Update 2/19: Endavo apparently modified this chart from a Marketing Mechanics report without permission. Marketing Mechanics has provided us with an updated chart (please click through to download the PDF, as it’s way bigger than will fit on our page).

Endavo apparently has a complicated corporate history. As we’ve seen time and again, enterprise video was a Plan B (or C or D). From Endavo’s about page:

Endavo Media was originally founded and incorporated (CeriStar) in 1999 by a group of technology entrepreneurs led by former CEO of Iomega Corporation. In 2002, CeriStar acquired a non-operating public company and began operations as a public company in September 2002. The company changed its name to Endavo Media and Communications, Inc. in September 2004, to better reflect the company’s direction as a business. Funded through the public holding company through 2007, Endavo Media was sold to management by its parent company in early 2008 and is now a privately held company.

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“Hertz’s car sharing is located in city environments and is available directly to consumers. In addition, it is going after B2B business as well as B2C, government and universities,” says Paula Rivera, a spokeswoman for the company.

Called Connect by Hertz, the Hertz car-sharing service will mimic existing car-sharing services by providing access to cars in lots throughout cities as opposed to merely offering the service through its existing rental lots. “We’re starting out in neighborhood parking locations, specifically parking garages and on-street parking areas,” Rivera says.

In an effort to best competitors, the company will also provide GPS, iPod connectivity, and generally lower rates — $1 per hour less than Zipcar, on average, according to Rivera. Hertz has also pledged to offer only vehicles that are EPA SmartWay certified, meaning they’ve earned a score of 6 or more (out of 10) on both the Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gas scores, with a combined score of at least 13. At its European locations, Connect by Hertz will only offer cars that outperform the current EU standards for auto emissions (130 grams per kilometer).

Though starting out in just three cities, Hertz plans to expand its car-sharing service quickly in 2009. “We have aggressive plans for expansion and are keeping all of our options open,” Rivera says.

Could part of those aggressive plans include buying out, say, Zipcar? Rivera is “unable to comment,” but it would seem like a smart move for both parties, given that Hertz needs lots and Zipcar’s dreams of a successful IPO may be dwindling in the current economic climate.

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“With Software-as-a-Service applications, more users will access their applications across the Internet, so companies can’t rely on physical or firewall access,” said Marc Gaffan, director of product marketing for RSA’s Identity and Access Assurance Group. “The risks are significantly increased.” The U.S. government’s head of counter-espionage, Joel Brenner, is also cautioning travelers to Beijing about identity theft and other threats.

Most users assume that a secure web connection makes them safe. After all, that little yellow SSL padlock doesn’t just mean your traffic is encrypted, it also tells you the URL you’re visiting is the one you wanted — right? Not always, said Jayson Agagnier, a security consultant who specializes in corporate counter-espionage. “On older browsers, the padlock will still be there even if the user accepts a certificate that is not publicly signed.”

To collect passwords, hackers only need to trick surfers into logging in. Many casual users won’t think twice about typing in www.mybank.com and being redirected to mybank.login.com, provided that the new site looks the same. “Obtaining a certificate is fairly easy,” said Gaffan, “and no one really checks the certificate in the lock.”

Phishing for usernames can happen anywhere, but when half a million people descend upon a country that heavily regulates its Internet, it’s an excellent opportunity for mischief. So how can organizations protect themselves? Here are some suggestions:

• Have vacationing workers check URLs closely to be sure the site they’re on matches what they entered, even if it looks the same.
• Get a more trusted — and more costly — Extended Validation certificate. These are harder for a fly-by-night operation to get because they require more thorough background checks.
• Use dynamic passwords that change every minute, so even if someone intercepts a password it quickly expires.
• Use “fat client” VPNs based on IPSEC or SSL instead of relying on a secure web login. VPN clients can’t be tricked into thinking they’re at the right site.

Capturing logins isn’t the only risk, however. It would take a real conspiracy to present a completely faked site, complete with the right URL and a valid SSL certificate. But if a government owns the network, it’s the lawful man in the middle, and it has the resources for such schemes. “You can control the DNS, display any page you like, entice people to log in,” said Gaffan. As IOC president Jacques Rogge said on July 31, “We are not running the Internet in China. The Chinese authorities are running the Internet.”

Agagnier says Olympics-related travel presents a huge industrial and economic espionage opportunity, but Gaffan says he thinks an elaborate network attack may be more work than it’s worth. “If I were a fraudster, I would just spend two hours in Beijing hotels and Internet cafes installing key loggers. You could collect names and passwords, even things like frequent flier numbers that could be used for corporate espionage to track the travel patterns of a competitor’s employees.

Syntenic CTO Daniel Koffler agrees: “I would be concerned about malicious WiFi access points … You don’t really need to own the back-end pipe; a cheap access point and an SSL proxy is all anyone on the street would need to collect some serious information. While you’re in Beijing, if the state wants your data, they’re going to get it. It’s the billion or so citizens you have to watch out for.”

Perhaps the best defense is to take the week off. Several enterprise IT professionals I interviewed for this story said they’re simply telling their users not to log in from China.

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I have colleagues and collaborators who, despite the fact they’re self-employed and work largely from a home office, still need to employ childcare. Some may see this as an unnecessary overhead, but it’s actually desperately needed in order to provide focus whilst working from home.

Enter Cubes & Crayons in Menlo Park, CA, self-described as ‘full-time childcare and office space’; think of it as coworking + creche! Cube & Crayons was profiled recently (along with New York’s TwoRooms) in a Springwise article exploring emerging trends in ‘More Work Spaces for Parents‘.

At Cubes & Crayons, the usual connectivity, office equipment, conference rooms and work spaces exist alongside facilities for kids ranging from just a few months old to pre-schoolers. Like most coworking plans, there’s a lot of flexibility in choosing drop-in, pay-as-you-go and pay-monthly options, with discounts to regular members.

Interestingly, Cubes & Crayons not only encourages members to contribute, but writes it into their agreements; for every 20 hours or use, parents/members are expected to contribute 4 hours of voluntary time, perhaps to help care for the children in the facilities. Rather than being an onerous requirement, I believe this kind of quid-pro-quo can help to bring cohesion to a community and actually deepen ties between people sharing the space. If I have to trust you with my child, I’ll make damn sure I get to know you well!

The addition of childcare facilities to coworking spaces is as inevitable a development of coworking as coworking was to freelancers and web workers. Coworking is a lifestyle choice – we choose to exercise control and freedom over our working patterns and our children are as fundamental a part of these lifestyle choices as any other working environment.

In a previous post on the future of coworking, we speculated on how human resources and enterprise structures would accomodate coworkers into their cultures. However, issues such as childcare speak to wider issues on how we approach cultural, corporate and urban design.

If coworking breaks into the mainstream can we imagine…

• cities becoming more diffuse, as office campuses and downtown areas give way to hundreds of coworking hubs – perhaps jointly funded by large corporates.
• homes becoming larger as families accomodate more than one home-worker, perhaps even hosting friends and colleagues in coworking areas of their homes?
• a decline in commuter traffic as people work closer to their homes, or indeed from them.

Of course, such notions have long been explored as telecommuting found its way from labs to reality, but perhaps coworking represents an opening to reimagine how we live and work more broadly; regardless, I believe childcare will be as integral a part of coworking as connectivity.

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Quarterlife Unveiled at NY Screening; high-profile MySpace series called “watchable, and a whole lot better than most standard TV shows” by CNET reporter. (CNET)

Tyler Perry Goes Mobile; TBS produces ten original House of Payne mobisodes for Verizon. (MediaWeek)

Revver Adds Overlay Ads; move bolsters the ad options available to Revver vid uploaders. (Revver Blog)

Eyeblaster Releases Channel Connect; company says new scalable solution will standardize video assets and ease complexity currently associated with implementing video ads. (MediaPost)

Sony Expands MiniSode Network; Crackle, AOL and Joost to get the collection of classic TV shows like Charlie’s Angels and Diff’rent Strokes that are edited down to under six minutes. (New York Times)

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In a day or so, the VON Boston 2004 is going to kick-off. Given the hype and noise around VoIP, the show is going to be heavily attended. Perhaps, that is a good enough reason for me not to go. I know the bloggers will talk up things which are important, and focus on some non-important issues. Over a decade to following the technology business, here is what I know: bigger the show, less there is to say. Anyway, the VoN madness reminds me of the throngs who showed up at Gilder’s Telecosm show during the telecom bubble. (Such a coincidence that Gilderfest and CTIA shows are the same week!)

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