Fulltime Chris

The Social Media Safari

2010-07-28T15:03:00.000+02:00

Introducing Gravity!

2010-02-25T22:24:00.009+01:00

So what's gravity? Here's an explanation from Alan who works at Gravity.

"Several years ago, people used to ask why social networks are different - especially when email, IM, and address books provided the tools needed to connect you with the people you knew. Today, we all understand the value a networked social experience can unlock. In the future, I hope we'll all see the value a networked interest-centric experience will unlock as well. We hope Gravity will become the place you visit to talk about the things you care about, a place where what you know and what you're interested in is more important than who you know."

So I've been using gravity for two days now. It's a new innovative way of social networking. Ans So far, I'm loving it. I might have some reply's left, so if you'd like to join, please tell me why I should invite you in the comments section of this post.

Interactive Documentary - Future plans

2010-01-19T13:53:00.001+01:00

I have had some wild dreams about Interactive Documentary's made by different digital storytellers like me over the world. Emerging technology's are popping up while I'm writing this, and I strongly believe that through culture differences people tend to use these tools in a different way.

However, we are not aware of that due to the way we are sucked into our own culture. Only by actually talking to people, living in another culture, experiencing it or seeing this technology being used, you can look sideways and actually see what brilliant use of technology is happening in the world.

You sometimes can't believe what brilliant ideas in other cultures can help your way of communicating or doing business in your own culture. I always think that sharing these ideas can be very useful in letting other people know what is actually going on in the world. And it would allow to basically make a map of the world in which technology's are popping up and what is happening with them.

I want to set up a group of people, a community, digital storytellers, a reporter group if you like, with which we can make a video documentary. (one to start with :D )

I'd like to have brainstorms with you so we can come up with questions we can ask promising people active in our culture, and comparing these people with each other in this video montage. (Don't worry, we will use social media to make this video I know some tricks :) )

I thought that it might be hard to keep standards such as video formats, but don't let you get down by that. I'm far more interested in the content. We will find ways to show the information. And maybe have a worldwide documentary release one day. :)

We also have a language problem. However this barrier can be solved by tools like babelgum or google translate. The words and grammar isn't as important as the message we'd like to share. I do think it would be handy if we all understand English. But even if you don't, you might have translated this message...

I've had a similar project started with Erick Alejandro living in Guetemala which I see as a great friend thanks to Internet. This project hasn't continued due to lack of experience in managing the project. A loss for it had a great potential! I'd like to step up and manage this Global community of storytellers concerning the use of proper social media.

Please feel free to share this message with others, maybe your brother/sister/son/daughter/friend can be one of these young personalities and make this documentary a success. I don't have insights in every culture, and I'm eager to learn how this works.

Please let me know if you'd like to participate in any way. I'm thinking about building a Wordpress site where we can have online discussions concerning this project.

Think about it, it would be the first documentary made by different people who've never even met...

Let's make something beautiful!

Video - Google Nexus One Vs. iPhone 3GS

2010-01-13T11:33:00.002+01:00

This video has certainly cleared my mind. Though I'm a mac user, I'm also a Google user (who isn't? ;) ). I do find the google docs, gmail, calendar features etc. working better on Google than with Apple. I do wonder how content playback (photos, video and music) is working on the Nexus. Will it also sync with Itunes magically? But well, for those things I always will have my Ipod Touch.

What is VEVO?!

2010-01-12T16:16:00.001+01:00

Since Vevo "isn't available" in The Netherlands, and you can't easily get information about what it is. I thought I would share some stuff which they have posted on their website. I just used a proxy to get on the website so no 'big magic' however I think this platform is worth sharing :).

So what the hell is it? " On their website

What is VEVO?

VEVO is a new music video network on the web. VEVO videos can be found at VEVO.com and at the VEVO Channel on YouTube as well as in thousands of VEVO/YouTube artist channels. VEVO videos are available via Search at YouTube as well.

example of one of these pages: http://www.youtube.com/user/KevinRudolfVEVO and
http://www.youtube.com/user/vevo

This is what I found on the About page:

VEVO is the leading innovative online premium music and entertainment service for consumers, advertisers and content owners that blends the very best in musical content with cutting-edge video technology and a thriving user community powered by YouTube. The content is made available on YouTube through a VEVO-branded channel, on VEVO.com, the service's marquee destination site, and through a VEVO-branded embedded player. The service also serves as a syndication platform for additional internet destination sites, expanding the reach of the VEVO brand across the worldwide Web.

VEVO was created in partnership by Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and the Abu Dhabi Media Company. It is operated independently by a dedicated management team with offices in Los Angeles and New York. VEVO features the most extensive catalog of premium music content found anywhere on the web thanks to deals with such leading music companies as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Hollywood Records, Walt Disney Records, CBS Interactive Music Group, Big Machine Records, Concord Music Group, Lyric Street Records, ABKCO, Caroline Distribution, Fontana Distribution, INgrooves, IODA, RED and The Orchard, among many others.

Here are some questions found on the F.A.Q. page:

Why do some videos give me a "Sorry, this video is not available in your region" error?

Not all videos can be viewed globally. Videos unavailable now should be available in the near future. VEVO is actively pursuing the ability to display all of its videos in all countries.

Can I sign up/register and become a member of VEVO?

VEVO Sign Up is simple and fast. Registering with VEVO will allow you to post comments, favorite videos, artists, and playlists, and create and save your own personalized music video playlists. To register click on the Sign Up link on the upper right hand corner of the page. If you are a member of YouTube, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, or Facebook, you can even use your existing accounts to make sign up even easier.

Where do videos play at VEVO?

Videos play in the VEVO Player. Instead of navigating to a VEVO Player directly, you get there by selecting a specific video or playlist that you want to see. Once you hit Play or Play All at VEVO, you are taken to the VEVO Player where you can enjoy your favorite video.

What is the VEVO Player?

The VEVO Player at VEVO.com is a high-quality, state-of-the-art Video Player that includes exclusive, one-of-a-kind synchronized lyric playback with many of its videos. Enjoy getting to know the VEVO brand and singing along or rapping with your favorite artists!

All this seems pretty cool , the website certainly looks clean. I wonder when there will be a dutch version. #probablynever

Cheers,

Hyperwords - Brilliant Browser Add on

2009-12-11T10:54:00.002+01:00

I heard about this plugin through the twitter channel of Le Web 09. I think It's a brilliant plugin. " Hyperwords is a system for Servers and Browsers (Mozilla Firefox {Version 5.6.5 & 6.0 Beta} & Google Chrome) which lets you select any words on the web for useful options."

Checkout the demo below.

Note! It doesn't work on Safari and Chrome on the Mac yet. It will work on Chrome (developer preview) for Mac some time next week, when Google updates Mac Chrome to make it possible.

Gmail tip - "still need to reply inbox"

2009-12-08T13:16:00.001+01:00

So you also get around 150 e-mails a day (or not ;). An inbox never is that clear. I mean I get automatically generated e-mails like Newsletters, personal e-mail, business e-mails etc. You read your e-mail and you think I need to reply this one. However at that moment you might not have time to reply directly. So you either send an e-mail saying: I will reply later, or you don't and you might forget.

I had that problem and have found a way to highlight all my e-mails which I still need to reply. A function which is very useful for me. And you might have fun from it as well..

You might recognize this screen it's the normal gmail interface where you see your Inbox and all the other gadgets which you installed on your Gmail. Go to the green Icon on the right top side of the Gmail interface.

Here you can find a list for all the Gmail extra's which you can install on to your gmail. Please have a look around. Some of them are quite useful! For now look for the "Multiple Inboxes" and enable this option. Save your configurations and go back to your inbox.

Here you see your new inbox. What this option does is it enables multiple inboxes on your home interface. My normal inbox is the bottom one. Here all my new e-mail comes in as normal. Now, when I see an e-mail which I really need to read or need to reply I highlight it by giving it a star. What happens is that this e-mails moves to the top inbox. Now every time I open my e-mail I see my "still need to reply" e-mail. My new e-mails and my drafts.

It works perfectly for me. Since I use this function from Google Labs. I "hardly" miss an e-mail which I need to reply.

It might just work for you to.

cheers.

Companies sell stuff, people buy stuff

2009-11-25T14:43:00.001+01:00

Came across this Presentation. Thought I'd share this with you guys :).

Companies sell stuff, people buy stuff

View more documents from Helge Tennø.

Bad relationship with Vodafone

2009-11-24T13:26:00.002+01:00

Well I have a bag of frustration for you guys. It's crazy how a company that big, can make such a stupid mistakes.

Image via Wikipedia

Okay, I'm not sure how this works in other countries where Vodafone does business. But I'll tell you my experience at the moment with Vodafone.

My Nokia N95 8GB died. I used it a lot, and for some reason it doesn't boot up again. It still has guarantee so I thought I would just get it fixed at Vodafone... Let the adventure begin.

So I went to the Vodafone store in Bussum and asked if I could fix my phone. The lady said I should have a receipt which came with the phone 1,5 years ago when they delivered it at my house. Well, I don't have that piece of paper, however I did have a vodafone generated e-mail with all my details on it.

My order
My details
Customer number
phone number
etc.

So you would think if I can identify myself, it would be okay. Well that was to good to be true. The lady told me I need a piece of paper which I can order by calling the customerservice. A few hours later I called them. However because I don't have a working vodafone number and I called with my land-line I couldn't reach the customer service. Brilliant!

I rang another Vodafone service number and the computer lady on the phone told me to check the website.

So there I go, wondering if I could tweet/chat/facebook or whatever with some vodafone employees. Instead I could log in and sent an e-mail. Luckily, I forgot my password. And if I want to get a new password I can have it texted to my phone. Because my phone is broken. I can't login.

I haven't been the most neat person with my receipts, passwords and stuff. But if I think of it.. Is that really my problem? I mean, since I never go to that "my vodafone" page. I just forgot about it. And indeed; you can lose a receipt right?

I'm now paying a bill every month for a crappy service, a vodafonestore employee who's telling me I'm stupid and phone which isn't working.

I definitely know one thing... When I'm finished with my second 2 year contract... I'm out!

Update: I finally got to login in my vodafone account and managed to find out that the employee in the was wrong. I don't need my receipt as I have a Nokia...

Really... what do I have to do, to "please" use the Vodafone services?

Social Media presentation

2009-11-23T09:37:00.001+01:00

It's already a bit outdated, and however I don't agree with every slide of this presentation. It does contain a lot of exercises which I find pretty good for starting bloggers.

Social Media for nonprofits: Overview

View more presentations from guestf1e806.

Zemanta

2009-11-20T16:31:00.002+01:00

As I mentioned earlier on Twitter I've been using Zemanta for a couple of days now. As I accidentally invited everybody I ever have sent an e-mail to my Linked-In profile. I got a message from Andraž Tori I remember meeting him on Blog 08 last year in Amsterdam. However, I never seem to stayed in touch with him. I just want to share Zemanta with you guys. It's a nice browser plugin which saved me some time for the moment.

See what Zemanta does in 60 Seconds.

I haven't been using Zemanta on every blogging platform I use. I manage blogs on Wordpress, Tumblr, Squarspace and Blogger and only tested it for Blogger. This does works perfectly though. I really enjoy the label (tag) generator and the way you can just search for relevant pictures and chuck them in your text.

Give it a try and see how it can work for you. :)

Playstation goes Social

2009-11-20T09:59:00.001+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

Console gamers have their time of their lives. People who updated their PS3 system to Firmware V.3.10 have some cool extra features. With this update Sony made it possible to connect your Facebook account to your PS3 account. So what does that mean?

At the moment it gives the opportunity to share your "trophies/achievements", game purchase information and your game event info on your wall. At the moment it's only a "push" system. This means that you can't retrieve data in your PS3 browser. If you'd like to see what your friends are doing you need to go to the PS3 Internet browser and checkyour social networks. I see this as the beginning of consoles going social. Of course Microsoft has had the whole MSN integration. And is a step ahead of Sony. With their new update they also integrated Twitter.

If you want the real "going live" experience you still need to be with Microsoft. There Live features are simply better. However this service is not free. Whereas the PS3 online connection is free.

Image via Wikipedia

If you're looking for a home media set. You should definitely think about a PS3. As I see it, it's an cheap Blu-ray player, with a lot of great features. Not only you can play a lot of games in HD. You can also use your PS3 as a media player. Because of the build-in Wifi in the system you can connect a computer which only serves it's purpose as a server. Can be your laptop, or just use an old PC which you have stored on your attic. The free ps3mediaserver software provides your PS3 access to that computer. What happens is that you can easily stream your "HD" video, your photos or music to your system. You won't have the classic format problems because during the stream the ps3mediaserver software will convert the extensions to a format which the PS3 can play!

I have both a PS3 and Xbox, and at the moment I really enjoy my PS3. I really wonder when Microsoft can convert me to buy games for Xbox 360...

If you want the full feature list on what's updated in Firmware V3.10 check this blogpost.
Don't miss out on the new photo application which you can download!
And the television integration.
And the, ó I can go on forever...

The ps3mediasoftware (Windows, OSX, Linux) can be downloaded here.

Cheers,

Add comments on Tumblr 2.

2009-11-17T09:17:00.005+01:00

Add comments to your Tumblr blog? Long ago I tipped you guys about Disqus which I still use. It has a lot of great functionalities, which for example allows your audience to comment with their twitter or Facebook account.
Yesterday I got a comment on a post from Lee.
As Lee commented on my post " How to add comments on Tumblr" he mentioned a simply alternative for Disqus. Don't get me wrong, I love Disqus and all the functionalities which Disqus brings. However, if your just looking for a simply commenting system. This does the job perfectly. I enclosed a short tutorial which Lee has posted on his website.

Thanks for the tip!

UPDATE: Check cmmnt.info for the code which doesn't seem to appear in this post.

cmmnt.info - Comments For Your Site

I was looking for a simple commenting system for my tumblr blog.

I came across Disqus which worked really well, but was serious overkill for what I was looking for. Further research led me to believe there was nothing suitable so I decided to make my own clean and simple alternative.

The concept is a hybrid system based on both Blogger and Disqus. It has been made with Tumblr in mind, but will work with any web site. It's free, easy to implement and doesn't require any signup. Check out the sample link below for an example. Instructions follow afterwards. To see it in action in the wild visit my tumblr.

4 Comments. Click to test the cmmnt.info comment system!

Instructions for Tumblr

Log into tumblr.com/customize
Navigate to Theme and select "Use Custom HTML" if it isn't already enabled.
Copy and paste the following code into the HTML, just before the {/block:Posts} tag:
Copy and paste the following code into the HTML, just after the {/block:Posts} tag:
You can apply CSS styles to the paragraph (p.comments) or link (p.comment a.cmmntLink) if you like, although this step is optional.
You can also append text to the end of every link by modifying the link_text_extra javascript variable. To make the comment links say "5 Comments. Click here to add your feedback!" use add the following code above the previous line of javascript:

Instructions for other sites

Create a link on any page you want to be able to comment on and give it the class 'cmmntLink'. If this is a blog post, it should be the permalink.
Copy and paste the following code into the HTML, just before the tag:
You can apply CSS styles to the paragraph (p.comments) or link (p.comment a.cmmntLink) if you like, although this step is optional.
You can also append text to the end of every link by modifying the link_text_extra javascript variable. To make the comment links say "5 Comments. Click here to add your feedback!" use add the following code above the previous line of javascript:

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

2009-11-09T15:34:00.001+01:00

I saw this keynote a few weeks ago and saw that I didn't post it on my blog. I think that this presentation is a very clear story on how Social Media works. What the F*ck is Social media?! Enjoy ;).

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

The rise of the SME's!

2009-10-19T23:39:00.001+02:00

I posted this video about social media experts some time ago. Which made me think about the Social Media Experts (SME's) we have in The Netherlands nowadays. Probably the rise of these characters is all around the globe. However, I notice that every one of them keep coming with the same story. Very ~~interesting~~ entertaining to know how many people use Facebook or Hyves, how many people use twitter, what the succes stories are?

I came across this powerpoint today. A dutch one. " sorry, lo siento ;)"

20091019 Dutch Work Innovation Day

View more documents from Tribewise.

What this ppt basically tells us, are some entertaining stats, and this same story which every social media expert tell us. Nice design and I'm sure a great story when they give the presentation. However when do people really start using social media, and how should they use it? I wonder what a director of a bank or bookwriter thinks when he sees this. " yes, I should do something with social media".

I wonder when we all stop telling this story and move on to the next phase. "How would I start implementing social media in my business? What are the pro's and con's? "

I also think we should start realizing that social media is a different story for every company. We know some basic rules thanks to the great presentations online. However which rules has my business?
Where's the start? Then, ready, set , go!

This makes you think, doesn't it? Social media counter

2009-10-14T16:25:00.002+02:00

Found this counter made by Gary Hayes on personalizemedia.com.

It is an interesting counter based on the following:
20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)

Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)

900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)

YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!

Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)

Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)

Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)

Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)

SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)

What Is A Social Media Expert?

2009-10-13T17:01:00.001+02:00

How to import rss to twitter

2009-10-13T16:26:00.006+02:00

So in another post I said something about that you can use twitter as an autobot to post news. Please people don't use this the wrong way. Because if you mis-use the import of rss within twitter you'll be seen as an spammer and you won't get a lot of followers. Believe me. Who wants to follow someone (thing) when they update every 4 minutes with the same type of messages?

If you are clear in your communication that the account which has te import function of rss and twitter is a news account, then this is a very usefull tool!

So let's get started!

There are a few tools to import RSS into your twitter account. Here is the way I do it.

1. Go to twitter and make sure your signed in with the account you want to import RSS to.

2. Go to this website and sign up. http://rss2twitter.com/ ( this one is still in Betá however it works fine ( Safari 4 on Mac OSX)

3. Make sure you get the confirmation e-mail and activate.

4. Add a twitter account by clicking on " add account" this will bring you to the twitter website where you need to click " Allow"

5. When your done twitter is connected with rss2twitter.

6. Click on "my feeds" and add a feed. Just follow the steps on the screen.

7. The bottom three optional options can be used as filter within your RSS feed. This way you can always add #marketing or #socialmedia for instance.

UPDATE: I also came across https://twitterfeed.com which basically does the same.

Hope it works for you guys.

Cheers.

How social is Social Media

2009-10-13T13:57:00.006+02:00

Well we all know about social media. " Even my mum is on the Dutch social network Hyves ;)". When we talk about social media, we like to think of Twitter/Youtube/Facebook/Flickr or bebo. Well forget that last one.

For a lot of people in The Netherlands the social networks are pretty important. And are used daily. We poke each other on Facebook we scrap each other on Hyves, a lot of so called BN'ers famous dutch people have discovered Twitter, some free newspapers use Twitter to interact with their readers and well I go on for a long time. We are going social.

So here is my question. Why do companies find it hard to be social?

Come on.. Look at it. A lot and I mean a lot of companies try to be social. But instead of preparing a normal social media strategy they tend to just start a public profile on a social network and forget about it. Look at these "Dutch" Hyves one of sns-bank http://sns-fundcoach.hyves.nl/ or http://landal-greenparks.hyves.nl/ . The last one has potential but if you analyse the scraps you can see that there is absolutely no conversation. Instead you see a moderator(s) broadcast news/photo's and gadgets on a new channel. So why would I ever join one of these groups? To say that I had a fantastic time using their product? Give them compliments? Upload photo's so they finally have an update on their channel? What's in it for me?

Why do you even bother starting something 'social' when you don't make time to react? I see it happening so many times when companies don't even react on the @replies which I have sent on twitter. There is somebody who is receiving that. Isn't it a great fast way of communication between two parties? A way where you can easily solve a problem.

Another problem which I see starting social companies is that they want and expect instant results.

Social Networking takes time! I know about these success stories! But think about all the initiatives which have failed because there was no one who interacted with the campaign and where people just pulled the plug!

If you like to start something social on the web. Don't try to be like the big boys when you're not. Have patience, and be honoust about what you provide. You see a lot of companies which just spam everywhere to get some followers or members on their network. Come on, it's not a marketplace! I have 496 unread hyves mail of invitations for different hyves. I'll tell my vision on why people join a group in a different post". Really, your talking to people. Stop shouting and start thinking. I think you should simply start every channel with a different strategy.

For instance:

Twitter:

You can have a company channel, however what makes you interesting? I wouldn't want to follow updates of a hosting company. What do these guys have to say? Well, in this case I would say that they can use twitter as an Helpdesk. Let all the know that if they have a problem or question that they can easily ask it by tweeting it.

In this example you see that twitter is used as a Helpdesk. But there are millions of ways you can use it. Think of simple website/blog updates which can be just an autobot. Or think of the personal use of twitter.

Some people ask me for what I use Twitter. And since I don't have a company, am still a student, have some knowledge on social media and video and simply like sharing things. I tweet about:

Workshops which I attend
Remarkable and funny video's
Interesting Re-tweets
@ replies (reacting on other tweets)
Good video tutorials
In my opinion good blogposts
And sometimes some spanish stuff "Mostly when I feel Spanish on a Friday night ;) "

And why do I do it? I made contacts through twitter. I follow stories on live events which I can't attend. I keep in contact with friends abroad. I use it as SMS with some of my friends. I have gotten a job through twitter.

And Indeed it does seems a bit frightning when you only have 4 followers. But what does a number say ? Exposure.. Maybe these 4 people can help you more than any other person in my followers list. If your interesting, you'll get your followers. It just takes time.

Seems like I needed to write down some of my frustrations..

Do wonder what you guys think about social media strategy.. Should there be one? Should you just start? Who's responsible for the job. IT?

Speaking Piano - Now with (somewhat decent) captions!

2009-10-13T13:31:00.001+02:00

Like this video.. Wonder when there will be a speaking drumset.

A Million years ago.

2009-07-23T11:22:00.007+02:00

I have thought a lot lately what to do with fulltimechris, It hasn't been full time lately and still I only want to post stuff which makes sense. However I did feel that I needed to share some things with you ever since I went sabbatical in January.

So how did my last 6 months go?

As you might know, I have been studying in Madrid at the Universidad Europea de Madrid. An university on which I did a lot of experience in the filming and advertising industry. I have mastered loads of effects in Final Cut Pro and learned a lot about managing a film production.

I have embedded my two best video's below this post.

Next to the studying I also gained a lot work experience at Orange Aria. I work for this company for over 1,5 years now and I still could do video production, social media intergration and blog building while I was in another country. This has been a great opportunity, and a good basic income to manage my social life in Madrid.

I have seen a lot of things in Madrid. Just like the last time I have been there (July, August '08) they just use social media in a different way than people use it in The Netherlands. Some sites like the Dutch Hyves and the Spanish Tuenti can be seen as a similar website. However the " little" differences in the websites make a big difference in the use of the 2.0 app.

Tuenti for example doesn't make it possible to "spy" on profiles with which you haven't connected. Hyves however is the biggest James Bond application in The Netherlands. A lot of people don't know how to switch on the " private profile" modus and hyves has become a symbol of your image. What photo's do I upload? Which " scraps" do I leave on my profile page. Do I say that I'm in a relationship? etc. etc.

The filter which other social networks have can be seen as a safe thing. Especially if you think that somebody with pedofile beards can see your daughters Hyves profile page. But doesn't it make social networking extremely fun as a teenager? At least I find it fantastic to see how my classmates of high school are doing and that I'm able to see with who they are connected etc.

Enough about this social networking, I can go on forever. I have ideas about producing a documentary from January 2010. I will update you guys on this blog about my progress on that. See this post as my return on the blogosphere. Although I have been doing a lot of videoblogging ;) " In Dutch "

Here are the video's I have been talking about.

My selfportrait

Videoclip - Do it Again

Sabbatical blogging

2009-01-11T15:25:00.006+01:00

I had my first sabbatical. It has been the 2nd of December since my last blogpost ( what a shame). Last month has been a real crazy rollercoaster ride. I have been busy working with www.marketingfacts.nl where I have been active as a projectmanager, managing a team of Interactive Media students, like myself.

Also my work at Orange Aria has been a real exciting experience. I have been involved in producing a new concept called Blogstars. We had a redesign which has been a great improvement on the website. check it out on www.blogstars.nl.

And of course! I have been preparing my 6 months Madrid safari. Mainly finding a home for the next period. I managed to get a room in a student flat based around 40 meters from Plaza Mayor. =D.

So what will I be doing now?

Some people may know that yesterday I arrived in the wonderful city of Madrid. I am in Spain to study as an Erasmus student. In a few hours I'll be getting a tour on the campuss which is located in Villaviciosa de Odon. Really exciting!

Next to all the studying, I will continue my work for Orange Aria. I'll be mainly focussing on www.blogstars.nl , on which I also will have an account. There I will gather blogposts, video's and podcasts in a blogstar environment.

I hope to have this ready in the coming weekend. I'll update you guys about that once I have dealed with it.

My next challenge is to get a montly ticket for the public transport, my spanish is not that good, but I think I'll be able to manage to do this.

Hasta luego!

Nokia N97

2008-12-02T22:26:00.004+01:00

Today I heard Nokia will come up with a new phone. The Nokia N97. If you have a look at the youtube film which I embedded. You'll notice that the combination of keyboard and touchscreen looks pretty useful. I'm a Nokia fan, and I love the way Nokia keeps coming with these great phones!

Of course I haven't tested it. But here are some of the specs*.

-5 megapixel camera

-32 GB internal flash Memory (room for a 16 - 48 GB Micro SD card)

-Wifi

- HSDPA

-3,5 inch (640×360 pixels) screen 16:9

-Touchscreen ( not multi-touch as it seems in de video)

If you have a look at this you'll notice that it has a lot of memory. I wonder what this will do with the way people use Mobile.

This phone will work on Symbian, just like the N95 and N96. Since the Iphone has more than 10,000 apps. The symbian platform has been opened as a open-source platform. I wonder what succes that will bring.

The N97 should be in store in the beginning of 2009 and will cost around 550 euro.

Just have a look at this video. And get amazed by this phone!

* I found the specifications on this phone thanks to " http://weblogs2.nrc.nl/hebben/2008/12/02/nokia-n97-touchscreen-smartphone-met-keyboard/"

Internet Desktops...Jooce

2008-12-01T11:32:00.007+01:00

From all of the Web desktops online. "Netvibes, symbaloo, Igoogle etc.." I have found another great flash based Internet desktop.

"Jooce is a Flash-based web operating system and sharing platform. They are targeting the millions of people who use “cybercafes” to conduct their Internet affairs instead of a regular desktop or laptop. The Jooce product is aiming to provide these virtual vagabonds with a web-based desktop to manage their IM, email, storage, media and widgets in a secure and protected way. They also provide virtual nomads with an online desktop that they can share with friends to swap files like pictures, documents, audio and video."

This is Jooce in a nutshell. I've been testing the website for a few days now and noticed that it has great potential. The messenger client is not really great "it keeps switching from online to offline and vice versa in Google Chrome", and there are some other bugs on there which can frustrate you. However, the fresh design and the audio/video features works perfectly!

You can create an online back-up of your music library and stream this in perfect quality from your browser. I think Mac users can have a bit of problems with the navigation, for the apple dock has been used again! Firing up this website will make the mac users controlling two of the classic Apple dock. Which could be confusing.

However "I'm a pc ;)" and this will not be a problem for me. What was a problem for me was the name of the site. "Jooce" come on! The names for web 2.0 sites are terrible "most of them" , and they look so much alike.

Jooce, Joost, Juice blegh! Be orginal!

I was impressed though by their fast and beautiful website, which I'll be checking out again when more bugs have been fixed.

Maud Mulder & Blogstars

2008-11-29T15:30:00.000+01:00

If you watch Dutch celeberies website's, you'll notice that these sites mostly are nothing more than nicely designed Biography,Discography and lyrics. Of course they have a blog where they occasionaly post some updates about some performances, and they would most probably have a guestbook. However, if you really want to know what these stars are up to. You need to be briefed by the television or gossip magazines.

The information that you "as a fan" gets is either promotion for their new released album or gossip.

At Orange Aria we developed a way that Celeberities can upload films, foto's and texts directly on their Blogstar website. I have installed software on Mobile Phones so the Stars just need to produce the content and upload it to the website. This process takes really short because all Mobile generated Content "MGC" produced can be uploaded by pressing 1 button on the phone.

At the moment there is a pilot going on. Maud Mulder "Idols artist in 2004" has started to use the Blogstars platform. We have never announced the website and in the last four weeks we have achieved to get 9000 pageviews.

At the moment we are in conversation with a lot of Artist who would love to get the Blogstar platform. This means that in January we hope to have at least five different artist's or groups who are using this platform. The design will have a lot of tweaks in the coming days. What is on there at the moment is a global idea of what it will look like in the end. If you have tips about navigation, colors, buttons please let me know!

I really want to know what you guys think of this idea, would you follow the Blogstars?

check out maud.blogstars.nl for the website of Maud. "It's in Dutch though, sorry guys!"

Vloggers On The Road

2008-11-29T13:47:00.003+01:00

If you're a dutch blogger. You must be aware of Hollands most popular Marketing Weblog named Marketingfacts.

The past two weeks I had the opportunity to post some video's on that blog. With seven fellow other students I am setting up 2 formats for a new online video site called M!TV, Marketing Facts TV.

These posts were in Dutch, and to get some more feedback on the concepts I thought I would turn to you guys. In the video's I posted I asked for feedback on the concepts which we developed. Because we think we could use the wisdom of the crowds, in the end; we are producing these formats for the M!community!

Vloggers on the Road is a concept were the community gets hold of a vlogbox. This vlogbox contains a camera, microphone, a manual "How to Edit" and trial editing software. This box will be in hands of the bloggers of Marketingfacts.

The Idea is that these bloggers make videos about every Marketing related subjects. They could take the vlogbox to Events, interview interesting colleagues or could just show the world a glimpse of there life. Everyweek the vlogbox will be given to another blogger. This way the bloggers of M! need to set up an appointment to hand over the Vlogbox. This way we hope there will be a sort of chain-letter effect.

We thought of this concepts because there are a lot of online video channels which just copy tv to the web. I think there is a very different way online video channels work than ordinary tv. Lately a lot of webTV channels are just copying tv, which in my eyes don't work. Look to blueshots.tv , a dutch vlog which actually is just a bad copy of tv. Watching interviews of 43 minutes is just not going to work, unless it is really special. I think the only webTV platform which can get my attention for those videos is ted.com, which you guys most certainly heard of.

I think for a starting webTV platform you need original and fresh content. It doesn't have to be a proffesional tv production. Look at some of the crap quality video's on youtube. I think on the road content should be fun and surprising. Certainly with vloggers on the road. Because you never know which blogger is the next on Marketingfacts TV.

Future Projects

2008-11-29T13:24:00.005+01:00

Grotere kaart weergeven

For the ones who didn’t know. I will go back to Spain shortly. I have been accepted as an Erasmus student at Universidad Europea de Madrid. An university about 20 km from the city of Madrid. I will study different subject on Journalisme and video production. Next to that I will learn Spanish and will improve my English. For the subjects are given in English “Spanglish I’m guessing”.

One of the reasons why I went to Madrid last summer, was to investigate if I liked the city and see how the media world works in Spain. I liked this beautiful city and I definitely learned what the differences in media usage is. I’m writing a big article on how new media is developing and differs between North and the South of Europe. I will continue travelling to countries and write my reports on how this works. I do however want to include as much as countries possible. For this I will ask input from people in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Romania, and Czech republic and so on.

Where is new media going in Europe, what are the differences between North and South, East and West.

This Article which will take a lot of time. I will record a podcast “As told to chris”. Which will include everything I see in Madrid.

Next to that I’m trying to set up a show which will include conversations between different continents. One of my dreams is that I’ll set up a network just like myself. Media junky’s who like to cross borders with the web. This way I’ve already met Erick Alejandro. I know you other guys are out there as well. As I made my preparations I’ll make an announcement where I’ll ask for people to contribute to this global podcast.

Help save Mobuzz TV!

2008-11-06T15:50:00.004+01:00

To produce an online video show 5 days a week, in three languages en multiple formats you need money. To be exact Mobuzz TV spends 15.000 euro's a month to produce the shows. Hosting costs/production costs/staff etcetera, it adds pretty quickly.

Mobuzz TV is an European well known videoblog. The bite-size shows are mainly about Digital Lifestyle, gadgets, the web, 2.0 and other fresh topics to keep the passionate and computer-savvy generation an interactive show.

Mobuzz is in trouble! Mobuzz TV has started a rescue plan on a web 2.0 way. They use twitter, bloggers, there website and viral marketing to get 120,000 euros before the 9th of November.

It is a rough time for 2.0 companies, certainly because most of the business-models are not working. Producing all these free shows, and get your income through a few banners and pre-rolls. It just don't seem to work.

I think the strength of videoblogging is not so much the reach that you have. Of course, you can earn money by putting up ads and tell your sponsors that they reach this big audiance you have. But a business model based on this, I think is crazy. Proffesional (b)(v)-logging is hard, and not yet a booming business.

It's a tough world and that's why I also want to help this very high-quality show from Madrid. Watch the video where they give more additional information. And help save Mobuzz TV.

Save Mobuzz from Anil de Mello on Vimeo.

Orange Aria - Grand Opening

2008-10-11T12:16:00.007+02:00

Thursday Night

Finally the time had come. The last two days Michel Penterman has officially opened Orange Aria with a kick-off workshop and a party. In the workshop he gave an interesting presentation about New Media Developments, Crossmediafacts and other in-depht Media stories. He had some speakers which are very specialised in their sector which created a fun and diverse presentation on New Media.

With people from RTL, Sanoma, Ilse Media, Thaesis and 538 in the room the diversity of people was very high and an interesting network opportunity. Michel asked me to do a short presentation during the workshop.

So I did, I presented myself as a New Media User. Which type of media do I use? Why do I use those? How do I use New Media both in College and my work for Orange Aria. And what is the "Real" story about the use of Social Networks under my age group?

I had very good feedback and was grateful for the opportunity which Michel Penterman gave me to give my minutes in the workshop.

After the workshop the bar opened. We had a drink an a bite to eat. During that the networking session I talked to a lot of interesting people who where very interested about my Digital Lifestyle.

Why do I have this Blog, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube channel, Skype, MSN, 8 Different Social Networks etc.? And how do I not end up crazy with a wifi connection connected to my brains?

Wondering what feedback Orange Aria gets =).

For photos check www.flickr.com/orangearia. The video with interviews will be posted here pretty soon.

El mundo through our eyes.

2008-10-07T20:55:00.004+02:00

Since 12 March this year Erick Alejandro and I started the blog El Mundo Through Our Eyes. "the world through our eyes"..

I met Erick Alejandro through this blog and for about a year we now have almost daily contact. We started the blog to compare our different cultures and the use of our Digital Lifestyle.

In the chats I had with Erick I noticed there are so many differences in use of digital media just because of the differences in culture.

It's a fun concept but it needs some changing. We would like to expand the number of bloggers so we can make a world wide discussion panel of Bloggers just like us. Next to that we are using flickr, Twitter and our youtube channel to bring our stories to life.

We however think that expanding the blog from two bloggers to a bigger number can create a great international network of interesting people and ofcourse discussions.

At the moment we have contact with people from : Honduras, Chile, Colombia, Germany and Spain.

Feel free to drop me a line if you are interested in joining the group.

The blog will continue in English. The quality of your english is not really important. It is mainly to have a basic language in which we can communicate and discuss. With google translator it is easy to understand the main lines of the stories we will post.

For input or other ideas you can always contact me or Erick.

Looking forward to hearing from you guys.

Twitter on Hyves - tWWWitter

2008-09-30T15:31:00.005+02:00

So you are using twitter and hyves. How cool would it be to link those two together?!

In hyves you have an application called WWW ( Who, What and Where) in fact it is a way to microblog just like you do with Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook etc.

You get probably bored with typing in your updates in 10 different websites. So I decided to give you a small tutorial link your twitter updates with your Hyves WWW.

There is a website made by Tijmen Brommet which allows you to link your twitter with your hyves.

The only thing you'll have to do is just typ in your username. "just where the red arrow points towards to.

The following which you need to do is give permission to your hyves account to link your tweets to Hyves. You can do this by clicking on "naar hyves gaan om toestemming te geven!" which means "go to my hyves account and give permission!"

You'll end up at the hyves website where you need to login. After that you should just click on "toestemming geven" which means "give permission".

After that your tweets will turn up on your WWW at hyves.

Enjoy it!

Nokia against Apple starringMobile TV

2008-09-19T08:47:00.005+02:00

I'm proud to say that I'm one of these guys using Nokia!

Watching tv on a Mobile phone. The n96 makes it ( as you guys may know) possible. Wednesday I was able to get my hands on one and had a go with it.

It is so Sexy! And I wonder how many people are with me on this one.

"The N96 is a better phone than the Iphone"

With the great camera 5.0 mpx camera, improved design, dvb-h receiver, Nokia maps ( geo-tagging) the new Nokia is a dream for me.

I know the Iphone is just a real nice phone, and I agree on that. Only I think that people need to decide what their plans are with the phones. Will they listen a lot of mp3's ? Will they watch a lot of video? Will they play a lot of highly interactive games. If this is what you do with a phone you should get an Iphone.

Are you a blogger? Who wants to be in contact with the Internet for 24/7 , directly easy geo-tagged

pictures on your blog/flickr/facebook? Free Mobile TV everywhere you go? Then you should get a N96.

My opinion at the moment is that the Iphone doesn't work as a phone for me. It is sexy, and it works.

Only in The Netherlands your a doomed with a 2 years contract with T-mobile , which has a crap signal

in the places where I come. Next to that I think that the Iphone could be replaced by the also really sexy

Ipod touch.

I wonder what you guys think about this issue. For me the touchscreen is not "yet" a reason to buy a phone.

Certainly not with the Iphone which doesn't really give you all that extra in stead of the Itouch.

I made a video in which I demonstrate Mobile TV on the n96, connected to a beamer.

You can see how easy you can, watch, record and remind programs, next to that you can see it's quality

which for me was really impressive.

let me know what you think guys!

12,5 anniversary of the beach in Aalsmeer

2008-09-08T23:41:00.003+02:00

Almost two weeks ago I went to the Beach in Aalsmeer.

The beach is a very big indoor sportingcomplex including two beaches. I was invited to make a short video of the big party over there. And here is the result.

for a higher quality version of this clip dubbelclick on the youtube player and select "High Quality" on www.youtube.com

The cause of the plane crash in Madrid.

2008-08-29T16:05:00.005+02:00

One day before my flight a plane crashed at Barajas Airport in Madrid. Around 150 people died and this was so close. A lot of helicopters and ambulances could be heard in the city.

The left engine failed during take off and made the airplane crash on the airport. It must have been terrible for the passengers because it was the second try to take off. The plane had a lot of fuel inside, which causes a really big fire.

A member of the Sin Futuro team 'Boris' didn't think this was just an accident. In a conversation with him he told me that 3 months before the crash Barajas airport had fired 25 % of the employees. "including 68 mechanics". They did this because they couldn't pay them anymore.

What happened was that there was a shortage of mechanics on the airport which meant the Pilots had to dubbelcheck their planes themselves. These people were not trained for this but had to do it because they had the best knowledge about the plane.

I was glad the next day the atmosphere on the airport was really relaxed so I could have a relaxing flight..

What I also found Interesting is how Twitter was used to inform other people about the crash. Within 10 minutes I got 58 tweets which informed me about what happened, how many deaths, flight details etc. Also people used twitpic to show the world of twitter what it looked like from the Highway.

I think Twitter is becoming a very up to date social newsroom...

The only thing that keeps me warm..

2008-08-29T15:54:00.005+02:00

Is work!

Heya guys, back again since the 21th. I know I haven't posted much lately, however this didn't come because of a lack of exciting stuff that I had gone through. Not at all.

I have done so much stuff that I need to find a way not to post another 100 posts.

I'll brief you guys again from now on ;). check this video by The Onion. Really funny how they can change the context.

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

We are going to get the James Bond Cloaked car!!

2008-08-11T15:32:00.007+02:00

I found this topic through the newsroom of Mobuzz TV "ENG". I guess we are getting close to rebuild James Bond cars!

"Poof! Scientists closer to invisibility cloak

11 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.

The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.

The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.

People can see objects because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. Cloaking uses materials, known as metamaterials, to deflect radar, light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.

Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials don't. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they don't create reflections or shadows.

It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.

The research was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center.

This was my 100th post , first person who comments will get a post just about his/her website =)..

Great price, no ;-) ?

Classic, What if a Ad agency created the Stop Sign..

2008-08-07T13:26:00.002+02:00

I found this video on the blog of Jim Cutler..

I thought it was brilliant!

Creating A Stop Sign - Watch more free videos

Tentacul.us

2008-08-07T11:33:00.010+02:00

At twittmad last Tuesday I met an interesting young man who calls himself Gafeman. I remembered he had a great application working on his Ipod Touch. Which allowed him to listen to music. Just like Last.fm. He had a "special version", on which he gave me a demo.

He went to http://tentacul.us/m/. There he saw the tentacul.us interface. He could click on one of the songs on the homepage but he did a search for "fall out boy".

The application suggested a band while he was typing in the name which helped him for a quick search,

and result. He clicked on the song which he wanted to play

and Voila! The song started to stream ( very fast) in his browser and provided him a High quality version of the song.

Because of his "special" Ipod he was also able to download the song to his ipod.

I was amazed by this, especially how fast it went and checked it out on the web.

Tentacul.us doesn't stop with the Iphone. Tentacul.us has a application for the: Playstation 3, Twitter, Mozilla Add-on, Iphone and an special jukebox which does random search in the database.

At the moment the Database is not big. They added a lot of music from different artists. However the full albums aren't available, the most Hits of the artists are.

As I saw for the votes and the clicks on the songs, I'm guessing the website just started. I think it has great potential with their easy and very simple interface.

I think especially the Playstation 3 app. is good. At the moment the music player in the Playstation is very bad. If I plug in my Ipod the songs aren't well categorized. The Categorize the songs on dates it was added and the names of the albums

are impossible combinations of numbers and letters.

If you browse to http://tentacul.us/ps3/ with your playstation you will see the special tentacul.us playstation website. Here you can search the database for the song which you want to listen.

If you click on the song, it will stream just like the web version of Tentacul.us however if you click 2, you will download the song to your ps3 Harddrive.

This is like a combination of Limewire and Last.fm on your ps3!

The twitter app. doesn't answer the question: " What are you doing?" but "What are you listening?" Your twitter will be updated every time you will listen a song. And people will not only know what you are doing during the day, but also what you listen!

Go check it out for yourself, I will be waiting for the N95 App!

Good times at TwittMad

2008-08-06T21:12:00.005+02:00

Same time, same place, same day. Yesterday I have attended the TwittMad in Madrid.

What exactly is Twittmad?

TwittMad is the first meeting organised by Twitters for Twitters. Marilin Gonzalo ( one of the founders of TwittMad) used twitter for quite some time. She has been following people, but she wanted more. She and here Argentinean fellow Twitters decided to meet up one time. And they organised this through twitter.

They had a dinner somewhere and had a great time. They decided to do it more often. Maybe once a month? Because they met up using twitter, people who followed them noticed that they were meeting up, and they also wanted to know who the real people behind these Nicknames are.

TwittMad was born.

Yesterday the 11th meeting of TwittMad was being held in the Irish Pub at Calle de Brasil in the heart of Madrid. They have loads of space there to manage up to 100 people. The strength of Twittmad is that they don't want to make money out of it. It is just for meeting up with twitterfriends!

At the moment people are also organizing Twittmad in Barcelona, Lisbon and there was even one in Tokio. The idea of the meeting is to Network, have fun, talk about blogs/twitter/mobile phones/your addiction to chocolate/plurk/Apple/music/Laptops/your favorite colour and the rest.

So why is this meeting different?

There wasn't really a goal or a presentation or anything that HAS to be done around here. And for once it has really been relieving that you don't have to sell your blog..

I think the idea of meeting people there, getting introduced by others and drinking some nice beers was a great way of discovering who these guys you follow look like.

I finally met some people which I knew for a long time. And it was a really nice experience to meet these people in person. Personally I would really love an event just like this in Holland,

Of course you have meet ups. Such like twitterborrel. But I'm not sure it will be the same.

I would love to see a meeting just like Beers & Blogs, and Twittmad organised in The Netherlands.

Anybody feeling like organizing it with me?!

check my flickr for all the photo's I made.

Or other the other photo stream of Marilin

What is Oozzl trying to do?!

2008-08-01T21:18:00.003+02:00

I signed up for Oozzl a while ago, and I must admit...I never looked back to it again. I just wanted to see what it was, and I thought it was just another Social Network. However the thing I do know, is that Oozzl needs to make up their mind. I received this email on June 17th:

Oozzl Networking
Hi,

This email is to let you know we're changing the theme of Oozzl.

Oozzl will become a social networking website for celebrity fans, and we're hoping you want to be part of our renewed website.

Theo, Martin
Oozzl Networking
"

I thought ok, the plan didn't work, another general social network, Let's try something else...

This is what I received today: "

Oozzl, Social Networking
Hi..

This is to let you know Oozzl is stepping away from the celebrities theme.

We are again a general social networking website.

If you have ideas to make Oozzl a better and nice website, please let us know.

ps,
You're welcome to invite all your friends to become members of Oozzl..

Best regards,
Theo, Martin
Oozzl, Social Networking

OOzzl Seriously, make up your mind!

Campus Party video, Impression by Chris and Marilin.

2008-08-01T18:04:00.006+02:00

Yesterday Marilin Gonzalo and I went filming at the Campus party, I edited a short movie so you guys can see what it's like around here. It is a week long event in Valencia (I was here for 3 days) and I have had a blast just wandering round. Here's a walking tour that includes the Actroid (she's the closest to a human I've seen), the campus party, liquid cooled computers and (in the interview) we examine a device which helps your wrist to relax after a long day typing..

Update From Valencia, Campus Party

2008-07-31T21:55:00.006+02:00

I know it has been a while, but I'm back.

This time not from Madrid. But from the hot Valencia!

At this moment 600 people and myself are located in a hall in the Feria in Valencia. They all brought there computer. And we do what we do best. Gaming, blogging, producing content and having fun!

I am at the Campus Party.

After a three hour trip with the train from Madrid to Valencia, I checked in at this beautiful hotel. I got a great room including an Hd-tv and Wifi! I am here with Marilin Gonzalo producing video and other content for Agora News.

Campus Party is something really different than what I expected. The campus is here in Feria Valencia for 1 week. In this week people from all over Spain are gathered in these big halls. People bring their Desktops, Hd-tv's couches and I even saw a bed next to the computer.

People are gathered to game in a huge Lan-network, talk about their blogs, Sharing millions of files, hacking computers and building Robot's. Next to that a few companies are based here just like they do on a convention. However, they don't try to sell a product, they want to share what kind of cool things they are building. This way the atmosphere over here is just like you would find on a big Festival. People are just having fun with doing their hobby or work.

The most fun of all is that during the week, the Campus will not close for one minute. People go on 24/7. I guess most of these people won't even see daylight for a week.

Next to the geeks and the gamers, the bloggers are here for the first time since Campus. The bloggers are at the Campus Blog site, and share stories with each other, they keep on twittering for the whole day and they record everything what the people at campus party are doing.

The main blog and podcast, run by Jose A. Gelado, is updated as soon as there is a new update. I was asked to contribute to the podcast soon. So I'll let you guys know when I did.

The people here can sleep in tents. On the first floor of the Feria there is an airconditioned hall just for tents. For the morning strength there is Yoga, and at Symantec Norton they give massages.

People here are really crazy. The have the weirdest and coolest computers. They hise up pirate flags and are really creative with empty soda cans.

Everybody has there own seat in a very big hall, on very long tables. The Wirelles internet is free and that is the ultimate recipe for computer fans to come here.

I will be doing some interviews with interesting people tomorrow. And will sent you a link to the video.

This women which you see on the picture, isn't real. It is an Actroid! She looks so real, no picture can record what an experience she is. There is a microphone next to her, and if you ask her questions, she will answer. She can tell jokes and she will answer thank you if you say she looks good. She can move every muscle in her face, and her eyes look so real. It is almost if you are looking to a real women. Good work from the Japanese!

For all my photo's check my flickr.

For the story of Marilin Gonzalo check this link

You can also follow me on Campus Party at my twitter

Update from Madrid

2008-07-25T16:18:00.006+02:00

So I have moved to the new apartment. Settled down again and went back to work.
So many things have happened this week. It is hard to keep up. Time just flies over here.

I had this great surprise in the beginning of this week. I was invited to go to the Campus Party in Valencia. I will be there with Marilin Gonzalo at the CampusBlog. I managed to get a press pass so I'll also have acces to the rest of the campus. The Campus party is an event which started in 2007. It is recognised as the biggest electronic entertainment event on-line in the world.

"An annual event which has taken place since 1997, that gathers thousands of participants together with their computers from all over Spain and other nations, in order to share their concerns, exchange experiences and carry out lots of different activities related to computers, communications and new technologies."

Sounds pretty cool huh?! I will be there from next thursday untill sunday. And I will be staying in a beautifull Hotel close to the center of Valencia.

Next to that I have been busy at Agora News. I helped out with setting up the studio which they will use for the production of their video's. I also went to the office of Agora News where I helped editing some video's.

On wednesday I went to the ABC Newspaper office. Agora news had a meeting with Javier Duro and they took me with them. First we had a great lunch in which we had lot's to discuss about online video. He told us how he is producing ABC TV. What kind of equipment they use , how they edit it , how they made the video platform etc.

After that he took us to the studio at ABC, and showed us where it all happens. It was very interesting to see where the program is filmed. Because next to their studio is the very big newsroom. Loads of people working over there.

I'll be making another episode of As Told To Chris this Sunday, should be on there in the evening. I think tonight Í'll head to that great bar where I went last night.

Mojitos!

My interview at Agora News

2008-07-23T11:19:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I found that the interview I did was placed on the web. Pretty weird to see yourself back like that.

Final Stadsspelen

2008-07-20T19:04:00.004+02:00

I noticed I never blogged about this video I made. I made it quite a long time ago, but that shouldn't matter.
This is a compilation of the Amsterdam city finals on Dam square.

So how are they doing @ Mobuzz?

2008-07-19T11:10:00.006+02:00

Yesterday I spend a good time in park Retiro. You could see it as the Central Park of Madrid, It is huge and you can get a lot of inspiration for any kinds of things over there.
However I'm not writing this post to tell you how great Madrid is. Because after my stay in the park I went to Mobuzz tv.

Mobuzz Tv is the portal of all kinds of shows. You have the Dosis Diara, Daily buzz and Le buzz which are a short news show about developements in tech and digital lifestyle. Next to that there are 2 other Spanish shows which called, el Noticerio and El punto gilton.

I went to see Gabe Mac, he is the presenter of the Daily Buzz. Gabe showed me around the building, "check for photo's". He needed to prepare some stuff for the Monday show, and I got to see how they made it. The first thing I noticed was that everybody at Mobuzz works with Google Docs. And if you think about it is great if you need to share a lot of documents with Colleagues.

The Mobuzz shows are made by the presenter, gabe in this situation searches through 9000 RSS feeds to find some interesting articles/films or pictures. That way he makes a choice on what will get in the show, and he writes his own show down. There is also a script which he will need to make every day for the editors. About 2 O'clock Gabe is ready, and they will film the show. All with an Canon XH A1 HDV camera.

After gabe has done his part the editors get to work, and look at the script of gabe, they will see all the content which he wants to have in the show. The editors will add all of these things working with the latest version of Final cut pro.

Pretty awesome to have seen this process.

When Gabe was done he made some time for me for an Interview. I'll be publishing this Interview on http://astoldtochris.wordpress.com tomorrow.

I'm heading to the park now, trying to get a tan. Shouldn't be a problem with this weather.

Woke up, checked my stuff y voy en Madrid!

2008-07-16T23:02:00.005+02:00

Woke up, checked my stuff y vamos!

Arrived in Madrid this afternoon after a good flight with KLM. And now I'm enjoying this fantastic temperature.

First thing I did is installed all my electronics so I could be in touch with you guys. After that, I went for a stroll in the city.

Grotere kaart weergeven

I already made some pictures and bung them up on the my flickr account.

Tomorrow will be my first day where I will be meeting Jaime from Agora News. He said he had some work for me, so I'm having dinner with him. Also I'll be interviewing my first victims which I will ask all about Madrid!

Do you guys have a suggestion about who you would like to see interviewed? Please contact me and I'll see what I can do.

Noticed by chris:

Did you know:

"that in Madrid everybody smokes? I'm surprised to see how many people smoke over here."

"Madrid is a green city! Not only are there fabulous parks, but I saw some commercials which encourage people to save water and energy."

"Madrid has a very interactive show on TVE called Canta! , they use the ps3 singstar to find there Idol. The score of the ps3, the judge and the audiance decide who will be the next Idol. Funny to see that Spanish television is using Gaming to make a very modern Tv Show. "

As told to chris

2008-07-13T16:50:00.005+02:00

If you follow me on twitter you might have read it. I'm planning a trip to the sunny and hot Madrid. I'll be leaving Wednesday the 16th and I'll be coming back the 21st of August. What will I be doing there?

Madrid, a big and hot city which doesn't stands still. I will be working on a big article over there. An article about new media in Europe. At the moment people in Europe think the new media revolution is happening in Northern Europe. I am not so sure about that, as I see a lot of online video channels and other great initiatives coming from the South. I will be interviewing people from these upcoming companies and will investigate what's going on there.

How will I brief you guys about this?!

Just today I made a podcast channel called "As told to Chris". This will be a weekly show in what's happening over there in the world of New Media. Are they ahead of us? What sort of gadgets are the most normal thing in the world over there? How does a Southern-Europe Culture use New Media? Next to that I'll be adding interviews with interesting people. I'm trying to reach Martin Varsvasky, Gabe Mac, Anil de Mello and some other guys which I think will have a interesting opinion about this subject.

Besides that, I'll be producing little video's which I'll post on fulltime chris, these will contain little documentary's about the city, the interviews and other reports about New media in Madrid. Also I will be making photo's which I will upload to Flickr, the idea behind this is that the pictures should talk for themselves. So I won't be saying more about that. You can check these pictures on As told to Chris or on my flickr account.

Going to Madrid alone is pretty exciting for me. I hope you guys will follow the show. And have input on my output.

It would be very cool to have a lot of interaction with you guys.

Internet, what a shock!

2008-07-07T17:30:00.003+02:00

found this website through another blogger.
thought this was a great video. Have fun ;-)

Visual Search engine top 5...

2008-07-06T10:25:00.005+02:00

Thanks to Erick Alejandro I found about two other visual search engines.He got me thinking and I just made my visual search engines top 5.

Quinturq is a visual search engine which works with tag clouds. You can enter your query and it searches for related tags. The search engine works with split screen so you can see the results of your tagcloud right away. The most cool thing of this engine is that you can make your own tagclouds pretty fast and embedd them on your website. The thing I don't like about it is that the website looks terrible. It hasn't got that 2.0 feeling like other websites. I think this is just a Google, Ugly but efficient.

Kartoo is a funny flash based visual "meta" search engine. It connects tags and looks at the content. For instance if you search for "Toto" you'll see that the connection boxes on the screen contain words like "Music, Rock, Band, Artist" if you hover over the words you'll notice the tags which contain that sort of information will be linked with a line. What I truly find stupid of this website is that it gives you the illusion you can enter search with categories such as"Images, video, wikipedia" However this is just a link to yahoo or wikipedia. Is this because their lazy? Or do the just don't want to keep people on their website?

A visual search engine isn't always a website. So we can see from Ergo. Ergo is a search engine which you download on your computer. It works with a combination of online and offline searching. What does that mean? Well that you can organise your own stuff just like you can do with programs like Picasa. The cool thing from Ergo is that you can search in multiple sources. From your local hard disk to Flickr to Google. Of course these results are shown as a nice Apple frontrow style copy which gives it a nice 2.0 look and feel.

The thing I don't like of Ergo is that you need to download a program to search your computer and the web. Besides that the give you a trial version first. And after that they expect people to purchase the software. I would never pay for a search engine on my computer, would you?!

I think Redzee is a great number 2. It has a very beautifull way of showing their results. It reminded me of a carousel which you can make with Wix. Is very User friendly and it makes searching a lot easier. It is simply just click and drag with websites. The website however does contain a big ammount of bugs. It can't find query's, or the website doesn't load properly. They are just like every 2.0 company in Beta, so you can't really complain. I really think we can hear more from these guys.

You type 'visual search engine" into google, and these guys come up. I think the best visual search engine at the moment because of the true 2.0 way of designing and programming this website. I think Web 2.0 has all to do with sharing litteraly everything you can. I never even thought of sharing my search results but if you think about it, it can come in handy sometimes. Search me works with the -not to original- but very beautifull Apple frontrow display. It shows thumbnails of the websites and you can enlarge them, and go that website if you feel like it. The greatest function of Search me is building your stacks. You can just drag websites/photo's/video into a stack which after that you can simply embedd in your blog. :-) Tried it before in this blog which worked fine for me. I think these guys will be followed by a lot of other search engine company's. However at the moment. They are my number one.

So what about you guys, did you miss one in this top 5? What are you're top 5's?
let me know.

My searchme stack

2008-07-05T16:05:00.004+02:00

Ok going to test this one! :) Check out Search me for their wonderfull way of searching through the web. This gadget what you see in the post is made with Search me, it is a stack which I made just simly by dragging websites into a box. And embedded on my blog! I surely advice you guys to try this, because it's cool :).

Searchme

Maximize stack view

Interviewing the Mobuzz Interviewing Steve Wozniak @ Madrid

2008-06-28T11:36:00.004+02:00

After Gabe told us we needed to check Mobuzz in the weekend I switched on my laptop specially for Mobuzz. ( I can tell you, that's an achievement :-P). Mobuzz was on tour again interviewing Co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak. I think it was an interesting interview brought to us by our friend Gabe. Who is doing an excellent job at Mobuzz. At first I was a bit sceptic about him, I mean, It is not Olivia is it?! But his other approach to the show and style is quite refreshing.

I wonder how they choose their content, Does Gabe write his own stuff? Besides that do they have plans to make the shows more interactive? I'll try to get an interview with the guys at Mobuzz. Do you have guys have suggestions for questions?

At the moment you guys just enjoy your weekend. You can always work on Monday again. ;-)

The Onion. World of World of Warcraft.

2008-06-24T12:06:00.003+02:00

had a great laugh after watching this video. The onion makes silly news, very serieus. Have a look at the video and you'll see what I mean. Really funny. =)

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

What a Wii can do!

2008-06-24T11:59:00.004+02:00

I thought this was a great way of using a Wii Remote =)..

Simply Brilliant!

Run Away box - Office Wars

2008-06-19T12:00:00.003+02:00

Found this website through the Mobuzz Newsroom. I thought this video was brilliant! Have a look at their website. Their R.A.Q is also very funny!

Add Comments on Tumblr

2008-06-15T17:50:00.003+02:00

I just made a tumblr website. fulltimechris.tumblr.com , but I couldn't find a way to add comments on the site,

I e-mailed te guys at Tumblr and this is what came back.

"
Hi, Christopher. We have received a lot of user requests for comment functionality on Tumblr. We are working on how to best allow interactivity while staying true to the spirit of a streamlined tumblelog environment.

In the meantime, if you are comfortable editing the Custom HTML of tumblelog or Public Group, you can manually add the comment system provided by Disqus. Editing Custom HTML is a somewhat advanced activity, so we wouldn't recommend doing it unless you've worked with HTML in the past.

You can visit http://disqus.com/create to sign up for Disqus. Then, add the code they give you in your Custom HTML as directed.

To modify your Custom HTML, go into the Dashboard for your tumblelog or Public Group and click on the Customize button in the upper right corner. The Customize button looks like a gear. On the Theme tab, you can edit your Custom HTML.

If you would like to learn more about HTML on your own, visit http://www.w3schools.com/html.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can help you with. Thanks for using Tumblr!

Marc :-)
"

So if you have a Tumblr site, here you go ;)

Olivia?! No more..

2008-06-12T19:24:00.005+02:00

"hi guys. First of all, let me apologize for all this wait. I am really sad to read all the comments --please rest assured we do read all of them, and we do feel your disappointment. I don't expect you to understand how deeply sorry the crew behind the show is with this outcome :(

Anyways, I wasn't supposed to comment on the company's policies, but I felt someone needed to address the community. You have all raised very valid issues ( eg. transparency, honesty and respect for the viewers ), many of which had already been brought up in-house even before we got to this point. If we have kept silent it was not out of disregard for the community, but rather because we (the crew) *really* didn't know what was going on for the most part.

Since it is already public, I guess there's no harm done confirming that Olivia won't be with us anymore. Which is very sad, since she is one of the most talented geekettes we've seen. So, best of luck for her in whatever she does next --we will miss you, Olivia!

As for Mobuzz, well, some of you have spoken very clearly about never coming back --can't blame you for that I guess (sounds a bit unfair to the rest of the team --but I digress). If you still have any faith on the team that brought you the Daily Buzz, stick around just a couple more days --there's something planned for next Monday that I hope you'll find very interesting. Again, excuse our lack of communication and please accept our apologies. Our CEO shall tell you soon enough more details about what happened and what the plan is to move forward. Best regards, Paul."

Sad news to see the that Olivia stopped at Mobuzz TV. I loved the show, and I think she has made a high standard for the next presenter. Mobuzz and Olivia
parted ways because it didn't work anymore. Here is her post on her tumblr site.

"
Yep, apologies for the prolonged cyber-space absence. Been too busy running round the park in the rain (yes it´s still raining in Spain), re-discovering weekday lie-ins and drinking the black stuff straight from the Irish horses beer tap.

If you are following me on Twitter (which I assume you are, or otherwise how else would you have found me on Tumblr?!) you will know by now that me and Mobuzz TV have parted ways. No juicy gossip or underhand tricks to feed into the blogging rumour-mill I´m afraid, just the simple explanation that it wasn´t working out anymore.

So what next?!! Well, first up on the list is a big pile of laundry that I have been avoiding for days, then maybe a weekend break in Amsterdam…where I hear chocolate brownies and mushroom omelettes taste a whole lot of different to the norm.

Then..who knows. I will be Twitting and Tumbling where and when I can, and although not behind the camera, I will continue to lurk somewhere in cyber-space if you´re interested in finding me.

Thanks for all the messages guys……now…..Ive got a plane to catch, and a brownie to eat :)

Ciao xxxx "

I see that Olivia is coming to Amsterdam for the weekend. Maybe she will become the flying reporter traveling to different cities around the world. Letting us know how she's doing in her trip around the world. It would be cool to see her use different kind of technologies like Qik, Twitter and her blog to let us see a bit of Olivia's trip. I mean she has the experience in presenting. I think she could do that =).

However it is a sad thing it didn't work out with her and Mobuzz TV. It really was a reason to look at Mobuzz TV. I was glad she let us know via her tumblr she left Mobuzz. Mobuzz TV has dissapointed a lot of her viewers by just posting reruns at the site. "Actually including me".

I hope the newsroom doesn't collapse, because I think the community Mobuzz has is a real interesting one.

Well I keep you updated when some news comes out.

Amsterdam City Games..

2008-06-12T11:18:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I uploaded my latest creation for the Amsterdam City Games.. I just thought I should share it with you ;-)..

Do you need another reason to buy a ps3?

2008-06-06T16:46:00.001+02:00

From Crackle: Qore preview

Testing Joggle

2008-06-05T09:53:00.006+02:00

Fabrik Beta has turned into Joggle.

Pretty cool name don't you think?
However,
I got an email from Joggle this morning telling me they had "upgraded" my account. I forgot I signed up, but after logging in en playing with it it is kind of useful. This is my first test with the embedding feature. I very easily made this player.

With Joggle you can find, mix and share all your digital content. You can upload files and store them in your online library. If you do this, you can easily make an embedd code for your files and embedd them on your Blog for instance.

You can have a million desktops, and 1000 accounts on online services and still collect the stuff in 1 place. One of the advantages is the sharing mode, you can share it privately, but also publicly.

At the moment only Google Images and Flickr are available as online services you could link to your Joggle. It is a beta so this can be improved with other services like youtube etc. However it works fine. You can easily drag and drop your photos from your Flickr account and make a cool widgets or slide shows with it.

The best thing of Joggle is the User Interface. You don't have these static upload buttons, but it works like any other web 2.0 application. You can drag and drop almost anything. I suggest you register on the website www.joggle.com and get invited just like me. The way it sorts out all your stuff is really great!

Dark Days at Lost Boys

2008-05-30T11:42:00.007+02:00

Thanks to Jonathan Marks I found a pretty shocking news article about the dutch full service Internet company Lost Boys.

Lost boys, The biggest full service Internet company of The Netherlands has big problems. From the 180 people working at Lost Boys, forty people need to pack their bags. In the first quarter of this year Lost Boys had a 1.5 million Euro loss. The first 8 people are already kicked out of the company. The rest will be fired pretty soon.

The big financial loss can be thanked by the shortage of Sales and Account people at Lost boys. Thanks to that Lost Boys had a very little amount of new customers.

I guess I'm pretty lucky I ended up at Orange Aria and not at Lost Boys. The very cool lost boys transformed in literally Lost Boys.

source: http://www.lokaalnieuws.net

On Mobuzz Again!

2008-05-27T21:59:00.004+02:00

I was pretty surprised when I saw that the Mobuzz team used my widget on the homepage. Last week I created a Mobuzz Newsroom widget with on www.widgetbox.com. With this website it's pretty easy to create a nice looking flash widget. I made a mobuzz version, posted it in the newsroom. And well, I came on dailybuzz.mobuzz.tv. You can embedd it on every site you want. You can get it over here, or on the mobuzz website. It helps you to be up-to-date with the newsroom of Mobuzz. Pretty cool, to see someone has posted something, without going to the newsroom page. You could check the widget and keep yourself updated, feel free to embedd it wherever you want.

Btw Mobuzz has Improved today! They added a fullscreen mode, and subtitles.

Mobuzz Rocks!

Why students don't blog

2008-05-21T11:52:00.002+02:00

I think about 2 % of the students from my course have an active blog. Why should we use this medium? Why should we come up with stories people won't read. Why should we even bother to put time and effort in an article from which the quality won't be the same as that from proffesional bloggers. Why should we blog?

Interactive Media students, the new media experts. They can think cross-media, develop applications for new media, they can easily work in teams. But why won't they blog?

The interactive Media students are pretty fast in understanding new media. Who can you reach via a new medium? What does it cost? And what is the deadline? You should think a blog to keep up with yourself shouldn't be an extra luxury. Well it is.

The positive effects from a blog come on the long term. You can actually make an archive from your own interests. But on the short term, a blog just robs you from your time. Students don't want to produce news, but consume it. Have it the easy way. "just like everybody".

That way I get my news from 3 different blogs. I filter every site I'm on, and use gmail as my homepage. That way I get my information the fastest way. The most relevant information I want, ends up in my mailbox. As a somewhat different Interactive Media student I do have a blog. I also have twitter, jaiku and other mini blogs, but I do like to write. You must have passion for something, after that you can start blogging about it. I make time to let other people know what I find Interesting in the big world of new media. And well time is precious nowadays.

The reason for this post is that I find it very weird young people like myself, simply hate blogs. They think they are very subjective, just like wikipedia. I don't agree, I think a blog is a way of starting conversations, keeping friends/contacts up-to-date and for the proffesional ones publishing news on the web.

Well I think I'll just keep going with writing my opinion.

here are some of my favorite blogs,

Erick Alejandro
This blog is of Erick Alejandro who is a student in Guatemala. He is very up-to-date with new mobile developments and other tecky news.

Mobuzz TV
Mobuzz TV, well this is simply my morning ritual, I watch it every morning to keep myself up-to-date with Mobuzz News.

Emerce
This is a dutch blog which produces some cool news from the world of Internet

Orange Aria getting bigger!

2008-05-08T07:45:00.003+02:00

I had a tough day yesterday, the Orange Aria team has moved to a new location. We are now based at Amsterdamseweg 188 in Amstelveen. Which is about 10 times bigger than our old location. I'll upload some pictures later this week.

I'm a projectmanager at Orange Aria. I'm responsible for the development of multiple workshops. These are all about Web 2.0. Tomorrow we are going in Beta and the first test training will be given. There will also be a website in the air at the end of the month whichI will show you guys later. At the moment I'm traveling towards the new location ( which takes me about 1,40 hrs.) Pfff lucky I have Internet over here in the Wifi-Bus. Thanks Connexxion!

A wixsite worth visiting

2008-05-05T14:05:00.002+02:00

Last week I found out about Wix. With wix you can build flash based websites almost instantly. I just signed up for the private beta so I still need to investigate the website. However it looks promisly and I thought I would let you know about it. Check their demo in the video in this post.

Masterclass Simon Phillips

2008-05-01T10:33:00.009+02:00

After a very busy Queens day, on which I had to work all day. I had my best night ever. It was the best 20 euro I have ever spend. I have been to Simon Phillips!

In the biggest drum shop of the Netherlands "Adams Drumworld" I arrived with my dad. Lars Nijman, a 13 year old drummer warmed us up. I was surprised with the technique of this young chap. He played stuff made by Simon if it was nothing. He certainly is a chap from which we'll hear much more.

When we were stunned about the performance of Lars, Simon Phillips came to his great Tama drum set and blowed us away with a great solo. He played on and on, and you saw a passionate man sitting behind Dream Drums. You could enjoy an hour of fantastic drumming by Simon, and as a drummer myself it was a Morale boost. I envy him and admire him. And like 10,000 of other drummers, want to become as good as he is.

Another very interesting thing in the show was the second hour. At 10 o'clock Simon took the mic and just began answering questions. How do you warm up? Where does your Inspiration come from? Ho do you keep yourself in control? Simon did a good job on answering these questions very specifically. He demonstrated techniques he uses and gave away some of his drum secrets.As a fan of Simon I was thrilled to see this all and was hypnotized for 2 hours. After he gave the audience a memorable experience he did an autograph session. And of course I got my Toto Falling in Between Live DVD signed. Also I managed to get on a photo with him.

It was 12 O'clock, and I awaited the 2 hour drive back home. I couldn't care, I have been to Simon Phillips!

http://www.larsnijman.nl
http://www.drumworld.nl
http://www.simon-phillips.com

This is a solo of Lars Nijman.

This is a solo of Simon Phillips.

My first Sliderocket creation

2008-04-22T07:34:00.002+02:00

Little personal victory..!

2008-04-12T16:59:00.003+02:00

I had a great surprise after finding out I was in the Mobuzz show!
I uploaded an Animoto intro and two days later the Mobuzz team used it. See the video below!

My Mobuzz Intro

2008-04-09T12:44:00.001+02:00

Chris' Animoto Video

2008-04-07T21:29:00.002+02:00

Animoto THE Online video editor

2008-04-07T20:45:00.006+02:00

Today I found about Animoto!

What is Animoto? 1 word fantastic!

What does Animoto? Let me tell you!
Well let him tell you.

Animoto is an online video editor, where you don't have to edit yourself. I was a little suspicious at first. But after seeing the results I made in 2 minutes."The other Animoto titled post" I was really impressed.

The only thing you have to do is to upload your photo's or videos, choose your music ( in their library, or your own) and upload! It edits your files really fast and in no time you got a real cool unique video. Unique because it never edits the same video in the same way. It is a real fun experience to see your photo's been edited in such a way. It would take me a few hours to get those effects.

Go to their website and have fun!

www.animoto.com

Symbaloo.. A weird name for a great website

2008-04-07T14:03:00.011+02:00

Symbaloo.. A weird name for a great website.

Symbaloo is an online desktop. It is the ideal homepage. Symbaloo makes with their Ipod touch atmosphere a great competitor for Igoogle.

What makes this different then?

At first the Interface of the site is great. You can drag and drop pre-registered rss feeds into your reader in 2 seconds. Besides the great interface you can share your online desktop with others. You have the opportunity to sign up, and if you do that. Your personal desktop will be available from all over the world. I can also send my desktop to other people, this way I can keep my colleagues up-to-date with a ready-to-use rss reader.

But it isn't only a rss reader. It is called a desktop simply because you can direct the Internet from that page. The most popular search engines ( telefoongids, Google, Marktplaats) are accessible from this site. There are also widgets available of course ( gmail, hyves, facebook).

On of the most cool feature of Symbaloo is not the rss reader or the desktop. It is the news page. You can easily make your personal preferences, and in no time you have a visual result of the latest news. There are pictures taken from different websites and if you hover your mouse over the picture, you will see the headline with an intro of the article.

The website is made for the dutch audience, but I guess the website will go internationally very soon.

Please have a look at

symbaloo

Games of Amsterdam ( Amsterdamse Stadsspelen)

2008-04-03T20:20:00.003+02:00

I just finished my first deliverable for Orange Aria. I visited Ymere, one of the big sponsors of the city games.

The Amsterdam city games is a competitive event in which different parts of Amsterdam battle in the categories: Soccer, Quiz, Cooking, Dancing and music. Ymere started an internal promotion campaign to motivate the employees to sign up for the games. I was there and filmed the happening. Have a look, ( the film is in Dutch, Sorry guys! )

Redesigned Studio @ Orange Aria

2008-03-25T14:03:00.003+01:00

We just redesigned the studio in Amstelveen, I'm gaining working experience for the company Orange Aria. I'll be active here for the next couple of months. You'll get some updates about what I learn over here pretty soon. I'd better get back to work now.

Searchme!

2008-03-23T13:03:00.003+01:00

I have been invited to the private Beta of Searchme. It looked cool when I start playing with it yesterday. I haven't had time to give a full review but I'll try to have done that at the end of the week. I suggest you sign up for the private beta yourself. And let me know what you think.

El mundo through our eyes!

2008-03-17T23:07:00.005+01:00

last week I met an other blogger. We have lot's of the same interests, we have the same passion for gadgets and media and we live at the other side of the world. His name is Erick Alejandro and he lives in Guatemala. After we had chatted via messenger, we had the idea starting a blog together.

El mundo ( the world) through our eyes was born. We had so much to discuss. And because we live in two completely different worlds we never stop. "We have to because of the time zones." On this other blog we will discuss topics like: Gadgets, lifestyle, media usage and culture difference. We also made a twitter account which we will use for short updates www.twitter.com/throughoureyes.

Have a look at this "Spanglish"Blog and let me know what you think. You will see that we write in two languages. Spanish and English. We will make a summary of each others story and react to each other. This way an enormous amount of people can be reached with this blog.

Piclens!

2008-03-13T22:21:00.005+01:00

Just discovered Piclens. Wow! What a cool addon to Mozilla.

What is it? Piclens is an application which allows you to view pictures, which you find at google, flickr, facebook etc., on a 3d wall. It's almost an Apple frontrow experience in combination with a searchengine. I did a simple test and searched for "christopher Marks" in Flickr. I got my pictures on the wall. I can zoom in on them. Make them Full screen. Easily scroll through them. It's the most beautiful picture viewer I've seen. It makes me think of the tiltviewer, from airtightinteractive. However this has another function, and it is great. Download it immediately! Because I know you will fall in love with it. Just like I did.

This is very easy to download, and it gives you an great experience to watch photo's. go to www.piclens.com

searchme!

2008-03-12T08:32:00.006+01:00

Found this new website for which I signed up. It is a visual search engine. So you can search for pictures?! No, If you type your query it shows scrennshots from the homepages of the relevant websites. In a way which looks very familiar with Apple users ;-). I'll play with the engine this week and I'll keep you updated. Sign up yourself or just have a look at the demo. Could this be the next Google?

searchme

Mobus

2008-03-11T15:54:00.003+01:00

Watching Mobuzz in the bus on my way to school. With the free wifi connection I can surf with high-speed to all my favorite blogs.

Olivia of Mobuzz got me thinking

2008-03-04T13:29:00.004+01:00

Olivia ( the English Mobuzz TV presenter) got me thinking when she clicked with her fingers in today's show. I found this guy on the web. And well... I had to post it.

UGC @ the Daily buzz - Mobuzz 2.0

2008-03-03T11:19:00.008+01:00

Mobuzz keeps surprising me lately. Today Mobuzz has launched an addition to their website. Newsroom 2.0. It is still in Beta and it isn't really clear how you get at the Newsroom, but when you get there it is pretty cool. I got there via my profile page, which unfortunately hasn't improved.

What can you do at the Newsroom then?

Your able to create your own content for the newsroom. Let other mobuzzers know what you think is worth watching. You can submit photo's, video's or URL's. This way I could make little documentaries, upload them to Mobuzz and use Mobuzz as my Broadcasting channel. I could also use Mobuzz as an youtube channel, or maybe as an public mini blog.

There also is an vote option. It's could Buzz instead of Digg. I'm not sure what happens if you have the most "buzzes". Maybe you can become the Mobuzzer of the Month. I'm sure that will become clear later this week.

I had to make a post, and promoted my blog. =) ( what else ?*) When I uploaded my story I finally saw more of the Mobuzz Bee. Finally! I think they should do more with the logo.The polishing they did on the daily buzz is also an improvement. Much more Mobuzz.
Well enough Alliteration with the Mobuzz M. ( I just like to do that).

I'll play further with the site, I recommend you do the same!

http://www.mobuzz.tv
http://www.mobuzz.tv/newsroom/eng/

* The arrow on the newsroom picture points to my post. My blog. Just thought you should know.

Wish I had a Nokia :-(

2008-02-28T16:50:00.005+01:00

Wow wish I had a Nokia. I just found out I could use this really cool website and provide a live stream to the web with my Mobile phone. However it only works with Nokia's at the moment. September will be the month for a new phone. Maybe I will go to Nokia. However the next gen Iphone series should be very cool. Well plenty of time to discuss with my wallet.

If you have a Nokia you should have a look at this site. And let me know what you think about it. How does it work? Is it fun? That kind of stuff. If you don't have a Nokia. Just have a look anyway.

http://qik.com/

Kodak Moment?

2008-02-28T16:46:00.002+01:00

After seeing this video, you just know Kodak will return!

Why students don't blog

2008-02-27T15:19:00.006+01:00

I think about 2 % of the students from my course have an active blog. Why should we use this medium? Why should we come up with stories people won't read. Why should we even bother to put time and effort in an article from which the quality won't be the same as that from proffesional bloggers. Why should we blog?

Interactive Media students, the new media experts. They can think cross-media, develop applications for new media, they can easily work in teams etc.

The interactive Media students are pretty fast in understanding new media. Who can you reach via a new medium? What does it cost? And what is the deadline? You should think a blog to keep up with yourself shouldn't be an extra luxury. Well it is.

The positive effects from a blog come on the long term. You can actually make an archive from your own interests. But on the short term, a blog just robs you from your time. Students don't want to produce news, but consume it. Have it the easy way. That way I get my news from 3 different blogs. I filter every site I'm on, and use gmail as my homepage. That way I get my information the fastest way. The most relevant information I want, ends up in my mailbox. As a somewhat different Interactive Media student I do have a blog. I also have twitter, jaiku and other mini blogs, but I do like to write. I make time to let other people know what I find Interesting in the big world of new media.

The reason for this post is that I find it very weird young people like myself, simply hate blogs. They think they are very subjective, just like wikipedia. I don't agree, I think a blog is a way of starting conversations, keeping friends/contacts up-to-date and for the proffesional ones publishing news on the web.

Well I think I'll just keep going with writing my opinion.

here are some of my favorite blogs,

Erick Alejandro
This blog is of Erick Alejandro who is a student in Guatemala. He is very up-to-date with new mobile developments and other tecky news.

Mobuzz TV
Mobuzz TV, well this is simply my morning ritual, I watch it every morning to keep myself up-to-date with Mobuzz News.

Emerce
This is a dutch blog which produces some cool news from the world of Internet

Been there done that @ the Mobile World Congress.

2008-02-22T10:35:00.007+01:00

Wow time flies, almost a week ago I packed my bags for the journey back to the Netherlands. Now back in my student life, with my Mobuzz morning ritual and my journeys with the wifi bus, I look back at Barcelona with a big smile on my face.

The first day at the MWC I noticed that I was probably one of the youngest persons at the congress. I figured that students ( like myself) must find this congress really interesting, but the Spanish media students weren't there. A bit odd, cause these students, will be part of the media world in a few years.

So what did a Young Media Investigator find at the Mobile World Congress? What did he find interesting, and what did he think was absolutely ****. Well let's start with the coolest hall. I think hall 7 was the best. The creative media companies, Ice cream and great cool demo's made this happen. Vizrt, yahoo and clip in touch are the winners in this hall.

Vizrt had these real cool real time 3d graphics. The football demo that Francois Laborie showed me was really cool. In this demo you could get information about different players from a team. But the design of this program was so User friendly, and was very clear that I needed to tell you all about Vizrt.

Yahoo? well besides they had very nice Ice cream with chocolate topping, yahoo also had the one-search application, which I found very interesting. This app allows you to get information just as fast as you'll get on your your desktop. The relevant links which yahoo provides are really relevant. Not just a random ad. OneSearch provides multiple ways to get the information you want, you could actually send a text to an number, to get an answer on your phone almost instantly. Within 3 clicks you could get to the same information. They also launched the GO3.0 Beta. Which actually is a very handy starting point on your mobile phone. I couldn't get an demo on this app, but it looked very interesting and it would be worth to have a look at there site.

Then I get to the point where I'm going to talk about probably the most cool demo I got at MWC. Clip in Touch, why was this so cool? Simply because this product is real easy to use and I could see myself use this. Clip in Touch is exactly what the name says. Clip in touch makes it possible to transform your desktop or mobile phone in your own production studio. Within a minute you can mix text, transitions, graphics, user generated content, music and video. So you could send an video clip to your friends. The results are very nice, and you don't have to be tecky at all. Clip in touch is a product everyone could use to surprise a friend in a very original way. Please have a look at there site for it may be become the way to "text" your friends. You could see clip in touch as MMS 2.0.

These companies had the most impact at me. But which other stands were worth visiting? In hall 2 you had a very cool stand Spinvox. Which allowed you to transform Voice in text. I couldn't get a demo from the product itself. But the pitch that was given was a nice scenario. If it works as the lady said, it will be an very handy tool. Think of Mobile blogging, or a journalist who has interviews very often.

Also Momac, a Dutch company who was in hall 7 impressed me with there demo. Momoc has made this tool where they can very easily make Mobile Websites. It was a very smart program they made, in which you can build the website in blox. If you know some HTML it shouldn't be problem to make an Mobile website. If your interested in a mobile website, Momac is the place to be!

So what was absolutely ****? Well I expected MUCH more from stands like Orange. What did Orange try to do at the MBC 2008? They had a few meeting rooms, and some showcases with their "great" livebox. Well the stand gave free drinks, so that was the only reason to drop by some times. I don't want to make this a very negative article, cause I had a really good time at the MWC. But these companies who did this should reconsider their stands for next year.

World Mobile Congress

2008-02-12T12:12:00.002+01:00

I have never seen anything like this. The atmosphere, the stands, the location. It all seems to fit. I'm at the Mobile World Congress, and I'm having loads of fun.

So what do I do here then? Well, I try to get an overview of the congress. What technologies are new? Innovative and what companies are the rising stars. I have seen some nice stuff from Adobe (flash lite) and Vizrt has some real nice graphics. Besides graphics and cool stuff I have been to the stand of Spinvox where every voice is converted into text. Should be very handy when interviewing with skype, or writing on your blog without having access to a computer.

I'm in the press room at the moment, and some people really are willing to kill somebody for access to a computer. Check fulltime chris for updates. Cause a full GSMA report through the eyes of an young media investigator will be available at the end of next week.

Hasta luego!

check these sites for more info:

http://www.spinvox.com/

http://www.vizrt.com/

http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/

Mobuzz Live!

2008-02-04T12:13:00.000+01:00

I had a nice surprise when I went to my morning ritual; Mobuzz. The daily buzz show went live and had a discussion with a chat function. This way Mobuzz viewers could interact with the Mobuzz team. For a first show it was great. And I really hope it would become a weekly live show. Next time Mobuzz could better brief us what the Mobuzz team is going to discuss. Ask us questions on forehand. This way we could even more participate with the discussion. Doesn't need to be long, the Monday minute should be enough. But that way we could ask/discuss about the subjects in the live show. You can find the Mobuzz video's at: www.mobuzz.tv.

Licence to Ki... uhm drive

2008-01-25T12:57:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I passed my driving test. It went very well and the funny thing was, I was real relaxed. After 35 hours driving with an instructor I did the test and I passed. The stupid thing is that it takes another week for I can drive. Well I found a way to live without the licence for eighteen years. I think I can handle one other week.

Maud Mulder & Blogstars

2008-01-12T14:55:00.002+01:00

The information that you "as a fan" gets is either promotion for their new released album or gossip.

I really want to know what you guys think of this idea, would you follow the Blogstars?

check out maud.blogstars.nl for the website of Maud. "It's in Dutch though, sorry guys!"

Babelgum & Joost

2008-01-11T11:25:00.000+01:00

It has been a while since I used this programs. Just when Babelgum & Joost launched I was real positive about them. Slightly more positive about Joost because I think the design and User computer experience is better. But what to think now? I haven't heard anything about their plans for ages. It looks like these great programs are standing still. I gave up on Joost before, because the content wasn't up-to-date and everytime the software had an update I had to find my login details again, "that for some reason always got lost". The p2p programs were very promising to me, but if the content isn't there. They won't find me using it.

Christophermarks.nl

2008-01-09T19:52:00.000+01:00

It had to come. And it came. Today www.christophermarks.nl has launched. I think it's an official start of my career. It will become the way to find things about me, to look at some my projects and progression in the media world.

Networking event 212 Amsterdam

2008-01-08T22:47:00.000+01:00

Tonight I've been to the Felix Meritis where I spoke to some interesting people. The event itself was informal and was meant to wish some colleagues a happy new year. Great place for a person like me to network. I found it interesting to see there weren't many students present. I think these event's are the best way to network. And it is an ideal way for students to meet people from the business world. Maybe they could reconsider the location because the acoustics in the building is horrible. I couldn't understand anything my neighbour was telling me. Besides, I was amazed by the fact no one fainted because of the temperature. But well enough, I had a nice evening.

Portfolio Website Online!

2008-01-03T20:10:00.000+01:00

Happy New year to you all!

I Just launched my portfolio website! My showcase is still in Dutch but I'm planning to make an English version pretty soon. Please have a look. You can find my showcase in the top link of the update menu.

E-republik

2007-12-17T21:59:00.000+01:00

I have been active on the new virtual world called: E-republik.
Think you can do it better than Bush? You may have your go. They've made a second world. You must find out what to do with it. I am one of the first citizens of the Netherlands. Real cool because I've started a company that sells weapons, I joined a politcal party and I have my own newspaper.

:-)

have a go @ www.erepublik.com

Busy week

2007-11-23T15:53:00.000+01:00

Wow! What a week has this been for me.. Tuesday (20th of November) I went to London to visit the AIB awards. It was real cool to be there. It was in a real nice building The clothworkers hall in London, and the evening was hosted by Mishal Husain, one of the anchors on BBC World.

I never experienced something like that before. For example I had dinner with the Founder & CEO of Mobuzz. A real nice man called Anil de Mello. ( Please check mobuzzTV for it has become a morning ritual for me. ;-) )

It was weird to sit next to all these people as a Student from Amsterdam. I was a bit nervous because I never had dinner with all these people from the working field, they all have their elevator speech ready, and really now what the are doing. I didn't have one ready. Nonetheless it was a good experience.

The 21st I did some sightseeing. Went to The Tower of London, The British Museum, Harrods and Hyde Park. It is a pity I was their for such a small period. I haven't been to all the attractions in London. And it would have been great to see London's night life. Maybe next time.

later this week I'll upload photos to my flickr account.

London AIB Awards

2007-11-18T13:30:00.000+01:00

Tuesday the 20th of November the AIB Awards will be held in London. Great news, cause I'll be there helping my dad to film the whole happening. Wednesday I'll be playing the tourist. I might go to the British museum. Never been there. My last visit in London was so busy with other stuff that I didn't have time for the British museum. Looking forward to it, and check my flickr for photos of the awards.

http://www.aib.org.uk

Falling in Between Live

2007-11-06T13:26:00.001+01:00

Finally I got it. Since the release (October 29th) I have been looking for the latest album of Toto. Falling in between live is recorded in Paris in March. The DVD is coming begin 2008, so I have a new thing to look forward too. Listening this album will keep me good for a few week.

Interactive Media at best

2007-09-29T16:14:00.000+02:00

I found a website named http://www.playmegaphone.com/, They got a real cool idea about using big screens in public places.

`MegaPhone is a phone-controlled, real-time, multi-player collaborative gaming platform for big screens in public spaces ( Time square NY, Shibuya Crossing Tokio).`

These games are real simple and I don´t want to talk about the graphics, but if you´re playing in a football stadium and you´re playing against other football supporters during the 15 minute break it could be very fun.

IBC 2007

2007-09-12T21:12:00.000+02:00

I've been working on the IBC for the Association for International broadcasting. I've handed out the channel and sold some of the Directory of Global Broadcasting. I've seen some real nice projects from companies. But the RAI in Amsterdam should shame itself.
The RAI isn't that good at all and they ask terrible prices for refreshments. At the RAI beach you pay about 15 euros for a Hamburger. And it taste like a piece of paper. If you look at 3GSM in Barcelona it's much better organised. I think IBC should move to Barcelona to wake up Amsterdam that their too arrogant. I made a batch to start a rumour and the reactions were great. Where did you get that? Is IBC moving? Where questions that I got a lot. Maybe it's time for Amsterdam to wake up, before the rumour becomes reality.

Axe and Sloggi

2007-09-01T21:32:00.000+02:00

These two companies really understand the meaning of cross media. I'm fascinated by the results of Sloggi. Sloggi is searching for the best butt of the world, and has started a community where people upload a picture of their own butt. They even got a videoclip where they promote people to upload their behind.
Axe has also a great campaign where they made a short movie.

you should have a look at their websites.

http://www.axe.nl
http://www.sloggi.nl