Written on September 30, 2008 – 5:44 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Canadian David Chan has created a rather cool and funny Twitter tool called SayTweet. It allows Twitter users to combine photos with Twitter updates. Just upload a canvas (picture) and point out which users are on it. TweetSay will then generate a picture with text bubbles consisting of the latest Tweets.
This makes TweetSay a fun tool to create unique pictures for your blog or social network profile. For example, I twittered at Picnic last Friday about how Amazon CTO presented Dutch start-ups Soocial and Project E on stage. If I combine it with a picture from Project E’s co-founder Renato Valdés Olmos on stage, you’ll get the following result:
Though it’s a fun Twitter badge, I’m not sure whether people will come back to TweetSay often. This would change if Chan also offered a feature that makes it possible to combine pictures with a specific tweet. Users could then combine a picture of a person with a tweet he was actually posting around the very moment the picture was taken.
I hope you like that post!
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Violet is the company behind the nabaztag, the funny abstract rabbit that reacts to electronic impulses by blinking, talking and moving. Today at PICNIC the co-founder and chairman of Violet, Rafi Haladjian, talked about how the nabaztag was their first effort at connecting, well, everything. One of his slides simply showed:
His only comment for that slide was “We got step 1 covered and now it is time for step two” to much amusement of the audience.
Turns out Haladjian wasn’t joking. Within a few weeks Violet will start offering the Mir:ror. A simple device you can hook up to your computer via USB with a built-in RFID reader. It will be able to read everything you already own which contains an RFID chip but also comes with a bunch of ‘ztamps’.
These stamp-like pieces of adhesive plastic will also contain RFID chips and you will be able to tag the “7995 other items in your house that don’t know how to communicate, yet”. Apparently we all own about 8000 items of which only 5 know how to talk to the rest of the world. Violet’s goal is to make them all smart and connected.
This means you will be able to tag your umbrella and then hold it up to the mir:ror which will automatically launch your favorite weather report sites. Hold up your car keys to the mir:ror and it will give you traffic conditions and your calendar.
The possibilities for using the mir:ror and Ztamps are endless and really challenge everyone’s creativity.
The first keynote at PICNIC today was by Charles Leadbeater who repeated his usual ‘Power to the People’ speech and gave us a preview of his upcoming book. Ernst-Jan wrote an excellent article just minutes ago about his story.
Leadbeater is a great storyteller who knows how to keep 1000 people in a room quiet which is impressive because one of the things he promotes is user intervention. One of the themes he spoke about was the “Doing to me VS working WITH me”. We are all part of the generation that get things done to them by big corporations and government. Leadbeater spoke about his education where ‘Learning was being done TOO me’ and a visit to a hospital where the doctor will tell you he is working ‘for you’ but everything he does feels like it is being done ‘against me’. Now we are entering a new world where we, the consumer, patient, worker, are part of all processes and get to work WITH people who used to be solely in charge. The internet is the big enabler in this, of course.
After his inspiring speech Clay Shirky entered the stage to ask Leadbeater a few questions. His first provocative question was ‘Where WON’T this work?’. Leadbeater gave a few examples of which one was ‘You wouldn’t want your hernia operated on by someone who read about the procedure on the Internet’. Good point.
At one point Clay opined that the formula for influencing crowd controlled systems were too simple. Shirky:
“Digg is supposed to be a user controlled medium. But I know that if I post an article titled “the 7 Hottest Women in Science Fiction” it will reach the front page of Digg in no time at all just because the title has a number in it, has the promise of NSFW images and ‘Science Fiction’ in the title. There is only the impression of democracy…”
Written on September 15, 2008 – 9:39 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Ok, so conferences are really important if you want to get the word out about your start-up. Meeting people face to face and getting a chance to pitch your start-up to an influential via a different way than his overloaded inbox is just priceless. Unfortunately, the conference ticket fee isn’t. 750 euros 1250 euros, it’s too pricey for most start-ups either way. Let alone the flight and a place to stay.
My dear colleagues at The Next Web found a solution for that by starting their own conference three years ago, but something tells me there must be more simple way. Michael Arrington gave it a try by organizing TechCrunch 50. But the tough selection and weird ways of communicating with start-ups (more on that later) have turned that event into a fortress as well.
Find some part-time angels
Earlier this year, a few weeks before the Next Web conference took place, the no. 1 Twitter user from Holland Erwin Blom started an initiative that helped start-ups to see our keynote speakers like Scoble and Werner Vogels, but most of all, to meet other attendees. Blom decided to start a pool where people can drop in some money to buy a ticket for some of the starting entrepreneurs. Some part-time angels did this and we decided to double every euro collected. All a start-up had to do to get a ticket was sending in a three minute video pitch.
Get them to Picnic
In the end, 16 start-ups got a free ticket for the Next Web conference. A great result, if you ask me. For the second best web conference of Holland (biased opinion, I know :-)), Picnic, Blom is doing the same thing - though with a different format. Now he wants start-ups to show the public a week of their start-up life on Seesmic. Here’s an example by John Nota from Zideo (Dutch only, sorry):
Dag 3
This turned out to be a bit too much to ask, so now Blom just wants coverage of three days. I would’ve ignored the comments, as we’re talking about a ticket of 1250 euros here (!!). Anyhow, I figured I share this original way of getting start-ups at conferences. Some might not have the money, but they sure have an interesting story! How about starting a similar initiative in your own country?
Written on September 30, 2008 – 5:44 pm
Written on September 25, 2008 – 2:06 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. (
