Written on January 30, 2008 – 3:04 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
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Not that we needed it, but according to blogger Andrew Messer the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) expressed its appreciation for all those bloggers out there by releasing the new top level domain .BLOG.
The massive increase in Internet traffic due to blogging made it unavoidable to label the 2.0 style journalists and writers. The new domain will become available on April 1st, 2008. I think we can say that April will be a great month for cybersquatters.
The question is though, who will use the new domain? Some predictions that immediately popped up when I was reading the announcement:
Naturally, tech blogs will battle for the technology.blog, political blogs for politics.blog, humor blogs for humor.blog and so on.
Some of the big guys will probably register theirname.blog, if they’re fast enough. Nobody wants brand squatting problems like ReadWriteWeb had recently. Yet not all of them will make that effort. Their ranking position in Google, Technorati and Alexa is all based on their old domain. .BLOG is just a fancy thing to own.
New blogs will use the new domain, yet their influence is marginal. Only few fresh blogs know to attract a large audience (We hope we’re one of them).
Companies will move their corporate blogs to the new domains, or finally decide to start one. We’ll see domains like Startbucks.blog, Sony.blog and Ford.blog.
But this is just my opinion, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this new domain. What will you register?
Written on January 10, 2008 – 3:26 pm Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
To know how to steal advertisers from magazines you have to understand how magazines work.
A little history is in order, I used to be the designer and director of a highly successful design, manufacturing and distribution company (Intimidation) out of London during the nineties. One of the most interesting aspects of the business was marketing. It was the one part where you really had to deal with the entire industry, know what was going on, and be at the center of the controversy in order to get the most bang for your bucks (the latter seemed to come naturally).
So I’m this tiny rogue bean in an industrial sized tin of Heinz being baked, the most important thing I had going for me was a unique product, lots of new killer features and plenty to distinguish me from the ‘competition’ which in my case amounted to a ‘one size fits all’ bunch of losers, so that part was easy.
As an advertiser with a very limited budget, I had to maximize the return, I had to know precisely where the advertising would work and how to get it at rates that my competitors would die for. So I made some bold decisions from day one, here was my manifesto in a nutshell.
1) Always do double page spreads,
you get the best rates;
they have an impact like none other;
they intimidate the competition;
they cannot be ignored.
2) Forget the rate card,
Call up on p-day (publishing deadline) and offer them silly prices for a DPS, if the rate card said 1k per page, offer them 800UKP Max for a DPS.
3) Focus,
Have a real top class advert,
advertise only one product,
the message had to be crystal clear.
The product had to almost leap out of the page so that potential buyers could just about grab it (if not pin it to their wall).
The advert had to be full on war, with a simple but extremely effective caption. To give an example one of our captions was ‘Aural Sex’ (The product was a DJ Mixer BTW). When you get girls phoning up asking you for more information about aural sex you know your on to a good thing.
So what can blogs learn from magazines about advertising and how to poach it away from the mainstream publications. This diatribe rant is to both sides, advertisers and bloggers, as both need to understand what it takes to be effective from each others perspective.
Written on January 10, 2008 – 8:11 am Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic.
This week’s start-up is coComment, a service that makes it possible to keep track of all the comments and discussions your are participating in or observing on the web. Moreover, if you’re a blogger, you can publish the comments you’re making throughout the blogosphere. The company is based in Geneva, Switzerland. They’re funded by Swisscom Innovations. We’re interviewing Matt Colebourne, CEO of coComment.
How did you guys come up with the idea for coComment?
“It was our CSO, Nicolas Dengler, who came up with it. He found that as the number of blogs grew it became absolutely impossible to keep track with the comments he was leaving. At first, it was just a simple proof of concept idea, but after discussions with a number of prominent bloggers it was launched at the Lift Conference. Yet, still as an early stage idea.
The response was so fantastic that the imperative became to found a company and to build a product that was robust, general and generic enough that it was applicable not only to the blogger community, but also to the increasingly large number of users commenting on general media sites.
Nicolas and the technology team came up with the new, social coComment. Based on a number of workshops and advice both internal and external and feedback from our users. coComment 2.0 Beta release was buggy and not very well received. Though quickly thereafter we were able to refine it into the award-winning product that we now offer.” (more…)
Written on December 10, 2007 – 5:21 pm Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
This is a guest post by consumer, marketeer and storyteller Polle de Maagt. Would you like to share your views on the next web as well? Contact us!
To explain the simple basics of The Next Web (Web 2.0, The Future Web,The Read/Write Web … ) to a group of High School students, I’ve created the above presentation. Its purpose is to give a general and broad perspective on the shift that is happening online, leaving lots of room for improvisation, examples and dialogue. Students’ level of web-savvy-ness varies a lot, so flexibility in presenting the content is key.
I’ll walk you through the slides:
my web. How am I (Polle de Maagt) using the web? Describing my daily RSS-routine, Twitter-addiction, social-networked-life and mobile office-ing. the web. History of the web. Difference between The Internet (networked computers) and The Web (the web of sites and tools on top of the networked computers). the curious web. The web is all about curiosity: searching, finding, learning. the networked web. The power of networks (weak tie theory, who do you trust?) and different online networks. the sharing web. The web is all about sharing: profile information, bookmarks, texts, photos and video. the honest web. Blogs forced companies to engage in naked conversations, Plazes and microblogging tools force individuals to be honest about their motives and whereabouts. the remixing web. Mashups, videoremixes, rss, content via different interfaces … the playing web. Virals, games, SecondLife and World of Warcraft … homo ludens. the simple web. Whatever cool tools and features are launched, the most important question is: Can I explain this to my mom? the always-on web. The web is 24/7/365. More and more people are connected through mobile devices. There is no difference between on-phone and off-phone life … there is no difference between on-line and off-line life. the everywhere web. location based services and mobile office-ing.
Written on January 30, 2008 – 3:04 pm
The massive increase in Internet traffic due to blogging made it unavoidable to label the 2.0 style journalists and writers. The new domain will become available on April 1st, 2008. I think we can say that April will be a great month for cybersquatters.
Written on January 10, 2008 – 3:26 pm
A little history is in order, I used to be the designer and director of a highly successful design, manufacturing and distribution company (
“It was our CSO, 
Written on December 10, 2007 – 5:21 pm
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
