Invitation to the World Blogging Forum in Bucharest

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GermanThis posting is also available in German.

Just before I took off to Andalusia I got mail from Mihaela, asking if I wanted to attend the World Blogging Forum 2009 in Romania as a VIP guest. Yes of course! Flight and hotel room are already booked and I'm looking forward to a conference a lot! The guest- and speaker-list contains a lot of popular bloggers who I'm glad to meet face to face, plus it's the first time I'm going to visit Bucharest. The organizers have invited the most successful bloggers from 30 countries to Romania to discuss the “ideas for a better digital world”:

The most influential bloggers in the world: The event brings together some of the most influential persons in the online media all around the world, in conferences and workshops aiming to establish clear parameters of the development of the online media.

World Blogging Forum 2009

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HDR pics from Andalusia, part 2

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I've just uploaded the second set of Andalusian HDRs which I took during my holiday in October (which was over far too soon btw). The first series of photos is available hier. I used my Canon EOS 40D with a 28-135 lense (the new Sigma 10-20 3,5 was added to my equipment later when we drove to Gibralatar :mrgreen:) and Photomatix to process the HDRs. This series contains a couple of beach-shots from Costa de la Luz (near Cohnil) as well as a some view of Vejer de la Frontera, a small village on top of hill. If you visit Vejer, don't miss restaurant Trafalgar – especiall their Ceviche (tuna-carpaccia marinated in lime juice) is just awesome.

Vejer de la Frontera

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HDR-photos: Andalusian colors

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I just returned from Andalusia yesterday – the climatic shock was quite heavy: from the sunny skies of wonderful Spain straight to clouded, rainy Vienna. So I chose visual escapism and edited the first series of my HDR-pics from Andalusia. During the last 11 days Linzerschnitte and me travelled through the province of Andalusia, from famous Sherry-distilleries in Jerez via the beautiful white Cadiz to British Gibraltar. Plus we stayed in Sevilla for a couple of days, tasting Tapas and envying the Spanish folks for their siesta. I'll post a couple of travellingtips and more photos later – here's the first series, comments highly appreciated (as always :mrgreen:)

Sevilla

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Lee Scratch Perry: Blackboard Jungle Documentary

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Paul from Dubblestandart send me this great documentary about the movement Lee Perry started when he produced his classical “Blackboard Jungle” Album, 6 minutes of education and great footage – gotta know your roots!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_82ZMRnU0U[/youtube] Read more

eBook: Chinese online markets and copy-catting

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National markets beg to differ: it's not only about languages, but about the subtle cultural differences which make the difference between top and drop. That goes especially for Asian markets. And there is another specialty about the largest Asian market: Chinese government strictly controls all internet access. This kind of censorship not only influences the political but also the economic sphere. Juergen Hoebarth, who knows the Chinese online market like the back of his hand, wrote a white paper about Chinese start-ups which is definitely worth a look (especially since it's a free download!).

In Don't forget China, Juergen talks a lot about the copycat situation – when it comes to net business, in many cases the copycat does a lot better in China than the original competitor:

As we can see in China there is definitely a copycat of every success story form the west and they are doing very well. This last case concerning the video portal sector in the Chinese market is really interesting, because it is a battle where an international site like YouTube has more or less no chance to win. Bureaucratic restrictions by the Chinese government just kick them out of the market. Once there is a copycat brand for a service that is better known, it is hard for the original to get into the market again, even when the restrictions are removed and an agreement is reached between Google, who owns YouTube and the Chinese government. The reason, for censorship at the moment, is that there have been regime critical videos between the millions that are offered on YouTube.

The Chinese government announced that in 2010, broadband net access will be available in every single village. If you're founding an internationally oriented start-up today, you cannot afford to overlook China, argues Juergen:

As we live in a global world we are in a global competition as well, and so I would say the fast, smart and clever one will win the race and those who are thinking from the beginning on about a global strategy when they found a company will survive and if they are well prepared and know the rules of the Chinese internet market and adapt some issues, they definitely will have a chance to survive in this country as well and will not get kicked out as easily as the big global net giants have been before by their Chinese copycats.

eBay had to learn this lesson the hard way: after their total failure they completely abandoned the Chinese market. apparently, the company had overlooked two major problems: credit cards are not too widespread in China plus the direct contact between buyer and seller (via messaging services) is a vital trust-factor.

So if in the future you do not only want to reach Mary, John and Jack but also Bao, Fang and Wei, take a look at Juergen's whitepaper: Direct Download: Don't forget China

Being a guitar hero ain’t easy

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Just take Alan – a man with big dreams trapped in the body of a born loser. I have no idea who made the song – the video is actually a viral spot for Dorritos; obviously a nacho-like bagged junk food (no pun intended) available in Great Britain, but definitely not in Austria. But be that as it may, the “music video” is quite hilarious:

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Who do trust? And why?

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The Mashazine is conducting a very interesting research project: Michael Hafner asked various experts about their notion of trust. How is trust generated, who do you trust and what difference does it make? I fully agree with Michael: stocks are dead, it's all about trust! And I guess the full spectre of opinions will be quite inspiring – here are my answers.

Whom do you trust online?

Many internet users confuse trust with expectation. Expectation might as well arise as the result of a spontaneous, single act: a promising strategy paper, a great advertisting idea… And the question about expectations is always the same: are they met? My thesis, which is solely derived from my personal experience, is this: if expecations are met, the foundation for the development of trust is laid. If expectations are met repeatedly over a certain period of time, trust evolves and forms as the result of an ongoing process.

This my sound quite theoretical, but my line of thought is that “expectations” may differ greatly between people as may the mentioned period of time. Let me break down the question on a more personal level: I am “heavy internet user” since for more than 12 years and I've started online publishing 10 years ago. During this time I have made a lot of mistakes, have often been listening to the wrong people, but occassionally I met the right ones – the experts I could learn a lot from. I could never tell instantly (and in most cases, I still can't). It was the repeated prove that convinced me that what those persons had to say was extremely valuable to me. Bottom line: I keep listening.

Before I finish my answer, let's look at the question from a different angle: What does “trust” mean in a technical way? The idea of trust is widely implemented into the structure of the net. Google serves as the primary net gate for the majority of users, and their smart engineers constantly have to solve one problem: which URLs can we trust? Google manifested this trust problem via the PageRank number. The idea is that the more websites link a ressource, the more important it must be. The strategy is trying to find a measurable factor that can be expressed via an algorithm – this idea made big G the most successful online company ever. Don't misunderstand me: I fully believe that “trust” can only evolve in personal relationships, but it's the idea of trust which helped Google beat the competition.

What is your trust build on?

I guess my previous answer pretty much answers this question: my trust is based on repeaed experiences, on expectations which have been met many times.

What difference does trust make?

Let me paraphrase J. R. R. Tolkien here: “One difference to rule them all!” But seriously: trust is *the* most important factor in decision-making. People make decisions based on information, they form their opinion based on a number of sources. But not all bits and pieces of information are equal: it's a vital part of the human condition that we value various opinions based on trust. I'll use an example from my daily work to illustrate my point: In my daily work as an online consultant I use a lot of software. To me, a great piece of software primarily does one thing: it helps me save time. It speeds up tedious tasks and helps me get my work done faster. I have discovered a lot of useful programs on the internet, mostly via blog posts – niche programs like the kind SEOs use to build links. If a blogger who I trust recommends a new piece of software, I'm much more inclined to trying (and buying) it than if I read a positive review by some person I don't know. Of course, this is the basic principle of special interest magazines (which have been around long before the internet) – but while traditional media struggle to establish trust between an editorial department and their readership, the internet (and social media) fosters trust relationships on a much more personal level.

What do you think about trust?

Do you agree with my answers? Or do you think trust is completely overrated? Let me know your opinion in the comment section!

Video-Interview: Guy Kawasaki on the state of social media

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Last week, Guy Kawasaki visited Vienna to give a keynote lecture about innovation and the art of the start. I was the lucky blogger who got the chance to interview Guy – and I enjoyed the interview a lot. Guy has always been a major influence for me, his ideas have inspired me for years. We talked about his impressive biography, his Twitter strategy (Guy has more than 160k Followers) and his current project Alltop.com. The complete interview is 33 minutes long – I split it into five topical parts for your viewing pleasure. I also edited a full version, so if you prefer to watch one clip, navigate to the end of this posting.

Part 1: Guy Kawasaki's Bio and his e-mail inbox

His succesful career at Apple where he worked as a tech evangelist made Guy Kawasaki very famous. Few know though that he started his career in the jewelry business. In the first part of the interview, Guy talks about his biography and he explains how a web celebrity like him deals with tons of e-mails every day. Hint: purge everything that's older than 3 weeks!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6538754[/vimeo]

Part 2: Guy's Twitter strategy

On Twitter, Guy has more than 160.000 followers. In the second part of the interview he explains his micro-blogging strategy in-depth. For Guy, Twitter is one of the best marketing channels, and he is putting a lot effort into offering lots of content to create a vivid environment for his marketing messages.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6540038[/vimeo]

Part 3: Guy Kawasaki about Facebook, Social Traffic and Online Reputation Management

Guy told me that he honestly doesn't understand Facebook – in his opinion, it's a place to “pull” people as opposed to Twitter which acts as a “Push” media. In this part we talk about the benefits of social traffic and the two-sided coin called online reputation management: Don't be afraid, use Facebook to create the image that helps your career!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6540300[/vimeo]

Part 4: Guy Kawasaki about Alltop

Alltop.com currently is Guy's main project: the RSS site aggregates the most popular feeds on nearly 2000 topics. The site is not meant to serve geeks, but appeals to the mainstream user – Guy explains the concept and also has got a few tricks to offer for power-users.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6544551[/vimeo]

Part 5: Guy Kawasaki about blogging and entrepreneurship

In the last part of our talk Guy explains his thoughts about blogging and tells the true story of how he left apple and became an entrepreneur.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6544974[/vimeo]

Full interview: Guy Kawasaki on the state of social media

This is the full cut – same content, but edited into one video. If you prefer to watch our whole talk in one video, just go with this clip:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6545325[/vimeo]

What do you think?

Do you agree with Guy? What is your opinion about the future of Facebook and Twitter? Have you tried Alltop? I'm curious about your comments!

Guy Kawasaki: Interview Teaser

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As you already know I interviewed Guy Kawasaki last week while he was in Vienna to give a keynote about the Art of Innovation. Those who know me well were able to predict my excitement! To make a long story short: Since I started blogging a couple of years ago, three web experts (and celebs :mrgreen:) constantly turned up on my radar, and I learned a lot from them. Let me explain my excitement in detail: Trust, every web 2.0 evangelist knows that, does not evolve as the result of a single action. Trust is an emotional state which is developed and fostered over time. And when you're a blogger, you're used to scanning gazillions of RSS feeds – it takes a while to figure out the truly important ones. There are three blogs (or RSS) feeds that I don't just scan, but study carefully, because they gave me so much inspiration and so many ideas again and again: Seth Godin, Jeremy Shoemaker and – yes, you guessed it right – Guy Kawasaki.

So I was extremely happy when I got the chance (thx to Zmary from BusinessKitchen and Gerhard Laga from WKO) to sit down with Guy at Vienna's famous coffee shop Caf? Sperl and ask him a couple of questions about his career and his thoughts on the current state of social media. I've edited the interview this weekend and will publish it on Tuesday (2009-09-15) – here's a teaser – keep coming back on Tuesday for the full package (including some brilliant Twitter strategy thoughts!):

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6550367[/vimeo] Read more

New Twitter Terms-of-Service, open door for advertising

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Today, Twitter founder Biz stone sent out an official newsletter informing all tweepers about the new ToS (Terms of Service). In his e-mail, Biz outlines that shaping the foundations of Twitter is an ongoing project:

As Twitter has evolved, we've gained a better understanding of how folks use the service.

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Guy Kawasaki says: Follow datadirt :-)

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Today I met Guy Kawaskai who is currently in Vienna to give a keynote at Schloss Sch?nbrunn tomorrow. Thanks to Guy and Zmari – doing the interview was great! Guy is not only smart, but a very nice person as well. I'll edit the video next week and upload our complete talk by the end of the week.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/6504946[/vimeo] Read more