Move over Techcrunch, Mashable is now Bigger than you…
Written on 1st July 2009
15 COMMENTS 
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Yes, it is true. According to Compete, Mashable now has more unique visitors than Techcrunch. Techcrunch also seems to have grown ‘only’ 43% since last year where Mashable has grown 127%.
Three times as much growth and more unique visitors? Wow.
To me, that knowledge is similar to finding out that your little brother now makes more money than you. I mean, Pete Cashmore is 16, right? Okay, maybe 23. Or was that last year?
Either way, Techcrunch, with Michael Arrington at the helm, was THE big and powerful Techblog. Mashable was just this cute blog by a kid from the UK that was doing pretty well. Not bigger than Techcrunch, right!? When the hell did that happen? (more…)
Singalong: “You’ll work at Microsoft”
Written on 30th June 2009
6 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Today we are co-hosting the Kings of Code (#KingsOfCode on Twitter and Flickr) conference in Amsterdam.
Lots of developers, a few women and some designers according to a quick audience poll.
The first speaker sure woke up the room. Aral Balkan, a User Experience Advocate, started his presentation with a song. And yes, the audience had to sing along.
To the the music of Steve Martin’s ‘You’ll be a dentist‘ he sung ‘You’ll work at Microsoft’. I was standing in the back and was just in time to film the whole thing.
My apologies for the low quality but I just had to share this. It isn’t everyday that you see a room packed with geeks standing up and singing ‘You’ll work at Microsoft’…
Singalong: “You’ll work at Microsoft” from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Vimeo.
the song lyrics, as far as I could interpret them: (more…)
Greatest Freak Out Ever. [Monday Morning Madness]
Written on 29th June 2009
38 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The brother of the guy making this video just had his World of Warcraft account cancelled by his mother. Just before he completely flips out in his room the cameraman plants the camera in his room. What follows… is simply indescribable.
Now before you laugh, think for a second how you would feel if your mother had taken away your MacBook Pro, iPhone 3G S or other gadget that you REALLY like. Wouldn’t you… Nah, you wouldn’t. Forget what I just wrote. This is simply insane.
Flickr’s Flick.rs (auto post to Twitter) not taking off, yet.
Written on 27th June 2009
10 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
It has been a few weeks since Flickr launched a new feature which allows you to send a tweet to Twitter every time you post a photo. As a loyal Flickr user this has been a feature that I have been waiting/wishing/praying for! Mobypicture, Twitpic and yFrog all work fine too of course but I wanted to my photos to be on Flickr. Not scattered on the web.
I would rather have my photos and the views and comments to go with them in one place.
I would have imagined that once Flickr (easily the most popular Photo sharing website, especially among the tech-savvy early adopter crowd) would start offering Twitter notifications thousands of Mobypicture, Twitpic and yFrog users would start abandoning those services in favor of Flickr.
So far however none of this is happening. Granted, the service is officially still in ‘Semi-Private beta’ but as far as I can tell anyone can access and enable it. I have and have been using the service since it launched. It works flawlessly, fast and it is extremely easy to use.
You authenticate at Twitter via Flickr, get an email address to email to and you are done. Takes less then 30 seconds.
A search at twitter reveals how little people are actually using the feature. As you can see Flickr uses their own URLS shortener: http://flic.kr. A search for ‘flic.kr’ will demonstrate how many people are using it. Right they seem to top out at about 20 posted photos per hour. Mobypicture and Twitpic seem to have at least 20 new uploads every 20 seconds.
Where Twitpic is the second most visited Twitter Service online, according to my own spreadsheet, Flic.kr now ranks last in our list of 35 services. I asked Mathys van Abbe, founder and CEO of Mobypicture how he feels about Flickr entering his market. His reply, via email: “Good to see Flickr/Yahoo is finally picking up on Twitter. The Yahoo CEO said Twitter was a hype… ;) I don’t really think the general quality of the phone cam shots matches the Flickr image and their core objectives.”
He might have a point. Flickr has always been focused on high quality photography. People don’t just dump all their photos on Flickr but tend to strive for quality. You could say that Flickr is about Photography and the other services are about snapshots. For Flickr this new feature might just be that; a small feature to keep Twitter users happy but not something they plan to promote.
We will keep a close eye on how that develops over the following months.
The ultimate iPhone G3 S speed test: the roller coaster simulation
Written on 26th June 2009
0 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
If you REALLY want to see the difference in speed between the iPhone 3G and the brand new shiny must have of the season iPhone 3G S you should check out this comparison video. It demos a particularly complex track in AirCoaster 3D, a roller coaster simulation application.
And then tell me honestly; can you REALLY wait another year before you upgrade to the iPhone 3G S?
Honest now!
Don’t lie to me.
I know you want it….
Would you buy this Apple Tablet?
Written on 26th June 2009
5 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Would you? For me, it would be perfect. I’d love an MacBook Air style, iPhone hybrid, touchscreen, MiniPC value Apple Tablet, to use at home and on the road.
If it would go for under $/€ 1000 I’m sure a LOT of people would be interested.
So is it real? Of course not. I photoshopped the Apple logo and screenshot in there myself!
It is the new ‘Always Innovating‘ touchscreen device with detachable keyboard, embedded Linux OS which will be available at the end of July for just $300. Well, $300 with an extra $100 if you also want the keyboard.
More specs: (more…)
iPhone 3G S = Waterproof!
Written on 26th June 2009
24 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The S in iPhone 3G S might actually stand for ‘Sealed’ instead of ‘Speed’. Or maybe it is the oleophobic coating that makes it waterproof? Anyway, the new iPhone seems water resistant up to one meter under water. Don’t believe me? Check out the video:
UPDATE: According to CultOFMac “This iPhone had a rubbery condom cover on, which probably helped it survive the dip in the pool.”.
Real Life Photoshop Effects?
Written on 25th June 2009
11 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The following photos are actually a commentary on how modern photography uses digital means to distort the truth. The artist, Henry Hadlow, ‘decided to flip this lie on its head and use a camera to mimic common Photoshop effects’. Check out the rest of his site too. Great work.
Forget the Networked Fridge. Give me a Networked Printer!
Written on 24th June 2009
2 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
This week Zee wrote a post here about the first internet Connected printer in a post titled “HP announces the world’s first web-connected printer. Browse and print from your printer“. When i first read the article I though my dream came true. You see, all I want is a truly networked printer.
You might say that every modern printer is networked but that is only partially true. What I want is a printer that just connects to the web and lets me access it over the web. That is ‘truly’ networked!
Connecting via the web would mean that (more…)
The Complete List of Top Twitter Services
Written on 24th June 2009
23 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
This is the Complete List of Top Twitter Services by Unique Monthly visitors based on Compete numbers.
In February Leena Rao at Techcrunch posted “The Top 21 Twitter Applications (According to Compete)” with a list that was later, after much debate, expanded to show 22 services. It was a nice effort to show the growing popularity of third party Twitter services.
As you might know we started TwitterCounter and were added to the list (after they forgot us first) and made it to the 4th spot in the list. Since then we have been keeping a close eye on the traffic stats of the other services on the list.
Today we are publishing a Google Doc which will be easy to expand with new services. If you see one we missed, and which has more unique visitors than number 24, please let us know (in the comments please) so we can add it.
A few notable stats:
- TweetMeme grew a whopping 57,000% in the past 5 months and went from 6,000 to 3,600,000 unique visitors a month. this places them at #1 in our top 24.
- Tweetvisor seems to have lost the most ground as it went from 31,000 to less than 9,000 unique visitors. Somewhere along the line they lost 73% of their audience.
- MobyPicture did VERY well growing 660% from 12,000 to 95,000 unique monthly visitors.
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