Carless for a Year

I didn't mean to become carless -- it just kind of happened.

The 2004 Mercedes E500 has a poor track record for quality, so a week before the warranty expired on mine, I sold it. I couldn't figure out what to buy, and there are so many cars to test drive. (Who Has Time For This?)  That was 14 months ago.

It hasn't been so bad, really. I hitch rides with my wife and my colleagues, and sometimes I bike to work. I borrow my friend's car when he's away on travel, and I joined ZipCar. And when I'm not traveling for a whole month, I pay Hertz $600 to rent an Audi, BMW, or Infiniti .For regular customers like me, Farshid at Hertz Palo Alto drops off and picks up the car and -- here's the best part -- It turns out that renting is actually cheaper than either buying or leasing.


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Here's why it works for me (and maybe for you): my wife drives an old Odyseey minivan (winner of the WhoHas award), for which the liability insurance has got to be cheaper than for any other car. But still the policy covers my liability for rentals up to one month, and AmEx covers any damage to the rental car (as I now know first hand). I don't have to pay for insurance, registration, sales tax, maintenance, depreciation, cost of capital or even car washing. (I still pay for gas, but less than before, thanks to BillShrink.) Even if I rent the car 7 or 8 months a year, it's still way cheaper than owning the same luxury car, and I get to feel just a tiny bit greener.

So when the hell are you going to buy your own car? they ask me at work as I bum rides home.  Well, I did put down a deposit on a Fisker Karma, so that pretty much guarantees I won't own a car any time soon!

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CertifiedVideo: GoodMail has a Tiger by the Tail

On Friday Twitter was abuzz about GoodMail's new CertifiedVideo service.

For those who missed my post on Why I Invested in GoodMail, GoodMail shifts the onus and cost of email security from individuals like us to the commercial senders who have the budget and motivation to pay for authentication, cryptography, scanning, and monitoring. And the need for trusted email has never been higher, as scammers exploit the economic crisis to deploy phshing attacks of unprecedented sophistication. GoodMail already delivers billions of Certified Emails every month (look for the blue ribbon icon in your inbox to spot the authenticated, unphishy messages).

GoodMail's latest service enables senders to present full playback video inside email with cryptographic proof that the video is safe and the source is trusted. According to yesterday's Wall Street Journal, CertifiedVideo opens up for media companies and permission-based marketers a compelling new channel that promises much higher engagement and response rates. Studies show users 4X as likely to play video that is embedded rather than linked to. That's why the NY Times, Turner, Fox, NBC, Target and LiveNation are already on board.

Play ABC News segment:

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