www.flickr.com
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Forget about boring PDF browsing. PageGangster takes PDF's to a brand new level. Just upload your existing PDF files here and convert them into a cool looking 3D publication. Browsing traditional media like a magazine or a newspaper is as close as you can come to the real thing Online. PageGangster is a piece of art from the Danish company PG Publications.
The registration for the fabulous Le Web 3 '07 fourth edition and preliminary program taking place in Paris on Dec 11-12 has opened.
If you are only going to attend one web related event in Europe this year - this is the one!
Last year when I was visiting Hong Kong and met with the Simon Lee & the guys at Bullpoo, they complained that there where not enough web entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. And if there were, they were not aware of each other. I then suggested that the meet up with a few people I had been in contact with and start meeting informally for drinks once a month. Guess what? Today Simon tells me over Skype that the initiative I started have just resulted in the fourth Hong Kong Web Start up Meet up, and they were almost 200! Amazing!
EditGrid hosted the last meetup, Yahoo HK have started to show-up and Catharina Maracke from Creative Commons was there as well. I am really excited about the fact that it was started on my initiative and in one year has grown to such an extent. There is nothing more gratifying than being able to help and connect people with each other.
And of course, what event/group can be taken seriously if they don't have their own Facebook group? Join HK Web 2.0 on Facebook here.
I for sure will come by next time I have an opportunity to join the meetup. Good luck - and thanks Simon for sharing the story.
I had a really good time yesterday hanging out with fellow israeli entrepreneurs and VC's at Herzeliya beach yesterday evening. To my surprise was Om Malik and Andrew Barton (Rocketboom) who I recently spend a few days with at the CRV summit in Phoenix there too. Great vibes, beers and cigars. Networking Israeli style. This is how I really would arrange a conference - By the beach, informal, no stage, no power point,drinks, cigars and cool music. Kudos to my buddy Ouriel and Sagi, Orly and Eyal for arranging it all.
Here is Loic's answer to my suggestions on Le Web 3. This is getting more and more interesting. I like this format. Don't forget to swing by the new group leweb3 group on Facebook to leave your comments and suggestions.
Technorati Tags: leweb3, leweb3.1, loiclemeur.facebook
At Web2.0 Expo last month Alex Faaborg, Chris Messina and other Mozilla folks talked alot about Microformats. Alex mentioned how important Browsers are to drive the uptake of it. So here you are guys, Maxthon 2.0 now has a Microformat plugin!
Supported Microformats:
Give me your feedback!
Technorati Tags: Microformat, Maxthon,
Last week I spend a couple of days on the beautiful Greek island Symi where my father has a little house. Symi i 2 hours off Rhodes by ferry and 40 minutes by hydrofoil.
As probably one of the most beautiful Greek islands, Symi is a mixture between the old & new world. What amazed me was how the majority of the local population still worked in old traditional professions and many of them dependent on the sea.
At the same time, Symi is full of Wifi equipped cafe's and more an more foreigners have started to settle in, at least part time.
The only locals that manages to get a decent education are those that move to Athens or Saloniki. However, the problem is that they usually don't move back to Symi since there is no suitable work for them. This is quite remarkable considering that Wifi is well spread on this little island that still needs to get its water supply by boat twice daily from neighboring Rhodes.
The Greek authorities should invest more efforts to promote Internet entreupreneurism to the people living on the Greek islands. Like this locals could still stay on Symi while running boarder-less businesses something that would raise the educational, professional level as well as attracting people from outside to settle down and invest in remote places like this.
In you are a hopeless eternal knowledge thirsty person like me. Direct you iTunes to University Podcast Collection. Here are some interesting topics that I subcribed to:
Best Online Documentaries is a comprehensive list of top class documentaries that are free. At the moment it holds 520 different documentaries on subject like:
Here’s a list of my favorite Mac Apps:
That's it! What are your favorite MacApps? BTW, as for blogging I use Ecto, but I haven't really found any good blog app for Mac. Wish BlogJet ran on Mac..
The ONLY thing I really miss on my Mac is Maxthon..Firefox, Safari and Opera just sucks. The don't even reach the heels of Maxthon. I guess we really have to make a Mac version...
After two full weeks on the road it's finally time to head home to Israel again. It has been two great weeks starting out in San Francisco and the Web 2.0 Expo, followed by five days in Palo Alto and finally the CRV Leadership summit at Royal Palms Resort & Spa in Phoenix.
I think I summed up my views on Web 2.0 Expo before so I won't comment on that here. It is always so great to be in California, I get so much stuff done and have time to meet and hang-out with interesting entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and other great people. Although I try to spend a week a month in California, I must say that this time has been the best so far.
One of the highlights was hanging out with the Plymedia gang on Shabbath (for whom I am an Advisor) and especially hiking at Tiburun with Ben Enosh. It was a great day and I felt that I really made a new great friend. I also had time to meet new interesting entrepreneurs like Nik from Omnidrive, Yahya from Freewebs and others.
The best event was however the Charles River Ventures Leadership Summit at the Royal Palms Spa & Resorts in Phoenix, Arizona. What a great place! I wish I had brought my wife..This was the first time in five years that CRV had invited all their CEO's and founders from their portfolio companies and top speakers from various industries.
Against the backdrop of the Camelback mountains the event was very well planned and with a great lineup. I am really glad I decided to stay another week just to participate here. Besides all the portfolio companies people like Chris Sacca (Google), Evan Williams (Twitter), Andrew Baron (Rocketboom), Scoble, Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Ted Leonsis, Nathan Myhrvold (Intellectual Ventures & frmr Microsoft CTO), Prof. Yared Diamond (Pulitzer winner and author of "Collapse"), Larry Summers (frmr US Treasury Secretary), Matt Jacobson (Facebook), David Eckoff (VP Turner) and many more.
I particularly enjoyed chatting with Evan Williams (Twitter rocks!), Chris Sacca, Om Malik, Matt Jacobson, David Eckoff, Andrew Baron and David Sachs (Geni). Man! Geni is so good. Its going to become so big. David is a fantastic entrepreneur.
The event was really top quality in terms of speakers and participants but best of all - intimate enough for having quality time with each other. There was also time for desert hiking (see photo above with me & Bill Tai making the "m" Maxthon sign) lots of cactuses and a feeling of being beamed to Indian and cowboy land. Will post a separate CactusCast that I shot on the hike later.
I definitely learned a lot, met new friends and was inspired. Lot's of stuff on my mind now, new potential partnerships and new business ideas. Time to head home to wife and kids - I really miss them!
Technorati Tags: CRV, Freewebs, Geni, Larry Summers, Maxthon, Nathan Myhrvold, Plymedia, Rockeboom, Royal Palms Spa & Resort, Ted Leonsis, Twitter, Web2expo, Yared Diamond
Today I met with Frederik Hermann, responsible for marketing at the cool VoiP company Jajah outside the University Cafe in Palo Alto. Frederik is originally from Germany and is a passionate Maxthon user. He contacted me via Linkedin after I had thrown out the question: What should be Maxthon's EU/US distribution strategy. It's always great to meet new Maxthon user's and hear why they started to use Maxthon and what they think we can improve. Jajah is going to develop a plugin for Maxthon so keep you eyes open. Check out Jajah out!
I am surprised to see how many new web start-ups that are sponsoring big conferences like Web2.0 Exp, Web 2.0 Summit, Digital Hollywood etc you name it.
I have only one advice to these companies:
If your target audience is not conference attendants (and they very seldom are) Do not waste your marketing budget on these events! It's a total waste of money. Your potential users/customers are most likely not early adopters, partially half-converted Internet savvy media people and developers. If I would be an investor I would be very upset to see resources wasted like this.
Believe me, if you as a start-up would instead pay anybody on the street $50 to become a user - I bet that it would be a better return of investment that paying outrageous sponsorship fees for web conferences.
Go where your users are. And they are everywhere. The big challenge is to aquire real users - Go and get them!
Technorati Tags: Web2expo, Web2.0expo, Marketing, Advertising, Start-ups, Web2expo
For all you rendering engine zealots & fanatics out there:
Maxthon is as much an IE wrapper as Firefox is a Netscape wrapper. How many people really care what engine powers their car? A few nerds perhaps. Most people choose their cars based on important attributes as: comforts, design, speed, BRAND and cost. NOT engine. Get real you wackos! If you want to worry about something meaningful there are plenty of burning issues to get involved in out there such as: poverty, health, global issues, racism, anti-semitism, terrorism and better education.
Technorati Tags: Maxthon, Firefox, Netscape, Browsers, Trident, Gecko, Mozilla, Webkit
Faster than a Twitt, Maxthon super plugin developer Neo101, created this cool Twitter toolbar for Maxthon 2.0 The toolbar enables you to post to Twitter straight from Maxthon. Add me as your friend.
Technorati Tags: Twitter, Maxthon, Maxthon 2.0
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Here's a great video with Guy Kawasaki talking about The Art of the Start at TiECon, May 13, 2006. I read his book and I can warmly recommend it for any entrepreneur or entrepreneurs to be.
Filled with a lot of truths, killing many illusions (probably based on learning a lot from his mistakes) about how to run a start-up. I met with Guy 1 1/2 year ago when he recently got into blogging. I remember how he told me that he really invests a lot of time and thinking behind every blogpost that he writes. You can definately see that. He loves the "10" points format which is reflected in many of his posts. This video is a nice summary of the book. | |
I often get the question of how I got involved with Maxthon. I mean how does a Swedish/Israeli guy becomes a partner in a Chinese company? The answer is, thorough LinkedIn. Belive it or not. Not directly, but in-directly. Here's the story:
It all started when I was working at ICQ (an AOL subsidary) and was trying to track down Nicklas Zennstrom from Skype for an idea I wanted to explore. I then found that the missing link between be and Niklas Zennstrom was a Danish fellow called Morten Lund (early Skype investor). To get to Morten I had to go through a contact I had at MTV in London, another Danish guy called Henrik Werdelin - now VP at Joost.
Morten was quick to respond, but said that Nicklas was just too busy those days (I doubt it has changed ) so why don't I come by Copenhagen and he would give me a bunch of more interesting deals... I accepted his invitation, went to Copenhagen and then spend a day with Morten discussing Bullguard (his main baby then) and a number of other ventures for ICQ.
Nothing really came out of this meeting, more due to the lack of action from ICQ and less from Morten. However, it was the beginnning of a friendship that led to countless hours of IM chats for over a year. Morten kept pitching me on behalf of all kinds of ventures he was involved in or was planning to get involved in. At that time, I was really fed up with the total incompetence and lack of understanding of what was going on on the Internet at ICQ (and AOL too for that matter) and had started to look around for the next challenge.
Of all the ventures Morten and I discussed, nothing really seemed attractive to me at that time. Partly because I didnt want to relocate from Israel and partly becasue it just didn't make me excited. But things changed.
One early morning in late November 2005 Morten Skyped me from the Arab Emirates and asked me to have a look at a new browser he had stumbled upon. He was quite excited. 20 Million download in a year! And it was created by a Chinese developer living in Hong Kong!
Since I just had downloaded and converted to Firefox, my inital reaction was" Who needs another browser" ? But Morten just said: "Just download it and you will see.." Said and done, I did. I was converted - again! Maxthon was so cool, and they story behind so fantastic that I agreed to take on the challenge.
Morten wanted me to become a business partner and take the company to the next level. How could I refuse? After I made up my mind I spend the 4 months in endless IM conversations with BloodChen - Mr. Maxthon himself a.k.a. Jeff Chen. It was my first experience in Chinese psychology and negotiations. It taught me a lot of patience..
Jeff and I finally reached an agreement and signed it off - without ever having met...Talking about an original start of a new venture. Two years has passed since I joined and I haven't regretted it for a second. Maxthon is an amazing piece of software, but more than that, Maxthon is more like a movement of passionate fans and co-developers all over the world. We have actually become the only Chinese Internet/Software company with a true global footprint. And we keep on growing like crazy.
That was my little LinkedIn story. Hope you liked it. What is yours?
Technorati Tags: Maxthon, China, LinkedIn, Morten Lund, Skype , China, Joost, icq
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Here is a very interesting video about Google in China. Kai-Fu Lee, Greater China President (the man Google took from Microsoft that made Steve Ballmer throw a chair across his office in anger ;) taken last week. Kai-Fu spoke about the current development of Google's offices in China and about the challenges and opportunities facing Google China as well as collaboration between the US and China offices.
I met Kai-Fu Lee in October last year in Beijing at Google China's Headquarters and guess what...He loves Maxthon! | |
I stumbled upon Scribd the other day. And I am really impressed. Such a simple way to store and share documents and yet so powerful. Scribd is a free online library where anybody can upload .pdf, .doc, .ppt, .xis, .txt etc. It also has an embeddable PDF player that let's you view documents right away in your web browser.
What I also like is the Digg-like rating system and the detailed traffic analytics for each document. Other very useful information like: recently uploaded documents, most viewed and similar documents makes this service leaves other document-sharing services I have seen way behind. You can also subscribe to other peoples documents via RSS which is very cool. If done right, Scribd could become the default destination for uploading and sharing everything from dissertations, papers, research reports, PR and marketing materials. The question is just how they will deal with all the garbage that people will start uploading..
If I would be Google, I would immediately incorporate the main ideas from Scribd into Google Documents.. it's really a no-brainer.
Technorati Tags: Pdf, Scribd, Sharing, doc, txt, pdf, Tools, Upload
The Funded , the recently launched resource for entrepreneurs (or gossip about VC's as some would call it), just posted a number of profiles on Israeli VC's. The judgments are quite hard with a few exceptions:
It is not clear to me what parameters they use for passing judgement on the VC's, however I think initiatives like thefunded have an important role to play. If nothing more, at least for forcing some kind of transparency on the VC's. I have seen & heard too many bad stories from entrepreneurs raising capital so it's good that a rating site like this exist.
It is not very difficult to find venture capital now a days. What is difficult though, is to find a suitable VC. A friend of mine once compared partnering with a VC like a software bundle, you have to be careful of what comes with the bundle.. I would say its more like a Catholic marriage. It's is nearly impossible to get out once you are married...
I therefore recommend any entrepreneur to really examine carefully every potential investor beyond the money and the term-sheet, and question themselves if this really is a partner I can imagine to "live with"? Besides the cash, can they really add value? Scrutinize any potential VC like you would a bride to be and don't exchange rings before you are absolutely sure that this is going to be the "mother" you want for your baby ;).
It will be interesting to see once the list of Israeli VC's is complete who will take the lead.
I know some of the VC's above better than others. The only thing I can say is that I have heard the same about Giza from many different people. The other thing is that if your market is in the US - be very careful of who you are partnering with. I would go directly to a US VC rather than an Israeli. The network and in-depth knowledge about the market is key to success (unless you already have the network and only need their money).
Technorati Tags: VC, Venture capital, The Funded, Giza Venture, Genesis Partners, Walden Israel, Apax Partners, Benchmark Capital, Pitango , Evergreen Venture Partners, Jerusalem Global Ventures, Fortissimo Capital, Carmer Ventures, Zone Ventures, Israel, Entrepreneurs
| Here is a very interesting video from the Google Tech Talks series where Mike Pinkerton discussed the past, present and future of Camino development (Mac browser) together with lessons learned from Mozilla and the open source community. | |
An interesting observation by EarlyStageVC is suggesting that Web 2.0 is over and out by pointing out the dramatically falling traffic among three pure web 2.0 plays : Techcrunch, Gigaom, and Technorati. Although a lot can be questioned regarding Alexa ratings' accuracy, the all show a similar falloff in reach compared to their Q4 peaks.
I don't know if this really is interesting or not, expect perhaps for Techcrunch, Gigaom and Technorati. However, judging from my own reading habits, I actually stopped following the three named properties quite some time ago now. I just don't find them interesting anymore. I would definitely put Gigaom before Techcrunch in terms of quality and depth, but still I feel they are lost the edge.
Likewise, I have noticed that Technorati is not picking up blog pings like Google Blog search and is seriously falling after in picking up blog posts in general. It's a pity, because I really like David, Tantek and Peter. Perhaps it really is an indication of a general falloff.
Anyway, wether or not web 2.0 is over and out or not does not really matter. What matters is that innovation continues - and it will and have always done. What is really good will in the end survive, the rest will contribute to the innovation wave but eventually enter the dreaded "Dead pool".
Technorati Tags: Alexa, Technorati, Techcrunch, Gigaom, Technorati, Web 2.0
I told you and showed you about HiPiHi - China's Second Life. Hold the fort! Here comes Frenzoo - Second Life for teenage girls in Hong Kong..According to Brand Republic "Frenzoo, an Asia-centric 3D virtual world aimed at teenage girls, will soon come out of stealth mode to connect consumers in a Second Life-like experience.".Via Angus.
Technorati Tags: Frenzoo, HiPiHi, Virtual Worlds, Hong Kong, Second Life, SL
Is Jerusalem the true Open-Source city? I have been invited to participate in a workshop about Digital Society, Policy and the Internet at the beautiful Mishkenot Sha'ananim located in the heart of Jerusalem. The workshop is called " Jerusalem - An Open Source City in the Test of Time". The workshop is aimed to examine: How can we develop a rich and pluralist digital culture? And, what are the conditions to promote the cultural growth offered by the Internet? It is certainly a very interesting concept and Mishkenot Sha'ananim is a very special place indeed. Thanks to Dr. Nimrod Kozlovski, co-founder of Plymedia Inc (on who's Advisory Board I am a member) for inviting me. More about this later.
Technorati Tags: P2P, Open Source, Jerusalem, Digital Life, DRM
Hyundai is running quite a cool Mash+Seek contest to promote a new Elantra. 16 people have been picket and split into four groups. The contestants then have to locate three other people in their teams - with only a quarter face as a lead. The first team of four to find each other wins a new Elantra each. Cool. Adverlab thinks that this is a very good way to do consumer-generated content since people have to make themselves visible through blogs, Craighslists, Goolgle Adsense - you name. I agree.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Hyundai, Mash+Seek, Mash+seek, Locate Three Strangers
Have you ever wondered why there are is no advertising on loading screens of Flash-heavy sites? So does Adverlab , and they really raised a good point. I actually tend to skip Flash-based sites if they don't load at once, and I dont think I am alone. Taking advantage of the loading time is actually a very good idea for either advertising or information snippets.
I am very delighted to announce that I just joined Plymedia's Advisory Board. Plymedia is a great Israeli start-up and behind the super cool site BubblePly , that let's you add bubbles, callouts', sub-titles, links, - you name it, to any video you like and share it with the world.
The viral power of BubblyPly is staggering. People are uploading their videos, or adding bubble's, comments and links to other people videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites. Naturally most people like to turn videos more into more funny and entertaining by adding all kinds of comments. But it has also become very popular for people to translate videos and create sub-titles to foreign language movies as well.
Another interesting usage of the Ply's (that is what the bubbles or video layers are called) is for educational purposes. Personally I love the concept and can easily see how this will become very popular. As with all user-generated stuff, the users will show us best the way for how BubblePly should be used.
Plymedia was founded by Ben Enosh (serial entrepreneur, and amongst other things, co-founded Cyota Inc - an Internet security company that was sold last year to RSA for $145 million) Yuval Klein, David Markowitz, Yoni Silberberg and Miki Dotan. I was first introduced to them by Gil Dibner from Genesis Partners and was really impressed by their product, great team and vision.
Although the Online video space is getting really crowded, I believe that PlyMedia has a very good chance turn this into something very exciting.
Business model? Advertising my friends - advertising! I can definitely see how advertisers could flock to this..
And by the way, Plymedia is raising financing, so if you are a interested - feel free to get in touch with me to learn more.
Tags: Plymedia, BubblePly, YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, Video, Genesis Partners, VC, Venture Capital , Israel , Start-ups
Susan participated in an Avatar panel at SXSW in Austin and shared some of her notes with us on Avartars, Virtual worlds and Gaming. She also points to a very interesting academic study on Game Studies (download).
Main points:
After a very good board meeting with Maxthon, I paid a visit to HiPiHi - Chinas answer to Second Life. This came about after I had written a short post on them earlier and got an invitation to swing by their office. Kaiser Kuo (Ogilvy) and Xinhua Liu (early investor in HipiHi & Technology Director at Burson-Marsteller).. also joined me.
Armed with camcorders, cameras and curious minds, we invaded HiPiHi physically and virtually. I must say that I was really impressed. I always felt like Second Life was too geeky and to inaccessible, and therefore had only signed in a couple of times and flied around out of boredom.
Not so at HiPiHi. They have been smart enough to realize that most of us deadly are not geeks and need a more user-friendly user-interface to motivate us enough to play around in this virtual world. Although they are just in private alpha, they have come along way with a team of just 60. The user is offered a bunch of pre-fabricated avatars, buildings, hills, rocks, objects and event water to furnish their own worlds. Should they feel for it later, the user can always customize or create any object from scratch as they see fit.
It is clear that HiPiHi has given much thought into making the virtual world more user-friendly. HiPiHi's CEO Hui Xu (beside me on the picture above) explained to us that the service will be launched in four stages based on traditional Chinese creational mythology (read Kaisers summary for an expansion on this).
Revenues will come from virtual property sales and advertising. And I can definitely see how advertisers will love this. Especially since HiPiHi is targeting the young and cool rather than a bunch of geeks in pajamas or "social media stars".
I shot a couple of short clips of a walk-through in HipiHi-land with a simple digital camera. Comments are both in Chinese & English. More clips here.
I have a very good feeling about HiPiHi and am waiting eagerly for the public launch.
(Image above: Sunset in HiPiHi-land).
Today I spend the day with knowledge hungry investment bankers, then participated in "Emerging Internet Companies" on behalf on Maxthon before running off to Maxthon's Headquarters for a sneak peak of a very new cool service and some upcoming product features. Looks great!
I also ran into a cool newly launched streetwear fashion clothes company just kicking-off here in China. Nice to meet with non-Internet related business people for a change ;). The name of the company is Eno , and the conversation with them certainly triggered some interesting ideas I want to explore...
Tomorrow, I have a breakfast meeting with a leading advertising agency am then off for a board meeting. Time is certainly running fast here and it's great to see so much activity in the Internet space. Before I head home I am going to pay a visit to HipiHi - the Chinese answer to Second Life. I got an invitation from them after I wrote a short post on them. Will certainly be a lot of fun. Bill Tail & Kaiser Kuo has promised to come along as well. Hopefully I will have time to shoot a short video from the visit - we'll see.
Finally, if you are looking for some new interesting investment oppertunity in China that are not related to the Internet. Digg deeper into alternative energy...it's getting very hot..
Technorati Tags: Altertnative engergy, Beijing, China, Eno, Fashion, Hipihi, China Investments, Second Life
I'm off to China on Sunday for the Fourth Annual Piper Jaffray China Growth Conference, March 6-8 in Beijng. I will be a panelist on "Emerging Internet Companies" talking about Maxthon. Piper Jaffray is known for organizing top events (invitation only) and judging from past events - this one looks very promising indeed with a great line up.
It will be a great opportunity for networking and potential Maxthon deals. Top executives from Chinas major Internet , Wireless, Game and Technology companies will be there. I am in particular interested in the Chinese focus group conversation, since I many times wonder what makes Chinese Internet users tick'.
Following the conference I am meeting with Maxthon Fan & supporter No 1: Kaiser Kuo, rockstar & Group Director at Ogilvy Interactive in China, followed by a Maxthon boardmeeting. It will be great to meet Bill Tai (CRV), David Zhang, Yuzhu (WI Harper), Jeff and Carol (Maxthon) again - just hope it will not be as cold as the last time..
If you want to meet up in Beijing please let me know, schedule is quite tight - but long is the night..;)
Who knows, maybe I even will have time to shoot some cool Beijing street scenes?
BitTorrent, is opening up a media store tomorrow, Monday. The download site will distribute more than 5,000 titles from digital movies, TV shows, games and other media. After long having been the bad kid on the block, BitTorrent has finally managed to sooth Hollywood.
When opening the store on Monday it will offer: Superman Returns, Mission: Impossible III and An Inc
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