DIGITAL. TRENDS. FUTURE.

20
Sep

Web Visions 2015

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.

29
Aug

How Companies are using Social Media for Recruiting!

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”.

Infographic Social Recruiting

06
Jul

Endemol’s BigBrother launches voting via Facebook Credits

Since the invention of paid-televoting and paid-short-messaging (SMS) the TV industry has creatively adapted or developed TV show formats to increase their revenues. Televoting is mainly used for decision making, opinion polling or game-shows. In the age of Facebook, where users spent most of their time on the social network, Endemol is introducing the first paid-online voting system via Facebook credits.

The consumer behavior is changing and is bridging the gap between TV and Web usage. TV Channels could not charge our TV audience for a “click”, that’s why the focus was on televoting as the major decision tool for BigBrother.

With over 600 million global Facebook users, of which are over 20 million in Germany, the social network is the place where consumers spend most of their time online. The usage of Facebook Fan-Pages or Facebook Apps have already lead to a new discipline for Marketeers. Social Media Marketing is now part of the modern Marketing Communication Mix.

In close teamwork with the Innovation Agency and Social Media Specialist, Ahead of Time, Endemol was working on new TV formats leveraging the power of social media. “With the introduction of Facebook Credits and the rise of other virtual currencies in social games such as Zynga’s farmville it was a logical step for us to develop a paid-voting system on Facebook”, says Monty Metzger, CEO of Ahead of Time.

Big Brother Paid Facebook Voting

“While we envisioned, inspired and strategically developed the concept, we collaborated for the technical development with one of the best App-Developer in Germany I can think of”, says Monty Metzger. PLAZZ Entertainment developed the Facebook Voting App for BigBrother Germany.

Jürgen Mayer, CEO of PLAZZ Entertainment, is convinced that the new Facebook Voting will be changing the TV industry and lead to new show formats, such as Televoting did in the nineties. “The technical development of innovative concepts like this is a challenge, but we did our best to deliver a high-quality user experience with a simple and attractive usability. And we are proud that we, as a german company, are setting new standards in the global entertainment industry”, says Jürgen Mayer.

The Facebook Voting App is integrated in the Fan-Page of Big Brother Germany at http://www.facebook.com/BigBrotherDeutschland

The Facebook Voting App is the first App that uses Facebook Credits for “non gaming” virtual goods. For the TV Channels this is a new revenue opportunity for the future. And virtual currency, like Facebook Credits, may become the standard for Social TV projects.

Endemol’s Facebook Voting App is just the beginning and there are already more ideas prepared for launch in the near future.

05
Jul

How mobile brings social to the masses with Ahead of Time founder, Monty Metzger

Monty Metzger, author and trend scout for the organization he founded, Ahead of Time, talks to Untether.tv about the impact of the highly personal mobile device, mobile social media trends and the predictive analytics being crunched behind the scenes.

UNTETHER.tv was the official broadcast partner for the recent Mobile Innovation Week 2010 and this is one of the sessions recorded while on location in Toronto.

Note: This video was recorded back in September 2010.

17
Jun

What is happening each minute on the internet?

We live in exciting times. In one minute – 60 seconds – on the web…
… 70 new domain names are registered.
… almost 100.000 tweets on twitter are posted.
… more than 370.000 voice calls are happening on skype.
… more than 13.000 iPhone Apps are downloaded.
… more than 600 new videos are uploaded to YouTube.
… almost 700.000 status updates on facebook are posted.
… and over 170 million eMails have been sent.
etc. etc.

Web in 60s

23
May

The Program of the e-G8 Forum 2011 #eG8

I will be attending the eG8 Forum this week in Paris. I have already passed the massive tents which have been build in a nice Park right in the heart of Paris. Looks very high-profile.

Here is the current agenda of the e-G8 Forum:

MONDAY 23 MAY
17:00-21:00
Registration – Tuileries Garden
TUESDAY 24 MAY
08:00-10:00
Registration & Coffee
10:00-10:10
Welcome
Maurice Lévy, Chairman & CEO, Publicis Groupe, Chairman of e-G8 Forum
10:10-11:00
Opening keynote & Discussion
Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, President of the G-8
11:00-11:15
Departure of President and his party
11:15-11:30
Presentation
“Internet Matters”
James Manyika/Director, McKinsey & Company & Matthieu Pélissié du Rausas/Director, McKinsey & Company
11:30-12:45
Plenary I
The Internet & Economic Growth
John Donahoe/President & CEO, eBay
Christine Lagarde/Minister of Finance, France
Jean-Bernard Lévy/Chief Executive Officer, Vivendi
Hiroshi Mikitani/Chairman & CEO, Rakuten
Sunil Bharti Mittal/Chairman & Managing Director, Bharti Airtel Ltd.
Eric Schmidt/Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
Moderator: Ben Verwaayen/CEO, Alcatel-Lucent
12:45-14:30
Lunch
14:30-15:30
Plenary II
The Internet & Society
Tom Glocer/CEO, Thomson Reuters
Andrew Mason/Founder & CEO, Groupon
Stéphane Richard/Chairman & CEO, France Telecom – Orange
Sheryl Sandberg/COO, Facebook
Klaus Schwab/Founder & Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum
Jimmy Wales/Founder, Wikipedia
Moderator: Maurice Lévy
15:30-15:50
Special Talk
Digital’s Next Frontier: Education
Rupert Murdoch/Chairman & CEO, News Corporation
15:50-16:50
Plenary III
Future Net: What’s Next?
Peter Chou/CEO, HTC
Paul Hermelin/CEO, Capgemini
Danny Hillis/Co-Chairman & CTO, Applied Minds
Paul Jacobs/Chairman & CEO, Qualcomm
Craig Mundie/Chief Research & Strategy Officer, Microsoft
Michel de Rosen/CEO, Eutelsat
Moderator: David Rowan/Editor, Wired UK
16:50-17:20
Coffee Break
17:20-18:20
Plenary IV
I ntellectual Property and the Culture Economy in the Digital Age
Antoine Gallimard/Chairman, Éditions Gallimard
Jim Gianopulos/Chairman, 20th Century Fox
Frédéric Mitterrand/Minister of Culture & Communication, France
Pascal Nègre/CEO, Universal Music France
Hartmut Ostrowski/Chairman & CEO, Bertelsmann
Moderator: Bruno Patino/Director-General, Digital & Strategy, France Télévisions
18:20–19:00
Conversation
Andrew Mason/Founder & CEO, Groupon talks with Gilles Babinet/Entrepreneur & Chairman, Conseil National du Numerique
20:00
e-G8 Soirée :
L’Arc, 2 rue de Presbourg, Paris.
WEDNESDAY 25 MAY
08:30-19:30
Registration – Tuileries Garden
08:30-9:00
Opening Conversation
Neelie Kroes/European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda talks with Ben Verwaayen
09:00-10:00
Plenary V
Fostering Innovation: How to build the future
Introduction: Lawrence Lessig/Professor, Harvard Law School
Eric Besson/MInister of Industry, Energy & Digital Economy, France
Charles Chao/Chairman & CEO, SINA Corp.
Yuri Milner/CEO & Managing Partner, Digital Sky Technologies
Xavier Niel/Founder & Chairman, Iliad
Sean Parker/Managing Partner, Founders Fund
Niklas Zennström/CEO & Founding Partner, Atomico
Moderator: John Gapper/Chief Business Commentator, Financial Times
10:00-11:00
Plenary VI
Digital Transformation: Reinventing traditional businesses
Franco Bernabè/Chairman & CEO, Telecom Italia
Rosabeth Moss Kanter/Professor, Harvard Business School
Eric Labaye/Chairman, McKinsey Global Institute
Stephen A. Schwarzman/Chairman & CEO, The Blackstone Group
Mark Thompson/Director-General, BBC
Moderator: Jeff Cole/Executive Director, USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future
11:00-11:30
Coffee Break
11:30-12:30
Workshops I
Building Blocks
The art of the start-up
Samir Arora/Chairman & CEO, Glam Media
Luca Ascani/Co-Founder & Chairman, Populis
Bruce Golden/Partner, Accel Partners
Rick Marini/Founder & CEO, Branch Out
Shaukat Shamim/Founder & CEO Buysight
Moderator: Esther Dyson/Chairman, EDventure
King Content
Entertainment in the digital age
Carolyn Reidy/President & CEO, Simon & Schuster
David Drummond/Senior Vice President, Google
Martin Rogard/General Manager, France, Dailymotion
David Kenny/President, Akamai
Mikael Hed/CEO, Rovio Mobile
Patrick Zelnik/ CEO, Naïve
Moderator: Spencer Reiss/Program Director, Monaco Media Forum
Electronic Liberty
New Tools for Freedom
Introduction: John Perry Barlow/Vice Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Alec Ross/Special Advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Jean-François Julliard/Secretary-General, Reporters Without Borders
Tony Wang/General Manager Europe, Twitter
Hassan Fattah/Editor-in-Chief, The National
Jamal Khashoggi/General Manager, Alwaleed 24News channel
Susan Pointer/Director, Public Policy & Government Relations EMEA, Google
Nadine Wahab/Egyptian activist
Moderator: Olivier Fleurot/CEO, MSLGROUP
12:30-14:00
Lunch
14:00-15:00
Workshops II
Be Here Now
Mobility changes everything
Alexandre Mars/CEO, Phonevalley & Head of Mobile, Publicis Groupe
George-Edouard Dias/Head of L’Oreal Digital Business Group
Bart Decrem/SVP & GM, Disney Mobile
Rich Wong/Accel Partners
Eric Hazan/Partner, McKinsey
Tod Cohen/Deputy General Counsel and VP Government Relations International, eBay
Olivier Roussat/Director-General, Bouygues Telecom
David Jones/Global CEO EuroRSCG Worldwide
Moderator: David Barroux, Les Echos
Disinter-Media
Is Internet killing – or relaunching – the press?
Robert Thomson/Editor-in-Chief, Dow Jones
Robert Shrimsley/Managing Editor, FT.com
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr./Chairman & CEO, The New York Times
Norman Pearlstine/Chief Content Officer, Bloomberg LLC
Carlo De Benedetti, Chairman, Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso
Moderator: Frederic Filloux/CEO E-Presse
Open Government
Open data: For the People, by the Internet
Laurent Blanchard/VP, European Markets & General Manager, Cisco France
Carlos A. Primo Braga/Special Representative, The World Bank
Jean-Philippe Courtois/President, Microsoft International
Séverin Naudet/Director, ETALAB
Andrew Rasiej/Founder, Personal Democracy Forum
Nigel Shadbolt/Professor, University of Southampton
Moderator: Stanislas Magniant/Co-Founder, Netpolitique.net
15:00-16:00
Workshops III
The Disrupters
Extreme innovation
Lars Bjork/CEO, QlikTech
Jacques-Antoine Granjon/CEO & Founder, vente-privee.com
Brent Hoberman/Co-Founder, PROfounders Capital & Chairman, mydeco
Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet/Co-Founder & CEO, PriceMinister
Xavier Niel/Founder & Chairman, Iliad
Marc Simoncini/Founder & CEO, Meetic
Yossi Vardi/Chairman, International Technologies
Martin Varsavsky/Founder & CEO, FON Wireless, Ltd.
Moderator: Loic Le Meur/Founder & CEO, Seesmic & Le Web
Sharing Value
How to divide the digital bounty among creators, distributors — and governments?
Franck Esser/Chairman & CEO, SFR
Gabrielle Gauthey/EVP, Global Government & Public Affairs, Alcatel
Reed Hundt/Chairman, Aspen Institute IDEA Project
Alain Minc/President, AM Conseil
Ezra Suleiman/IBM Professor in International Studies, Princeton University
Moderator: Gilles Babinet
The Data Dilemma
Privacy in a networked world
Alain Lévy/CEO, Weborama
Jeff Jarvis/Buzzmachine
Christopher Wolf/ Partner, Hogan Lovells
Mitchell Baker/Chair, Mozilla
Christian Morales/VP & General Manager EMEA, Intel
Andrew Keen/Author, “Digital Vertigo”
Steve Baker/Author, The Numerati & Final Jeopardy
Moderator: Curt Hecht/CEO, VivaKi Nerve Center
16:00-16:30
Break
16h30-17h30
Closing Conversation
Mark Zuckerberg/Founder & CEO, Facebook talks with Maurice Lévy
17h30-18h30
Closing Plenary
Messages to Deauville
From 18:30
Closing Cocktail

19
May

Unimaginable: A world without facebook?!

Well done motion graphic video with key facts about facebook in general. Furthermore the production team raised the question how life without facebook would look like.
For this question, I also started a discussion on Quora.

22
Apr

e-G8 Forum: the G8 of Digital Leaders

I am honored to be invited by French President, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, to an invite-only gathering of global digital leaders, right before this year’s G8 Summit in Paris. The e-G8 Forum will include heads of state as well as key tech personalities like Eric Schmidt of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg all expected to attend. The event is hosted and chaired by Publicis Groupe CEO, Mr. Maurice Lévy.

e-G8 Forum - Global Digital Leaders President Sarkozy is currently heading the Group of Eight (G8) with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The major topic of the upcoming summit will be the state and the future of the Internet and the digital ecosystem on a global level. The goal of the e-G8 is to provide the G8 leaders with fresh-ideas and key insights.

Well, fresh ideas and digital know-how is something I can definitely bring into this diverse gathering in Paris. Since the publication of the Vision of Mobile Media for the year 2020 (Mocom2020) and several innovation projects at Ahead of Time, this is someting I had been asked before, but not by a President of a state. Exciting.

Discussions at the two-day Forum will be a mixture of plenary sessions and in-depth workshops where a wide variety of themes will be addressed, including:
– The Internet as key driver for economic growth
– The emergence of global digital citizenship
– The digital technologies of the future
– How best to promote innovation clusters
– The mobile revolution and its impact on commerce, media and advertising
– Privacy and IP protection

President Nicolas Sarkozy will himself deliver the opening keynote address.

14
Apr

What are the most important conferences to meet world and industry leaders?

Global, Economic, Political:

1. Bilderberg
2. World Economic Forum – Annual Meeting in Davos
3. DLD
4. TED
5. Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)

Business:

1. Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference
2. All Things D
3. Monaco Media Forum
4. Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting
5. Summit Series (skewed to younger entrepreneurs and mentors)

Social Entrepreneurship
Skoll World Forum

Tech:

1. Techcrunch Disrupt
2. Leweb
3. The Lobby
4. Fortune Brainstorm TECH
5. South by South West – SXSW (Interactive)
Germany: Next Conference

By Season:

January:
DLD (Munich)
World Economic Forum (Davos)

February:
TED

March:
Abu Dhabi Media Summit (Abu Dhabi)
South by South West – SXSW (Austin, TX)

April:
Summit Series (varies)

May-June:
All Things D (San Diego and now Rancho Palos Verdes)
Bilderberg conference (varies)
Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder’s Meeting (Omaha)
Next Conference (Berlin)

June-July
Aspen Idea Festival
Fortune Brainstorm Tech (Aspen)
Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference

September:
Techcrunch Disrupt (San Francisco)
The Lobby (Hawaii and now Mexico)
Clinton Global Initiative (NYC)

November:
Monaco Media Forum

December:
Leweb (Paris)

28
Mar

BMW launches Car Sharing Service DriveNow

You may already be familiar with the success of the Car Sharing Service “ZipCar”. Now BMW is entering this space with its own competitor, called DriveNow. The big difference are (of course) the cars, because DriveNow is the first premium car sharing service offering BMW and MINI cars.
http://drive-now.com/

All Details about DriveNow:
The BMW Group and Sixt AG are planning a unique and innovative car sharing venture. With effect from April 2011 onwards – initially in Munich and later in Berlin – the two companies intend to join forces in offering a modern mobility concept under the brand-name DriveNow; this new product will combine vehicles and service of the highest quality with simple, flexible usage. DriveNow is the first car sharing concept to place an emphasis on efficient premium vehicles and comprehensive service. Vehicles may be hired and dropped off wherever the customer needs them, thus clearly differentiating DriveNow from products offered by other competitors.
Continue Reading..

17
Mar

Job Opportunity: Web Developer & Facebook Application Developer

This is an exciting opportunities for all Web Developers who would like to become Co-Founders aka. Founding Employee at a well-funded new startup based in Europe (Munich / Zurich).

We are currently looking for an
Head of Product:
Advanced Web Developer & Facebook Application Developer – Software Developer, UI Developer, Software Engineer, UI Engineer,

I you are a social media addict and passionate about building scalable web platforms this might be something for you. Furthermore you would be one of the first employees and you will have the opportunity to become co-founder while getting a secured full-time salary.

What You Will Be Doing!

You will be part of our small group where everyone is part of the creative process. You will not only oversee software development, but also aspects of platform and product management. The perfect candidate is creative yet pragmatic, comfortable multitasking yet able to focus on a problem, and a fast learner.

What we are looking for!
– Significant experience in building and launching strong (high-traffic) web applications.
– Experience with web UI technologies — DHTML, CSS, Javascript, Ajax, etc.
– Experience with one or more database solutions MySQL, Postgresql, MongoDB etc.
– Integrating features with various third-party APIs, including Facebook Graph API
– Fluent in one or more OO or scripting languages like Java, PHP, Python, Perl.
– Grails or Ruby on Rails know-how.
– A strong interest in social media and social networks, with some exposure to the technology/concepts behind them.
– Excellent communication and documentation skills, with the ability to consistently contribute creative ideas.

What’s in it for you!?
– Be part in an exciting new Startup.
– Excellent Compensation & Salary.
– Co-Founder Shares & stock offerings.

This position is open as of 3/17/2011.
Job Position: Munich, Germany.
Please send us your CV, LinkedIn/XING Profile and Links to your recent projects.
Apply here info (at) aheadoftime (dot) de

14
Dec

Visualizing Global Friendship of facebook’s 500+ million users

A facebook intern created a visualized view of friendship on facebook on a global level. The result is this impressive image, visualizing the friend-relations of more than 500 million facebook users. It is interesting how we are connected, but also where are the main gaps where facebook is not present at all. Well done.

Facebook Global Friendship - Visualized
View High Resolution.

Description of the project on Facebook:
Visualizing data is like photography. Instead of starting with a blank canvas, you manipulate the lens used to present the data from a certain angle.

When the data is the social graph of 500 million people, there are a lot of lenses through which you can view it. One that piqued my curiosity was the locality of friendship. I was interested in seeing how geography and political borders affected where people lived relative to their friends. I wanted a visualization that would show which cities had a lot of friendships between them.

I began by taking a sample of about ten million pairs of friends from Apache Hive, our data warehouse. I combined that data with each user’s current city and summed the number of friends between each pair of cities. Then I merged the data with the longitude and latitude of each city.
….
Continue Reading..

13
Dec

My facebook profile art

The new profile page of facebook offers a lot of new opportunities. Here is my first facebook art for my profile: http://www.facebook.com/montymetzger

Monty Metzger Facebook

Here you can find a PSD file to set up your profile.

08
Dec

Cyber-Thefts steal carbon certificates worth 15 Mio Euro

If you read this, you know why you are (or should be) investing in security and firewalls at your company.
Hackers have been accessing Romanian National Registry for Greenhouse Gases and have stolen Holcim’s carbon certificates worth 15 million Euro ($20 million US Dollar). Holcim is one of the biggest cement companies with yearly revenues of approx. 24 billion Euro.

Here is the official statement from Holcim:

On November 16, 2010, Holcim Romania’s CO2 accounts held within the Romanian National Registry for Greenhouse Gases were illegally accessed. Unknown persons have stolen 1.6 million CO2 certificates of which 600,000 could be recuperated and returned to Holcim to date. The outstanding allowances correspond to a financial value of approximately EUR 15 million.

One million CO2 allowances were transferred to an account in Liechtenstein. Another 600,000 CO2 allowances were transferred to a company in Italy, which has account registries in Italy and the UK. Parts seem to have been further transferred to accounts in the Czech Republic, Great Britain and France.

Holcim Romania immediately informed the Romanian Registry requesting blockage and recuperation of its CO2 allowances and to secure data. Formal criminal investigations have been requested from the relevant Romanian law enforcement authorities. An international investigation has been initiated.

As CO2 allowances are electronically registered and cannot leave the Registry systems, Holcim has asked the European Commission’s support in requesting the National CO2 Registries to trace and prevent the further trading and dissemination of the stolen allowances.

29
Nov

A future vision of screen technology

This future vision not shows how screens will look like, but also how we exchange data, consume news, send files from your pc to your mobile.
Enjoy.

24
Nov

Monaco Media Forum 2010: Extraordinary & Inspiring

“Welcome to the worlds most influential media forum”, said HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco at the beginning of the Monaco Media Forum 2010. Indeed the event is not only inspirational, but is also bringing together the a very influential group of people in the media business. During the almost three days, I met founders, entrepreneurs, investors but also executives of the big media companies. Here are some key trends reflected in my video interviews….

Publishing, especially the News Business, will never be the same anymore. Newspapers are struggling to understand the digital age and to re-structure their old-business into a thriving new-business. It seems that The Huffington Post found a way to be profitable and successful during these times of change. The Huffington Post is one of the most read Online Newspapers in USA and has an active community, with over one million comments made on the site each month. Eric Hippeau, CEO of The Huffington Post, said that “people have lost trust in general (government, toyota, tiger woods), now companies build trust via social media. 2/3 of #HuffPost is unique and self created content, 1/3 is curated & aggregated news. News wants to be free. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle”. He adds “…we will never charge for content…reason…there is a much bigger advertising market.”

Cloud Computing and the development of low cost netbooks aka cloudbooks is driving the global internet business. On the forefront of this development is Jolicloud, a startup developing a Cloud OS, founded and lead by Tariq Krim.

Mobile Gaming and Social Media together are creating new opportunities for App Developers, but also for Game Developers. Interview with Andrej Nabergoj, CEO of Outfit7, one of the leading Gaming Development Company.

Console Gaming gets a new dimension with X-Box 360 Kinect. Interview with Bella Acharya, Director Microsoft Advertising and responsible for XBox 360 Kinect.

24
Nov

Sarah Brown at WIE Symposium 2010

On September 20th, 2010, Sarah Brown, alongside Arianna Huffington and Donna Karan hosted a dynamic new annual conference for women and I had been part of it 🙂 There had been only two other man there, one technician and one gay person – but what I can tell you is, that I got a lot of inspiration, ideas and new perspectives.

The WIE Symposium (Women: Inspiration & Enterprise) is hosted by The White Ribbon Alliance and took place in New York City during the UN General Assembly. Here is a short review of the event and an interview with Sarah Brown, Global Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and wife of Gordon Brown. As a special guest Estelle was joining the stage to sing her famous song “American Boy” on the rooftop party in NYC.

22
Nov

amaysim Australia – simyo Founders do it again

Today is the official launch of amaysim, a MVNO offering the “no-frills” business model in the Australian mobile market. Amaysim is founded by the former founder team of the european mobile communication company simyo.

There are many successful entrepreneurs who keep building and growing companies around the world, but there are not many teams who stick together and “do it again”. Rolf, Christian, Thomas and Andreas are a powerful team and it seems they building a unique company culture with their experience and passion about mobile communication. Congratulations to all of you!

Description form the official website amaysim.com.au:

amaysim mobile communication AustraliaAt amaysim, we’re striving to change the way Australians think about mobiles – forever. We’re committed to bringing you simple, fair, low-cost mobile services.

At the same time, we’re not going to skimp where it counts. We listen to our customers and have developed an outstanding Australian call centre, with a team that’s determined to put the focus back where it belongs: on the customer.

So who are we and why are we here? amaysim was introduced to Australia in November 2010 by a group of successful entrepreneurs with a proven international track record in Australia, Europe, the United States, South America and Asia. The founders are Australian telecommunications investor and advisor, Peter O’Connell (Chairman) and German e-commerce and telecommunication entrepreneurs Rolf Hansen (Chief Executive Officer), Christian Magel (Chief Marketing Officer), Thomas Enge (Chief Financial Officer) and Andreas Perreiter (Chief Operating Officer).

amaysim’s European Founders previously launched a similar business, simyo, a mobile company that grew quickly to become a market leader in its category in Germany, Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Now we’ve taken this experience and combined it with our Australian partner’s expert knowledge of the Australian mobile market, to build a new company that brings simiplicity and purity to Australian mobile customers. In building this company, we’re committed to delivering a ground-breaking mobile service that offers rates and a new standard of customer service that all Australians will enjoy.

10
Nov

Speech by DONOVAN & Monty Metzger: “The Social Web is The New Sixties”

The Social Web is The New Sixties!
How to catch your community and start a movement.

Legendary singer-songwriter Donovan and the social media expert Monty Metzger hold a collaborative keynote at the Artist Day of the Reeperbahn Campus, 2010.

The impact of social media on the music industry is fundamentally changing the profession. Your reputation is now defined as the sum of all conversations taking place amongst users and it’s happening now regardless of whether or not you are part of these conversations. Millions of blog posts. Viral videos. Reviews in forums. Sharing and remixing of music. Status updates via facebook, twitter and co. It is disruptive. It is distributed. It is in the hands of users and communities. And if you are an artist, producer or music professional it’s your responsibility to manage it.

“The dream of the Sixties, of me and the Beatles, was: how do we speak to everybody on the planet at the same time?” said Donovan. “Now we realize that the internet fulfills that dream of communicating with everyone. The Social web is the new Sixties as far as I’m concerned.”

09
Nov

Mobile UnConference

My friend Rocco Georgi is co-host of a great event called “Mobile UnConference“. Unfortunately I cannot attend as I am preparing the next Cross Innovation Academy (XIA) which will be November 18 & 19, 2010. But should take the time to join the Mobile UnConference in Düsseldorf it will be exciting, fascinating and informative.

Here are more details:
The Mobile Unconference is the ultimate chance to meet other developers, entrepreneurs, startups and technology companies to discuss the latest trends in mobile software. No frills, no strings attached, no marketing-speak, only regular folks who make the mobile world more
interesting every day. This is an UNconference and it’s all about its participants – anybody can grab the microphone and talk about something interesting there!

The event is organized by Mobile Enterprise Network Europe, MobileGamesBlog.com, Codeglue, Mangrove, PavingWays and Vodafone Germany and goes together with the Vodafone Developer Day and MobileMonday on the same day, November 15, 2010.

Mobile UnConference