Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 28th March 2009
3 COMMENTS 
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The iPod shuffle Happy Hour started last night and we already shipped TWO iPod shuffles since then!
You have until Sunday evening to buy a ticket for The Next Web Conference 2009 and get a free iPod Shuffle.
More details:
http://thenextweb.com/2009/03/26/free-ipod-nano-web-ticket/
Buy ticket + Free iPod shuffle:
https://thenextweb.paydro.net/event/the-next-web-conference/ipodshuffle
The Next Web Conference 2009:
This will be the 4th edition of The Next Web Conference. We’re looking forward to welcoming 900 web professionals for 3 days of interesting talks, business and fun at The Next Web in the city we love so much; Amsterdam.
The Next Web conference is known as one of the best networking events in Europe. We’ll welcome a blend of decision makers from the European & American Internet scene, technology entrepreneurs, start-ups, innovators, along with venture capitalists, industry journalist, bloggers, and senior level executives.
Written on 26th March 2009
2 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Yes, that is correct! Free gadgets!!! This weekend we are giving away a whole bunch of iPod shuffle’s, delivered to your home address, if you buy a ticket for The Next Web conference via this link:
https://thenextweb.paydro.net/event/the-next-web-conference/ipodshuffle
Specify the number of tickets you want to have (equals the number of iPods). We will contact you via email after you have booked (and paid) a ticket to find out where you want to have the iPod shipped to. This could be a different address then where the invoice would be send to. Like your mothers, boy- or girlfriend or boss home address…
The iPod shuffle:
The new iPod shuffle is amazingly small and even easier to use. The controls are now conveniently located on the earbud cord. It’s so easy, you can use it with your eyes closed. With the press of a button, VoiceOver tells you what song is playing and who’s performing it. It tells you the names of your playlists, too.
With 4GB of storage, iPod shuffle can now hold up to 1,000 songs. So your music library can go with you. And you can now sync multiple playlists for the perfect mix for any mood.
The Next Web Conference 2009:
This will be the 4th edition of The Next Web Conference. We’re looking forward to welcome 900 web professionals for 3 days of interesting talks, business and fun at The Next Web in the city we love so much; Amsterdam.
The Next Web conference is known as one of the best networking events in Europe. We’ll welcome a blend of decision makers from the European & American Internet scene, technology entrepreneurs, start-ups, innovators, along with venture capitalists, industry journalist, bloggers, and senior level executives.
Written on 2nd March 2009
15 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
It appears all electronic gadgets beginning with “i” are banned from the Gates’ household.
According to an interview with Vogue, wife of the computing mogul, Melinda Gates, is quoted as saying:
There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household. But iPods and iPhones are two things we don’t get for our kids.
You can just imagine them sat round the table on MacWorld day when iPod’s and iPhones are given their updates, refusing to mention “those updates to those products from that company named after a fruit who likes to name their products with an i prefix”
Mrs Gates does occasionally find herself slapping herself on the wrist:
Every now and then I look at my friends and say ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t mind having that iPhone’
She’s only human after all…
via Geeksugar.
Written on 1st October 2008
10 COMMENTS
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
I just stumbled upon Australia based BudTrap, a company creating and marketing a neat product with the same name that provides an adequate solution for dealing with tangling earbuds. They’ve done a pretty good job at explaining what it’s all about on their good-looking website (they really have a keen sense of design), but make sure you check out the video demo below too.
For now, the BudTrap is completely free, but the beta version currently only fits the iPod Nano Gen 3.
The BudTrap’s patented DuoGrip technology lets you:
- Quickly wind your headphones “Naturally”
- Safely & Securely retain your headphones
- Fits Snugly to iPod for use with most cases
- Easily Sync, stays with your Earbuds
- Change colours to suit your mood.
If you wanna keep track of BudTrap, go follow their blog or become a fan on Facebook.
Written on 8th September 2008
1 COMMENT
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Apple has admitted that 52-year old Kane Kramer, a British man who left school at 15, is the inventor behind the iPod. Kramer says he came up with the technology that drives the digital music player nearly 30 years ago.
Documents filed by Apple in a court case show the US firm effectively acknowledges him as the father of the iPod. They even flew Kramer to its headquarters to give evidence in its defence during a legal wrangle with another firm, Burst.com, which claimed it held patents to technology in the iPod and deserved a cut of Apple’s £89 billion profits. The dispute between Apple and Burst.com has since been settled confidentially out of court, mainly thanks to the help of the Brit.
Kramer’s design was made in a technological era that allowed for only 3,5 minutes of music to be held on a memory chip. He rightly anticipated long-term improvements in portable data storage and patented the device, which he called the IXI, worldwide. But in 1988, after a boardroom split, he could not afford to renew the filing.
He is now negotiating with Apple to gain some compensation from the copyright that he owns on the drawings.
And this is probably the funniest quote from the Daily Mail article:
‘I can’t even bring myself to buy an iPod for myself,’ he said. ‘Apple did give me one but it broke down after eight months.’
The man is currently starting up a new business for himself after his furniture design business was closed: he is working on an invention called the Monicall which will allow people to have phone calls recorded and emailed to the various parties as an audio file.
Written on 7th September 2008
12 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
So far, I haven’t reported about the whole Nano buzz. Kevin Rose’s guesses, the sneering reactions from the blogosphere, the “Let’s Rock” invitation from Apple and the leaked photos: it’s all one big joke to me. And although a lot of Apple fanboys seem to think about it as matter of life and death, there are actually some who seem to agree with me. Like Lonnie Lazar from Cult of Mac. He created a Keynote bingo card to keep all the attendees at the Yerba Buena Center entertained. Cool move! After all, it was a success with Leah Culver at Supernova. So here’s my plan of action.
- Let’s vote Lazar’s post to Digg’s frontpage (click) to get it under the attention of all the fanboys out there.
- Let one of these fanboys create an bingo app (that actually generates different cards)
- Install this thing en masse, and start touching away during the Stevenote.
Here’s the iPhone app Stevenote Bingo mock-up
It took me way too long to design this, but hey, I gotta give you a good idea of the app I have in my mind.
Ok, so the phrases are displayed as phone keys. Click one and it transforms into a light-blue button. If you want to join a world-wide competition, type in your username and click “join”. The app can be used for every Stevenote to come, but this obviously is the one for the “Let’s Rock” edition. If you and your friends are bored, you can always choose the first iPhone keynote and watch it on the Apple website. After the click you can see what happens when you have bingo (nothing much actually). (more…)
Written on 7th May 2008
6 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
When the iPod was becoming popular a few years ago and other manufacturers started to realize they were missing out on a huge opportunity there were frequent (daily!) reports of the next ‘iPod Killer’. Eager to find out what innovations were being made we checked them all out. Generally it didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize that the moniker ‘iPod killer’ was born more out of wishful thinking than true product innovation. The Zune, and countless other iPod rippoffs, came and went. But as we know now, nothing could kill or replace the iPod.
Then came the iPhone. And yes, again there are several companies announcing their own ‘iPhone killer’. Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, is secretly (but not TOO secretly) working on something they call their iPhone Killer. The Verizon Voyager is another example of a phone branded as the iPhone killer. But one look is enough to know it isn’t. And HTC was rumored to be working on their own ‘iPhone killer’.
Yesterday HTC unveiled their HTC Diamond. And I must admit: it looks pretty cool.
You might even say that the interface looks slightly cooler and more futuristic than what the iPhone currently offers. The interface is completely dynamic and fluid. Screens blend into each other with great effects. The weather screen doesn’t just display a static image of the sun or a few clouds but actual moving images of clouds or even a thunderstorm.
I’m not claiming that this will be an iPhone killer but I can image a lot of Windows users who don’t want to switch to Apple products being very happy with this gadget. Check it out yourself:
Written on 23rd April 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
We love scoops and we know you do as well. So here’s one: Swiss RSS service Dixero is going to launch tomorrow. Yet another RSS service, you ask. Yes! But this one is doing something new. It allows you to aggregate your favorite feeds and moreover, it transforms posts into audio by using different computer-generated voices. That means you can put the latest post of this blog on your iPod and listen to the audio version while traveling or working out. How time-saving and efficient is that?
Luca Mascaro (ceo Dixero.com) & Dafne Gobbi
One little doubt here though: will the technology behind Dixero manage to recognize names, especially the weird 2.0 ones like blurb? I mean, the idea of the service sounds good, yet if I only get non-understandable audio files I won’t use Dixero.
So according to chief strategy officer Lucas Mascaro and Dafne Gobbi we can test that out tomorrow. They’ve traveled all the way from Lugano, Switzerland to launch the service under the eyes of the Web 2.0 attendants. For now, watch this informative video featuring Luca:
Update: Frederic Martin left a comment saying this kind of service already exists. Check it out.
Written on 15th January 2008
5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, yet in Holland the wireless Internet coverage still isn’t very good. It even seems like that when you’re in desperate need of some entertainment – in the train or bus stop in the middle of nowhere -, the feeling of disappointment is stronger than the satisfied feeling when it IS available. And I’m sure I’m not alone in this.
So it’s not too surprising that developers world-wide work on applications that make the off line live just a little bit easier. Tooble is a recent result of those ambitions: ‘YouTube comes to iPod’.
Tooble automatically downloads, converts and imports any YouTube video to play on your video iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, or even on your computer with iTunes. Of course you could already watch videos on the iPhone and iPod Touch using GPRS/EDGE, but the only joy that comes from that is making up original ways of swearing about the damn lack of speed.
Google won’t be amused about this service. They’re probably working behind the scenes on some sort of YouTube function for off line applications service Google Gears. And now this small start-up called Gridlock LLC came up with it first.
Thank you guys, for entertaining me during those awful hours of no Internet connection. Want to meet these heroes from Gridlock/ Tooble? You can shake their hands at stand S-1338 at the Macworld Conference in San Fransisco this week.
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 
