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Written on 26th August 2008
7 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Despite their incredibly inefficient way of selling the iPhone – 6-hours waiting times and shop-assistants who sell to their friends first – T-Mobile has sold 120,000 of those shine objects since July 11th. T-Mobile CEO Hamid Akhavan gives a simple reason for the distribution problems. “Our (sales) expectations were surpassed,” he told Reuters. Of these 120,000 phones, 75,000 phones were sold in Germany.
I’m actually surprised by these somewhat low numbers. Especially in Germany, home of 82 million people, one would expect to sell more than just one phone per 1100 people. Even in the first six weeks. Akhavan told Reuters that the distribution had hit a snag due to its wide-spread launch in 22 countries.
The Dutch have always been famous for their critical and direct attitude. Well, T-Mobile won’t deny this. Since they haven’t received complains from Austrian and German users, but they did from Dutch users. Typical…
Written on 19th February 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yesterday, Reuters published an article that provides another interesting view on the advantages of blogging. Editors Andrew Dobbie and Sara Ledwith have interviewed several gay Africans and Arabs about how blogs allow them to discuss and describe what they have to hide in daily life. As homosexual acts are illegal in most countries in Africa and the Middle East. Some leaders, like President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even deny the existence of gays.
“If you haven’t heard or seen any gays in Sudan then allow me to tell you ‘You Don’t live In The Real World then,’” Sudanese blogger Ali wrote in a message to other Sudanese bloggers on his blog Black Gay Arab. The blogging scene have become one of the safes ways for suppressed men like Ali to meet. Gug, writer behind the blog GayUganda, told Reuters that he ‘looked around for others until I found others’. Gug: “Oh yes, I do love the Internet, and I guess it is a tool that has made us gay Ugandans and Africans get out of our villages and realize that the parish priest’s homophobia is not universal opinion. Surprise, surprise!”
This blog was created to allow access to the psyche of me, who represents the thousands of us who are unrepresented
Next to supportive comments, the gay bloggers also receive hostile messages. Yet they keep up their diaries and news blogs, proving to their fellow citizens that African and Arab gays do exist. As a Kenyan man says on Ali’s blog: “The Kenyan gay man is a myth and you may never meet one in your lifetime. However, I and many others like me do exist; just not openly. This blog was created to allow access to the psyche of me, who represents the thousands of us who are unrepresented.”
Written on 1st January 2008
5 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Every year it takes webmasters a few days (or months!) to realize that it is a new year and they should update the copyright notices at the bottom of their websites. I know, it is trivial, but I just can’t help but smile when I see the most expensive and well watched frontpage of the world display ‘2007′ when it is actually 2008
Google and Yahoo: both wrong
CNN and Reuters: Reuters wins!
Wired and Techcrunch: both wrong
Apple and Microsoft: sorry Apple fans, both wrong
See any other funny examples of outdated websites?
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