Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on December 17, 2008 – 8:58 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Casper Oppenhuis de Jong
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is like a tweet-up with the Scobles, Kawasakis and Calacanises of the real world. This annual get-together in the Swiss Alps brings together the sassiest elite of business, politics, journalism and intelligentsia to talk about the world’s most pressing issues.
Experienced journalist & blogger Thomas Crampton reported this week that the WEF (hosted in Davos, Switzerland: therefore often referred to as Davos) will use a refreshing new social media strategy to gain attention. He had the chance to interview Matthias Luefkens, the man behind the 2.0 activities of the WEF.
A glance at WEF’s wiki shows us this:
All plenary debates from Davos are also available on YouTube, pictures are available for free at Flickr and the key quotes are available on Twitter. In 2007 the Forum opened pages on social media platforms such as MySpace and Facebook. At the Annual Meeting 2009 the Forum invites the general public to participate in the Davos Debates on YouTube allowing one user to attend the Annual Meeting in person. In 2008 the Davos Question on YouTube allowed YouTube users to interact with the world leaders gathered in Davos who were encouraged to reply from a YouTube Video Corner at the congress centre. In 2008 press conferences are live streamed on Qik and Mogulus allowing anyone to put questions to the speakers. In 2006 and 2007 selected participants were interviewed in, and the closing session was streamed into, Reuters’ auditorium in Second Life.
These services in itself are nothing new in the tech community. But the fact that a conference like Davos - with the biggest players in the world - chooses to embrace these social media services seems like a major step. Plus, every soul with a camera and access to YouTube now has a shot at joining the lads and birds in the Alps!
Answer one of these questions and you’re in:
- Are you confident that global growth will be restored in 2009?
- Will the environment lose out to the economy in 2009?
- Will the Obama administration improve the state of the world in 2009?
- Should company executives have a code of ethics similar to doctors and lawyers?
Is this finally Politics & International Relations 2.0.1?
I hope you like that post!
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Written on December 12, 2008 – 8:39 am
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Nicolas Mertens
What is the maximum period for a beta stage? Can you stay in beta forever if you want to? What are the downsides and the benefits for an eternal beta stage?
These questions arose when my mother saw me using Gmail. After explaining to her that this is like an online version of Outlook she got quite interested. So she could have her email at home as well as in the office? Without downgrading on features? That is something she must have! Up and until then she actually consulted her inbox through a free webmail service from her provider, but whenever she sent a reply she printed out a copy… she held these in a map called “webmail sent items”, because those mails sent didn’t reappear in her outbox at home.
A long, but funny, introduction for getting my mother into web2.0! But it seemed I had underestimated her. While I was still having fun about her printouts, my smile quickly disappeared when she nailed it with the following question:
When is this coming out of beta stage?
I was stunned, I didn’t know. And she was right on the money! When I told her I have been using this for about four years (2004), the tables had turned. She thought it was funny how I could use Gmail for personal and business use while Google had no reason to ensure my mailing was in safe hands. No obligations whatsoever.
Along with the IMAP function and Google Docs introduction a lot of users started using GMAIL as their professional inbox. Able to send out mails from their name@company.com address, it made their lifes much easier. But email is so important to companies nowadays that they back it up on their own servers. Not with Gmail though, it is stored safely on the Google-servers…
You think?
After reading the Terms of Service of Gmail, I noticed that they could never, under any circumstances, be held responsible for data loss… They can even change their whole service without having to notify you. For example, their “unlimited” storage that they always used as an eyecatcher. They are allowed to set a fixed upper limit at any time, whenever they feel like doing so.
In the end I believe Gmail is a great service, that really changed the way email worked for me. Fact is that there is a real threat for companies, small or big, who already started using Google’s mail. Or Docs and Calendar for that matter!
So, again, how long can you keep something in beta stage?
Written on December 6, 2008 – 12:50 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Tyson Crosbie
The truth just sounds different. I heard that saying once when in grade school, I don’t know why but it always stuck with me.
The social game on Twitter
Lately on twitter I am starting to get a lot of noise from social gamers. These are the people who think that having the most followers is the key to online fame and or fortune. They probably read Chris Brogan’s blog religiously and implement every strategy that can be automated, duplicated or easily implemented. Unfortunately by doing this they are missing the entire point.
The noise I am talking about specifically in this blog post are the automated responses to new follows. They usually read something like: “Thanks for the follow! I look forward to your tweets! Check out my URL.” Besides being generic and lazy these automatic messages just wreak of the old school advertising numbers game. It rings false to me and I usually choose not to follow or unfollow the owners of this noise.
Demand truth in advertising
I believe we are selling ourselves all the time, and we are buying with our time from those who demand it. Getting what we want when we want is the key to all the things we talk about in Social Media. Relevancy, authenticity, accountability.
In a world that is increasingly on demand and unique to each audience member, it is only relevancy that will rule the day. The days of noise inserted for the masses between the content that we want to consume are waning. Truth in advertising will happen when the advertisements are as valuable to me as the content I am watching, reading or consuming. I hope it will become indistinguishable from the content.
We will likely never get away from the numbers game, it is an important part of being human and social. We want to believe that we are connected to each other and share a common experience. Accountability however, speaks to a personal responsibility in choosing your own content. The more you choose to manage your personal experience the more you will attract a positive one. This way I think the numbers will take care of themselves.
My content filter
Personally, I prefer truth over automation, personal connections over the most connections, accountability over laziness and community over empire. These preferences just feel better than the alternative and I believe that is my truth.
What is your content filter built out of, what is true to you?
Written on December 6, 2008 – 12:08 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Polle de Maagt
You might know Tweetdeck, one of the preferred Twitter desktop apps for hardcore Twitterazi, besides gems like Twhirl and Twitterific. I love Tweetdeck’s customizable multi-column no-nonsense interface and quick Twitter servicedesk (@tweetdeck) in case of problems.
At the recent Adobe MAX conference I was surprised to see (on Twitter of course) that Mr. Tweetdeck himself, Iain Dodsworth, was also attending the conference. I was lucky enough to be able to drag him out of one of the many MAX sessions to talk with him about Tweetdeck, Adobe AIR, communities and Tweetdeck’s future.
Beyond the one column
For all of you that missed it: TweetDeck is a twitter dashboard, an Adobe AIR (“It’s just the quickest way to go cross-platform”) desktop application that is currently in public beta and uses multiple columns, group functionality and embeds services like Twitscoop and Twitpic in a clean interface. “The Twitter eco system in a dashboard”, like Iain puts it. The app launched in april 2008 and usage exploded since then. “I just created Tweetdeck because I was following 70 people and missed tweets of my friends. Over time I would even follow more and more people and didn’t like the one-column interface of the twitter apps that were around”.
TweetDeck enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets. The default columns can contain All Tweets from your timeline, @replies directed to you and direct messages. The GROUP, SEARCH and REPLIES buttons then allow the user to make up additional columns populated from the live tweet information. Once created these additional columns will automatically update allowing the user to keep track of a twitter threads far easier.
New features coming up
And there will be more, as Iain lays out. The first features that will be added are an iPhone app, tweet-syncing accross multiple installs and your iPhone and multi-account functionality. There will also be a User Interface update, which will include a new and easier way to arrange an re-arrange columns, a new mini-column feature (smaller columns), and the possibility to customize fonts, styles and notifications.
Practically all new features are driven by demand of the large Tweetdeck Uservoice community. “I’m not making the decisions, the community does. If you got a good idea and can drum up 10 votes there must be something to your idea.”
Later, other services (Friendfeed if Iain listen’s to the community once again) will be added. Other, more radical, features are currently under wraps but promise to dramatically increase the uptake of TweetDeck and give the users more control on the included functionality.
Business model
Iain has a fulltime job pumping out new features and maintaining the Tweetdeck community. So, where is he getting his money? “Actually it is totally self-funded right now which makes him extremely gratefull for spontanious user donations “It’s fantastic when people donate and some of them even donate more than once. Tweetdeck is really community-driven and community-funded”. And what about funding or other business models? “There is future, but I really can’t talk about it right now. But I promise I get back to you on that”.
More on Tweetdeck at tweetdeck.com. Tweetdeck feature ideas? Add them at the Tweetdeck Uservoice and/or twitter account @tweetdeck
Written on November 26, 2008 – 12:06 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Josh Chandler
Meltmail.com highlights an important feature missing from many web based and desktop-based email clients; a way to create disposable email messaging.
Personally, it did make me wonder why a company would step up and present such a solution. A temporary email address that redirects in essence is quite good however I want this to be permanent so I can always send mail to it. One solution I think matches this is Enterto.com. The key difference is that Enterto forces you to sign up for an @enterto.com email address. Besides that the technology behind Enterto is more impressive then Meltmail.
It is safe to assume you do not want to be receiving any information to your inbox on this after the initial email you have been waiting for. One question I have is if you are using a two part double confirmation system which takes a while to send out the emails, what will happen to the email address? Will it return emails back to your original address? If so wouldn’t that just defeat the goal of email forwarding?
Meltmail does offer a couple of options on how long to keep email redirecting for. They will keep redirecting mail for 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours.
Will it really work? To me the thought of a time sensitive email address is quite interesting but I simply question the system’s integrity in certain situations. Does the concept of “melting mail” appeal to you, or should we have a solutions such as Enterto providing us with temporary email addresses to eliminate unneeded email?
Written on November 7, 2008 – 4:06 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Patrick Cushing (who included our blog as the first one up, thanks ;-) EJP)
A few weeks back, I wanted to realize the global interconnectivity of the web startup industry. As the global financial system crumbled for its lack of transparency, I wanted a better picture of the global web startup system and where it was going. So far, I’ve covered the Middle Eastern and Asian startup sites on Enter Venture. Now, let’s visit the top startup sites coming out of Europe.
1. The Next Web
First up is The Next Web — of course! The Next Web covers anything and everything related to the future of the web, no matter where it comes from. That said, the team is largely European (largely Dutch) so their coverage gives generous play to European startups. Posts run the gamut from startup reviews, reactions, and general industry news including a recent reaction to Jason Calacanis, a Romanian music site review, the Pope on Twitter, and some great advice for entrepreneurs in this economy.
2. Arctic Startups
Arctic Startup reviews internet and mobile startups from Nordic and Baltic countries, and they’re one of my favorites on this list. The site has a great, cool blue design that is unique but still evocative of TechCrunch. I appreciate the honest way they present new startups, with a description of both the strengths AND the weaknesses of the company / application.
3. alarm:clock euro
alarm:clock euro, like it’s American counterpart alarm:clock, reports on the comings and goings of VC money in Europe with a focus on funding rounds and buy outs. Each post comes with a description of the startup, the amount they’ve been funded for, and (the interesting part) a few thoughts about why they think the investment is a good or bad one.
4. TechCrunch UK
TechCrunch UK is TechCrunch for startups in the UK . (I’m assuming people know what TechCrunch is.) Amazingly, it appears as if its entirely written by one guy, Mike Butcher. Here’s hoping he gets that star intern he’s looking for.
5. TechCrunch France
TechCrunch France covers the French startups scene as well as translates and re-posts a portion of TechCrunch’s original posts.
6. Startup 2.0
Startup 2.0 is a pan-European startup contest that took place last May (and presumably, will be held again). Voting takes place online for a chance to win ad space in TechCrunch, a Microsoft software pack, and Sun hardware. Personally, I would have expected a better prize than with something closer to what VenCorps offers.
7. Altaide Valley
Altaide Valley is another blog focusing on the connections between France and Silicon Valley. The blog is owned and operated by Altaide, a French strategic technology firm.
And yeah, like their tagline “Birding France and Silicon Valley” suggests, all the articles are written in English.
8. Tigerprises
Toivo Tanavsuu’s TigerPrises covers Estonian startups and general technology trends in the Baltics, particularly mobile. Toivo also writes for Arctic Startup and the blog you’re looking at right now.
9. Startupbin
Startupbin covers web startups in Finland. Timo Paloheimo is another blogger from Arctic Startup, and he’s also created Google minus Google — a Google search site without Google sites in the results.
And here are two more
Other European startup sites worth noting are SwissStartups.com and SomBiz (a Finnish, invitation-only Web 2.0 entrepreneur network). If you know of any other startup sites that I’m missing (especially non-English sites), please let me know in the comments!
Written on November 7, 2008 – 3:27 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Paul Vereijken
It sure isn’t surprising that social networks like LinkedIn are adding new users by the second thanks to the credit crunch. But read this: social network MeettheBoss.com says it has attracted 25.000 active members within two months. And those users sure aren’t the average LinkedIn member. They are senior and top executives at large financial firms.
According to their website and an article in the International Herald Tribune, it looks like MeettheBoss.com wants to become the number one network and forum for executives at company’s like Barclays, Goldman Sachs and ING.
Not just connecting
Registered MeettheBoss.com users can participate in discussions about the crisis, but also about how web 2.0 technology could be implemented in products and services. These big boys can also use (peer-to-peer) video conferencing, IM, e-mail and sms to interact and - of course - connect with other members. At MeettheBoss.tv members can watch interviews with industry hotshots and thought-leaders.
Exclusive network
The Bristol, England, based network is founded by Spencer Green, chairman of publisher and event organiser GDS International that owns MeettheBoss.com. The network was launched in September ’08 when they invited their first 20.000 members. To keep the network exclusive it intends to close its doors at 50.000 members.
Closed doors
I wish I could check if everything MeettheBoss.com promises is true. But to become a member of the network you have to be a senior or top executive. So if you’re working as a developer, web 2.0 consultant or if you’re an entrepreneur that probably means this network keeps its doors closed for you. And for journalists like me too.
Have a peak
Or wouldn’t they? Of course I tried to get in and I filled in the forms to create an account. Surprisingly I got in.
I couldn’t check out everything the network has to offer. Still I got more than just a peek. I was able to login at MeettheBoss.tv and check out some interviews with experts in the financial market. After a few clicks I was scanning the discussions between members talking mostly about the crisis. But when I tried to connect with other members the network just returned error messages telling me my account wasn’t approved yet. Damn.
Written on October 27, 2008 – 4:00 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
This is a guest post written by Scott Rafer, CEO of Lookery
Scott Rafer
Silicon Valley has been painfully instructive in the last month. It’s now clear that many bloggers are no better than the MSM in terms of “If it bleeds, it leads.” As a community, web startups need leadership, focus, and goals. To hear that message from one of the big names in venture capital, apparently one needs to fly to New York. Instead, the Valley is delivering grimy voyeurism from ‘A-list bloggers’ or transient opportunism from VCs seeking to negotiate better inside deals with their portfolio companies over the next six months.
We are certainly in a Buyers’ Market for startup equity right now, but it will end predictably. It will end so predictably that I’m going to the crazy thing and make a specific prediction in writing. To wit,
Without additional, catastrophic interference, early-stage startups will start to enjoy a Sellers’ Market with angel investors and VCs by the middle of Q4 2009. In other words, the combination of the natural maturation and consolidation of Web2 and the current banking crisis will only cause a one-year “winter.”
I’m clearly guessing — but not without basis.
Calling the Top
Starting in late 2004, I was running around telling people to be out of the markets and in cash by March 2008. My specific reasoning was “about six months before the Republican National Convention,” which was at least as wrong as it was right. I simply figured that the GOP would stop at nothing to stay in office [√], and the Republicans usually persecute bit-driven businesses like IT and Entertainment in favor of atom-driven businesses like Autos, Telecom services, and Petrochemical.
My more general reasoning was that IT boom-and-bust cycles have been between 8 to 11 years long since the early 1960s. March 2008 was exactly 8 years from the top of the last IT cycle, i.e. the DotCom boom. However, this cycle was marginally the shortest ever, and I called the Web2 Top w_a_y too close for my own comfort.
I don’t believe in exact market timing and was hoping my March 2008 deadline was a bit before the Top, but it was actually after. GOOG and NASDAQ both hit their highs around November 1, 2007, and the Bebo-AOL deal was announced on March 13, 2008. That deal felt late and overpriced at the time, and it probably still will with the passage of time.
Calling the Bottom
Nobody seems to remember it well, but the dotcom community was clearly climbing out of its Bust in Q3 2001, less than 18 months after the DotCom Top. Wi-Fi and blogging, the harbingers of Web2, were well into their early adopter phase. That quarter, Oren Michels and I launched WiFinder on stage at Demo. We got off to a great start PR-wise too, largely by pitching Glenn Fleischman and the bloggers who already owned the public discourse on Wi-Fi.
Of course, WiFinder launched September 5, 2001, six days before the world-beyond-tech shut down for a while. Even that extension into “nuclear winter” as people call it, was eighteen months or less. Friendster launched March 2002 and the first bulge of Web2 startups had been founded by spring 2003 and had little trouble finding angel investment. O’Reilly coined the term “Web2″ in Spring 2004 to describe what he saw as an existent, emerging sector.
Large shocks extend the tech down cycle, but not for very long. 9/11 extended the post-dotcom Buyers’ Market by eighteen months. I’m betting the banking-shock extension is twelve. The Top was almost exactly a year ago, and Sellers’ Market start to re-emerge around this time next year.
Separating the Cycles
Any number of credible people will make the above statements, but then they come to very different conclusions. In these panicky times, many experts are unnecessarily and unreasonably conflating unlike economic cycles. When you make that error, it looks like web startups will take as long to recover as global banking. That’s not the way it works.
IT startups don’t run on credit, and they don’t correlate directly the GDP. IT startup recovery leads GDP recovery significantly. We don’t behave like big tech companies such as GOOG, YHOO, ORCL, MSFT, etc. who need to care a lot about the state of the overall economy. Their revenue is driven by big corporate spending. Ours normally isn’t. That’s one of the reasons the big guys are late to the pick up the latest technologies. Two guys in a garage with a new way to share music, or even startups at Twitter’s scale, don’t care at all. Facebook and Automattic, where I have a few shares, are in an interesting middle-state from this point of view. If they manage the transition a tenth as well as Google did during the Dotcom Bust, they will be huge wins.
The Buyers’ Market for startup equity is never more than a quarter of the overall cycle, and it’s normally more like a sixth. Early-stage investors won’t wait for the economy or housing or banking to recover. A bunch of rich people are frantic right now because their personal portfolios are getting hit. However, pretty soon they’ll remember that those portfolios only exist because they paid a startup to give away web-based email, sold AKAM at $300/share or some other highly speculative IT-investing activity.
At that moment, they’ll move back from fear to greed and start competing with each other to speculate — on us.
Written on October 9, 2008 – 6:30 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Jeff Herring - The Article Marketing Guy and 7TipsArticleSecrets.com
Article marketing has recession-proofed my online businesses. Now I know that is a big claim, and lots of people are talking about how to recession-proof your business right now.
Read on to discover how to really do it with Article Marketing and the article-a-day strategy.
Here are 7 ways an article-a-day can recession-proof your business:
1. Extend your reach
I like to call my articles my “international evergreen article agents.” My articles allow me to reach all over the world into many markets that I could not have reached in any other way. And they are evergreen, which means they are out there forever, delivering good information with links back to my websites and blogs. For example, just one article I has published online in August of 2005 still receives an average of 1500 unique views each month. And once you learn how to do it the right way, is is free.
2. Unlimited content
One of the things you must have on the internet is content, and lots of it. When you write an article a day, you create an unlimited stream of regular content. While most online entrepreneurs are worried about where their next content is coming from, you are creating
content everyday.
3. Repurposing
When you create an article a day, you have arrived in repurposing heaven. You can take just one article and turn it into multiple marketing messages such as a blog post, a teleseminar, ebooks, ecourses, and so much more. Repurposing leads to…
4. Even more content
Your content creation does not stop with your article creation. When you repurpose your articles into multiple marketing messages, you are creating even more content. The more content you have, the greater web presence you can create. I’m getting ahead of myself though, because that is number five.
5. Create a massive web presence
When you have a storehouse of content and turn it into multiple marketing messages, you are then able to create a massive web presence. What is the advantage of a massive web presence? Prospects find you everywhere, and you begin to be seen as the go-to-person in your niche. And remember this:
A massive web presence is not created in a day, A massive web presence is created a little bit everyday.
6. Ups your expert-ability
I define your “expert-ability” as your perceived expert status in the mind of your prospect. When you are creating article content just about everyday you will quickly be seen as an expert in your field. Even better, you come to be seen as THE go-to-expert in your
niche.
7. Rapid product creation
Another thing you need to be successful on the Internet in any economy is many products, or what can be called an information empire. As an article writer and article marketer, you have the keys to your own information empire kingdom. You can quickly repurpose your articles into teleseminars, ebooks, ecourse, DVDs, and many other information products.
And to get started with your article-a-day campaign, you can claim your free instant access to my 7 Tips Article Writing Template when you go to 7TipsArticleTemplate.com.
Written on October 1, 2008 – 11:40 am
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Written by Mircea Goia
Although the World Wide Web was invented in Europe (Tim Berners-Lee - CERN), the Internet was growing faster on the other side of the ocean (ARPAnet - USA). The innovation in our industry still comes mainly from the US, but Europe is catching up.
Web 2.0 events throughout Europe
Web 2.0 represents the new wave of Internet companies and technologies born after the dotcom bubble which crippled the Internet around year 2000. It’s origins are found in the USA, but is has been spreading around the world (hopefully, the recent financial crisis won’t affect it too much). Social networking, AJAX, sharing, user-generated, community, video, collaboration, folksonomies, Internet as a platform…all these terms are the mantra of the new Web 2.0 companies.
In the upcoming series of Web 2.0 articles, I want to explore the Web 2.0 events throughout Europe. It will be like an inventory of Web 2.0 festivals, conferences, un-conferences, and awards. I encourage people from different countries to write about their events here as well.
Let’s start with Romania
I’m starting with Romania (since I am Romanian), a country of 21 million inhabitants and an important market in Eastern Europe. Since my last article on ReadWriteWeb about Web 2.0 startups, things have been changing in Romania.
Now, a year or so later, I can see a jump in Web 2.0 applications and ideas originating in Romania – culminating in one startup becoming a finalist of Seedcamp: uberVU. Seedcamp is Europe’s hottest startup conference, held in London every year, and can be seen as the European equivalent of Techcrunch 50 or DEMO.
Webstock
Following the model of Seedcamp and Techcrunch 50, a new non-traditional conference took shape: Webstock (paraphrasing ‘69 Woodstock music festival).
In some ways, Webstock is more like a Web 2.0 festival than a startup conference. They call it an “unconference” because it’s not like a traditional conference where only certain people are allowed to speak). A real startup conference is Netcamp, which I will cover in another article.
Webstock started earlier this year with the selection of Web 2.0 projects (already launched, betas, private betas – all at least one month old) which will be presented in the final gala. The project needs to have at least one Web 2.0 component (they used the Wikipedia definition) and it needs to be created by Romanian companies or Romanian citizens (Romanian-foreign partnerships are accepted too). (more…)
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