Sabbatical blogging

I had my first sabbatical. It has been the 2nd of December since my last blogpost ( what a shame). Last month has been a real crazy rollercoaster ride. I have been busy working with www.marketingfacts.nl where I have been active as a projectmanager, managing a team of Interactive Media students, like myself. 

Also my work at Orange Aria has been a real exciting experience. I have been involved in producing a new concept called Blogstars. We had a redesign which has been a great improvement on the website. check it out on www.blogstars.nl. 

And of course! I have been preparing my 6 months Madrid safari. Mainly finding a home for the next period. I managed to get a room in a student flat based around 40 meters from Plaza Mayor. =D.

So what will I be doing now? 

Some people may know that yesterday I arrived in the wonderful city of Madrid. I am in Spain to study as an Erasmus student. In a few hours I'll be getting a tour on the campuss which is located in Villaviciosa de Odon. Really exciting! 

Next to all the studying, I will continue my work for Orange Aria. I'll be mainly focussing on www.blogstars.nl , on which I also will have an account. There I will gather blogposts, video's and podcasts in a blogstar environment.

I hope to have this ready in the coming weekend. I'll update you guys about that once I have dealed with it. 

My next challenge is to get a montly ticket for the public transport, my spanish is not that good, but I think I'll be able to manage to do this. 

Hasta luego! 

Nokia N97

Today I heard Nokia will come up with a new phone. The Nokia N97. If you have a look at the youtube film which I embedded. You'll notice that the combination of keyboard and touchscreen looks pretty useful. I'm a Nokia fan, and I love the way Nokia keeps coming with these great phones! 

Of course I haven't tested it. But here are some of the specs*. 

-5 megapixel camera

-32 GB internal flash Memory (room for a 16 - 48 GB Micro SD card) 

-Wifi 

- HSDPA 

-3,5 inch (640×360 pixels) screen 16:9

-Touchscreen ( not multi-touch as it seems in de video)  

If you have a look at this you'll notice that it has a lot of memory. I wonder what this will do with the way people use Mobile. 

This phone will work on Symbian, just like the N95 and N96. Since the Iphone has more than 10,000 apps. The symbian platform has been opened as a open-source platform. I wonder what succes that will bring.  

The N97 should be in store in the beginning of 2009 and will cost around 550 euro. 

Just have a look at this video. And get amazed by this phone! 

* I found the specifications on this phone thanks to " http://weblogs2.nrc.nl/hebben/2008/12/02/nokia-n97-touchscreen-smartphone-met-keyboard/"

Internet Desktops...Jooce

From all of the Web desktops online. "Netvibes, symbaloo, Igoogle etc.." I have found another great flash based Internet desktop.  

"Jooce is a Flash-based web operating system and sharing platform. They are targeting the millions of people who use “cybercafes” to conduct their Internet affairs instead of a regular desktop or laptop. The Jooce product is aiming to provide these virtual vagabonds with a web-based desktop to manage their IM, email, storage, media and widgets in a secure and protected way. They also provide virtual nomads with an online desktop that they can share with friends to swap files like pictures, documents, audio and video."

This is Jooce in a nutshell. I've been testing the website for a few days now and noticed that it has great potential. The messenger client is not really great "it keeps switching from online to offline and vice versa in Google Chrome", and there are some other bugs on there which can frustrate you. However, the fresh design and the audio/video features works perfectly! 

You can create an online back-up of your music library and stream this in perfect quality from your browser. I think Mac users can have a bit of problems with the navigation, for the apple dock has been used again! Firing up this website will make the mac users controlling two of the classic Apple dock. Which could be confusing. 

However "I'm a pc ;)" and this will not be a problem for me. What was a problem for me was the name of the site. "Jooce" come on! The names for web 2.0 sites are terrible "most of them" , and they look so much alike. 

Jooce, Joost, Juice blegh! Be orginal! 

I was impressed though by their fast and beautiful website, which I'll be checking out again when more bugs have been fixed.

Maud Mulder & Blogstars

If you watch Dutch celeberies website's, you'll notice that these sites mostly are nothing more than nicely designed Biography,Discography and lyrics. Of course they have a blog where they occasionaly post some updates about some performances, and they would most probably have a guestbook. However, if you really want to know what these stars are up to. You need to be briefed by the television or gossip  magazines. 

The information that you "as a fan" gets is either promotion for their new released album or gossip. 

At Orange Aria we developed a way that Celeberities can upload films, foto's and texts directly on their Blogstar website. I have installed software on Mobile Phones so the Stars just need to produce the content and upload it to the website. This process takes really short because all Mobile generated Content "MGC" produced can be uploaded by pressing 1 button on the phone. 

At the moment there is a pilot going on. Maud Mulder "Idols artist in 2004" has started to use the Blogstars platform. We have never announced the website and in the last four weeks we have achieved to get 9000 pageviews. 

At the moment we are in conversation with a lot of Artist who would love to get the Blogstar platform. This means that in January we hope to have at least five different artist's or groups who are using this platform. The design will have a lot of tweaks in the coming days. What is on there at the moment is a global idea of what it will look like in the end. If you have tips about navigation, colors, buttons please let me know! 

I really want to know what you guys think of this idea, would you follow the Blogstars? 

check out maud.blogstars.nl for the website of Maud. "It's in Dutch though, sorry guys!"

Vloggers On The Road

If you're a dutch blogger. You must be aware of Hollands most popular Marketing Weblog named Marketingfacts. 

The past two weeks I had the opportunity to post some video's on that blog. With seven fellow other students I am setting up 2 formats for a new online video site called M!TV, Marketing Facts TV. 

These posts were in Dutch, and to get some more feedback on the concepts I thought I would turn to you guys. In the video's I posted I asked for feedback on the concepts which we developed. Because we think we could use the wisdom of the crowds, in the end; we are producing these formats for the M!community!

Vloggers on the Road is a concept were the community gets hold of a vlogbox. This vlogbox contains a camera, microphone, a manual "How to Edit" and trial editing software.  This box will be in hands of the bloggers of Marketingfacts. 

The Idea is that these bloggers make videos about every Marketing related subjects. They could take the vlogbox to Events, interview interesting colleagues  or could just show the world a glimpse of there life. Everyweek the vlogbox will be given to another blogger. This way the bloggers of M! need to set up an appointment to hand over the Vlogbox. This way we hope there will be a sort of chain-letter effect. 

We thought of this concepts because there are a lot of online video channels which just copy tv to the web. I think there is a very different way online video channels work than ordinary tv. Lately a lot of webTV channels are just copying tv, which in my eyes don't work. Look to blueshots.tv , a dutch vlog which actually is just a bad copy of tv. Watching interviews of 43 minutes is just not going to work, unless it is really special. I think the only webTV platform which can get my attention for those videos is ted.com, which you guys most certainly heard of. 

I think for a starting webTV platform you need original and fresh content. It doesn't have to be a proffesional tv production. Look at some of the crap quality video's on youtube. I think on the road content should be fun and surprising. Certainly with vloggers on the road. Because you never know which blogger is the next on Marketingfacts TV. 

Future Projects

Grotere kaart weergeven

For the ones who didn’t know. I will go back to Spain shortly. I have been accepted as an Erasmus student at Universidad Europea de Madrid. An university about 20 km from the city of Madrid. I will study different subject on Journalisme and video production. Next to that I will learn Spanish and will improve my English. For the subjects are given in English “Spanglish I’m guessing”.

One of the reasons why I went to Madrid last summer, was to investigate if I liked the city and see how the media world works in Spain. I liked this beautiful city and I definitely learned what the differences in media usage is.  I’m writing a big article on how new media is developing and differs between North and the South of Europe. I will continue travelling to countries and write my reports on how this works. I do however want to include as much as countries possible. For this I will ask input from people in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Romania, and Czech republic and so on.

Where is new media going in Europe, what are the differences between North and South, East and West.

This Article which will take a lot of time. I will record a podcast “As told to chris”. Which will include everything I see in Madrid. 

Next to that I’m trying to set up a show which will include conversations between different continents. One of my dreams is that I’ll set up a network just like myself. Media junky’s who like to cross borders with the web. This way I’ve already met Erick Alejandro. I know you other guys are out there as well. As I made my preparations I’ll make an announcement where I’ll ask for people to contribute to this global podcast.

  

Help save Mobuzz TV!

To produce an online video show 5 days a week, in three languages en multiple formats you need money. To be exact Mobuzz TV spends 15.000 euro's a month to produce the shows. Hosting costs/production costs/staff etcetera, it adds pretty quickly. 

Mobuzz TV is an European well known videoblog. The bite-size shows are mainly about Digital Lifestyle, gadgets, the web, 2.0 and other fresh topics to keep the passionate and computer-savvy generation an interactive show. 

Mobuzz is in trouble! Mobuzz TV has started a rescue plan on a web 2.0 way. They use twitter, bloggers, there website and viral marketing to get 120,000 euros before the 9th of November. 

It is a rough time for 2.0 companies, certainly because most of the business-models are not working. Producing all these free shows, and get your income through a few banners and pre-rolls. It just don't seem to work. 

I think the strength of videoblogging is not so much the reach that you have. Of course, you can earn money by putting up ads and tell your sponsors that they reach this big audiance you have. But a business model based on this, I think is crazy. Proffesional (b)(v)-logging is hard, and not yet a booming business. 

It's a tough world and that's why I also want to help this very high-quality show from Madrid. Watch the video where they give more additional information. And help save Mobuzz TV. 

Save Mobuzz from Anil de Mello on Vimeo.