Webware

Admit it: somewhere in a drawer or stashed in your closet, you have an old cell phone or digital camera with no practical purpose.

Second Rotation is a Web site designed to find a home for that used and no-longer-loved electronic gear. On Tuesday, the company announced that it has raised $4.4 million in funding led by Venrock to expand its product catalog and ramp up marketing.

The Web site, which launched last July, acts as a broker between consumers and eBay or an electronics recycler.

To unload your old Treo or Canon, you write the product name into Second Rotation's "dynamic pricing" application. You rate what kind of shape it's in and the program tells you what Second Rotation will buy it for.

You can then print out a shipping slip and arrange a pick up. Second Rotation then rehabs the goods to be sold on eBay. A small percentage--10 percent--are sent to reputable recyclers, says CEO and founder Rousseau Aurelien. It makes money brokering the transaction.

People can sell their stuff directly on eBay, of course, but Aurelien argues that it's still too troublesome for most consumers. Only one in 30 of eBay's registered users actually sells anything, he said.

"Forty percent of car sales have a trade-in but if you look at consumer electronics, it's not a significant number--less than 1 percent," said Aurelien. "So we have our work cut out for us. There needs to be a little bit of change in consumer behavior, too."

Electronic waste is a growing problem. The Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month month launched a cell phone recycling program in an effort to raise consumer awareness.

Second Rotation already takes cell phones, digital image and video cameras, gaming consoles, digital music players, and GPS systems.

In the summer, the company plans to expand its product catalog to laptops, beyond the trade-ins for Macbooks it already offers. Aurelien said the company's ambition is to broker sales of more than just electronics.

Earth Class Mail, which enables people to manage snail mail online, has closed $13.3 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by Ignition Partners of Bellevue, Wash., with more than half of the money raised by the Keiretsu Forum angel investment group.

The company aims to open a chain of retail stores, starting with one in Manhattan early this year, according to the Portland Business Journal. The storefronts will focus on easing the process of signing up, which requires completing some notarized forms. The Seattle-based service is used currently in 130 countries.

Earth Class Mail is billed as an efficient, eco-friendly alternative to a post office box and ideal for on-the-go workers. For between $10 to $64 per month, customers have their mail sent to the company rather than a personal address.

Letter openers on the 70-person staff are disabled veterans with Department of Defense security clearance. They scan the envelopes and upload the images to the Web. Customers view the mail online and decide which items to have opened and read, recycled, or forwarded.

Earth Class Mail's users recycle 90 percent of mail received, but only 20 percent of mail delivered to someone's door gets recycled, according to the company.

Tech recycling services traditionally are either free or charge you a fee for trying to keep old gear out of landfills. But as long as you're cleaning out closets to make room for another season of gifts, you could finance some of your holiday shopping by sending tired tech toys to a service that will pay for them.

The new BuyMyTronics, (via EcoGeek) from the same people behind BuyMyBrokeniPod, will accept game consoles from a GameBoy to an Xbox, as well as iPods and iPhones. According to the site's online estimate, a dead Wii in the original box would fetch $62.25, sent via PayPal or check. If you like the deal, just sign up and ship out the goods.

SecondRotation also pays for gaming consoles, PDAs, phones, camcorders, GPS devices, and digital cameras. But its estimate rated the value of the same broken Wii as a gaping zero.

Too bad I can't find a site that wants my TI 99/4-A, circa 1981. I guess that's better fit for a vintage computer sale, Craigslist, FreeCycle, or eBay.

At least someone will give me a kickback for mailing in an old Motorola RAZR V3. CellforCash would pay $13, SimplySellular would fork over $23, and SellYourCell would offer $20. SecondRotation beat them all with its $30 trade-in estimate. BuyMyTronics is working to add trade-in options for cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, and camcorders.

Of course, you can also recycle a wireless phone without getting paid, or pay a small fee to GreenCitizen if you find walking into their San Francisco or Silicon Valley trade-in shop convenient. Trade-in services, including curbside pickup, from HP and Dell have good reputations.

Services such as these either refurbish and resell used gear, donate the old tech to schools or needy nonprofit groups, or send the stuff straight into something like a meat grinder for hardware, later reclaiming valuable metals to sell. SecondRotation resells the items on eBay, as does BuyMyTronics, which also donates castoff parts to artists. The staff of BuyMyTronics also aims to be "green" by reusing packaging materials and walking most of the hundreds of goods it deals with each month over to the post office.

However, many other recycling services make it a practice to ship used electronics overseas, where it's likely to poison the health of people and ecosystems. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition lists recyclers services that recycle responsibly.

How many of us have the equivalent of a consumer electronics museum cluttering up our home?

Second Rotation, which launched its Web site on Monday, buys back old consumer electronics and sells them on eBay for you. If you're diligent, there are ways to recycle that cell phone or iPod gathering dust in your closet. But this sounds like a convenient way to recycle and get money for your stuff at the same time.

The process is designed to be very simple: You sign up on the Web site, find what price you can get for your unused gear, and then print out a DHL shipping slip and send it away. You get paid by check or PayPal transaction.

Behind the scenes, Second Rotation is mashing up data from eBay to check current prices. It makes money by buying your goods a bit cheaper than what it thinks it can sell them for on eBay, according to company Chief Operating Officer Israel Ganot.

Right now, Second Rotation lists about 2,500 items and intends to expand to about 5,000 items in the coming months. The categories are cell phones, digital cameras, digital music players, camcorders and GPS devices.

"The premise of the business is that in the last two years the pace of innovation and upgrades is getting faster and faster," said Ganot. "We're trying to plug into the faster pace and help move things from one place to another."

People could sell these items themselves but the idea behind Second Rotation is to make it really easy for casual sellers.

The company also intends to let people recycle consumer electronics that don't have any resale value. Rather than sell them on eBay, it will salvage parts and potentially work with recyclers, Ganot said.

In the next few weeks, Second Rotation will announce partnerships with retailers where they will let customers turn in their old gear when they buy something new.

Carbon footprint, energy use, green tech: some phrases that won't be going away. From gasoline prices to global warming, we're likely to become more aware of what energy we burn up, just as most of us now have some sense of whether we're eating wisely (or not).

Just today the Live Earth concert folks e-mailed me a link to their carbon calculator. This one walks you through several pages of simple questions about how you live, and especially how you travel. This calculator was built by Earthlab.org. They want to know the size of your dwelling, your car if you own one, energy bills, airplane and daily travel. After going through their process, I can't imagine how bad an airline pilot would look, environmentally speaking.

My score on the Earthlab quiz: 301, and 11 tons of carbon. So I'm clearly doing my bit to warm the planet. Live Earth folks say they'll post overall test scores and more information on 7-7-07.

Then there's this site, which gives you the really bad news--how many planets humanity would need to supply energy if everybody lived as you do. My score: 6.3 planets. I think that translates into a couple more solar systems 'cause I don't get the sense there's a whole lot of oil, coal or biofuels to be had out beyond Venus. I could probably do nicely with a tiny sun, however.

Then the Yahoo folks have built a carbon dioxide emissions calculator. My score was pretty much the same as what I got from Earthlab...until I added in my infrequent air travel. From a few plane trips: 21.8 tons of carbon dioxide. Where are the calls for solar planes? Or goose-powered, or human-paddled balloons, or something? How about those Star Trek transponders that would beam you up? Could they be energy efficient? No crappy airline "food" either.

Altogether these sites are: depressing, educational, geared to getting you to do something about your consumption patterns. Turn off your work computer when you are done for the day (or night). Carry your own shopping bags. Use alternative energy when possible. Use efficient bulbs and appliances. Walk more. Freak out over air travel. All good advice. And aimed at making each of us less of a carbon bigfoot.