Chancellor Angela Merkel invited 175 CEOs of StartUps, Investors and Entrepreneurs to Berlin. It was a pleasure to be part of this event and it was a good first step to connect politics with the dynamic internet economy.
Here is my german review:
Merkel trifft Deutsche Internet StartUps
Great Video Summary of the event:
Finally, Facebook is updating it’s search functionality with “Graph Search”.
Facts: Facebook currently has more than a billion users with more than a trillion connections. And there are more than 240 billion fotos published on facebook.
Graph Search is a new way for you to find people, photos, places and interests that are most relevant to you on Facebook. Technically it is a high-speed contextual discovery engine.
Graph Search will help you instantly find others, learn more about them and make connections, explore photos, quickly find places like local attractions and restaurants, and learn about common interests like music, movies, books and more. All results are unique based on the strength of relationships and connections.
“It is not web search,” Zuckerberg says.
Graph Search and web search are completely different. Web search is designed to take a set of keywords (for example: “music industry”) and provide the best possible results that match those keywords.
With Graph Search you combine phrases (for example: “my friends in Los Angeles who like Justin Timberlake”) to get that set of people, places, photos or other content that’s been shared on Facebook.
Facebook is taking privacy more serious
Another big difference of Facebook Graph Search is that every piece of content on Facebook has its own audience, and most content isn’t public. Facebook built Graph Search from the start with privacy in mind, and it respects the privacy and audience of each piece of content on Facebook. It makes finding new things much easier, but you can only see what you could already view elsewhere on Facebook.
The creative filmmaker Stephan Zlotescu analyzed todays technological developmemt as well as digital media trends and created a future scenario in his short movie “True Skin”.
The movies plays with technology trends like Google Glasses, Augmented Reality, 3D printing, 3D holograms, robotics, sensor technologies etc, but also reflects the social development of human society, e.g. the gap between rich and poor, the gap between connected and not connected.
One quote surprised me “Who wants to be 100% organic anymore? Nobody!”
But is this really our future?
Have a look at the movie yourself…
The italian magazine Chi and french magazine Closer have published a series of topless picture of Kate Middleton the Duchess of Cambridge. Now Prince William and Kate Middleton are threatening to sue French magazine Closer for printing her topless pictures.
It seems that the PR Manager of Kate and William are not aware of the Streisand Effect. The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.
Chi magazine, which is owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlluscon’s company Mondadori Group, which also publishes Closer, printed more topless pictures of Kate Middleton today. Thus, exactly these pictures are now spreading online rapidly, from Pinterest to Facebook to Flickr to Blogs….. the internet just does not forget.
Erik Wachtmeister, former founder of the exclusive social network “A Small World” is sending out private invitations for his latest online project.
Erik writes:
We are getting close to the launch of our new private online community.
Best of All Worlds in the coming weeks. I wanted to make sure you received your invitation.
As you may know, Louise and I founded aSmallWorld in early 2004, a pioneer in online communities. After we left the company several years ago, we began designing and building a new, useful and relevant social network – an alternative to what currently dominates social media.
We will launch Best of All Worlds (boaw.com) with an iPhone app in the coming weeks, followed shortly by a full web version.
Best of All Worlds will enable us to navigate and leverage the collective intelligence of the trusted and relevant few, rather than the wisdom of the crowd. It will be a fun and useful tool for our social and professional lives by providing trusted information among top influencers and connectors worldwide – in an intimate and private online environment.
I want to inform you in advance that I will be leaving RECOMY later this summer.
Since we started working on the early concept in January 2011, I have had the privilege to found the company, develop a high-potential business plan and build a powerful technology platform. At the same time Social Recruiting has developed into a fast-growing market and a game-changer in the recruiting and talent industry. I’m proud of the recent accomplishments in our platform since launch in April 2012. I’m even more excited for the world to see all the amazing things we have coming.
I’ve learned a lot in my time at RECOMY. I’m also grateful for the relationship with the team, business angels, mentors and our founding investor.
I’ve decided that now is a good time for me to leave RECOMY and focus on my passion, namely, building cool things with awesome people with unexpected results.
Facebook has announced a partnership with the Olympic Games in London 2012 at a press event at Facebook London today. The partnership is a big step on the way to monetize the social network and its fight against Google and Twitter. Although Facebook has 10 times more Page Views that YouTube, Facebook’s revenue is still only 10% of Google’s total revenue.
With the launch of “Explore London 2012” facebook has created a special landing page for all people interested in the olympic games. You can find an overview of all facebook fan pages of athletes, teams and sports and “like” them directly or jump to the fanpage to learn more.
Great move for Facebook.
I am often asked why Social Recruiting is important?
That’s why I’d like to summarize some the most important facts:
– People are spending more time on social media than on the open web.
– 1 out of 3 job seekers use social media for their job search.
– While 9 our of 10 active & passive job seekers have one or more social media profiles.
– Facebook is the leading social network, while new social platforms (Google+, Pinterest), regional (VK.com, Orkut, Mixi) and niche social platforms (LinkedIN, XING, Viadeo) are growing.
Today Faceook introduced Timeline for Facebook Pages during their first FMC (Facebook Marketing Conference) in New York City.
Here are the core features facebook is presenting.
With Timeline for Pages you don’t have the left navigation bar anymore so your famous Facebook Tabs get a new place.
The tabs of a facebook company pages will get more space. So your tab can be bigger than the normal 520px width. The full width of the new timeline for pages tabs are 850px (pixel). The width of the content area for the tab will be 790px.
Since today a few companies have already presented how timeline for pages will look like. Here are a few Examples: Olympic Games, Nike, Starbucks, Coca-Cola.
Amazing. Two young boys send their Lego Man into near space with a $ 400,- USD construction. They used a balloon to send the Lego Man including a wide angel video camera almost 25 km into space.
Article by LA Times: Two Canadian high school students have successfully launched a Lego man almost 80,000 feet above sea level–high enough to capture video of the plastic toy hovering above the curvature of the Earth.
Now the results of their experiment have gone viral, racking up more than 600,000 views on YouTube in just two daysand inspiring the young engineers to make their small astronaut his own Facebook page–Lego Man in Space.
The Toronto Starreports that the two teens, Matthew Ho and Asad Muhammed, were inspired to do the project about a year and a half ago when Ho saw a YouTube video of MIT students who sent a balloon to near space. Ho wanted to see if he could do it too.
The friends spent four and a half months working on the project, mostly on Saturdays. In a video interview with the Star, they said the hardest part was making the parachute, which they decided to hand-sew, even though neither of them had any sewing experience.
They also constructed a lightweight Styrofoam box to carry three point-and-shoot cameras, a wide-angle video camera and a cellphone with a downloadable GPS app. They purchased a professional weather balloon for $85 online. The helium that would lift it up came from a party supply store. For launch, they put two mitten warmers in the Styrofoam box to keep the cameras working at that altitude. The whole project cost them about $400.
After the balloon was constructed, the two waited until weather conditions would ensure that the Lego man would land in Canada and not somewhere in the U.S. because they didn’t want to take their chances with U.S. Homeland Security, the Star reports.
Ho and Muhammed estimate that it took their balloon craft one hour and five minutes to climb 80,000 feet before it finally popped. The descent took a little more than 30 minutes.
Besides online notoriety, the two also received a congratulatory note from Lego.
Back in 2006 I opened an office in China with my former company. It was an exciting time and I enjoyed working with our chinese team a lot. Nevertheless it was also very challenging and it was though to increase efficiency and results, especially working closely with our other teams in Munich, New York and Tokyo. For me China was always very fascinating and I felt that the country was shifting from a leader in production (“made in china”) to a powerhouse of creativity. Especially the speed of innovation and growth in digital media is amazing. Many startups I met grew from zero to 10 million users within weeks. China’s version of twitter “Weibo” has 250 million registered users. And Kai-Fu Lee’s Innovation Works is creating the Golden Age of IT in China.
Today I want to introduce you to my friend Shaun Rein (@shaunrein) who has just finished his book:
“The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends that will Disrupt the World”.
I asked him a few questions about his book.
What is the book about?
The main thrust of my book is to show that China no longer is a cheap place to do business anymore and what the implications for the rest of the world are. Labor and real estate costs are rising in the double digits which means manufacturers might need to relocate to markets like Indonesia and Vietnam or convert factories to sell into China rather than just export. The country is undergoing a huge economic shift away from relying on exports to consumption. The book tracks that change by interviewing Chinese to find out what they want, and giving advice on how to stay ahead of that change with marketing, product design, and sales strategies.
Why did you write the book?
When I read articles by much of the western media, I realize they are missing out on the great transformations taking place in China today and are often perpetuating outdated views of the country. I decided to write the book to dispel myths about the country and provide an action guide for western businesses on how to sell here.
For instance, whenever I talk to westerners, many assume that China is in an internet black hole because they hear Facebook and Twitter are blocked. That is not true — there is a very vibrant online community here. The average Chinese under the age of 30 spends 22 hours a week online vs 12 hours in the US. But instead of using Facebook, they use Chinese variants like Sina Weibo and Tencent’s QQ. In fact, because of the tight media control, younger Chinese turn to the internet more than counterparts in the west to get more trusted sources of info. The result is that western brands have to embrace digital marketing in China far more than most are. Typically large multinationals only spend 3% of the marketing budgets on the digital side when that number should be much higher.
What was the most exciting, most emotional and most surprising interview you did?
The most emotional interview I did were the series of ones I conducted with my now deceased grandmother-in-law Lili Li who was a famous movie star in the 1930s and came from a heavyweight political family. She battled against Jiang Jing (Mao Zedong’s 4th wife) and a member of the Gang of Four and their tyranny that caused the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and untold suffering throughout the nation. My interviews and her story are included in chapter three of the book. It was tough hearing of the pain and torture she and her family went through at the hands of Jiang Qing. Her husband was tortured to death. But it was also inspiring to see how a women stood up to tyranny and eventually helped conquer it.
How will the “Expensive China” influence Europe and Germany?
The rise of “Expensive China” has serious implications for Germany and Europe. Germany is actually well positioned to benefit from China’s rise. China actually buys more from Germany than it exports to it. Germany is a model in many ways for creating an economy system that is sustainable — it produces something the Chinese cannot do right now. Unfortunately, as the book shows, not all nations like the US are adjusting well to the new world order and China’s rise. America needs to stop trying to scapegoat America for all its economic ills and instead focus on adjusting its economy to be more competitive as Germany has.
Follow Shaun Rein on Twitter: @shaunrein
More infos about the Book here:
“The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends that will Disrupt the World”.
I hold a keynote speech about the Future of Mobile Health. The impact of mobile media is fundamentally changing the health-, pharma and fitness industry. The goal of the impulse speech was to dive into todays trends, understand key-drivers and learn how to be prepared for the future.
The stethoscope was invented in 1816 and is still used in by doctors on a daily basis. Nevertheless technologies have improved or replaced many manual instruments and tools in medicine today. Especially Mobile Media is bringing medicine and healthcare to a completely new level.
People are using technology for permanent monitoring and logging of vital signs, while doctors are remotely supervising the health status of patients suffering from chronic diseases, such as Diabetes and Asthma, via their mobile device (e.g. smartphone or tablet). Cost of technology is lower than ever and consumer devices can be used for professional applications. Currently there are 17,000 mHealth applications in major app stores, 74% of them adhering to the paid business model. With the growing sophistication level of mHealth applications, 14% of the total market revenue in the next 5 years will come from application download revenues.
Here is my full presentation:
Today the new CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, has presented the new iPhone 4S in Cupertino, California – USA. Apple has introduced a re-make of the iPhone 3G aswell – the iPhone 3GS – so they are strictly keeping in line with their strategy.
The 4S will come in both black and white, starting at $199 for 16GB and $299 for the 32GB, but the big news is a new 64GB model coming in at a whopping $399. You’ll be able to pre-order this friday, October 7th, and it’ll start shipping on October 14th in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany, and Japan. Oh, and Apple is welcoming Sprint to the family here in the States.
Today I hold a speech at a Business Breakfast of the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) in Budapest, Hungary. The topic of my speech was “Green meets Digital: How digital trends are shaping a green future?”.
I started my talk with a couple of powerful questions:
– What is the power of my generation?
– What are the global challenges of my generation?
– Who is solving our challenges? CO2, Global Warming etc.?
– Is Greenwashing the solution?
– How many planets do we have?
– How many plans do we have?
– Do we have a Plan B?
– Are Mobile Antennas real „trees“?
– Or, will trees be the future Mobile Antennas?
– Can Mobile Media improve Energy Efficiency?
– How can Social Media disrupt „green“ markets?
– When will Carbon-Negative Cities be reality?
– How will Green Mobility look like?
– Can Bio-Led Trees be our future street lights?
– Is Nathan Myhrvold‘s Geo-Engineering the Plan B?
Digital is sustainable –
But can Sustainability be digital?
Find some answers in my presentation – below.
Today I hold a speech at Advance Conference 2011 in Cologne. The topic “Web Visions 2015” was tackled by me, Isaac Wolkerstorfer , Ossi Urchs , Jörg Ruwe and moderated by Thomas Knüwer.
I published my presentation on slideshare to share it with the audience and you. Enjoy.
Social Media is becoming an essential part for every recruiting strategy. Companies are turning to Facebook, twitter and other social media platforms to find talent. Here is a well-done infographic about “Social Recruiting”.
