Written on 18th June 2009
7 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
CNet TV presenter Natali Del Conte speculated that Google Voice may be launching to the world today, albeit just a rumour, it did trigger a response from Craig Walker, one of the co-founders of GrandCentral (what Google Voice used to be called), he tweeted:
“no, this is not true. Sorry to disappoint. We’re cranking 24/7 to get there, but not tomorrow for sure”
Now whilst it’s dissapointing that its not coming as soon as today, I back up Lifehacker’s view that it is both intriguing and exciting to learn that he dismissed merely the date being as soon as today…i.e. there’s a good chance it could be soon, very soon.
For those who aren’t aware, Google Voice is like having your very own personal switchboard. It assigns a unique phone number to each user and calls to that number can then be directed to any other phone line. The service also provides a hub for all messages. The online command centre also enables a user to customise greetings for friends and family or ward off unwelcome callers. Amongst other things, Google Voice also converts voice messages to text – making life easier all round.
Written on 26th May 2009
7 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
We can’t help but love stuff like this. This little beauty is a map of the world with URL TLD’s for each individual country.
Created by the team at Bytelevel, the map illustrates the 245 country codes, each two-digit code is aligned over the country it represents and is color coded with the legend below for quick and easy reference. The size of the letters represents the size of the country or territory (with exception of China and India, which were restrained by 30% to fit the layout).
The map is a registered trademark of Byte Level Research and can be bought direct for $35 for the 24×46 inch poster, or you can view a larger version here
via
Written on 3rd March 2009
18 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The title of this post is a quote from Wittgenstein which kept popping into my head as I was traveling through Europe these past weeks. I visited France on a ski trip, stopped over in Vienna by airplane and then traveled to Budapest by car.
I speak Dutch, some English, a little German and unfortunately only know one word in Hungarian. The conference I’m visiting only had 4 English presentations: my own, Ernst-Jan’s and two more. Unfortunately none of the other presentations used the only Hungarian word I know.
Hungary has a population of about 10 million people. After WW1 the country got split up and Hungary lost 72% of its land (a sensitive subject even now) which means that there are about 14.5 million people who still speak the language.
In Europe we tend to compare ourselves to the US regularly. We are jealous of the great start-up cultures in cities like San Francisco and the entrepreneurial spirit that so many Americans seem to have. But how much difference is there really between these two parts of the world? Lets take a good look at some statistics.
Population
The US has a population of more than 300 million. Compare that to Hungary and you aren’t too well off. Compare it to Europe as a whole and the figures look different. There are more than 700 million Europeans. That is twice as big an audience as the US?! Suddenly I don’t feel so alone anymore.
Language
Those 700 million people are divided by language, right? They all speak different languages so it is too difficult to reach them? Well yeah, there are 23 official langauges in the European Union and 65 languages and/or dialects in total. That sure sounds fragmented.
Everybody in the United States at least speaks English, right? Well, almost. English is not the official language of the United States but more than 82% of the population speaks it as their native language.
Lets look at Europe again: 51% of all europeans speak English as a second or first language. That actually means that there are more people who speak English in Europe (357 million) than there are people in the United States, in total!
Money
It isn’t really about the language is it? It must be about the money. The United States is a richer market. But is that really true?
It looks like the GDP of the US was about USD 14,330,000 in 2008 and USD 18,930,000 in Europe (In millions of dollars).Yep, Europe is doing a lot better than the US when it comes to GDP. Maybe GPD growth? Is the US growing faster than we are? I don’t know what the results will be of the current economic crisis but when you look at from 2006 till 2007 the United States GDP grew 4.9% and our GDP grew 16%.
Maybe you say I’m making these numbers up as a biased European? Nope, they are from the CIA World Fact Book. Surely the CIA can be trusted on their own numbers?
The more I think about it the more interesting Europe becomes to me:
- There are more people in Europe
- More people speak English in Europe than there are people in the US
- We have more money in Europe than in the US
- We are growing faster
I have to admit, all these ‘facts’ are based on statistics. And we all know how trustworthy those are. But I do suggest you do your own research and look at what you can find out about the differences between Europe and the United States before you pack your bags and move to San Francisco.
Now all that is left for me to do is convince all the Internet Entrepreneurs in Hungary, and Europe, to actually start speaking English…
Written on 27th June 2008
3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yeah, you saw that right: I’m vain enough to hover over our logo. And no, I’m not gonna tell you how long I looked for it.
What you see above this text, is a smart marketing tool by two Dutch guys who want to be the next KillerStartUps.com. Sytse Sijbrandij and Jelle de Bruin have built AppAppeal, a review site for web apps. They’ve created 27 categories – from aggregator to word processing -, containing very short to-the-point reviews. Like this one, about Gmail. I’m not sure it will be useful for you, but AppAppeal can definitely help out people who want to start moving their digital office to the online world.
Anyway, to promote their new site, Sytse and Jelle have spent probably too much time on this world mosaic. The idea is pretty nice and I guess it’s on its way to the Digg frontpage. Yet the execution is somewhat pointless. It would have made more sense if they had placed the logos on the countries they were originally coming from. Then it would have a meaning. Now it’s just a bunch of logos on a pile, looking like the world. Or maybe I’m just a bit pissed of because The Next Web, THE (self-proclaimed) European tech blog is placed somewhere in the Pacific. You be the judge…
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 
