Category: USA Techology Trends

28
Nov

Bill Bryant about his latest Ventures

I met Bill Bryant at the Monaco Media Forum, here is a short Video about his past and current projects.
He is also an investor of Minfo.

26
Nov

Master Sommelier Paul Roberts about his favorite wines

At the first evening of the Monaco Media Forum 2008 ACCEL Ventures invited to an high-class winetasting with some of the best Sommeliers. Paul Roberts is one of 110 people worldwide who are official “Master Sommeliers”. He was guiding the conference attendees through the list of wines offered during the wine-tasting. I felt a bit like Gary Vaynerchuk from Winelibrary TV, who is tasting wines all day.

Paul told me about the great wines from Bond Estates in Napa Valley, California. My favorite wine was the 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon from Bryant Family Vineyard.

We did the Video Interview at the end of the Conference Party at Moods. Note: there had been already lights on and all other guests have left, so I think it was already quite late…

19
Nov

Lawrence Lessig about the key-challenges of Creative Commons

Interview at the Monaco Media Forum 2008 with Lawrence Lessig, Professor, Stanford Law School and Co-Founder, Creative Commons. I asked him “How did Creative Commons start?” His speech at the MMF was called “Some Rights Reserved”.

04
Nov

Where do all the Fotos go? Flickr vs. Facebook.

If you talk about a Foto-Community, you might talk about Flickr. But things are changing and Social Media is changing the way people use their content.

Flickr and Facebook launched in February 2004, but facebook kept its platform only for a closed user-group. In Mid 2007 facebook opened its platform to the public and the success story of facebook began.

Flickr reached 2 billion fotos in 2007 and now hit the 3 billion mark in 2008. The quality of fotos on Flickr is great and a lot of professional fotografers us flickr to publish their fotos.

On the consumer generated content side, facebook is growing rapidly. Within the last two years Facebook has become THE biggest Foto-Community worldwide. Its Foto-Application is one of the most favorite application. A year ago there had been 4 billion on facebook, today there are more than 10 billion.

Links:
Facebook Statistics
3 billionth Foto on Flickr (see comment)

30
Oct

30 Minute Infomercial by Barack Obama

This is the informercial, aired on October 29 2008, on primetime in USA Television.

22
Sep

Motivational Speech by Gary Vaynerchuk

The speech by Gary Vaynerchuk at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo in New York is informational, astonishing and really funny at the sime time.

And he’s right: “Stop doing things you hate”.

18
Sep

World’s First ePaper Magazine Cover

“The 21 century begins now” – this is the headline of the october issue of the Esquire Magazine in USA. The Publishing Company has teamed up with E-Ink Technologies to realize the World’s First E-Ink Magazine Cover.

Esquire E-Ink Cover

Newsstands have never seen anything like Esquire’s October edition. Its cover blinks. Meanwhile, its inside cover also features a blinking Ford ad. The digital enhancements are all a part of the Hearst publication’s 75th anniversary as well as its attempt to pioneer a new magazine publishing concept. 100,000 of the battery-powered covers were hand-assembled by work crews in China and Mexico. The limited issues of the Esquire Magazine were sold out immetiatly.

What is really surprising that beside the complicated assembly of the magazine, the logistical part was also a big challenge. Due to the hot summer the magazines had to transported in refrigerated trucks.

The technology behind can be compared to eBook Reader Amazon Kindle.
The Technology behind the Esquire E-Ink Cover

Here is a great video of the cover of the magazine.

And here you find an interview of the CEO of the publishing company.

17
Sep

The Top 20 of Social Networking Platforms

Top 20 Social Networks - August 2008

Here are the latest numbers of the Top 20 Online Social Networks.

Besides the well-known platforms like MySpace or Facebook there are some important trends and changes happening right now.
Elsewhere in the social networking space, Facebook continued to narrow the gap on MySpace, a trend we also noticed last month. Unique visitors to the site grew to 38.2 million, representing a more than 10% month-over-month increase and a 100% jump year-over-year. MySpace saw 61.3 million unique visitors – up slightly from last month, but still essentially flat compared to the same period last year. And business network LinkedIn grew 146% year-over-year to 10.8 million unique visitors.

Twitter is apparently growing rapidly. According to stats just released from Nielsen Online, Twitter recorded 2.3 million unique visitors in August (US-only), an increase of 422% from the same period last year. Moreover, visitors to Twitter spent 55% more time on the site on average – a total of more than 7 minutes per user. Those numbers point to rather robust growth for the site, especially considering many of its most rabid users access it through a third-party client like Twhirl or Tweetdeck.

12
Aug

The Ultimate Electro-Driving Experience

Monty with the new Tesla RoadsterThis 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.

10
Aug

Corporate Twitter Index

Many corporation use Twitter to get their messages out and to start a corporate conversation.
Even Arnold Schwarzenegger is using twitter: http://twitter.com/schwarzenegger

Here is an overview of Corporate Twitter Activities (Via Fluent Simplicity):

Media
ABA Journal http://twitter.com/abajournal
About.com Books http://twitter.com/aboutbooks
AdAge http://twitter.com/adage
AL.com (Alabama News) http://twitter.com/aldotcom
Alltop http://twitter.com/guykawasaki
Ann Arbor News (Ann Arbor, MI) http://twitter.com/AnnArborNews
Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, NC) http://twitter.com/asheville
BBC http://twitter.com/BBC (Full list: http://menti.net/?p=17)
Birmingham News (Birmingham, AL) http://twitter.com/birmingham_news
BusinessWire.com http://twitter.com/tradeshownews
CBC News http://twitter.com/cbcnews
Continue Reading..

07
Aug

Companies are getting Carbon Neutral

Dell started an very radical approach to become a carbon neutral company and they have reached their goals 5 months ahead of schedule.

Dell has set some pretty aggressive green goals for itself in the past few years, and we’re happy to learn that it wasn’t just talk.

How Dell Became Carbon Neutral
The big one is that they are now completely carbon neutral when it comes to their energy use, and 5 months ahead of schedule to boot! They even did things in the right order. First, they started with efficiency measures in their operations around the world, then they purchased green power (which can sometimes be limited by local supply, Dane Parker, Dell’s director of global environmental health and safety programs, told us on the phone yesterday), and then purchased verified emission reductions and renewable energy certificates for the rest.

Read on at: Treehugger

10
Jul

The Future of TV Shopping, T-Commerce?

Two intersting new Video-Shopping Portals:
– The Talk Market
Shopflick

What do you think about shopping like this?

09
Jul

Google starts 3D Virtual World

Lively Google 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..

30
Jun

Current Demographics on facebook in Germany

facebook logo facebook demographics in Germany
Status: June 30th 2008

Total User in Germany: 622840

0-18 Years: 68500
19-29 Years: 405600
30-39 Years: 115.580
40-49 Years: 21.480
50-59 Years: 5.400
60+ Years: 5.140

We filtered these numbers via Via: Facebook Ads.

18
Jun

Twitter is growing rapidly

Twitter is growing 30.5% per month, soon attracting 2 million visitors per month.

The Twitter competitors Jaiku and Pownce are much smaller.

You don’t know Twitter, yet.

Here is a very simply explanation of the system and why people use it…

10
Jun

Animoto – Animate your Pictures

Today I created a showcase of Animoto with pictures about and taken by the new Panasonic LUMIX camera.

Animoto is a project by Amazon S3 to show how fast the Web-Servers of Amazon S3 really are.

Here is my short video I created today:

09
Jun

14 best ways to watch Steve Job’s Keynote today

Here are my top 14 ways to watch Steve Job’s Keynote today live from the WWDC – Development Conference in USA.

Live Video is already a big trend online. At Youtube you can only upload recorded material or record live via your Webcam. But Via Mogulus or UStream you can publish a live video and stream it online.

So here you can watch a Live Video about the WWDC Keynote:
The Digital Lifestyle TV
>>>>This one is using Mogulus TV.
Bwana TV
>>>>And this one is Using UStream TV.
Techcrunch via Mobile Phone
>>>> Michael is using his mobile Phone and Qik.com

Live Audio:
IPhone Alley

Friendfeed Rooms:
WWDC Room
Scoble’s Room
Venture Beat Room

Twitter Feeds:
Leo La Porte Twitlive
Techcrunch
Apple Live
Mac Rumors

Blogs – Live Blogging:
Engadget
Gizmodo
Techcrunch

25
Mar

In-Car WiFi

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

11
Mar

Motivational Speech by Steve Jobs

On the weekend I watched a great motivational speech by Steve Jobs. I reported about the speech already in 2005: https://blog.monty.de/?p=128, but now I saw the video again. In this very emotional and private speech he spoke about three main issues in his life:
– “Connecting the Dots” – You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever,
– “Love and Loss” – You’ve got to find what you love and
– “Death” – how important it is to have longtime goals and stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Here is the video:

22
Feb

Feel the Brand

Another productive day in New York passed. We have again received a lot of positive feedback about the program of manager tours in April 2008. And we have more confirmed speakers which we will announce on the official website soon.

Brand Experience Lab I met David Polinchock from the Brand Experience Lab and he showed me their latest project and innovative projects. It si just amazing what they are doing in their brand lab in Soho. They will role out a great project called “audience games” in pver 700 cinemas all over USA. You can use emerging technologies to turn brand messages into brand experiences.

David just quoted a attendee of one of the tests in a cinema to make clear how powerful the idea is: “Have you ever heard the audience scream “play the advertising again””.

Furthermore I met Gaby from Gawker Media, the leading blogging company, and Sam from Interference Inc, a guerilla marketing agency.