Written on 14th April 2009
6 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Just a few hours to one of the years best conferences and we’re as excited as ever. To make sure you get here in one piece we’ve selected a few iPhone apps that should help you navigate the city and with any luck, end up at TheNextWeb Conference!
About half of the attendees at The Next Web Conference aren’t from The Netherlands. They fly into Amsterdam early in the week and stay for the weekend after he conference. We love it, and are very proud, that our conference has grown into an event with international appeal.
For our international visitors we have a few tips when it comes to surviving Amsterdam. Here they are, on no particular order:
Bikes
Beware of people of bikes. There are more bikes in Amsterdam than people and the people riding these bikes don’t stop for anything. Stick to the sidewalks and keep your ears open. If you hear someone ringing their bells seek cover or they will run you down. Sorry about that.
Drugs
Amsterdam is sometimes referred to as the ‘Drug capital of the world’. This is a lot more credit than we deserve but it is true that certain drugs are legal and readily available. If you absolutely have to get a taste of that we won’t stop you. But be very cautious. Our soft drugs are very potent and can easily make you sick. Locals usually aren’t too interested in drugs either so be discrete about your experiences. Apart from that, enjoy!
Flights
Flying into Amsterdam via Schiphol? Get a taxi (you might call it a cab but in The Netherlands we call them Taxis) or the train. Train is cheap and comfortable unless you arrive after dark in which case I would advise to take a taxi. Trains leave every 15 minutes from schiphol – costs 3,80 euros), then take a tram (line 4 or 25 – costs 1,60 euros) and get out at Frederiksplein (right in front of Hotel V). Total travel time 40 minutes
A taxi into town shouldn’t cost you more than 45 euros depending on where you need to go and should take no more than 35 minutes.
Also read this excellent article at The New York Times on how to arrive healthily and save. In short: drink a lot of water, keep moving around and take lots of vitamins.
Red Light District
Yes, the red Light District is a major sightseeing opportunity. Lots of sights to see there. Go ahead, check it out but pay attention to a few things. Beware of pickpockets: most people are so distracted by the sight of, well, what they see, that they don’t watch their personal belongings. Also, don’t make photos of the ladies, or men, behind the windows. They DON”T like that and won’t ask you politely to stop if you do take a photo. Don’t risk finding out what they WILL do.
Where to go and for what
The Next Web Conference will be held at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. We’ve created a map with some interesting places in Amsterdam. We’ll add stuff to the map almost every day.
Sure, you could buy a pair of wooden shoes and maybe even some Delfts Blauw dishes. But why not go for these handmade iPhone sleeves available at The Next Web Conference (bought your ticket yet?).
My sister Ellemijn (@ellemijn) spent the last few weeks in this chair working on a collection of iPhone sleeves. Surrounded by her MacBook and iPhone and a whole lot of cotton she hand-knitted crochet every one of them and will be selling them for € 15 a piece during the conference.
If you want to have your own design (names, hearts and maybe even favicons, logos, avatars?) she charges € 25 for simple stuff and will give you an estimate for more dificult stuff. The current collection is available is a whole range of colors and designs. Some are adorned with bells, beads and or lucky puppets.
She also has more simple design aimed and tough guys who don’t need lucky puppets.
UPDATE: these sleeves aren’t knitted but crochet. There is a huge difference of course. Right? Right. Sorry @Ellemijn!
David Weinberger once said “Hyperlinks are little acts of generosity“. We certainly agree and would like to share with you all the (hyperlinked) companies that are attending the upcoming Next Web Conference 2009 in less than two weeks. Some companies in this list are ‘1 person companies’ and some companies are coming over with complete management teams. Check and see if your company is attending, or your competitors, and make sure you are there too.
Written on 19th March 2009
12 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
After spotting Google Street view on a UK Google map earlier today, I wondered how long the feature had been made available. However, after the awesome Google Operating System blog posted news of the update today – clearly it’s a very recent feature.
The restaurant just a few doors down from mine changed their name about 6 months ago, and the street view to my address at least shows the new restaurant name – therefore the Google van must have been by quite recently.
It’s unclear exactly which locations are available via Google Street View but Amsterdam, London, Liverppol, Birmingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Amsterdam and Rotterdam are all confirmed.
In case you’re unaware, to access street view, drag the small yellow man icon (on the slider to the left) onto any bright yellow highlighted street on your Google map.
Written on 6th March 2009
2 COMMENTS Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
This post is part of a series of an informative posts about The Next Web Conference. The conference will be held on April 15, 16 and 17 in Amsterdam. 900 web influentials get together to do business, to be inspired and to have fun. Feel free to skip this post if you’re not interested.
You want to know where to sleep during your trip to The Next Web Conference? Well, we’ve picked a great hotel for our guests (and speakers) from abroad. As we only want the best for our guests we decided to test the hotel for you. We booked 3 rooms at Hotel V, called our girlfriends, packed our bags and hopped on our bikes (300 meters from our own houses) for a weekend Hotel V as tourists in our own city.
The hotel is situated in the center, no rephrase, the hart of Amsterdam. It is a new hotel with a cool lobby, some iMacs, free High Speed wifi in the lobby and all rooms, nice rooms (not super big though) and comfortable beds. For The Next Web we’ve blocked all rooms, so it is gonna be a fun place to be the place to be.
Ideal about the location is that it has great coffee bars, lunch places, restaurants and small shopping stores just around the corner (Utrechtsestraat is one of my favorite streets of Amsterdam). It is in a great neighborhood.
We’ve made a special deal with Hotel V for attendees of The Next Web.
Of course we can recommend other hotels, in any price category, as well, but in that case I can’t guarantee we’ve personally tested your bed.
Yesterday I admired Oasis on the stage of the Amsterdam Heineken Music Hall. They surprised me with some new songs, like Bag it Up. I want to share that track with Twones co-founder Tim Heineke as soon as possible. I could use his great service, of course, but what if I even don’t have the time to login? Well, I just browse to Tinysong.com, the Tinyurl for music. After typing in the song title, Tinysong provides me with a link to the song from the Grooveshark database. Pretty cool, uh?
Tomorrow Dutch Internet Service Provider XS4ALL celebrates their 15th birthday by holding a one day event about internet and society. 15 years ago, XS4ALL started making the internet available to everyone in Holland. Their motto for dealing with the Internet and technology and the impact those can have on society is “Fear It? Fix It!” or FIFI for short. That is also the name of the conference.
FIFI will be a great conference about internet and society. Creative users, internet entrepreneurs, scientists and government officials will all come together to speak and listen, debate current affairs, participate in workshops and download inspiration. Even the world’s first cyborg will be there.
Dutch members of parliament Alexander Pechtold, Hans Franken and Arda Gerkens will discuss new visions on privacy in an interactive debate in which the entire audience can participate using Synthetron’s interactive brainstorming tool. Hackers will perform a social engineering hack live on stage. There will be a hardrocking robot drummer, Giant Levelhead, a workshop Ikea hacking and much, much more.
Much more? Yes. From their press release: “Internet entrepreneur and guru Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten will tell us about how the internet makes us omnipotent and immortal”.
Maybe you’re still in doubt whether you should come to BLOG08. Or you might need to convince your boss or fiancée? The five reasons will make it easier for you.
2. Super vloggers Gabe Mac (Mobuzz) and Loren Feldman will spice up the place with live shows.
3. With all this financial crisis sensationalism buzzing around, you NEED a break. Get out of that office, get inspired, have fun, meet new people, and do business.
4. It will be a conference unlike any other conference, with a lot of surprising stuff. Trust me, it will be an experience that sticks.
5. This is the chance to meet cool bloggers (Pete Cashmore, Hugh MacLeod and a lot more), serial entrepreneurs (Scott Rafer, our own Boris), crazy vloggers (see point 2), inspiring attendees, journalists and speakers. All in an intimate but kick ass setting.
Bonus: Because you rock!
Tickets are 195 euros, grab one now. I look forward welcoming you in Amsterdam next week.
P.S. Really, the one reason I can think of when it’s OK not to go would be when you had those Morgan Stanley stocks and are now chilling on the Cayman Islands while reading this post on your Kindle.
As you might know, I’m co-organizing BLOG08 – the international blogging conference in Amsterdam on October 24 (see button in the sidebar). Edial Dekker and I have invited famous blogging heroes like Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, Gapingvoid’s Hugh MacLeod, and CEO of Lookery, Scott Rafer to inspire (corporate) bloggers all around the world. So far, people from Poland, the US, Sweden, Estonia, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands have purchased tickets.
Nobody from France yet, but this might change as we recently ran into French hero Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur. Business Week just called him one of the 25 most influential web people. We couldn’t resist the temptation of interviewing him. He talks about why he started blogging, how his blog developed, the Les Blogs conference, and that we should focus on micro- and videoblogging.
By the way, if you want to come to BLOG08, buy your ticket before October 10th with the “thenextweb” code. Not only will you get a 45 euros discount (price: 150 euros) but you also have the chance of winning an invite for the speakers dinner at Boris’ place.
Written on 14th April 2009
6 COMMENTS 
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Written on 12th April 2009
About half of the attendees at The Next Web Conference aren’t from The Netherlands. They fly into Amsterdam early in the week and stay for the weekend after he conference. We love it, and are very proud, that our conference has grown into an event with international appeal.
Written on 6th March 2009
Written on 22nd January 2009
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
