Category: Business

  • Thinking alternatives: From “Mobile” to “Mobility”

    Shai Agassi is the CEO of The Better Place to get rid of oil dependency (especially for running vehicles). The idea: Give away electric cars for free (like mobile phones) and make the batteries part of the electric grid system (instead of a costly component of the car). You basically pay for miles, thus the…

  • Competing with the iPhone

    Ingo Hinterding wants to have a Plam Pre. The multi-touch, turning UI is clearly attacking the iPhone market share. I think the Palm Pre will not succeed as an “iPhone killer”.

  • Hobnox – now open for everyone! New contest coming up!

    So Hobnox (the startup I am working for as “Head of Concept & Design”) has reached the end of the private beta phase and is now running as public beta (which means: everyone can register and use it). There are still many things that we have in the pipeline. As of now it appears to…

  • ‘If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.’

    This (german) article talks about digg.com stopping to censor articles that could lead to legal issues for Digg.com. The problematic article contained some code from an Equadorian blogger that allows to crack HD-DVD content. Of course the film industry wanted to keep that information confidential. Kevin Rose – one of the founders of digg.com –…

  • DRM-free music from Apple?

    Here is an open letter by Steve Jobs about why the music industry might consider selling their msuic online free from any digital rights management system (DRM). Basically he claims that more than 90% of the music sold is DRM free (on DRM-free Audio CDs) and that only 3% of music on an average iPod…

  • James Allchin on Macintosh

    According to this Computerworld article Microsoft long time Windows development chief James Allchin wrote an internal memo in January 2004 about the product quality policies within Microsoft: “I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are,…

  • iPod killers? I don’t think so…

    Here is a very detailed article about concurrent products for the Apple iPod called “iPod Killers for Christmas 2006” (and an older one for Summer 2006). And I think to some extent the article exhibits, why all those vendors remain unsuccsessful to decrease the market share of the iPod. It is not a question of…

  • YouTube aquired by Google

    There were rumors around about Goolge bying YouTube for $1,65 billion. Now the YouTube founders themselves posted a small video announcing the deal: Like this guy I think it will be a extremely interesting question how Google will deal with the copyright violations in the end. Update: Something doesn’t just feel right about these guys…

  • The missing tool for the long tail business

    Shopify.com let’s you create an e-commerce shop in minutes.

  • Webmontag flair?

    Look at these two impressions from two different Webmontag events: Which one would you like to attend more often?

  • New Webmontag events…

    Tonight there are two Webmontag events in Berlin and Bielefeld. Next week there will be one in Cologne (which I will attend), Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. There is already a bunch of interesting presentations in the pipeline — as always. And interesting people too: Tim Bruysten, Tobias Jordans, Mario Sixtus, Oliver Lauer. A very good way…

  • Is the Internet about to be disintegrated?

    Network neutrality is a principle of network design. It asserts that, in order to promote innovation, network service providers such as telephone and cable internet companies should not be permitted to dictate how those networks are used (i.e., not permitted to ban certain types of programs, to ban certain types of devices connecting to the…

  • Half of corporate PCs can’t run Vista?

    If something is really shifting the market share in favour of Apple, than I think it is the fact, that Microsoft does have a real problem with innovating their OS on an outdated base of hardware. According to InformationWeek Gartner estimates that half of the PCs in corporations won’t be able to even run Vista.…

  • 3rd webmonday/webmontag in Cologne went well

    Yesterday the 3rd Webmonday in Cologne took place. Again we arranged the Hallmackenreuther for this get together, but this time they decided to put us in the cellar (which is a nice location for maybe 50 people, but not 70 or 80; see the images). People start to get familiar with each other. I think…

  • Webmonday ahead

    There is another »Webmontag« event ahead tomorrow in Cologne. There are around 54 people planning to attend right now (and another 26 more unsure). I think I need to walk over to Hallmackenreuther and issue a warning.

  • Webmontag in Frankfurt

    Only a couple of hours left fo everyone to decide wether or not he/she should go the the Webmontag event in Frankfurt today. There are around 60 people that have announced to attend this meetup. There are also a number of presentators. So it seems to become a very informative and lively evening.

  • New Webmondays ahead! (Webmontag)

    There are new webmondays ahead in different cities in Germany (with dates & attendees as of the time of this post): Cologne (30th January; 13 attendees) Frankfurt (6th February; 41 attendees) Munich (06. oder 13. February; 1 attendee) Berlin (20th February; 7 attendees) Hamburg (no date yet; 6 attendees) Leipzig (no date yet; 2 attendees)…

  • Flick off!

    Since it’s start in 2002 Flickr has seen an enormous success. Flickr’s design is clean, lean and simple – giving room for the stars of the show: the photos and photographers. Something fundamental about the Internet: stuff like Flickr is not hip because of their interface design. They are hip because of their independence, their…

  • Google Talk

    A lot of rumors about Googles new instant messaging application last week: today Google Talk was released. It’s possible to log into Google Talk with any Jabber-compatible Instant Messenger (because it uses the XMPP protocol). But while they use Jabber as technology it does not connect to the existing Jabber servers around. That is really…

  • Bretton Woods II

    German e-Zine Telepolis writes about the Bretton Woods II theory that tries to explain the current world economy. Complex stuff if you’re not into world economics. The theory is around for quite some time now. Read about the Bretton Woods System.