Written on November 11, 2008 – 7:48 am Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
I’m touring around China with bloggers. I hope to give you as many updates as possible about this land of endless opportunities. Thanks to Spil Games for sponsoring me.
In March I wrote a post about the fact that Facebook means “doomed to die” in Chinese. I also mentioned some other East Asian misunderstandings. While I’m touring China, I see tons of other cultural differences that make the interaction between China and the west even more interesting. To give you an idea, I’ll highlight some examples the coming days.
Blogger and writer Shel Israel experienced one of those cultural differences first hand. He now has two sets of business cards - of which one is for Chinese people, as his normal business cards have lead to some misunderstandings while meeting web professionals here in China.
The card I got says “Writer. Speaker. Nice Guy” as his title and has the following Hugh MacLeod cartoon on the back:
But that’s not the one Israel hands out to Chinese business relations, he told me. “They don’t have the same kind of humor”, Israel says. “I had to explain what lifestyle I referred to and then they still didn’t get why anyone would put that on his card.” Joking around with your job title also didn’t have the planned effect. Some people actually thought that being a nice guy was an actual role in the American corporate world.
So take this lesson from Israel. If you have an original business card, think about the effect it can have on people from a different culture. Same goes for your personal branding online, of course.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on October 1, 2008 – 11:00 am David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
Twellow, the ‘yellow pages for Twitter‘, has extended its usefulness with the ability to create your own biography entry of up to 2,000 characters.
As well as being able to claim your twitter profile, and classify yourself in up to 10 categories (although I’m in 14 for some reason), you can also add your social media links to your profiles on Pownce, LinkedIn, Flickr, FriendFeed, etcetera - and now add more details about yourself in a mini-profile or biography.
The search facility in Twellow can also reach into your brief summary to pick up keywords and links used there, and your biography information can also include basic HTML, so links and visual formatting can be added. The summary is indexed in search - the biography does not appear to be indexed yet.
Apart from being a great way to find people using Twitter with similar interests, and pinpointing interesting people to follow, categorized Twellow profiles are also becoming visible in Google and Yahoo searches. So I’d recommend making sure you claim your profile at Twellow and add your details and social links to ensure your online visibility and credibility stay high.
Written on September 24, 2008 – 1:15 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last week I wrote an angry post about people who try to kill the business card. Although I’m friends with a couple of these wannabe killers, I felt I had to defend the ultimate tool for self-expression during first impressions. But now, with pain in my heart, I have to give a couple of these guys a stage. After all, I cannot appear too biased. So here it is, a business cards-killing service which just launched in private beta: Project E.
Next Web Editor David Petherick & Robert Scoble with ‘E’ Prototypes
Three Dutch designers Paul Geurts, Arjen Sondag, and
Renato Valdés Olmos want to get people connected with “a device operated by a single gesture. “Exchanging contact info and social networking info with E takes as long as a formal handshake”, Renato explained when I interviewed him at The Next Web Conference.
Eventually, the three guys want to have specially designed hardware that makes this contact exchange possible. While they’re looking for investors to make this production process possible, they’ve also worked on a service that does the same thing, but with (most) mobile phones. Just a few clicks and you’re connected with your new contact on the services you desire, like LinkedIN.
This social network isn’t actually yet integrated. The beta now works with Twitter, Soocial, and the network of the conference they’re launching at this week, Picnic. Integration with delicious, Netlog, and Last.fm is coming soon.
For now, Renato told me he’s excited to hear your feedback about the UI and the connectivity between different devices. So give it a shot, the first 25 lucky people who leave a comment will receive an invite from me.
Written on June 24, 2008 – 9:54 am Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
I just got a new stack of business cards. Since I’m working in the web industry, they keep flying away from my hands. Web professionals are just eager to get connected, so sometimes they hand over their card while still introducing themselves. Not my really my style, as I like to get an impression of a person, and then see his card. That way I won’t forget the faces by 75 percent of the cards I collect throughout a conference. But hey, that’s just not how it goes in the 2.0 world. So it’s not surprising that services like London-based Retaggr pop up.
Co-founder Ivailo Jordanov mailed me that his service allows people to consolidate their online presence by creating interactive business cards where they can add widgets and links for all their online profiles and data. Whenever a site/ blog owner has made his page Retaggr compatible, a little pop-up shows up with the essential info about the person. Sort of like the Firefox LinkedIN plugin. You can also tag photos, like your Facebook friends do. It looks like this:
This feature totally fits in the whole idea of giving away your card in the wink of an eye, a blog comment is reason enough - so I guess most Web 2.0 people like it.
Jordanov and his team will have to give a lot of business cards themselves these days, as their service lives or dies with the adoption by blogs and sites. He told me that they’ll be announcing some interesting partnerships - like the one they closed with the Italian version of Twitter, BeeMood.com. Only then, Retaggr might become serious competition for services with a similar feature (think Disqus).
Written on November 11, 2008 – 7:48 am
Written on October 1, 2008 – 11:00 am
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