Google Products #Fail

Get an overview of all products were Google was not successful - Google Products #Fail. At the Google Graveyard you can find Google Catalog, Google Video Player, Google Answers, Google Wave, Google Audio Ads, Dodgeball, Jaiku (Now Part of Google Buzz), Google Page Creator and many more….

But for true Innovation, failure and mistakes are very important. So we’ll see what the people at Google will invent in the future.

Global Internet Users

Globally there are almost 1.6 billion Internet users, half of them from Asia – 738 million users. Most of the asian internet users are from China.
Note: Compare 1.6 billion to over 4 billion mobile phone subscribers globally - who will win?

Open Sessions at DLD Women Conference

The World Economic Forum is known for its “Open Forum” as part of the annual meeting in Davos. Today Steffi, Co-Chair of DLD and DLD Women, told me that at the inaugural DLD Women Conference they will integrate an Open Session, too.

So, here is your invitation. Feel free to share and forward!

Jonney Shih, Chairman ASUS, about the future of mobile computing

Cloud Computing was one major topic of the Abu Dhabi Media Summit 2010. I talked with Jonney Shih, Chairman ASUS, about his perspective, trends and predictions for mobile computing. ASUS is best know for the EEE PC Netbook but also produced an own tablet computer. Mr Shih said that “there will be a slow shift from desktop computing to cloud computing” but ASUS believes that Cloud Computing is driving the markt at the moment.

ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated (ASUS) (traditional Chinese: ??????????; pinyin: Huáshuo Diànna? Gufen Y?uxiàn G?ngs?), is a multinational corporation centered in Taiwan, produces computer products: motherboards, laptops, servers, mobile phones and others. Commonly called by its brand name ASUS, the company is listed on both the London Stock Exchange (LSE: ASKD) and the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE: 2357). As of 26 November 2009, 29.2% of PCs sold in the previous 12 months worldwide came with an ASUS motherboard. The company’s 2009 revenues reached US$21.2 billion. The headquarters is located in Beitou District, Taipei.

Entreprenurs need to listen to this song!

THE NEW DORK - Entrepreneur State of Mind (Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys Spoof)

Cloud Computing for Media People

My friend John du Pre Gauntt from Media Dojo send me his brand new “Cloud Computing Guide for Media People” today and I am allowed to share it exclusively with you.

Cloud Computing Guide for Media People
You can also download the full report (PDF) here:

The Guide translates cloud computing for business level media and marketing executives. It surveys some of the foundation concepts, technologies, players, and potential impact of cloud computing on the media and marketing industries. Circa 2010, we are all amateurs at implementing the cloud model for media and marketing. Anyone who claims to have nailed it cold is trying to sell you something. Consequently, much of the information and/or prediction in this first volume will be obsolete within six months to a year.

The Whitepaper describes some very interesting insights, key-concepts and business models of Cloud Computing. But John also describes four Scenarios about media in 2020.

Media Marketplaces 2020:
Most professional media and marketing content has been subsumed into the larger world of electronic commerce. Products and services now come with directly embedded media or offer digital tokens for consumers to exchange for the media of their choice.

Just-in-Time Media 2020
The action in media has moved to how fast a provider can customize media and ads at the margin. Scale in media has become a massive optimization game where players compete to orchestrate massive ecosystems to deliver an individualized yet participatory experience.

Smart Media 2020:
Media providers and marketers have dispensed with the pretense that they can tar­ get mass media in a fragmented world. Networks and channels have largely disappeared. Media and marketing messages are tagged with information and function to become the equivalent of “smart bombs” that seek out the right audience regardless of channel or device.

Pushpin Media 2020:
Augmented reality has finally won over virtual reality to create a new media mar­ ket. Instead of trying to substitute a virtual world for the “real” world, me­ dia providers and market­ ers have discovered that a pinch of media in the right physical place has opened a huge entertainment and advertising opportunity.

Nevertheless, this is a good time to plant an initial stake in the ground about Cloud Computing’s potential impact on media and marketing. Players like Amazon, Google and others have productized their distributed computing knowledge and assets into realistic commercial offers. A flood of digital media businesses are launching based on the new IT economics of cloud computing. As this process iterates and scales, the media industry is in for massive change.

Twitter Mania: More Tweets then ever

(Via L.A. Times) More tweets than ever are hitting Twitter. But the social network is still far behind Facebook, the world’s most popular social network.

Back in 2007, an average of just 5,000 tweets were added to Twitter on a daily basis. By 2009, that figure grew to 2.5 million tweets a day. It was impressive growth. But over the last year, thanks in large part to celebrity and media attention, tweets have exploded.

The company reported Monday that the number of tweets added to its site grew by 1,400% in 2009 to an average of 35 million a day. Just two months into 2010, 600 tweets are hitting the site each second, amounting to 50 million tweets a day.

Twitter has officially joined the ranks of Facebook and MySpace as a premier social network. But, as successful as it is, the site still pales in comparison with Facebook.

Last week, Web analytics firm Compete announced that Facebook had become the second-most popular website in the United States behind Google.

According to Compete, Facebook attracted approximately 134 million unique visitors in January. Twitter had 23.5 million unique visitors for the month.

Facebook users update their status 60 million times a day, outpacing Twitter’s 50 million daily tweets.

Another sobering fact for Twitter: More than 5 billion pieces of content, including photo albums, notes, and web links, are added to Facebook each month.

In other words, Twitter has a long way to go if it wants to catch up to Facebook.

Taking augmented reality to the next level: the digital contact-lense

Getting information as fast as possible and on the spot is the trend. So what could be more direct than having information fired directly into the eye?

A new generation of contact lenses built with very small circuits and LEDs promises bionic eyesight. Today — together with his students — Babak A. Parviz, bionanotechnology expert at University of Washington, is already producing devices that have a lens with one wirelessly Radio Frequency powered LED. To turn such a lens into a functional browser, control circuits, communication circuits and miniature antennas will have to be integrated. These lenses will eventually include hundreds of semitransparent LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye: words, charts, imagery enabling the wearers to navigate their surroundings whithout distraction or disorientation. The optoelectronics in the lens may be controlled by a seperate device that relays information to the lens’s control circuit. Another use could be the monitoring of the wearer’s health and biomarkers f.e. cholesterol, sodium, kalium or glucose.

A few barriers have yet to be taken in order to produce such a device. Materials are not compatible with one another; all components have to be assembled onto about 1.5 square centimeters of flexible, transparent polymer; and of course the lens needs to be completely safe for the eye. Parviz mentions that the LED for example is made of aluminum gallium arsenide, a toxic material that should first have to be encapsulated in a biocompatible polymer.

Last but not least: seeing the LED-light switching on and off is one thing, but seeing something comprehensible in dense resolution to the eye is something else.“The true promise of this research is not just the actual system we end up making, whether it’s a display, a biosensor, or both. We already see a future in which the humble contact lens becomes a real platform, like the iPhone is today, with lots of developers contributing their ideas and inventions.”

Contact lenses have always been about improving natural sight, so whatever information they may bring to our eyes in the coming future… may the view be clear.

Via: justgetthere.us

The Future of Smart Packaging: “Freshness Label”

The packaging industry is developing smart new packaging solutions for the retail market. Especially for fresh product a smart label or a digital display integrated within the packaging could show the consumer the freshness and quality of the product. A milk package could show you when it is not a good idea to drink it anymore.

Another example is this hourglass-shaped freshness label for meat products (designed by To-Genkyo). The label contains special ink that changes its color based on the amount of ammonia emitted by the meat (the older the meat, the more ammonia it releases). Like an hourglass, the bottom half of the label “fills up” as the meat ages. Consumers can judge the product’s freshness at a glance.

When the meat is no longer suitable for sale, the ink blocks the barcode at the bottom so that it cannot be scanned at the cash register.

The Freshness Label was presented at the Good Design Expo known as one of the leading design events in Asia. The event showcases thousands of well-designed products under consideration for the year’s Good Design Awards. Over 2,000 items ranging from consumer electronics, automobiles and furniture to office equipment, building designs and sporting goods were exhibited at this year’s event, which was held at Tokyo Big Sight in August 2009.

EBay sells 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion US Dollar / 1.33 billion Euro

EBay Inc plans to sell a 65 percent stake in its online phone unit Skype for $1.9 billion to private investors including Silver Lake and a venture firm run by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

Shares in eBay rose 40 cents or 1.8 percent to $22.54 on Nasdaq after the news.

The deal values Skype at $2.75 billion, according to the Internet auction house, which had bought the phone company in 2005 for about $3.1 billion.

The group buying Skype also includes London-based Index Ventures and the Canada Pension Plan, in addition to Silver Lake and Andreessen’s firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The deal lets eBay focus on its PayPal electronic payments service as well as its flagship auction service, the company said.

EBay originally planned to spin off Skype next year. John Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive, said in May that a $2 billion valuation would be low for the growing Internet telephone business.

In 2007, eBay wrote down about $1.4 billion of its investment in Skype, conceding it did not fit in with the rest of its online auction business.

“Skype is a strong standalone business, but it does not have synergies with our e-commerce and online payments business,” Donahoe said in a statement.

EBay expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter. The transaction is not subject to a financing condition.
(Via Reuters)

What eBay’s decision to sell Skype means for the future of VOIP?

Internet auction and services company EBay Inc has reached a deal to sell its online telephony unit Skype to a group of private investors, the New York Times said, citing two people briefed on its plans.

Andreessen Horowitz, a new venture capital firm headed by the Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, is likely to be among the investors in the group, the paper cited the people as saying. London-based Index Ventures and Silver Lake Partners may also be involved in the deal, one of the people told the paper. The paper added that the value of the deal, which is likely to be announced later on Tuesday, had not been disclosed. EBay spokesman Alan Marks declined to comment on the report.
In May, EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said a valuation of $2 billion would be low for Skype.

Since eBay bought Skype, the company did not announce major developments nor any innovative new products or services. May it is because of the structure of the size the institution “eBay” has become. Skype was not the leader of digital innovation since years. Thus it has always kept their loyal customers and delivered very good quality of service.

From my point of view there are three key opportunities in the VoiP market for Skype:

1. Reach: Skype is the biggest Online Social Network, twice as big as facebook, but they do not use the full potential of the SNS (Social Networking Software), yet. There are many opportunities to develop new applications, open APIs or useful functions to use Skype as a Social Network.

2. Global telecommunication: Since the start of Google Voice a huge discussion is going on about the future of telecommunication. The network operators such as AT&T or Deutsche Telekom and mobile network operators are getting under pressure because customers can change and manage several telephone number very easily. I think now it’s time for such a service and to roll-out a mainstream VoiP Service like Google Voice - this could be easily realized by Skype as well. Don’t you think?

3. Speed & Innovation: Since the company would be kind of “independable” again. The speed of innovation and business development would be increased rapidly. The goal of the investors might be to really strengthen the company. May be they are also looking to get the global VoiP leadership and then partner or even sell the company again to a major player. Thus this speed and acceleration of innovation might be something very healthy for Skype and I am already thinking about what they could develop for us loyal users.

How Nokia will impact the Computer Business

The consumer electronic market is changing rapidly, key-players are changing their positions and trying to catch the consumer in their digital life. Mobile Phone Manufacturer and Computer Companies are getting closer and closer. The new niche of Netbooks already became a big boom, documented by my friend Sascha on NetbookNews.de (Netbooknews.com).

Since a few years computer manufacture offer notebooks and laptops with integrated 3G Sim cards sometimes in combination with data-plans by a mobile network provider. Netbooks are low-cost laptops optimised for surfing the Internet and performing other basic functions. Pioneered by Asustek with the hit Eee PC in 2007, netbooks have since been rolled out by other brands such as HP and Dell.

But also the smartphones become more and more powerful and merge into small “mini computers”. So the gap between a PC and a mobile phone is almost disappearing and the fight for this market between the industry leaders has started.

Nokia just annouced its first laptop computer, Nokia Booklet 3G.

Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices, Kai Oistamo, summed it up simply as follows:
“A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility. We are in the business of connecting people and the Nokia Booklet 3G is a natural evolution for us. Nokia has a long and rich heritage in mobility and with the outstanding battery life, premium design and all day, always on connectivity, we will create something quite compelling. In doing so we will make the personal computer more social, more helpful and more personal.”

Nokia’s first netbook will use Microsoft’s Windows software and Intel’s Atom processor to offer up to 12 hours of battery life while weighing 1.25 kilograms. Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow more than 127 percent from 2008 to over 26 million units, outperforming the overall PC market that is expected to remain flat and a phone market which is shrinking some 10 percent.

“Nokia will be hoping that its brand and knowledge of cellular channels will play to its strengths as it addresses this crowded, cut-throat segment,” said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight. “At present we see Nokia’s foray into the netbook market as a niche exercise in the context of its broader business.” Nokia’s choice of Windows software surprised some analysts who had expected the company to use Linux in its first laptop.

The WEF Technology Pioneers 2009

The World Economic Forum selects a few companies to become Technology Pioneers.
I met Rodolfo Lara Torres, Head of Technology and Knowledge Integration at the World Economic Forum, at Le Web 2008 in Paris and talked with him about the latest developments at WEF.

Tech Pioneer are those companies who are working on technologies and innovation that have the potential to change the world. The WEF screens the market worldwide to find the most innovative companies and selects around 30 companies every year to become Tech Pioneer. The WEF started in 1999, so this year it is the 10th edition of the Award.

The main criteria for the Tech Pioneers are
1. Innovation: Is the technology new?
2. Impact: Which impact will this technology have on business and society?
3. Sustainability: Will the company exist in the long-term, too?
4. Not a Member of the WEF already.

The award winners will be integrated in the activities of the World Economic Forum and will be invited to events, such as the Annual Meeting in Davos.

Rodolfo explains a lot of very innovative companies come from emerging markets like India, Africa or China.
He also sees a major Trend of the combination of Health and Technology, like chips inserted into your body.
And by the way, Google won the award in 2001.

The World Economic Forum has announced 34 visionary companies selected as Technology Pioneers 2009 for their accomplishments as innovators of the highest calibre, and whose technologies will have a deep impact on business and society.

Company Profiles

Continue reading The WEF Technology Pioneers 2009…

Igor Smirnoff about Digital Newspapers, Online Publishing and ePaper

Interview with Igor Smirnoff from Pressdisplay.com at the Monaco Media Forum 2008.

Esther Dyson is one of the Investors of Pressdisplay.

The Ultimate Electro-Driving Experience

This week the brand new Tesla Roadster created by Tesla Motors was in Munich for exclusive test-drives.

The electro-roadster has enough power to race with a Porsche 911. The Tesla shows his 250 horse powers in an acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.9 second. With a reach of over 400 km it is the perfect sports-car for a trip to the bavarian alps.
Tesla Motors has already over 1100 reservations (and down-payments of 50.000 USD) in California. In Germany they will first offer a signature series limited to 250 cars delivered in 2009.

While George Clooney is already driving his Tesla in Hollywood (he was the first customer), Arnold Schwarzenegger will get his electric Roadster next month as the 10th customer.

Tesla Motors is creating huge attention and plays an essential part for the way to an emission-free future.

Tesla Motors develops and manufactures electric vehicles with exceptional design, performance and efficiency, while conforming to all U.S. safety, environmental and durability standards. The Tesla Roadster is the only highway capable production electric car of any kind for sale in the United States. With a 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 3.9 seconds, a 13,000 rpm redline, and the fastest top gear acceleration of any production car tested by Car & Driver magazine in 2007, the Tesla Roadster is unique in providing super car performance, zero emissions and extraordinary efficiency. For more information, visit www.teslamotors.com.

Amazing Robot Technology

Boston Dynamics just released a new video of the Big Dog on ice and snow, and also demoing its walking gait.

During our Manager Tour through Japan we saw a lot of Robo-Lab and amazing things, but this is really fascinating. I found this video on Shai’s blog today.

See the Video of the “Robo-Dog”?

Captured on Google Street View in Germany today

While I was riding with my bike to work a “Google Camera-Car” passed me. Google is preparing to launch the “Google Street View” in Germany soon and is capturing german cities right now.

I am looking forward to see me on Google Maps

First Examples for Street View in Germany are already online: Google Releases Street View for Tour de France in Google Earth/Maps.

Google starts 3D Virtual World

Google launches a 3D Online Virtual World called Lively.

After many rumors, it is now public. Google starts with a Massive-Multiplayer-Online World and targets the users and audience of Second Live.

A great feature is the ability to produce, publish and even sell virtual products on Lively. This might even give companies the opportunity to offer their real products, as virtual products, too. After our projects in Second Life for Deutsche Bank and Axel-Springer, we might do some Lively projects soon.

In its latest quest to expand beyond its main mission of organizing the world’s information, Search engine leader Google is entering into the virtual world business Tuesday with the introduction of “Lively,” a product that lets users create highly personalized 3-D virtual rooms on the web.

Continue reading Google starts 3D Virtual World…

Speech: “Mobile Media Revolution” at Internet Congress in Berlin

Today I hold a speech at the Internet Congress IICO (www.iico.de) in Berlin.

My topic was “Mobile Media Revolution - The change of the Media Landscape”.

I talked about the general shift in media behaviour, starting a digital conversation. See the article on Ahead of Time about Corporate Conversation.

Furthermore I mentioned how important it is to watch the global hotspots to keep up with innovation and trends. How you keep up with Innovation and how to be ready for the future.

The main part is about key trends in mobile media with cases from South-Korea, Japan and USA.

Here is my presentation:

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In-Car WiFi

WiFi will be your Car in the future.
But why would I need WiFi in my car?

Martin Varsavsky and I were discussing this issue at DLD’07 with a manager working for an automotive company. There are several reasons why consumers would love to have WiFi in the car:
1. You can connect all devices in the car to the web via one WiFi router.
2. You can create a Private Area Network (PAN) and share P2P Games or any content (e.g. streaming music).
3. You can connect you car WiFi with your home station when you park in front of your car.
and many more idea…

There is already one company focusing on in-car wifi technology called Automobile. Their technologie will be used by Avis.

Furthermore Chrylser announced to implement in-car WiFi in all new cars. Via WashingtonPost.

The feature will be added to existing vehicles by dealers beginning this year and later be installed on the assembly line, said Frank Klegon, Chrysler’s product development chief.

The technology will allow passengers to search Web pages using signals from mobile phone towers. Consumers initially would need a subscription to a wireless phone carrier to ensure uninterrupted coverage.

“We want to make the radio itself a WiFi port,” Klegon said.

The announcement came the same day that chief executive Robert Nardelli said Chrysler planned to expand sales in its Mopar parts division by targeting owners who want to customize their vehicles.

Chrysler will initiate the effort by offering an off-road navigation system, chrome grille, heavy-duty bumper and a special sound system for its Jeep Wrangler, Nardelli said at the New York International Auto Show.

The emphasis on Mopar, which provides dealers with replacement and accessory parts, is a turnabout for Chrysler after it considered selling the unit last year.

“We’re aggressively moving to capture more of the customer service and parts business by focusing on what dealers need to increase their profitability,” Nardelli said.