Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 21st September 2008
9 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
After a rather spectacular week in New York – some of the Next Web 2008 speakers showed me around -, I’m waiting for my plane to Paris. My energy level is exactly zero, so don’t expect some great work from me now. Instead of that, I’ll show you some great work of somebody else, namely Gary Vaynerchuk – the energetic Internet celebrity from WineLibraryTV. He turned an average New Jersey-based wine store into a world famous basis of a wine revolution.
His keynote at Web 2.0 Expo was like nothing I’d seen before. Therefore I’m glad I can share it with you thanks to the video taping efforts of O’Reilly Media. Enjoy this uberinspiring hurricane of hussling, working after hours, and monetizing shit.
Written on 18th September 2008
3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When I visited Next08 in Hamburg earlier this year, I went to see Nate Elliot from JupiterResearch talking about social media marketing. He wasn’t too optimistic. There are two major problems in this field. The first one is clear, marketers just don’t get the new technologies and the fundamental changes in the way people interact with brands. Although they spend 30,000 dollars on a campaign, half of the branded social network pages only have 1,000 friends or less. Secondly, more than 75 percent of the marketers doesn’t measure whether their campaigns were successfully engaging the audience. And only 15 percent measures brand metrics like ‘awareness’ and ‘attention’.
To solve problems like these, people like Michael Lazerow from BuddyMedia come in. His company helps companies to connect with users of social media. “Every brand needs a friend”, is his mantra. Lazerow shared his knowledge during a rather interesting session at Web 2.0 Expo NY. I’ve summarized some of his lessons in four successful social media campaigns he helped set up. Read between the lines and go find some friends for your brand!
1. FedEx Customize Package campaign
It’s not possible to send attachments on Facebook. Lazerow saw an opportunity here for FedEx and developed an app with which Facebook users could send photos, links, and videos in a customizable FedEx package. This showed up in the newsfeed and users could check their package in the inox. Lazerow purposefully kept the app that simple as he has seen that the most expensive and complicated apps don’t become a success.
- 100,000 installs in 72 hours
- More than 300000 active users in six days
- Most active Facebook app for three days
- The uninstall rate was less than 10 percent
- People from over 200 different countries have sent a package.
2. NewBalance RUN-dezvous
When NewBalance wanted to promote a new line of shoes, Lazerow developed a game that revolved around challenges. Users could play the simple running game (avoid obstacles and stuff like that) and earn Aceback points. These Acebacks could be redeemed for actual shoes. The idea behind the campaign was: “spend some time with us, have fun, and get the product for free.
Lazerow socialized the campaign by making challenges an important part of the game. Which Facebook friend is the best runner?
- 250,000 active users
- 86% came back at least once
- 57% came back nine times or more
- Over 1 million Acebacks earned by consumers playing the game
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Written on 17th September 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Amazee, the Switzerland-based collaboration service, has launched today. Co-founder Dania Gerhardt gave me a demo under a cup of coffee at the Web 2.0 Expo yesterday morning. Ever since then I’ve been suffering under an embargo, but now the time is here to get the word out.
Swiss conference tigers
Dania Gerhardt
Every conference I’ve attended since the last Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco has been enriched with the pleasure of meeting the Amazee power couple Gregory and Dania Gerhardt. Somehow, they manage to win tickets for gigs like Supernova, Next08, and both Web 2.0 Expo editions. Maybe it’s because they’re great company, good on stage, and real connectors.
Chihuahua owners for Tibet
Anyhow, between all the conferences, they’ve managed to build quite an interesting start-up. Dania and Gregory have created a platform for people to achieve goals and project together. Subjects can be “Lose fifty pounds in two months” or “Chihuahua owners for Tibet”. You meet people on Amazee not because you already know them or love the same band, no, you meet them because you have the same plans in life. That alone is a challenging starting point for a start-up. But wait, there’s more.
Drupal and Ajax
Drupal-based Amazee is a rather sophisticated site. Personal and project profiles, todo’s, schedule’s, a project magazine – all can be easily edited with the Ajax-based control panels. Although I can imagine that the control panel can be quite overwhelming for first time users. Especially the ones that are less web-savvy. And that’s exactly Amazee’s target group.
Cold hard cash
“We’re not aiming for the geeks”, Dania told me. She rather attracts “ordinary people”. Anybody who has a certain ideal can find co-workers on her community. Or sponsors. Although Amazee has a bit of sixties flavor surrounding it, the service can also help you to get some cold hard case to make your dreams come true. Dania showed me tree ways:
- Financial Sponsorship – Projects can request and accept direct donations via PayPal.
- Non-Financial Sponsoring – Projects can request help in the form of physical activities and supplies.
- Banner Advertising – Projects can sell banner ad space on their home pages and the revenues are shared between the project and Amazee. Sponsors can instantly upload their banner.
That’s what I love about this service. Dania and Gregory have created a world for Internet users to help each other making their dreams and ideals come true. Not just with moral support, but also with some euros. A good combination, if you’d ask me. The city of Chicago agrees with me, as Amazee has been signed up to provide the social platform which will back Chicago’s attempt to get the 2016 Olympic games to the Windy city.
Respect the web presence
The only thing I’m missing on Amazee so far is the integration with other services. I can’t import my project calendars in iCal, can’t automatically load my Flickr photos into the photo gallery, and can’t add any events to Upcoming, to name a few. When I talked to Gregory about this, he assured me they’re working on that, but that it’s also very hard for them to provide it. Sounds like this Swiss start-up needs another funding round for some extra developers. It will definitely be worth the investment.
Written on 16th September 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Here’s your blogger live reporting from Web 2.0 Expo, New York City – ready to keep you up to date about the latest start-ups and tech news. It’s gonna be an interesting few days, with big shots like Adriana Huffington, Tim O’Reilly, Jay Adelson, and Clay Shirky sharing their views on the next web.
After spending a few hours in the awfully cold and boring Javits center, I’ve already met some interesting start-ups. Like Berlin-based 3D chat service Smeet. Founder Sebastian Funke pitched the service to me this morning. At first I was skeptical, I’ve seen so many 3D, avatar-crazy, Flash 9-based chatting services that they doesn’t manage to tickle my fancy anymore. Yet when Funke mentioned that Smeet is completely web-based and embeddable at different sites, I realized this one could actually be interesting.
Call me on my mobile
Users on Smeet can create their own multi mesh avatar (meaning your character is wearing a shirt AND jacket, they’re the only browser-based service offering that) and join a room for a good discussion or a useless chat with other users. They’re plenty of them, although being able to speak German is quite essential (Smeet has 200,000 users in its home country). Next to text-based chatting, users can also give a ring to their mobile phone – so that they can talk with users who are standing close to them in the virtual room.
There’s where the business model comes in, as the German service makes some money out of the calls users make. Another source of income is the virtual goods shop. Habbo Hotel proved this can be a solid way of making money.
Embed a room in your site
The development team of Smeet is now working on embeddable rooms, which Funke hopes to release next week in alpha mode. This could be really exciting, as you can drag your avatar to every Smeet-supported site and start a riot. You could even watch a YouTube movie together (see screenshot).
Funke presented an impressive list part of partners that will include rooms on their site. It consisted of major media companies like RTL, EMI, Universal, and Big Brother. He told me Smeet is looking for similar partners outside Germany, namely in the States and the larger European countries.
So in the end, just another chatting service turns out to be a company with a good userbase and healthy ambitions that will probably become reality one day.
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 
