"Super credit" agencies ready to mine social media for the dirt on you

FreeCreditReport.com may have catchy commercials, but there's nothing cute about where the credit reporting industry is headed. This is a case of Big Brother watching not only you but all your friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

It used to be that a credit reporting agency concerned itself with investigating the creditworthiness of a person who had applied for a loan. That may be part of the mission still, but there's a fair argument to be made that financial institutions are using credit scores to make money. Consider the news that Freddie Mac wants to keep collecting higher interest on your mortgage. How do they do this? By slapping down ordinary people anytime they put a foot wrong. And now they're not only going to be looking at you, but everyone connected to you.

An article last month on AmericanBanker.com titled "9 Trends Reshaping Risk Software" points to the growing use of the super credit score. "One idea banks are toying with is that of incorporating social media data into assessments of credit risk, for instance, by considering the credit scores of a person's friends in addition to that person's own score," it says.

http://www.americanbanker.com/btn/25_1/9-trends-reshaping-risk-software-1045226-1.html

I suppose there are people who might see this as an opportunity to rent themselves out online as "SuperFriends."

Yellowstone Warehouse plans expansion by summer

The Yellowstone Warehouse, in the old Grand Central/Fred Meyer building, will be doubling its size by this summer.

The Yellowstone Warehouse in Idaho Falls, at 1765 N. Yellowstone, will be doubling its size by this summer, expanding into the rest of what used to be the Yellowstone Mall and the old Albertson's at west end.

At the moment, they occupy 108,000 square feet in the old Grand Central/Fred Meyer store, storing materials for such clients as the Idaho National Laboratory, Restoration Hardware and Sam's Club, not to mention ordinary people who need a whole household's worth of furniture crated up and held between moves. It is the largest controlled environment commercial warehouse in Idaho.

Steven Keim, who started the business in 2004, said the business has grown steadily through the downturn of the past three-and-a-half years. The warehouse is the lynchpin for two companies: Gellings Moving and Storage, the Atlas Van Lines agent for eastern Idaho and western Wyoming, and WestOne Logistics, which handles the receiving and distribution for big industrial and commercial clients.

How do third party logistics work? To give an example, INL is going to break ground this year on a $30 million, 46,163-square-foot, Research & Education Laboratory complex. The slate for that building is already being stored at the Yellowstone Warehouse, and will be available when it's needed.

Suppose Costco decides to build a store in Idaho Falls or Ammon? There has to be a place where all the materials and furnishings can be held as the project moves forward. Keim said he is hopeful that WestOne can get the business. In the case of a company like Restoration Hardware, most of the jobs WestOne does are "last mile" deliveries to custom home projects in Jackson, Wyo., or Idaho's Wood River Valley.

Although thousands of people drive by every day, Keim said he is sure most of them have no idea what is going on in the Yellowstone Warehouse.

You won't have to fly your Lear Jet to Nova Scotia to see a total eclipse of the sun

I suppose I could try to give this a business spin -- "Utah, Nevada, expect tourism $ from May eclipse" -- but on Sunday afternoon I'd rather just write about something that fascinates me.

If you're thinking about a road trip to Las Vegas, Mesquite, St. George or even Reno, mid-May might be a good time. On May 20, Nevada and southern Utah are going to experience an annular solar eclipse. They don’t happen very often, and when they do they’re usually over the ocean or someplace far from home.

You undoubtedly know that a solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes between the Sun and the Earth and casts a shadow. An annular eclipse is when the moon is farther away from the Earth and therefore smaller in the sky and a ring of light from the sun shines on the outside.

Thanks to Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, eclipses are easy to predict, so astronomers have known for years this has been coming. Nevada and Utah are on the tail end, which means the sun will be low in the sky when the moon creeps in front of it. Given the locale -- Zion National Park, anyone? -- there could be some epic sunset pictures. If you've got people in Reno or northern California, the eclipse will be in view as well. Near Reno, the eclipse will be in its full glory along southern shore of Pyramid Lake.

After this one, the next time a solar eclipse occurs in North America will be Aug. 21, 2017. And guess what? The path will run right over central and eastern Idaho. Looking at the map, I've come to the conclusion that either Redfish Lake or Menan Butte will be the best places to see it. Mark your calendars. You read it first here.

With an annular eclipse, there's a burning ring of fire around the Moon.

Operation Juicy Burger has begun

Looking at the stats for BizMojo Idaho this past week, I'm kind of curious that the leading pageview is an item I put up Dec. 9, Carl's Jr. plans to open in Idaho Falls by Dec. 31.

Mmm ... look at that juicy burger!

Surely this is old news, yet 97 people looked at that post in the past seven days. Mystifying? Perhaps, if you don't drill down. But looking at the search information, we found that "Carl's Jr." and "juicy burger" were the leading keywords driving traffic to the blog from Google.

It's a Google world. I'm watching AdSense every day, and I'm happy to report that we're inching closer to the $100 threshold that will prompt the Google Gods to send a check directly to the BizMojo Idaho bank account.

I'd be the last person to encourage anyone to engage in an orgy of indiscriminate ad-clicking to get us there faster. But if you should you decide to do it of your own free will, there might be a juicy burger in it for you. Think about it.

Odds and ends from the Idaho Falls development front

It's pretty quiet on the building front, but there are signs that things could be on the uptick, said Brad Cramer of the Idaho Falls Planning Department.

The city planning and zoning commission and City Council  have approved a plat for a 16-lot subdivision called Bristol Heights, located south of Sunnyside Road, on land belonging to Lee Gagner. "We haven't seen a plat that size for years," Cramer said.
Likewise, the City Council on Thursday night approved 22 townhomes at John Adams and St. Clair. "I'm not sure yet if it means a lot," Cramer said. "There must be a decent market for those townhome type properties."

On the commercial front, Cramer echoed what Pentad Properties' Brent Wilson said last week, that everything seems to be on hold as developers wait to see what sort of action might be coming from Costco, which has been eyeballing ground in the Idaho Falls-Ammon area.