Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 9th February 2009
33 COMMENTS 
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Everybody was excited to find out about the Dalai Lama joining Twitter yesterday. He gained thousands of followers within hours and was on course to become most popular user ever if his growth would have continued.
But no more.
Today Twitter deleted the Dalai Lama Twitter account (@ohhdl) account which now displays the infamous error page displayed here.
Someone, somewhere has a serious case of bad karma right now. I mean, impersonating the Dalai Lama??? How many ‘bad karma’ points does that get you?
UPDATE: The news was ‘released’ via tweet by @caroline who does support at Twitter:
UPDATE 2: Biz Stone has just blogged about the whole thing at the official Twitter blog.
Using Twitter to impersonate others in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others is also cited in the Twitter Rules. Should His Holiness decide to take up Twittering for real, we’ll be sure to Follow.
Written on 13th November 2008
1 COMMENT
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Yesterday, 1.2 million copies of a “special edition” of the New York Times were distributed in cities across the U.S. by thousands of volunteers. The papers, dated July 4th of next year, were headlined with long-awaited news: “IRAQ WAR ENDS”. Surprised commuters happily accepted the free copies, thinking they were legitimate.
The edition, which bears the same look and feel as the real New York Times, includes stories describing what the future could hold: national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for CEOs and more. There is also a spoof site, at http://www.nytimes-se.com/.
Steve Lambert, one of the project’s organizers and an editor of the paper said: “We wanted to experience what it would look like, and feel like, to read headlines we really want to read. It’s about what’s possible, if we think big and act collectively,”
In response to the spoof, Catherine J. Mathis, a Times spokeswoman, said: “This is obviously a fake issue of The Times. We are in the process of finding out more about it.”
This elaborate hoax was 6 months in the making by a diverse range of groups, including The Yes Men, the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin, and Cultures of Resistance.
The Fake Paper Edition:
Written on 30th June 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Everybody who has visited a popular tourist spot recently, knows the market stands with fake handbags, shirts and sun glasses. These poor-quality goods come straight from countries like China and Vietnam and are widely popular by people who adore the celebrity cult. It seems like these markets will be the only place where you can buy the fake stuff, as a court in France has ordered eBay to compensate fashion and new luxury empire LVMH for allowing the sale of these infamous counterfeit goods. The damage for eBay? €38.6 million.
LVMH – known from Louis Vuitton, Moët et Chandon, Tag Heuer, Fendi, and many more – claims that the French division of eBay doesn’t try hard enough to prevent the shabby salesmen from using the auction site as their market stand. This allegedly caused damage of about €50 million for LVMH.
A month ago, another French court ordered eBay to pay Hermes 20,000 euros for allowing the sale of fakes. I wonder whether these two court-rulings have scared eBay enough to stop opening its doors for the posers’ suppliers.
Update July 1st: eBay will appeal the French court ruling in this LVMH dispute
Written on 17th June 2008
0 COMMENTS
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
This week a new media campaign around the negative representation of female CEO’s in The Netherlands will be introduced. And you know what? It will use the social web to its fullest. Female Internet Hero Shula Rijxman, Chief Commercial Officer at IDTV, is the brain behind the idea. In short: the CEO will become a SHEO and will be brought to life and as a consequence the negative representation will become positive representation! 
First, a guerilla marketing action is planned, which is – by the way – not so guerrilla when you announce it first. During this wild action, parking spots of companies’ VIPS’s will be ‘reserved for SHEO’s’. After that, some traditional advertising will take place presenting the SHEO to the public. Also, at airports SHEO business lounges will be opened. Lastly, drama series will be produced about the worklife to the top of 3 SHEO’s.
Internet will come into play in combination with these drama series. At social networks like Hyves, Linkedin, Facebook, Xing and the one you have, these three SHEO’s will submit their profiles. And so they will be brought to life. If you want to contact them, an editorial board will impersonate the SHEO’s and answer your questions. (more…)
Written on 16th March 2008
3 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
There is an interesting viral coming up on Youtube. A guy calling himself Eric Brody started a video blog a few weeks ago and has been uploading simple video’s about his new job, how bored he is and how he hopes to meet women online though his blog. Then, yesterday,in an angry post he told his audience he was fired from his job and was sent home with a box with his belongings. So far nothing exciting.
But today he uploaded a video titled ‘case 1017′ which he says he found in his box with personal belongings. It shows a weird scene, filmed in secret, of an apparent cover-up, somewhere in the US. There is the usual muffled sound, gunshots and shaky camera movements. As noted in the comments the video looks just slightly too good to be a home video so we can assume this is a viral video in the style of Cloverfield or even The Blair Witch Project. Or maybe it isn’t. Check it out yourself.
The ‘Fired from work, found a disk’ video (watched only 120 times)
The Case 1017 video (watched 120.000 times):
What I find interesting is that the movie industry is turning movies into something bigger than just the experience of going to a theatre for a 2 hours. George Lucas was one of the first, or most prolific, directors embracing merchandising which turned his movies into a starting point for a lot of kids who then spent years playing with their star wars inspired toys. Making up new episodes in their own heads along the way.
Now the movie becomes ‘just’ a part of a story. One day the characters in movies might start their existence years in advance with virtual characters on Facebook, fake movies on YouTube and real Google Ranks and online identities. The movie will then look and feel more like a documentary which will make it less clear where reality ends and fantasy begins. With Cloverfield and maybe ‘Case 1017′ we will see this movement begin where the Internet is not just used as a promotional medium but as a way to tell a cross-media story.
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 
