DIGITAL. TRENDS. FUTURE.

30
Jan

Talks at DLD’06

During the Digital Lifestyle Day we met many interesting people and had some great talks.

Here is a picture of Marissa Mayer (Google), me and Timm Kehler (BMW Group).
DLD 2006 - Mayer - Kehler - Metzger

24
Jan

Gratulations

Tony DLD 2006

Gratulations to Tony. He won the trip to the Google Headquarter at the Digital Lifestyle Day 2006. Tony is the Manager of the BMW Podcast and Video Podcast.
So I think he will enjoy the tour to the most innovative search-company based in Silicon Valley.

Have a nice trip :-).

24
Jan

Digital Lifestyle Day 2006

CScout DLD 2006

Today is the second day of Burda’s Digital Lifestyle Day 2006. During the two days there are creative people, entrepreneurs, ventures capitalist and many managers from 26 countries meeting in munich.

CScout has an exhibition area and presents some cool gadgets.

Furthermore the “Tomorrow Podcast Show” did a interview with me at the DLD. You can hear it here.

04
Jan

German Search is important.

This deal shows how important local search is.
– And how difficult it is to search accross countries and languages.

Aftek Buys German Search Firm Arexera
(Arexera is based in Munich, Germany.)
Indian tech company now holds huge chunk in the search engine Seekport and plans to launch Arabic and Indian search engines.

Via RedHerring.

04
Jan

Hot Companies 2006

I will have lunch with a Venture Capital Partner today.
We meet from time to time to speak about the latest trends and innovations.

We will speak about interesting StartUps and emerging Businesses. From my point of view here are some companies which are worth watching in 2006:

Blogosphere:
SixApart
Technorati

Pay By Touch: The Pay By Touch service is a service that allows you to pay for purchases or cash checks with just the touch of your finger.

Mobile World:
Semapedia – the physical wikipedia.
CellFire – mobile couponing
ScanR – mobile scanner, copier or fax.
Zogo – mobile online flirting community.
MobilePlay
Dijiji – mobile media agency

Financial World:
Zopa
Fundable

Online Office Software: The race is on. Here are some companies in the fielf of online office software.
Zoho Writer: Online Word Processor, Writely – Word Online, Writeboard (See 37 Signals), Bindows – Online Office, Gliffy, NumSum – Online Excel, Zimbra.

Ajax Applications:
AjaxTrans, very useful translation tool.
Meebo: Instant Messanging on an online platform. Easy to use behind company firewall or in internet cafes.
Riya: A online image search with innovative face recognition system.

Knowledge Society:
Squidoo, everone’s an expert on something.
DIGG

Beyong Flickr: Bubbleshare, Fotolia.

Merchandising on next level: GoodStorm (Storytelling at its best – See “Easy Ethics Trend“), CafePress, Zazzle, Spreadshirt.

Innovative Technology: nTag – “Ego Badges” for events,

VoIP: Adomo – Voicemail via VoIP

Security: VoiceVault – Voice Recognition,

Online Social Networking 2.0: Passado, VidiLife – Free Video Webcasting for Everybody, Zogo – mobile online flirting community.

Hot or Not:
Synthetic Genomics
Woot – one day, one deal.
MatrixStream – IPTV via Broadband

Blogs to watch:
VentureBlog
Silicon Beat

Last but not least – one of the most read Blog worldwide:
PostSecret.

03
Jan

Buch – Weblogs Professionell

Heute habe ich das druckfrische Buch von Tim Fischer und Arnold Picot erhalten:

Weblogs professionell.

Grundlagen, Konzepte und Praxis im unternehmerischen Umfeld.

Ich danke Tim für die Zusendung des Buches – es macht einen wirklich guten Eindruck. Bin schon gespannt darin zu schmökern.

Hier eine kleine Zusammenfassung:

Buch Weblogs

Arnold Picot / Tim Fischer (Hrsg.)
Weblogs professionell
Grundlagen, Konzepte und Praxis im unternehmerischen Umfeld

Weblogs sind ein neues Kommunikationsphänomen, das durch die technologische Konvergenz von Medien, IT und Telekommunikation ein neues Gewicht erhält. Welche Chancen und Risiken ergeben sich aus dem Einsatz von Weblogs für die Unternehmens- und Markenkommunikation? Stellen die häufig als “grass-root journalism” bezeichneten Weblogs eine Gefahr für die traditionelle journalistische Arbeit und den Journalismus selbst dar?

Diesen und anderen Fragen geht das von Arnold Picot und Tim Fischer herausgegebene Werk auf den Grund. In 15 Beiträgen von Wissenschaftlern, Blog-Beratern und Unternehmenspraktikern aus den Bereichen Kommunikationswissenschaften, Betriebswirtschaft und IT wird das Thema Weblogs und “Blogosphäre” ergründet. Die Autoren geben einen fundierten Ãœberblick über die aktuelle Diskussion in Deutschland und zeigen die professionellen Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Weblogs auf.

Das Werk beschäftigt sich zunächst mit grundlegenden Aspekten von Weblogs. Der zweite Teil des Buches behandelt verschiedene Anwendungen im Bereich Unternehmenskommunikation, im dritten Abschnitt geht es um Journalismus und die Blogosphäre. Im abschließenden Teil schließlich werden verschiedene Unternehmen dargestellt, die mit Weblog-Technologie arbeiten, und es werden mehrere Fallstudien dazu präsentiert.

Das Buch richtet sich primär an Leser, die Weblogs im unternehmerischen Umfeld einsetzen wollen oder im journalistischen Bereich arbeiten.

03
Jan

Google PC in 2006?

First rumors of the CES in Las Vegas this year are spreading fast.

Will Google produce their own PC with their own Operating System?

Update: The Register also has an article on the Google PC.

L.A. Times writes:

Cheap PCs, anyone?

Google will unveil its own low-price personal computer or other device that connects to the Internet.

Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft’s Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap — perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars.

Bear Stearns analysts speculated in a research report last month that consumers would soon see something called “Google Cubes” — a small hardware box that could allow users to move songs, videos and other digital files between their computers and TV sets.

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and president of products, will give a keynote address Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Analysts suspect that Page will use the opportunity either to show off a Google computing device or announce a partnership with a big retailer to sell such a machine.

And that’s not the only Google theory out there. Content producers wonder whether Google’s push into video search will unravel the economics that make Hollywood hum. If viewers can find and legally download an episode of “Seinfeld” through Google, will that cut into cable and network television’s profits?

And what if Google, after equipping cities, starting with San Francisco, with Wi-Fi wireless technology, starts to offer pay-TV service for free?

Still, to date, the company’s $123-billion stock market value is based almost entirely on its dominance of one business: global text searches on the Web. Some investors worry that Page and co-founder Sergey Brin could be done in by their penchant for seeing themselves as do-gooders rather than profiteers. But those naysayers are in the minority. Most industry executives and Wall Street analysts believe that Google’s search engine business is robust enough to give the young billionaires two or three years of wiggle room to build nifty services first and worry about making money on them later.

02
Jan

Messengers of Cool

A friend send me a great article from Time Magazine: “Messengers of Cool”. I was published in October 2005 but still is worth reading: http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1118344,00.html

The article is all about Global TrendScouting.

Here is the link to a the high-quality JPG.
Time TrendScouting Article

02
Jan

Happy New Year.

I wish you a happy new year and a successful start in 2006.