Written on July 7, 2008 – 4:01 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Ok, maybe the headline isn’t fair, as I don’t speak more than three words of Spanish. But the episodes of Lingus.tv look pretty cheesy to me - with build-in laughs and all. But hey, maybe I would say the same about Seinfeld in Spanish. Anyway…, let’s get to important part of this post, since I’d like to introduce you to a new way of learning Spanish.
The Lingus team
Sergio Gazeau, Toni López, and Joan Balañá wanted to create a new way of learning Spanish, in which laughter would play a major role. Sergio had over six years experience in the language teaching business, so he knows the theories. He approached Toni and Joan for the technological and entertainment aspects. Together with thirteen other workers - including actors - and two Sony XDCAM high def cameras, they’ve created a web channel.
Lingus.tv features different episodes from a sitcom - divided in three levels, from beginner to advanced -, which all come with an outline, translation (those taught me the episodes really are cheesy) and several sound files of the hardest words. I guess Lingus.tv doesn’t work when it’s the only language learning tool you use - unless you try really, really hard. But it sure can be useful when you combine it with lessons. That’s probably the reason why Lingus.tv also sells licenses to schools that teach Spanish.
[Via: Loogic]
I hope you like that post!
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Written on July 7, 2008 – 11:37 am
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Last week marked the first edition of Mobile 2.0 Europe, the first European iteration of the popular Mobile 2.0 conference in San Francisco. The conference, held in sunny and vibrant Barcelona, was a big hit with 300 professional attendees, excellent keynote speakers and panels, lots of innovation from start-ups, high-level networking and a TechCrunch party to remember.
Mobile 2.0, an co-organization between dotopen, ESADE Business School and Mobile Monday, kicked off with a good keynote by Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia. He was very clear about the fact that Nokia’s future will be in the internet sphere, not the hardware manufacturing business. One take-away was the four things Nokia considers to be key: people, places, media and development.
I’m sure there will be a lot of reviews from the 4 panels (Mobile Social Media, The VC Perspective, The Operator Perspective and Open Business Models) elsewhere so I won’t bore you with a detailed review, but if I have to share something about each one of them, this would be it:
- The companies involved in the mobile social media market each have their own perspective on what’s going on now and what the future of mobile will look like, their views are not aligned at all.
- The venture capital panel was largely negative (or should I say, careful) about the business models of the majority of mobile startups they have looked at in the past.
- The operators sure didn’t seem to have made a lot of friends (or people who actually understand what it’s like in their world) in the audience.
- The business models panel showed that it’s hard, but not impossible to get a significant user base and revenue stream out of mobile if your angle is true innovation.
The rest of the day was filled with startup presentations. I will post my thoughts on the ones with the most potential in my opinion tomorrow!
Written on February 4, 2008 – 11:01 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
More than fifty Israeli start-ups will travel to Barcelona next week to present their products on the upcoming Mobile World Congress. Ok, it’s an impressing number yet not spectacular news. Though what surprised me is the way they cooperate at the conference. 
The companies have invested a total of 600,000 euros to build an Israeli lounge. Our WebTipr in Israel Yaniv Solnik emailed me why the start-ups are doing this: “They want to utilize the power of the togetherness in the Israeli mobile scene”.
The Israeli-get-together is organized by the Israel Mobile and Communications Association (IMA). On their site, they invite us all to show up at the lounge where ‘one of the world’s most innovative countries’ presents ‘the most creative companies’.
They want to utilize the power of the togetherness in the Israeli mobile scene
Sounds like the Israeli mobile scene is not afraid to invest in the image of their country. Smart move, especially since the image of the Israeli start-up culture is likely to get hurt by the rumors about Knocka’s problems to find funding. Knocka is an Internet television network that was started by the legendary founders of ICQ, who hyped their product to extreme proportions. Last week an article about Knocka employees leaving the company was published on the Israeli news site The Marker. If Israel’s to-watch start-up of 2008 is really going into a quiet death, an image boost for the country wouldn’t hurt.
Aside from the remark that it probably compensates the bad publicity around Knocka, it still might be a good idea to promote your country’s start-up culture. Could European countries learn from this campaign? If you’re able to hype your homeland, investors and users are likely get a positive association with any start-up coming from your country. Just like start-ups from the Valley have some sort of instant credibility. Nationalism 2.0 might actually work.
[WebTipr: Yaniv Solnik, Israel]
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