Monday, August 31, 2009
am I good to go?
That's how they named a website designed for soldiers leaving the military. After spending a couple of years in, let's say, Iraq, going back to normal life has to be really scary if this is what is needed. The special website www.areyoug2g.com/has sections for soldiers, for families of soldiers, discharge date counters to post on websites and social networks, a support system to help you create some kind of planning and stick to it, help to find a job, ... It would be easy to be cynical about this but I actually think this is relevant stuff and very well done.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
analyst of the year award
Interesting read on the Technobabble blog with regard to the election of the Analyst of the Year in our industry (twice-in-a-row-winner Ray Wang from Forrester). Gartner has been elected best house 2009, mainly due to the fact that in these uncertain times they have not cut down expenditure on research or thehighlevel people working for them.
These analysts' stories always make me uncomfortable. Ages ago, @Tijd, we were one of the first Belgian media clients buying a subscription on Forrester. As a company we really outranked everyone else when it came to pioneering in electronic publishing (as it was called in those pre-commercialweb-days). But we were never once contacted for a survey on what we considered to be 'our' market and 'our' industry, neither by Forrester, neither by the other ones. The Forrester guy confessed that these very expensive surveys usually were based on just a couple of interviews, not on a widescale analysis of the market and it's players. Disappointing even if you do not want to be naive.
This Technobabble post makes an interesting reference to the difference between European and American analysts in a context where up to 70% of respondents in surveys are ... American.
Which makes me conclude not much seems to have changed.
And another thing: all the people on these shortlist are ... male. No smart women out there?
These analysts' stories always make me uncomfortable. Ages ago, @Tijd, we were one of the first Belgian media clients buying a subscription on Forrester. As a company we really outranked everyone else when it came to pioneering in electronic publishing (as it was called in those pre-commercialweb-days). But we were never once contacted for a survey on what we considered to be 'our' market and 'our' industry, neither by Forrester, neither by the other ones. The Forrester guy confessed that these very expensive surveys usually were based on just a couple of interviews, not on a widescale analysis of the market and it's players. Disappointing even if you do not want to be naive.
This Technobabble post makes an interesting reference to the difference between European and American analysts in a context where up to 70% of respondents in surveys are ... American.
Which makes me conclude not much seems to have changed.
And another thing: all the people on these shortlist are ... male. No smart women out there?
Friday, August 21, 2009
cool tool!
Want to know where a cyberattack is taking place? If 'we' are under attack? Check out this barometer with an interactive map and a widget and follow the Bad Guys around the world.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
600.000 or 900.000?
In yesterday's news: local national registrar DNS announces the fact that we have more than 600.000 Belgian websites online. Què? In april they announced to have crossed the 900.000 .be domains mark.
I'm not sure i see the relevance of counting active websites and calling them Belgian. It means we did not count Belgian .com or .eu or .org (etcetera) domains; nor that we see a difference between a 'kieskeurig.nl' and a 'kieskeurig.be' which were, originally, one and the same but Dutch, not Belgian.
It's nice-2-know info but I prefer the 900.000 domain names which might make, who knows, the One Million mark by the end of the year, if we all make an effort :-)
Btw: the Dutch counterpart SIDN claims 3485659 domains and counting.
I'm not sure i see the relevance of counting active websites and calling them Belgian. It means we did not count Belgian .com or .eu or .org (etcetera) domains; nor that we see a difference between a 'kieskeurig.nl' and a 'kieskeurig.be' which were, originally, one and the same but Dutch, not Belgian.
It's nice-2-know info but I prefer the 900.000 domain names which might make, who knows, the One Million mark by the end of the year, if we all make an effort :-)
Btw: the Dutch counterpart SIDN claims 3485659 domains and counting.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
new buzzzz-bis
This Layar is a free application. Great stuff, all this 'everything is open, everything is free, please use it and develop it further'. But at some point we'll have what we had with content: a whole new generation of kids who will néver-éver pay for software or applications. So where is the business model in that?
the new buzzzz is augmented reality
Can't be a coincidance. First I read about augmented reality as a means for the Dutch ANWB cardrivers' association to rebuild their old Wap-page into a sophisticated mobile environment using the augmented reality mobile browser Layar. Then some guy on the radio this morning (on the radio!!!) explains some cool marketing trick by GE by which you print out a simple black-and-white design on a page and hold it before your webcam en behold: an animation starts to play on your computer. The ANWB stuff makes much more sense, but then again, marketing could finally become a bit more interesting.
Monday, August 17, 2009
city music @ your service
Cute idea, to start a streaming platform offering music based on ... cities. A location based approach by a club called CitySounds.fm. You choose a city and you get a stream, expecting the music streams to be different in Nashville than streams from New York or Berlin. Or are they? And what is that, 'music from a city': from artists living and working there? Or is 'Amsterdam' basically music 'made in Holland' and 'Berlin' music 'made in Germany'? Or is it music popular in trendsetting clubs in those cities? All tracks offered come from one platform (SoundCloud.com) , guys from Sweden who settled in Berlin and started this dedicated music site. I'm just curious how the selection of cities is going to evolve and how they make musical selections. 'Cause why would I want to know what music is being played in, let's say, Cincinatti? I'd be much more curious about Marseille, Jo'burg or ... Mumbai. And CitySounds.fm is basically nothing more than a mashup of Sound.com tracks and Flick'r images. .. But let's give it a try first. With (again) thanks to Springwise.
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