Archive for July, 2007

What are you doing this weekend? Fleck Code Weekend…

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Sensation_White02 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!Tonight we are working late at Fleck HQ and had pizza’s with champagne at 12 (terrace on top of our building). During dinner we came up with the idea to work this weekend from Boris‘ house (he doesn’t know it yet).
Boris is going on a holiday and I’m watching his house.
How can we start off better than work on Fleck in his house.

We’ll bring in some good food, nice drinks and bad movies, we’ll have a barbecue at Arjens place on saturday and work.
It might not sound like an ideal way to spend your weekend, but I’m looking forward to it and I know we’ll have a good time.
If you feel like working on Saturday or Sunday and don’t have a place to do it… consider the weekend condo of Fleck.

Sunday thoughts: I’m in love..

Google Image Result for http://www.gapingvoid.com/lovebegets25.jpgThis may seem like a little bit of a strange post, but it is as with a love letter you write to your ex-girlfriend… just write it down and put it on the mail and don’t look back, although it is probably not the most coherent story, she’ll understand what you’re trying to say.

Almost 2 years ago Boris and I started thinking of a new way to interact with the web. We love the web and all of its possibilities. Especially in the Web2.0 scene people are easily reachable (which
is great), companies are transparent and open, and everybody is in the business out of passion, out of some thought on changing the way we do things, improving stuff, creating new ways of communication etc. We (referring to the web2.0 scene) are not only web addicts, we really love the web, we are the users, we are the evangelists, we are the web..

The Web is about people and together we build a better environment/world/web/place. All people shaping the future of the web know that people have to work together to make things happen, that is why everybody is willing to help others (with business, deals, introductions and linklove).

If you’re not in the web2.0 scene you’d probably do not have a clue what I’m talking about. In fact I have a lot of troubles to describe the feeling, the experience of being in this industry on this time. The industry is changing faster than ever and faster than any other sector in the world. The CEO of Forbes magazine said: “2 years on the web, is like a lifetime in real life”
I guess that is why it is so great to be part of this whole thing. We believe we can change the world with technology and love.

I have to admit that we are also a very tiny little bit blind. We think that everybody uses the web in the same way as we do and that everybody wants a better UI and cool services to keep track of what we are doing, thinking, listening or eating. Well, we must open our eyes and confess that most people think the web is that E on your desktop that takes you to Google and your social network (be it Facebook, Linkedin, or Hyves -in the Netherlands). That doesn’t mean we have to accept that, I guess we are obliged to spread the great things and possibilities of the web, we have to keep going out there and educate as many people as we can. We have to open up the eyes of the people, while keeping in mind that not everybody is as passionate about the web as we are.

It is a long road ahead, but eventually and probably sooner than later we will get to the point that everybody sees the power of the web and falls in love with it.

In the mean time we have to hang in there we have to continue helping each other, building new stuff, keep on writing our blogs, keep commenting, keep the discussion going on and don’t let money and power take over.

I’ve noticed that now money and power have entered the game, the web scene is getting tougher. Some people are falling back to the old rules of business, preferring money over friendship, transparency and openness. Lately we have seen small blogwars, especially in the US (Federated Media vs all their portfolio blogs, Calacanis vs Kevin Rose, and now Scoble vs Calacanis). All these little fights are not the end of the world, but I do think we have to keep our end goal in mind and blogwars do not contribute to that goal.

So this is a call for all web cracks, keep the spirit high and keep in mind that Love is the Killer App.

Oh in case you still do not understand the title of this post: I’m in love with the web!

Amazon vs Bol.com

Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & morebol.com, de grootste mediawinkel van Nederland | Welkom
This morning I got my amazon present. 7 new books!
I love to shop at Amazon, nice interface and of course the famous “people who bought this book also bought these” feature that helps you finding new and interesting stuff. But what is amazing is that it is cheaper to buy your books in the USA at Amazon then to buy them at Bol.com in the Netherlands!

Want proof? check out my new books and their prices at Amazon and Bol.com:

The 48 Laws of Power
Amazon price:$12,24
Bol.com price: € 17,99

The Innovators Dilemma
Amazon price:$12,21
Bol.com price: € 17,99

The 4-Hour Workweek
Amazon price:$11,97
Bol.com price: € 14,99

Unlimited Power
Amazon price:$10,20
Bol.com price: € 15,99

The Secret
Amazon price:$13,17
Bol.com price: € 16,99

Love is the Killer App
Amazon price:$10,40
Bol.com price: € 13,99

Made to Stick
Amazon price:$16,47
Bol.com price: € 16,99

That is 86,66 dollars at Amazon and 114,93 euros at Bol.com. So, lets ask xe.com how much that is in the same currency: $86,66 = €63,50
So the books at Bol.com are on average 81% more expensive! Even if you’d take the shipping costs into account ($35,92 vs €1,95) Amazon is still 30% cheaper!

So if you’re buying multiple books, you might want to consider getting them from the USA via amazon.

As of now: Hyves import for Flickr photos!

Two days ago, I wrote a blogpost titled “Flickr op Hyves” about social networking and how to manage your social networks.

One of the problems I had was that I upload all my pics to Flickr, but my friends (who are most likely the ones who like to see them) never visit Flickr. So I wanted to import the newly uploaded photos in Hyves automatically. I suggested a webbased php script that grabs my Flickr RSS feed, downloads the pictures and sent them to my secret email upload hyves address.

It didn’t take long before Lennaert Ekelmans (developer on Fleck and builder of twittermail and twittermsn) came up to me and said: “I’ll build it in one afternoon”.

Et voila! There you go. The first 20 photos from Flickr just have been sent to my Hyves account (only visible for friends) and as of now all my new photos will be imported in Hyves!

There is no interface yet, so it is not available for others. If you want the same thing, please reply and we might build an interface and give it a name.

Isn’t it cool!

My first day with an iPhone

Apple A lot of things have been said about the iPhone, but only when you’ve had it in your hand, played with its features, made some phone calls and have send emails you can say:

“I have seen the future of mobile communication: it’s the iPhone!”

I had an appointment with George Lebrun (serial entrepreneur, screenwriter, social media guru) and he brought his iPhone. I ‘lend’ it for a day. While ordering Coffee already six people gathered around me with open mouths whispering “he has an iPhone!”. It is not only very well designed (as we may expect from Apple) it is also very intuitive, which means as much as that you don’t need to read the instructions, because everything is just the way you would expect it to be.

At the end of the day I had to give it back and grabbed my Blackberry Pearl to save George his contact data, it felt like I had been warped back into time 10 years with my Nokia 6150 (my first phone) in my hand.

No discussion whatsoever, my next phone is designed in California and fabricated in China.

My interview about a two way internet

Today I did an interview with Clive Fernandes of loscreador.com about the web, about Fleck (and its future) and some personal stuff.
It is an interesting interview (if I may say so) with some nice quotes.

I don’t see myself as hugely successful, I’m having a great time and do cool stuff, but I haven’t sold a company yet. If I have to say what I think the key is to success, I would say: be open, be easily approachable, be honest, have fun, think in solutions and opportunities, grow your network and keep in mind to stay personal. I believe that the way we do business within the Internet scene will become a model for a lot of other sectors (if not all!)

about my first experience with a computer:

…..by accident my mom kept on typing at the end of the ‘screen’, the cursor automatically jumped to the next line! WOW! Right then we saw it. This is big!

On the future of search:

In 4 years we will probably laugh at the way we search now.

It is worthwhile reading

Wakoopa guys are hot!

Today, the results of Businessweeks Top 25 European Entrepreneurs under 25 were presented. Aodhan Cullen (24) of statcounter got most votes. In the top 5 there were 2 Amsterdam based companies. Wakoopa, represented by Robert Gaal and Wouter Broekhof (startup arena company at The Next Web) and Dot Kite, represented by Thomas Mylonas.
All three guys are members of the OpenCoffee Meetup Amsterdam where they will celebrate their victory tomorrow morning with cake and coffee!

Wakoopa is a company that keeps track of your software usage via a small program (tracker). The data is sent to the wakoopa server and you can review your usage on your personal account. Right now they are developing a lot of new cool stuff to make it more useful and fun for everyday users. I’m looking forward to the new release.
Wakoopa is definitely a company to watch!

Congrats guys!

http___images.businessweek.com - Europe_s Young Entrepreneurs 2007-2.jpg @ 100% (Layer 1, RGB/8#)

You are financing my iPhone

The iPhone! The greatest invention since the web! That might not be totally true, but the iPhone will disrupt the way we communicate.
One day before the introduction of the iPhone, boris came up with the idea to buy Apple shares in order to buy an iPhone ourselves from the profit.

Half a year ago when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone I analyzed the stock during that keynote speech. I’ve never seen any CEO adding 6 billion dollars to his company in 1 hour! Great stuff!

Before the introduction of the iPhone the Apple stock already got up 50% to 122 dollars (from 82), so the pressure was on, expectations were very very high! We decided to take the gamble and buy some Apple options (as we didn’t have enough money to buy stocks :) ) at 250 dollars. The stock was trading at 122 at the time.

AAPL: Basic Chart for APPLE INC - Yahoo! Finance

Now the stock is trading at 138 dollars and the option is worth 710 dollars. This means that the public is financing my iPhone! What a nice thought :)

But if you think about it for a couple of seconds… It makes sense. Apple is the best selling brand worldwide and are still able to maintain their high margins. Now they are disrupting the mobile market with a superior device. The iPhone is the fastest selling consumer technology product of all times!! With over 4 million products sold in the first 3 weeks!

One tip: sell at 150 dollars and buy Palm put options (they are virtually dead).

Why cropping is a must have feature

headshot.JPGWe were having discussion about a new fleck feature.
Of course fleck will support avatars, but do you need to be able to crop the photo as well?
I think that there is only one answer to this question… YES.
A friend (Nils) just mailed me this picture. decide for yourself….

Flickr: Buddy Icon Builder

Watching the trends

Trendwatcher van het Jaar 2007 - Kaartje bestellen?What do Adjiedj Bakas, Carl Rohde, Reinier Evers, Frank Janssen and Hilde Roothart have in common?
It is not an easy question, but the answer is pretty straightforward. They are all trendwatchers, and according to ‘Trendwatcher of the year’ they’re the best trendwatchers we (the Netherlands) have. On July 26th eYe and Ruigrok Netpanel organize the “Trendwatcher of the Year” awards.
I know that there are loads of awards and that most of them are overrated and b*sh*t (thuiswinkel awards for instance), but trendwatching has something sexy, something that intrigues me. Also I think it will be a good networking event. So if our dear friend Mauro from Mangrove is not coming over for dinner, I’ll go to the award ceremony.

Check it out yourself.