Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 3rd April 2009
17 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
T-Mobile Germany, iPhone’s exclusive carrier in Germany, have announced that they would not be allowing customers to use the Skype application on either the iPhone or Blackberry devices.
T-Mobile spokesperson Alexander von Schmettow told the German online site, the Local:
“It is clearly stated in our customer contracts that such services may not be used…There are two reasons for this – because the high level of traffic would hinder our network performance, and because if the Skype programme didn’t work properly, customers would make us responsible for it.”
Tech-savvy users should apparently not even consider figuring out a work-around, because T-Mobile will immediately “cut users off”.
“Those who violate their contracts can expect to have them cancelled. It’s the same with any contract. If you rent a no-pets apartment and expect no one to notice your little dog, you can’t be surprised when your landlord comes knocking.”
Skype have responded to the news in a post on the company’s blog
“This is a real shame: many other operators around the world know very well that people want to use innovative Internet applications, like Skype, and that’s the reason they pay their ISP to access the Internet in the first place. On top of that, there is no technical justification for this arbitrary blocking of Skype, and it represents a barrier to online business put in place by a private company just because they can, because they control access to the Internet.”
Ironically, Skype is currently also the most downloaded iPhone application in Germany.
Written on 31st March 2009
16 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Skype, the internet telephone service has officially released its iPhone application worldwide, and you’re here because you want to know what it’s like.
Well, the app is well designed, intuitive, a breeze to use and above all, it works swimmingly on wifi. I tested calls on two different numbers and call quality was superb on both.
The bad news however is that on 3G, it is not currently an option. When you attempt to make a call, a message pops up saying:
“calls over 3G networks are currently not supported due to restrictions that may be placed on your data plan.”
The app is available for free and you can give it a try yourself here (appstore link)
Written on 23rd March 2009
4 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Skype, the internet telephony business, have announced a new product software specifically for the corporate market called Skype for SIP.
The software, to be released shortly, will allow employees to make local and international calls using their standard office telephones instead of requiring headsets or specialized skype phones. Skype are likely to charge per minute for calls to landlines and mobiles, with skype to skype phone calls free of charge.
The company recently reached a 400 million user milestone and have apparently earned 145 million in revenues in the 1st quarter of 2009. WSJ reports that Skype had $550 million in revenues last year, so there does seem to be some improvement. However, the eBay owned company needs to improve on that and fast if it stands any chance of selling the company or recouping the $2.6 billion they paid for it.
Skype for SIP product will be introduced as a beta product and will be tested by a limited number of companies.
Written on 14th January 2009
14 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Morten Lund, the (in)famous Danish entrepreneur of Skype fame was yesterday officially declared bankrupt. The founder who we have discussed previously has founded/co-invested in more than 40 startups in the last 10 years – the most famous being Skype, snapped up by eBay for $2.6 billion.
In may 2008, Lund sold Danish social networking and mobile backup site ZYB to Vodafone, for a figure of around $49 milion. However, despite the success of Lunds previous investments, one startup Nyhedsavisen has brought the entrepreneur to bankruptcy.
The startup was officially closed down in August 2008 with Lund losing 10M Krona (1.3M EUR) in the investment.
Lund has always been known for his honesty and directness, highlighted over and over again on his blog. The entrepreneur also wrote a brutally honest post regarding the closure a few months ago which is also a must read.
Mike Butcher from TechcrunchUK also highlighted a wonderful speech from Lund given at Le Web last year, I highly recommend you watch.
**Update**
Morten has just posted a wonderful update regarding the situation which I highly recommend you read.
Written on 26th November 2008
4 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Nimbuzz, the free calls & universal chat solution from Rotterdam, has just launched an iPhone app. You can get it in the Apple iPhone store or download it here. Since they partnered with StudiVZ over 10 million people login per day (making it more popular than Skype???) and they add 10,000+ new users every day.
I downloaded the app on my iPhone and the integration with social networks (MSN, Yahoo, Facebook, Myspace, StudiVZ, Hyves) and Chat networks (MSN, Skype, Google Talk, ICQ) is seamless. Just enter your account data for any network and all your contacts from those networks will show up. Calling/chatting with them is as easy as clicking their names.
The app also offers Landscape mode for chat which makes typing slightly easier when you are chatting. 
Written on 19th November 2008
5 COMMENTS
Toivo Tänavsuu, Next Web Estonian Web Tipr & founder of TigerPrises.com
This week it was announced that Estonia’s most innovative person of 2008 is Rainer Nõlvak (pictured) – entrepreneur and visionary, who came up with the idea of a nationwide cleanup campaign titled Let’s Do It! 2008.
About 10.000 tons of illegal waste was lying around all over Estonia, but Nõlvak and Co had this outrageous plan to clean it all up on one day! So on the 3rd of May this year more than 50.000 volunteers – about 3% of Estonian population – came out to clean up forests, roadsides and other public areas.
More than 40 waste management companies supported the initiative with necessary containers and garbage transportation vehicles. The initiative aimed to recycle up to 80 percent of the collected waste, making it the first massive recycling project in Estonia. The usual amount of garbage recycled in Estonia is 10 percent, so this is eight times more than the average.
But there was also a technological angle. Let’s Do It! 2008 was backed by one of the founders of Skype, Ahti Heinla. He helped taking care of digital geo-mapping of the waste.
Before the actual cleanup work started, the campaigners used special software based on Google Earth, positioning software for mobile phones and mobile phones with GPS to map and photograph 11.000 illegal garbage dumps across all 45.227 square kilometers of Estonia. The soft can be used in much larger and dirtier countries, such as India.
Lets Do it! 2008 attracted a lot of attention globally – Reuters, BBC, AFP … you name it!
Nõlvak is the Founder of Microlink. After selling the company he moved to Florida, thinking about never working again. But then he realized: “To do just nothing turned out to be really hard. It’s like becoming an alcoholic – it simply ruins your health. And then suddenly I felt in Florida that I am ridiculous.” So he returned to Estonia and established a research institution Curonia Research. Nõlvak is also involved with Celecure – developer of novel anticancer drugs.
Ahti Heinla is one of the founders of Skype. He is a partner in Estonia’s most famous venture capital firm Ambient Sound Investments. Top innovations were chosen by the InnoEurope center.
Written on 17th November 2008
1 COMMENT
Patrick Cushing, Early Entrepreneur
Earlier this week, Boris wrote a bit about the things he hates about the web. After reviewing the new group socializing startup, MIXTT, yesterday, I was thinking about one of my favorite things about the web. It’s those rare moments, when ideas, computer code, and virtual screens somehow turn into fresh air and real conversation. I love when the web helps me get outside and talk to real people.
These days, no matter what your profession, it’s hard to avoid constantly being on the web. You write emails, text messages, and 140 character status updates. You talk to people on Skype, your cell phone, and your iPhone (which isn’t really a phone — especially given it’s lackluster reception). You have all of these ways of trying to recreate real, flesh and blood conversation. Every once in awhile, why not use some of the web’s tools as a way to experience the real thing? Go meet some real people. Go visit some real places.
Go to an event
Back in the days before the web, finding out about an event was a bit of a crap shoot. You might see a flyer for the event somewhere or an ad in a magazine or newspaper. With the web, you can find just about any type of event you can imagine. You can find business and tech events on sites like Garysguide or get a list of events by your location with Eventful. You can even find tickets to professional events (i.e., you have an overpriced ticket with a bar code) resold for extra high prices on StubHub, Ebay, or craigslist.
Create your own event
Services like MeetUp and MIXTT help you form both online and real life groups to help both your business and social life. You can create an ad hoc gathering focused on learning something new with a BarCamp event. If that doesn’t work, there are all kinds of other “unconferences” you can create — you can even create your own overpriced tickets with tools like EventBrite.
Find a date
It’s hard to watch TV these days without seeing the dueling ads between Match.com and eHarmony. Real people are using these services, and you can use not-so-real compatibility tests to find them. If that doesn’t work for you, try finding dates based on religion with sites like JDate, MuslimFriends, or, Christian Cafe.
Go to China (or somewhere similar)
Ernst-Jan has been traveling around China for the past week with other bloggers. What a great idea! You can find great travel deals on sites like Kayak, Orbitz, or Travelocity. Read about about whatever the places you choose to visit with Lonely Planet (or get paid to write about them) or crash on a couch with CouchSurfer.
Go outside
When all else fails, fire up one of your favorite directions services and walk or drive to somewhere new. You can look up a nice park using one of your local park websites, or find a team to play sports with using site’s like New York’s ZogSports.
The future of the web is all about getting away from it!
Written on 11th November 2008
7 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Okay, Google has added Voice and Video Chat right into Gmail. Read all about it here, here and here or log into Gmail and see if Google has activated your account or just watch the video:
With no desktop app and having to install a plugin to get everything working, I can’t help but feel this won’t take off. We’re still waiting for Google to enable voice for gtalk on the desktop!
What do you think?
[poll id="9"]
Written on 31st October 2008
8 COMMENTS
Joop Dorresteijn, East Asia correspondent
How and why mobile carriers focus on their current revenue model too much and why this will lead to missing out on the emerging global VoIP market.
As you might remember, VoIP technology was initially used on desktop computers only. When these PC-to-phone applications like Skype came out, there were devastating problems for established telecom businesses. The uprising of Wi-Fi and 3G bundled mobile phones are creating a market that did not exist before. Actually, mobile VoIP created a need of which the late majority of customers are not aware of yet today. (Philosophical, I know)
Mobile carriers should embrace VoIP solutions to avoid competition on this emerging market. In practice, they have to alter their income streams from operating calls to data plans. Embracing mobile VOIP would avoid entrepreneurs to take over the market in the future. Instead, mobile carriers are suppressing the use of VOIP on mobile phones. However, mobile VoIP users are emerging quickly, “analyst firm Disruptive Analysis suggested ‘VoIP-over-3G’ would grow from zero to 250 million users worldwide within five years.” The reason why mobile operators are still neglecting this market are general for many cases of disruptive innovation. (more…)
Written on 2nd October 2008
0 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
A group of Canadian activists have discovered a massive surveillance system on the Chinese Skype platform. In just two months, the researchers from Citizen Lab – an internet research division from the University of Toronto – noticed that the Ebay-owned servers archived more than 166,000 censored messages from 44,000 users. The Canadians were able to download copies of the censored data because they found a security hole in the Chinese computers.
I received an email from Ronald Deibert, the director of the Citizen Lab, containing the major findings of the study:
-
The full text chat messages of TOM-Skype users, along with Skype users who have
communicated with TOM-Skype users, are regularly scanned for sensitive keywords, and
if present, the resulting data are uploaded and stored on servers in China.
- These text messages, along with millions of records containing personal information, are
stored on insecure publicly-accessible web servers together with the encryption key required to
decrypt the data.
- The captured messages contain specific keywords relating to sensitive political topics such
as Taiwan independence, the Falun Gong, and political opposition to the Communist Party
of China.
- Our analysis suggests that the surveillance is not solely keyword-driven. Many of the
captured messages contain words that are too common for extensive logging, suggesting
that there may be criteria, such as specific usernames, that determine whether messages are captured by the system.
After Yahoo! and Google, also Ebay can be added to the list of large web companies who participate in Chinese censorship practices. Deibert and his colleague Rafal Rohozinski wrote in the foreword of the report: “This is a wake up call to everyone who has ever put their (blind) faith in the assurances offered up by network intermediaries like Skype. Declarations and privacy policies are no substitute for the type of due diligence that the research put forth here represents.”
Download the report here.
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 
