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Web 2.0 movie

Note to myself: Let´s find some time to watch this film. Saving it here in my blog meanwhile.

Web Monday Vienna

Yesterday I went for the first time to spend a interesting evening at Web Montag (web monday). Besides getting information on the redesign of the Web Montag website and getting a copy of the new accessibility logbuch, I chatted with several people about Facebook, Xing, panorama photography such as Harlem Gigapixels and DNS hacks. Cool!

TV is dead. TV isn´t dead.

This year my TV watching habits changed fundamentally. Well, actually they alreally kept changing the years before. Strangely, I even got bought a DVB-T USB stick for the computer this year. I got it as a present. But, I rarely use it. The first reason is I´m hardly interested in any TV programs on ORF/ATV, the second reasons is the pinnacle TV application is performing unstable with poor picture quality.

Also I started watching japanese movies on DVD and japanese doramas (TV series). So TV yes, but TV on the internet. TV goes digital, but not just DVB-T, but TCP/IP. With broadband finally that´s possible. Also I´ve used the ZDF mediathek extensively, which has great content, and add the benefit to stop and start the performance at any time.

Will we watch TV on our mobile phone soon? I don´t think so - but check out here and read my comments.

Link block II

Here is today´s list of URLs:

• worth reading: bits blog, powered by the New York Times
• bloglines has a iphone enhanced version over at i.bloglines.com
• vite.at - Vienna IT Network, including a research and educational focus
• in German: Ist die Festplatte eine Wohnung? (Internet-Recht)

Link block

To reboot this blog, I may include regularly a list of sites I visited recently, maybe even daily or close to daily, mostly without or only a few comments. Here´s the list for the past few days. However, the problem with writing such a list is that not everythink qualifies for this list:

• this has great music: Video Nouveau temps au circuit de Tokyo, although it doesn´t really look like Tokyo.
• pretend-social-scientists tell you how to improve your life at the petri project
• if you are a banker, but would like to be a farmer, you can test be a farmer in your vacation (I guess the other way ´round it´s not so easy): VocationVacations
• information architects Web 2.0 infomap - quite similar to the Tokyo map (PDF)

Polar Clock

Just downloaded this great screensaver (available for both Windows and MacOS): Polar Clock v2. (via nixlog)

An evening on the mobile phone

Just called friend #1. Nobody there. Recorded a voice mail message ("max.mobil. mailbox"). Then called friend #2. Nobody there too. A minute later a call in return - the former co-worker who got the mobile phone number. How about an email? Found two addresses. Arrghh.

Stopped blogging

I actually stopped blogging ´cause I just recently received this email from the general manager of a bank in London:

i got your email address from our Foreign Services Department of our
Foreign
Affairs Ministry I am the accounting
officer in charge OF mr Henry espiratu
On July 20, 2002; Mr Henry espiratu a National of France, who used
to be a private contractor with the Shell Petroleum Development
Company in Saudi Arabia. Mr Henry espiratu Made a Numbered time
(Fixed deposit) for 36 calendar months, valued at GBP£30, 000,000.00
(Thirty Million Pounds only) in my Branch.
Upon maturity in 2005, I sent a routine notification to his
forwarding address but got no reply, After a month, we sent a
reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers,
Shell Petroleum Development Company in Saudi Arabia that Mr Henry
espiratu
And his wife with their three children were involved in an
auto crash, all occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their
lives.
On further investigation, I found out that he died without making a
WILL,and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless. I
therefore made further investigation and discovered that Mr Henry
espiratu did not declare any next of kin or Relations in all his
official documents, including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank.

Guess I´m rich. Have to thank that Foreign Services Department. I didn´t know you could earn that much money working at Shell.

Link list

Here are a few links to interesting pages I found today:

• GMapEZ -- Get GoogleMaps on your web page
• Virtual Earth on local.live.com - astonishing, but you have to use IE for that! No Firefox!
• Since everyone is talking about Web 2.0, it´s good to read the original definition by Tim O´Reilly again.
• Wetpaint is a tool, actually a hosting service, to create a Wiki - for free! Weird name though.
• Alexaholic lets you compare Alexa statistics for up to 5 domains at once!
• Shackprices is a nice, Web 2.0 and Google Maps mashup style, real estate search site. All the pretty, yet even already standard interface toys - it´s so good you might getting bored of it. Well, like a selection automatic changes the results (without a page reload). Plus Statistics, RSS, email updates, photos, and neighborhoods information (seems to be much more important in the US than here in Europe).
• Ah, yes, Windermere is much alike, only the map is on the left side of the screen. And they still have an "update results"-button. Buh!
• Homethinking is another strange Web 2.0 real estate search site. It apparently resolved my IP-adressed and shows me a map of Perchtoldsdorf (I´m not in Perchtoldsdorf, but in Vienna). No agent there! Reminds me of the "girls in Perchtoldsdorf" banners on porn sex social communications sites! :-) But for other areas (in the US), it works OK. Noteworthy: customer reviews ("take a quick 5 minute survey of your experience").

The joys of Opera Mini

I recently started using the Opera Mini browser on my Nokia 6230i mobile phone. Well, I was using the 2.0 version already for a while, but the 3.0 version really rocks with it´s support for RSS feeds. Web pages are reduced in size, RSS feeds are stored on the server - and it´s all free!

Reading blogs on the go, e.g. in the unterground train, is really lot´s of fun. Check out the simulator or install the client software on any java enabled phone.

I think more and more of those people I see on the underground are not just sending SMS messages. Just like in Japan. Now you can be online all the time or at least as much as your mobile tariff plan permits. The only thing that´s now missing is a link between the built-in email client and the browser (in both directions). Plus more memory for the phone. And a flat rate plan.

OWA 2007

Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access 2007 has some really nice feature. Check out this interesting, though rather long presentation

Instacalc

Instacalc lets you do simple calculations - even not so simply one with equations, too - right in your browser and add them to your webpage to share them with others. Here´s an easy example (a bit too easy, of course):

It seems to be easier to type calculations in almost real language that using Excel. I will try this out in the office. Sometimes it feels easier to use a calculator - and a real one, not the Windows calculator - than typing it in in MS Excel. Although: saving product calculations and business models on a third-party, unknown server and especially a public server is a big no-no. Well, simple calculations should - and probably - do only work inside the browser, with some javascript. Still, an interesting application.

Click value

Here´s an interesting quote on eMail marketing and eMail newsletters (via paidcontent.org):

“People don’t use the unsubscribe feature anymore,” said Stephen Howard-Sarin, VP at CNet Networks Business. “We have thresholds set up so that we automatically stop sending e-mails to people who have stopped voting for our content by clicking. If they aren’t getting value, neither are we and neither are our advertisers. Besides, we make sure our click-through rates are based on a group of people who really want us.”

This is actually to similar to an approach I´m using in a concept I´m writing for a new product. The value in the newsletter isn´t anymore in the newsletter, but in the links embedded in the newsletter. Interesting, but radical, perspective and shift of information delivery. Similar to the non-email approach of "we won´t send you any more leaflets, if we don´t notice any purchases".

Symlynx rocks

SymlynX is hosting the MTV Europe Music Awards live backstage videochat show tonight again, live from Kopenhagen! Probably handling again tenthousands of people. If you´d ask to recommend you a professional chat service agency, symlynx is my first choice.

Login at mtvema.com for the video, via IRC, PSYC, Jabber MUC interface or good old telnet. (thx Carlo!)

Registration failure

Spot the error in this email?

Dear Sir or Madam,    

The ERG invites you to attend a Public Hearing on the Draft Work Programme 2007 which will be held in BRUSSELS, on 7 November 2006 from 10h00 to 12h30.

The hearing is open to all interested parties, but prior registration is required.   

Simply download your registration form and return it by e-mail to ERG SECRETARIAT

  no later than 30 October 2006 close of business. 

Downloading may be difficult though. The link to the registration form starts with file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cabello/Desktop/.. Someone didn´t understand how the net works.

 

Worldwide

DerStandard has in it´s weekend issue (in the Album part) an article about the Web 2.0:

Gewiss galt auch bisher. Jeder kann HTML lernen. Klar. Es kann auch jeder Japanisch lernen.

Nothing has changed. Everybody can learn HTML. For sure. Everybody can learn Japanese too.

Yes sure.　にほんご

Your money here

It´s cool, but is it worth the money ?? - at US$ 34.99 (plus international shipping). Wozwear 6502 Goes On Sale Tonight at 9:00pm EST - 4 more hours. I won´t wait.

Today ..

.. is World Usability Day.

Get ready for On-Demand TV?

A new report by Deloitte says get ready for On-Demand TV (an effect of Tripple Play?).

The report suggests:

• Offer content across a variety of  channels and platforms..
• Re-package and market content as services as well as products.
  
• Extend content lifespan by offering more digital content that
  can be easily packaged and sold or rented as DVD, VHS, memory cards,
  and wired and wireless electronic downloads.
  That repackaging could take the form of:
  
  
• On-demand –Warehousing audio and video for web-casts, radio, mobile phones, and Video-on-Demand.
  
• Interactivity – Voting, purchasing, news, games, polls, comment/questions, and web-based chat.
  
• Events – Tie-in events like the American Idol concert series.

In other words, getting TV digital isn´t just about setting up a website!

Actually, I thought that report is another pay-heavy-dollars-to-read-it report, but, surprise, here it is! Or read the press release.

DVD rulez

It´s interesting what might happen one day should the movie industry had to decide between theatrical releases and the DVD:

Barry Meyer, CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment (at the Milken conference): "It may be, in the future, that theatrical releases may well become the value add..in terms of inducing customers to buy by adding various scenes etc...right now we set the value of the movie by theatrical release and then video...in certain territories, it may become the exact reverse..."

The digital area changes it all!

And here´s a good analogy how explain the appeal of file sharing (vs. the revenue allegedly lost by the music industry): Assume, you invited a thousand people to come for free to spend a 1 week holiday in Florida -> 750 people gonna come. Now, if you invite them to coma at their own expenses only a much smaller fraction of the people will come. The same should apply to downloading music (of new and unheard bands), the people downloading the music are not necessarily lost sales!

Product value in the digital age: Another marketing goody discussed at the Milken conference (actually by Hillary Rosen, former head of RIAA) - not mentioned at paidcontent.org: if e.g. a bicycle or a candy bar get´s produced, once it leaves the factory it has a maximum value. On the other hand, a movie or a song is virtually worthless once it´s released, it only get´s it´s value once a group of people likes watching the movie or listening to the song (or rather millions of people watch the movie or listen to the song). So the worth is derived from the value of the product to a group or a peer group (compare: social, network driven behaviour).