fan (mainly because she loves to hate the Raiders), Susan joined Yahoo! in 2005. A single mom working full-time, she spent about two-and-a-half years writing the book. She wears lots of hats in our mobile division, yet has found great support for the 3 television and 10 radio interviews she’s done across the country since word got out about the book (even the Today Show and Ellen DeGeneres’ staff called for a copy).

We’re t-minus three days to the Super Bowl. Thanks to Susan, now that I know my coffin corner from my deep zone, I’ll be too busy to call my mom.

Get your copy here.