1000 Times 1000

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Originally uploaded by Patrick de Laive.

What a great night! We had dinner at Marten Mickos’ place (ceo MySQL). From the first moment we stepped into the house in Los Altos there was a good vibe. Nice drinks, great food, funny conversations and ….. karaoke!

Marten gave his wife Anicka a karaoke-set for Christmas and as he sad “It was the best present I ever gave her! A massive hit!”

So there we were, laughing, karaokeing and having some drinks!

Thanks for having us over Marten. You’re always welcome into my place.

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Originally uploaded by Patrick de Laive.

Let me introduce you to Ruud. Ruud is the rabbit of Marten Mickos (CEO MySQL) We we’re having dinner with him and his wife told a funny story about their rabbit. Annika (Marten’s wife) is a sports fan and she’s a fan of Ruud Gullit (the dutch soccer player). She wanted to name their rabbit Gullit, but that sounded to much like Gulle (or something like that), which means something strange in Finnish, so they end up with just Ruud.

Wouldn’t Ruud be honored?

P.S. A funny detail was that Ruud Gullit actually plays in the team with Igor (one of the guys), so Ruud will for sure find out :)

I’m at Nextfest as we speak (or write). I’m having an appointment with the organizer of the whole thing (Victor Friedberg)!

Nextfest is THE event on future technology! Victor said: “You come to Nextfest not to learn about technology, but to be inspired by what technoplogy can do for you in the future”. The vibe here is very good, its packed with people (already more than 40.000 visitors), but what’s also interesting that the crowd is very diversified, young kids with their parents, grandmas, a lot of couples and all from all over the world (estimations: 20% European, 20% Asian, 59% American).

I made some movies and pics, but no cable to connect my camera to my computer, so I ‘ll upload them later.

Yesterday we had a final meeting with the travel group at Boris’ place. Boris and I invited some other friends and entrepreneurs of whom we though could have a laugh together (or possible business). It was a nice get together with all kinds of people. We had delegates from LeCool, twones, Live Solutions, Blueace, Uzy, Fleck, Probaton, eBay, La communidad, mollie, Paylogic, streamedge and more
It was nice and I was half hour late on my date with Carolina :( Sorry baby, x.

Today, Boris and I had a meeting with Eckart Wintzen. He’s a famous entrepreneur in the Netherlands and after he sold several companies he’s helping young entrepreneurs with his network and advice.

He’s a really nice guy and as entrepreneur I respect him a lot.
We told him about Fleck and after a while it became a little bit quiet (the awkward silence when you don’t know if you should say something or if its better to extend the silence and wait untill the other party starts talking). I looked at Mr. Wintzen and he said…

“but, uuuhm, but you’re gonna need a massive serverpark!”

I replied with

“I HOPE so!”

I don’t believe he totally got it though…:)

It might be the generation gap…..

I just met the founders of LeCool (Rene and Andrew) based in Barcelona.

Le cool magazine is a free, weekly magazine presenting a selection of concerts, djs, exhibitions, odd movies and other cultural events and happenings. It is also a clever guide to the city’s most worthwhile bars, restaurants, shopping and other experiences, without being necessarily trendy - just really good.

It is an email subscription magazine, but formatted as if it were a traditional magazine
The Amsterdam version is just out and it is kinda cool.
Andrew told me that they have over 70.000 subscribers in 5 different places now. LeCool incorporated three years ago and is profitable. Actually, they are looking for some growth capital to develop the online part of their business and to expand to other cities throughout the world (they didn’t want to say what the Next LeCool city will be).

I’m keeping an eye on them.

Thanks for the coffee guys.

BTW they are looking for a funky office in the centre of Amsterdam, so if you know something…. amsterdam at lecool dot com

I just visited the initiator (Vincent) of HotelWorldMap. It’s a full screen google maps interface mashed up with a Hotel database of over 60.000 hotels worldwide. You can search a hotel by ‘going’ to a city or area, zoom in and click on one of the available hotels.
It’s a nice feature, but still a bit buggy (the search box doesn’t work in FF, its pretty slow). Vincent told me that still a lot has to be done to make it more useful, but the first reactions were good.

Although I don’t see a real big market here for Vincent, it is a nice new way to find hotels. It probably fits better to a large travel agency or e.g. tripadvisor, than as a standalone service.
I hope Vincent keeps developing to give the visitors a great experience. All the best

Yesterday, I bumped into David Fleck (vice president Marketing of Second life). He’s in Amsterdam for an IPAN meeting and to give a keynote speech at the emerce e-day. He told me that he hated us for inventing The Fleck Handsignal.

During boardmeetings at Lindenlab (the creators of Second Life) they give him ‘the handsignal’ when he’s talking to much, and then he knows….. I have to shut up :). “Its driving me crazy”, David admitted.
It’s great that the Fleck handsignal spreaded out into the San Francisco offices. For all the LindenLab employees, I’ve got you a present :) its your own David Fleck (and me) giving you the Fleck Handsignal.