Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 20th January 2009
5 COMMENTS 
Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr
So far, we have been used to watching movies to see how they were made. But that was it! Paying the bucks and watching them (enjoying or not – that’s another story).
What if you, as regular folk, could participate in making a movie? Have a say in what movie would YOU like to see? What is in the script? Or what actors should play certain roles?
Now you can!
Because I’m passionate about filmmaking and its aspects… Sooner or later I had to find out about Massify.com. This is filmmaking meeting Web 2.0 type of service. Rather than starting to make movies from top to bottom this service has the reverse approach: start from bottom to top.
The community built around the site have a say in what movie gets made, what actors should be cast, and script changes. If you have a movie script or music video idea, for example, you can submit it to the site and the community will vote. If it gathers enough votes your script might turn into a movie (or a video clip).
That was the story of Perkins 14, the first ever fan-created horror flick using Massify community in partneship with After Dark Films (the organizer of After Dark Horrorfest).
Many filmmakers are aspiring filmmakers who pitched the idea of an ultimate horror film. The winner voted by the community was Jeremy Donaldson, an young aspiring filmmaker (read his interview and see the pitch). After the idea was approved, the community also approved the casting of actors. The winners were flown to Los Angeles for screen tests. However the filming was done mostly in Romania (because of a good infrastructure for moviemaking and saving on cost). The film is now in theaters but it seems that only some are running it.
Massify is seen as a possible partner by some music labels (like Epic) and some film production companies (like RSA Films – Ridley Scott’s production company). It is located in New York City and has about 10 employees. One of the founders is Brett Icahn and, yes, he is the son of Carl Icahn, the well-known financier (which is also one of Yahoo’s major investors and backs Massify as well).
The new age of online collaboration entered in the filmmaking world too. It was expected because, like building an Internet company, filmmaking has became much less expensive now (better digital cameras, editing and compositing software, more powerful computers, 3D software, Internet, etc…). Anyone remember Blair Witch Project or Open Water (two successful very low budget independent movies)?
How successful Massify will be remains yet to be seen…but it has a good start.
Written on 26th November 2008
8 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Andrew Keen is visiting The Netherlands to speak at Marketing3 today and last night I was invited to meet him for a drink. As you might know Andrew Keen is the self proclaimed ‘Antichrist of Silicon Valley’ and the author of the bestselling book “The cult of the amateur“. He is hated by many tech lovers and visionaries and I was slightly nervous at the prospect of meeting him as a Next Web fan.
Vertically Challenged
The first thing you notice when you meet Andrew Keen is that he is a lot shorter than you think. Okay, I’m Dutch and we are the tallest people in the world but even for American standards Keen seems, well, vertically challenged. The second thing you notice is that he is actually a flexible and reasonable guy (something he keeps repeating throughout the evening) with great stories and a good sense of humor.
The Entertainer
Most of all, Keen is an entertainer. He likes to stir up a good discussion and not because he wants to make enemies (although he has many and keeps mentioning them “Oh, you know who also really hates me! Lawrence Lessig! And did I mention Tim O’Reilly? He HATES me too!”) but simply because he thinks that everything gets better with competition. In typical Andrew Keen fashion, since there seemed to be no discussion on Web2.0 and only people in favor – he decided to become, well, the Antichrist of Web2.0.
I asked him about his plans for the future he smiled and said “What is even more sacred than Web2.0? Democracy! I am going to write a book about that”.
I cringed in my seat. The audacity! Is nothing sacred? Nope, not for Andrew Keen. He makes a living on questioning what nobody wants to question.
The Internal Entrepreneur
At the end of the conversation Keen managed to surprise me again. We were talking about technology in general and suddenly he started talking about his dreams for his own start-up:
“You know, I have nothing against technology, or the web, in general. I tell people to use all the Web2.0 tools all the time. They are great! In fact, my dream is to start my own Web2.0 start-up. Something with good content delivery.
Really! If you would take a dedicated team of professionals I’m sure it would be possible to take on CNN. Using Web2.0 tools and a team of smart people it is certainly possible.
That is my dream.”
A Guy With A Dream
Andrew Keen presents himself as the Antichrist of Web2.0 but underneath that wrapper he is actually just an idealist who thinks that throwing a monkey wrench into the machinery is a necessary act to make the machinery better. Sometimes to get to the truth you need to play good cop/bad cop. Andrew Keen plays bad cop and can be very convincing.
Just remember that besides bad cop, antichrist, author and monkey wrench slinger he is also just a guy with a dream.
Written on 21st November 2008
2 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Wow, this cartoon was made for us! We knew we did something right when we decided to name our company “The Next Web” instead of something boring like “The Web2.0 Blog”.
Found at Geek And Poke.
Thanks for the tip ellemijn!
Written on 26th June 2008
18 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
A few weeks ago I saw a presentation by Dutch internet strategy adviser Freek Bijl. In his presentation he used a few simple but charming analogies to explain what Web3.0 is and what technologies it uses. The presentation was clear and easy to understand which is rare when it comes to technical stuff like this.
I complimented him on it and asked if he could make an English version available online so I could link to it but he replied that he didn’t have an English version. Today Freek emailed me that he took the effort of translating the whole presentation so we could post it here.
There are two parts to the presentation and I’m including the second, more indepth, version here. If you like the presentation do also check out Part 1.
Before I could post it here Slideshare discovered his presentation too and put it on their ‘featured‘ pages so it is becoming quite popular now.
Written on 15th February 2008
7 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Just found this nice collection of Web2.0 offices. There are a few nice stories in between the photos so be sure to read those too.
As you may have noticed we often use these sort of photos as illustrations for our articles here at the Next Web Blog. We find them more interesting than a logo or screenshot. We all like to take a peek into the offices and are pleased to find out that there are real people (with messy desks) behind those shiny, polished and perfect websites. A few examples:
Twitter:
Netvibes:
Facebook:
Digg:
Want to peek into other offices too? Simply search for “Google office” at Flickr and you will surely find some snapshots. A few examples: Microsoft , Apple, Ask.com, Del.icio.us, TheNextWeb office or simply go to officesnapshots.com for more.
Written on 19th January 2008
22 COMMENTS
Sjors Timmer, User Experience Designer
Not long after the phrase Web 2.0 emerged, also Web 2.0 design appeared. An unwritten set of guidelines that demanded that a decent webpage should have gradients, round corners, some mirror effects, a badge, and the important stuff should be in a font size of at least 48px came to existence.
I’m still not sure what they were thinking back then. Did the designers really think users where that stupid that they needed big letters screaming at them? Was it all about showing off Photoshop skills, or had it something to do with the idea that Web2.0 should be clearly recognizable as something different, something totally not Web 1.0.
Well let’s no longer talk about the past, and bad examples, let’s search for good ones that are available to us now. Because I have the feeling that we’re slowly moving to a new set of design guide lines. I’ll present you three websites, that – although they are different – have a lot in common too.
First:
Flickr.com probably one of the oldest Web 2.0 companies that didn’t go along with the bling hype. The interface is clear and simple, but still looks shiny cool.
Second:
Cnn.com, got a new fresh design last year, and is one of the finest examples of how to make a site without gradients and without drop-shadows behind each box.
Third:
Hulu.com, only around for a few months now, and a living proof about designing a good site that mainly exist out of white space. (It It is still in beta, but you can get a login within a day, check for some more screenshots here)
three ways to go beyond Web 2.0 design
So what is it that all these site have in common?
1. Grids and white space
Order your site with mathematical precision, create a grid where each column has a certain width, and stick to that format. Another thing is making things stand out not by making them really big, but by adding a lot of white space around it, some things on Hulu just needs to be clicked because there is noting else that catches the eye. Mark Boulton wrote a good tutorial about it, Khoi Vinh wrote a blog post accompanied with a pdf for it.
2. Typography.
There is a lot more into typography than only choosing which font you are going to use. Without even changing the font you can already differ two text blocks from each other in different line-height, different grey scales, and different sizes. Once again Mark Boulton wrote a wonderful series. Another good point to start with is Oliver Reichensteins article about typography.
3. Colors, and shades of grey
I already mentioned the use of different shades of grey to differ texts in importance, and especially sticking to one or two colors and grey can be easy tools to create an attractive yet clean site. Flickr especially manages the grey tones pallet very well. Veerle wrote a good article and ColorLovers and Adobe’s Kuler are worth visiting too
To sum it up: master your grey skills, keep your distance, and get some mathematical madness for order running through your blood. And you will be on your way to go beyond the drop-shadows and big starry things with text in it.
Written on 16th January 2008
3 COMMENTS
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Every once in a while something good springs up, and anything that can help save people from the ravages of ill health would get my vote. So I’m imagining the CEO of Mamaherb Elad Daniel standing in front of the vultures that make up the panel on Dragons Den, making his pitch for their investment (luckly Mamaherb is not looking for finance so Elad Daniel is safe for now). But what would they make of this venture?
Mamaherb is a very well built web2.0 style application that intends to gather feedback from users regarding alternative natural treatments for ailments. So if you have used cats claw (a herb) to cure your chronic infection, they want to know about it so they can spread the word.
See the problem they are trying to address is that the conventional health system only promotes allopathic remedies, and as such the hundreds of thousands of natural health advisers work outside this system which also goes to great lengths to diminish the value of their natural un-patentable products.
There are hardly any clinical trials involving such treatments because the costs cannot be recouped by pharmaceutical companies who have a close relationship with the FDA, and the FDA is the bogie man according to your natural heath adviser. I think it’s safe to say there is no love lost between these two competing groups. (more…)
Written on 20th December 2007
3 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
FreeRice is an interesting initiative by the founders of Poverty.com. Both websites aim to end world hunger. My guess is that the owners of the website read the excellent ‘Made to Stick‘ and decided to present their message in a new format. And this new format sticks!
It is very simple: you are presented with one word and a list of definitions. You have to pick the right definition for each word. If you get it right, you get a harder word. If you get it wrong, you get an easier word. For every good guess FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. They can do this because they display an ad under each list of definitions.
A brilliantly simple solution. I only hope the service will scale and advertisers will keep advertising here. I can imagine people doing this instead of Sudoku or Solitaire. This way you make the world a better place while you get smarter and enjoy yourself at the same time. In fact, they should bundle this with Windows instead of Solitaire!
The site launched in Oktober 2007 and has donated 10,238,535,870 grains of rice since then. How much will you contribute?
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