Think of Roximity as a hyperactive version of Groupon Now. It doesn’t just find nearby deals, it actively pushes offers to you as you near a participating business. The new app available through iTunes has all of the capabilities of its old service, but if you also happen to be the owner of Sync-equipped vehicle it adds an extra dimension to Roximity’s bargain-hunting service.

At any time you can query the Roximity app through Sync’s voice command interface for specific types of deals. Sync then spits out all of the offers available in that category within a predefined search radius. For instance you can ask Sync-Roximity to find you a lunch deal and it will find whatever falafel, sushi or pizza offers are in the vicinity. The same goes for gas, auto mechanics, bars, concerts and a dozen other pre-determined categories.

Roximity isn’t the first location-based deal service out there. Placecast, Loopt and Shopkick are just a few among the growing army of startups using geo-fencing deliver more relevant offers. Meanwhile, familiar names like Paypal and Foursquare are launching their own deal-based marketing services. Roximity, however, is the first of those companies to make it into the car dashboard. The Boulder, Co.,-based company won that honor by winning Ford’s Sync App Developer Challenge last year.

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Unfortunately, these bills, both in their substance and, significantly, the process by which they have moved along, fail this test. As such, they reveal a disturbing picture about the policy process in Washington, D.C. and threaten to create significant and unintended consequences if they are passed. And their passage was a real possibility before the tech and entrepreneurial communities spoke up.

The problems with these bills have been well-documented. I leave to others to discuss just how and why provisions authorizing a private right of action, or that leave an overly broad definition of affected websites, pose a threat to innovation and free speech. Rather than try to describe these problems, I’d like to explore what’s going on behind the scenes.

The way I see it, SOPA / PIPA is a very simple case of a small, very powerful set of industry incumbents (in this case, certain media companies, led by organizations like the MPAA) trying to use complex legislation to slow down the disruption of their industry. Ultimately, this becomes a debate between the incumbents and the innovators, the old and the new, the disrupted and the disruptors. In such debates, the incumbents tend to prevail, and the voice of the innovators — many of whom are too busy with their companies to focus on Washington or who may not yet exist — are rarely heard.

Talk to your representatives

I first heard about SOPA and PIPA in the fall. I sat down in a quiet space, printed out each bill, and read them carefully. If you’ve ever read a congressional bill, then you know that it’s hard work; they are written in a special version of English that only a lawyer could love (and I’m not a lawyer). As I read them, I got increasingly nauseous. I checked with a few friends who were lawyers to make sure I understood them, and when I did, was appalled. In my least charitable moments, I wondered why our Congress was spending time on this when there are so many more pressing issues for our country to deal with.

I then started exploring how these bills came together. I started by talking to my representative in the house, Jared Polis (D-Colo.). Jared is a very successful Internet entrepreneur (founder of BlueMountainArts.com and Provide Commerce) who has led the charge in the house against SOPA. Jared is one of the few people in Congress who has direct experience with and understanding of the Internet. I then spoke to my Senator, Mark Udall (D-Colo.). Mark just came out against PIPA and, while he is not an Internet entrepreneur, he is a huge believer in innovation and willing to explore, in-depth, the dynamics of legislation regarding innovation.

In each case, the story of how this legislation got this far is distressing. I watched the House Judiciary hearing where the chairman, Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is also the sponsor of SOPA, unilaterally shut down virtually every amendment being proposed to improve SOPA so that it made sense. I then learned that Chris Dodd, a former Senator is now the CEO of the MPAA, which had a deep hand in crafting PIPA.  As I dug deeper, the insider game got worse.

Entrepreneurs don’t support it

More distressing, I searched in Colorado in the business and entrepreneurial community for anyone who supported either bill. I could not find anyone. Most people had never heard of either bill (this was last fall) and, when they heard about them, they had the same reaction that I did. So I started speaking out against the bills, publicly, and loudly.

Initially, those promoting SOPA and PIPA responded by being more forceful. The backlash quickly built, and starting in mid-December, the innovation economy and Internet community kicked into full gear decrying these bills in terms ranging from idiotic to unconstitutional. Then the politics really began. The proponents of these bills started referring to them as “jobs bills” and talked about the massive loss of jobs if they were defeated. Senior executives at large media companies forcefully defended the bills and lied about what was in them, and what their impacts would be.

We are now in an untenable situation. Both SOPA and PIPA are toxic. My view is that anyone who supports these bills either doesn’t understand what they are supporting or is simply no friend of innovation. And, if you are no friend of innovation, I can’t support you in any way, as innovation is the lifeblood of our economy, our country, and what I’ve dedicated my life to.

So, let’s call on our Congressmen to stop this nonsense, hit reset, and, if this issue is one that they really want to address, do so in a balanced, thoughtful way. It’s time to bury both SOPA and PIPA, and try again.

Exclusive.

Gnip is now the first company authorized to resell firehose access to the public data from WordPress.com, the comment platform IntenseDebate, and WordPress.org sites that have opted into the Jetpack plugin. Gnip has had a relationship with WordPress for some time, but this partnership will give Gnip a 70-percent increase in its coverage of blog posts and comments through the popular WordPress service, which now powers more than 60 million blogs worldwide.

Twitter brings news, but WordPress has analysis

The Boulder, Colo.-based Gnip is probably best known as the first company authorized to resell access to Twitter’s data firehose back in November 2010, but Gnip currently provides access to some 30 different sources including Facebook, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Vimeo, and others. In fact, today Gnip works with hundreds of customers, such as Radian6, that are collectively serving social media data to over 90 percent of the Fortune 500.

Also, the difference between Twitter data and WordPress data is significant for businesses, Gnip President and COO Chris Moody said in a recent interview. “News breaks on Twitter, but you’re not getting deep sentiment analysis with the data there. That comes with blogs, like what WordPress powers,” he said. “Twitter’s a great initial signal but WordPress blogs give you better sentiment. Companies tracking what’s going on in social media need the full picture.”

The expansion of the WordPress deal is just the first in many new partnership deals Gnip has on deck for 2012, as the company fields more demand for social media content. “We’re effectively doubling down with WordPress and bringing some new data to the market,” Moody said. “Twitter opening up its firehose to us has really had a domino effect in the world of publishers, and now other publishers have noted that it’s important for businesses to have access to this data.”

Competition at the Twitter firehose

There’s another big reason it makes sense for Gnip to expand its other content sources: It has competition on the Twitter front. DataSift, the only other company authorized to provide access to Twitter firehose data, launched in the U.S. in Nov. 2011. Not surprisingly, though, Moody maintains Gnip has not been “paying attention” to DataSift’s growth, as it’s been “so focused on our own business.”

The thing is, that line is actually somewhat believable in Gnip’s case, as the booming demand for social media data is keeping the company quite busy. It now has 33 people, more than triple its size from just a year ago, Moody said. Meanwhile, the company has not taken on outside funding since Nov. 2010; its total VC investment is around $6.5 million.

One thing is certain: Better access to more data is good for both brands and the social media companies that host the conversations about them. It’ll be exciting to see what else Gnip and other companies in the space have on deck for the months ahead.

Disclosure: Automattic, maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, GigaOm. Om Malik, founder of GigaOm, is also a venture partner at True.

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The city council voted on Tuesday night to put a measure on the November ballot that will ask its residents if it should form its own utility. The city’s franchise agreement with Xcel Energy expired last year, and the city was looking at either getting Xcel to provide more clean power or forming its own utility, which the belief is that a locally-controlled utility would have more control over the type of energy it purchases.

The ballot will ask voters if Boulder should pass a bond measure to operate the utility, and will also ask residents if they are willing to double the Climate Action Plan tax to help pay for the cost of negotiating with Xcel to get the municipal utility started.

Boulder, which has a population of roughly 293,000100,000, will have to come up with money to buy the distribution system from Xcel and will need to create plans about where to buy the cleaner electricity. It could buy it from Xcel directly or other power producers. The process of negotiating and setting up a municipal utility will likely take three to five years, said Sarah Huntley, a spokeswoman for the city.

The council has also hired consultants to look into the legal and engineering challenges of starting and running a utility, as well as the costs, Huntley said. Although the city won’t be able to negotiate with Xcel on key issues such as buying its distribution system, until after the voters approve the ballot measure, the city believes it can provide services at the same rate or even lower than Xcel, Huntley said.

The city’s estimates peg the cost of running a utility at $13 million per year. On top of that there will be $59.1 million in costs per year to buy power and $24.7 million of annual debt for the bonds issued to help pay for operating the utility, Huntley said. The city also anticipates spending $6 million in legal and engineering fees to negotiate with Xcel, and this money will come from the Climate Action tax.

Local Energy Independence

Creating a municipal utility isn’t a completely new idea. There are more than 2,000 community-owned utilities in the country, according to a trade association, American Public Power Association. Most of them are quite small. But larger cities such as San Francisco have entertained forming their own utilities in recent years. California utility Pacific Gas and Electric spent millions of dollars last year to lobby for a ballot measure, Prop. 16, that would’ve limited the local governments’ ability to create their own utilities. Voters didn’t approve that measure.

Xcel was pushing for the city to renew its franchise agreement with the city for another 20 years. In June, the utility proposed to toss in a 200-megawatt wind farm as part of the franchise agreement. With the wind farm and new proposal, Boulder would get 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources after the wind farm comes online and eventually reach 90 percent by 2020. The wind electricity would flow into Xcel’s grid but Boulder would get the energy credits to offset its emissions. However, talks about the proposal broke down last week.

Because Boulder is still served by Xcel, the city’s renewable energy mix corresponds with what the utility provides to all of its service territories in Colorado. Xcel is the largest utility in the state, and it gets 10-12 percent of its electricity from renewables, mainly wind, said Gabriel Romero, a spokesman for Xcel. The state mandates 30 percent by 2020, which Xcel is on track to meet with more wind power, Romero said. More than half of the electricity provided by the utility comes from coal.

Xcel argued that, as a municipal utility, Boulder wouldn’t have the resources to get away from buying power generated from coal or natural gas. Wind or solar electricity isn’t available around the clock, for one thing. Renewable electricity also is more expensive, so it’s not likely to be cost effective for Boulder to run its own power service, Romero said.

“The question is do they really care about renewable energy or do they just want to municipalize?” Romero said. “It’s disingenuous for them to say we want to do it because we want to be green. That’s not a valid agreement in the eyes of Xcel Energy.”

Photo courtesy of Boulder and Google.

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