Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 21st November 2008
1 COMMENT 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, has suffered from an unprecedented cyber attack in the form of a virus spreading throughout the United States military network.
The Pentagon told Fox News “We have detected a global virus for which there has been alerts, and we have seen some of this on our networks. We are now taking steps to mitigate the virus.”
The official would not reveal the source of the attack however, so concerned are they that the Pentagon have taken the step of barring all commercial malware, removable media (thumb drives, CDRs/DVDRs, floppy disks) on all DoD networks and computers effective immediately.
Written on 28th August 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Football in the US
By the headline of this post, you might guess this article concerns the American way of football. But no, I’ll actually discuss the sport to which Americans refer as “soccer”. The sport that their youngsters play. The sport that’s only known for Posh Spice’s boyfriend, David Beckham. But unpopular or not, there IS an US-based company that gets football. OleOle.com is an online football empire that offers fans the ability to share their truth about football, ’cause “nobody knows more what you love about football than yourself”.
OleOle users have a lot of freedom. They can write articles, create team pages, watch and upload videos, check live scores, comment on each other’s pages, join and create groups, and write bio’s for teams and players.
This model seems to work fine, but maybe needs a little refinement. You know, Web 3.0 is coming up so people will sooner or later demand an expert layer. Therefore, the Beverly Hills-based company is acquiring fan blogs. In the last couple of months, OleOle has acquired ArseBlog, The Lord of the Wing (Celtic), Chelseablog, Harry Hotspur, Fans del Real Madrid, Real Madrid Talk and Boca Juniors Fans. Yesterday, the football community added AVFC Blog, fan blog of Aston Villa. Its writer gives an interesting insight in OleOle’s business.
The fast growing football website basically incorporates the blogs. They move the blog to their own servers and put the blogger on the pay roll. Or, like AVFC blogger Damian describes:
On Wednesday night, at about 11pm UK time, the site will be taken off line for a few hours. While it is off line, it will be moved and become part of another site, namely OleOle.
(…)
Well, basically they sort of offered me a job. The job isn’t doing anything that I’m not already doing but the guys at OleOle are actually going to pay me to keep the blog running.
So while OleOle users can still write as much content as they want, official bloggers will function as experts. These US chaps might have found the perfect way to combine community and editorial quality. Not bad, for a bunch of soccer fans.
Written on 23rd July 2008
0 COMMENTS
Joop Dorresteijn, East Asia correspondent
Yesterday, Gartner warned businesses to wait on investing in WiMAX, at least until more vendors actually create WiMax handsets. A analysis that upset Gregory Ofili, the marketing manager with Intel WiMAX. He reacted furiously, but Gartner may have a point.
WiMAX works over a range of 50 kilometers
As most of us know, WiMAX is a wireless technology can deliver up to 70 Mbit’s, and works over a range of 50 kilometers. Implementation is expected in the next two years. Garner estimates that WiMAX projects will be commercially implemented over the next two years.
US businesses should wait
The Garner analysis report mentions that WiMAX will remain a “niche technology” that is especially useful for emerging or rural markets that don’t have broadband services yet. Gartner mentions that the biggest problem for WiMAX is its speed of implementation on the US market, and businesses have to wait until coverage extends to more cities than the ones that are covered at the end of the year.
Furious reaction on the Intel blog
In response, Gregory Ofili reacted furious: “The ‘analysis’ by Phil Redman of Gartner, is so thoroughly devoid of reality, it leaves me uncertain where to begin to debunk it.
Since Gartner’s entire argument hinges on the belief that only the LTE fairy can conjure up dual mode handsets, then I suggest an intrepid team of investigators from Gartner should be dispatched to Asia, post haste, in order to confirm the existence of numerous WiMAX dual mode handsets.
I have 15 years in the Telecommunications industry, and I would expect better research from a fresh faced kid out of College. Such ‘analysis’ from Gartner should be supplied with a warning: ‘Not intended to inform strategic business decisions’. The LTE gang must really fear WiMAX. Otherwise, why all the attention and erroneous analyses?”
4G Networks in Europe
I would like to see WiMAX succeed in Europe, since it offers speeds faster then the current 3G networks, over a much longer distances then Wi-Fi technology. But Gartner might be right, we will see in the coming years. But who nows, maybe the secret Apple device contains a WiMAX transmitter?
Written on 5th May 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The New York Times business section opens today with an interesting story about mobile TV. For those of you who think this is a service born for the niche – except for Asia, you seem to be mistaking. Alright, in the US it is: Verizon Wireless has been offering this service since March 2007, but it has fewer than 100,000 paying viewers. However, some European countries have adopted the service entusiastically — in Switzerland, 40,000 people watch news broadcasts on a daily basis, and a million Italians pay 19 euros a month to watch a dozen mobile TV channels.
Several American and European investors have started to expand the infrastructure on which mobile TV relies, which the New York Times describes as “special transmission towers that beam to tiny receivers in the mobile phones.” In the UK, France and Germany, mobile video services like these are on their way. AT&T is shaking things up in the US by launching a mobile TV service as well.
These rapid developments exceed the expectations of experts. A year ago, research firm Screen Digest predicted that the adoption of mobile TV services in the UK might have to wait until 2012, due to a shortage of spectrum. The new infrastructure might speeds things up.
The big question remains though: who will watch mobile TV? People stuck in traffic jams or public transport? And still, when caught in a situation like this, wouldn’t you prefer an episode of Seinfeld or anything but a news broadcast? I suspect that people have already found their sources for news: the TV bulletin in the morning, mobile news sites, screens in public transport and for that matter, the newspapers. Who would want to pay another 20 euros for 100 seconds of news broadcasts?
Written on 16th March 2008
13 COMMENTS
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
This is a guest post by Stefan Fountain from Dutch start-up Soocial.
By now most will have read about the Zuckerberg revolt (video here, and more), the release of Clickpass, and all the other big news. Yet I noticed something equally remarkable at the SXSW conference in Texas last week.
Building Portable Social Networks Panel – with Jeremy Keith, Chris Messina, Leslie Chicoine, Joseph Smarr, David Recordon
My impression of SXSW has been generally very good, the quality of the panels outstanding, yet the most important part of visiting this conference was – surprise! – meeting people. Walking around and having conversations with the likes of JavaScript heroes John Resig (jQuery), Thomas Fuchs (script.aculo.us), Sam Stephenson (Prototype), Chris Messina (OAuth evangelist), Simon Willison (OpenID evangelist). At parties I met people from Google, Microsoft or Yahoo! in various stages of intoxication. I even got some quick peeks at Billy Bob Thornton and Moby.
It wasn’t until the last day at the closing party when I was talking to a hard-to-understand German that I realized something. This was the first European I had spoken to. We met the great guys from Brighton-based Clearleft and quite a few other British guys, but where were the main-land Europeans? Perhaps I missed them, yet I’m judging from the panels, parties we went to and after speaking to over a hundred people. The statistics support my theory. My contact at SXSW confirms that 3 percent of the attendees came from the European mainland. Although the statistics on traffics to sxsw.com probably don’t say much, cumulative European visits is around 16 percent.
For what is arguably the most important tech event of the year, is the lack of European involvement a sign of something greater? Is it the current political climate, lack of European startups, overkill of our collective chauvinism or <enter any far-fetched reason here>? I don’t know, but what I do think it’s important to be present either to influence someone’s views, or to be influenced and inspired yourself.
So I would encourage European startups and established companies to head over to SXSW next year as it is well worth the money, jet lag, the occasional loud Americans, fat food and other pre-conceptions largely encountered on this trip. I think it’s time we head over the pond to learn, meet and share our own wealth of knowledge.
Written on 17th February 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ayelet Noff, Next Web WebTipr Israel
The Pew Research Center has recently come out with its “Internet’s Broader Role in Campaign 2008” report. This report’s findings are based on the results of a survey the Center conducted in December 2007 amongst 1430 American adults. The data is fascinating and I wanted to share of its most intriguing findings with you.
Summary of Findings:
1) The internet is becoming one of the leading sources for news about the presidential campaign for all Americans. 24% of Americans say they regularly learn something about the campaign from the internet, almost double the percentage from respondents in the 2004 campaign (13%) and almost triple the percentage found in the 2000 campaign (9%).
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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 
