Vergelijk.nl launches impressive Euro 2008 poule

Vergelijk.nl just launched a very impressive Euro 2008 poule. Participants can compare teams (yep, Vergelijk.nl means ‘Compare’), win fantastic prices, invite friends for separate subpouls, etc. I know that I am biased, but if you love soccer and you like the excitement of participating in a soccer poule for Euro 2008 then this is the one to choose! So go and enter the competition, it is entirely free (but in Dutch…)!!

You can enter the Euro 2008 competition here!

Reporting about The Next Web Conference

First of all, it was a really great and very inspiring event. Best thing, I didn’t even have to travel far as it was in Amsterdam. I will sure be present at future editions.

I was there only on Friday, so hereby a short recap of this conference.

1. First keynote speach: Robert Scoble

I funny guy who really must have nothing else to do then be connected and online 24/7. He, however, opened my eyes about the fact that by ‘using’ other peoples knowlegde, you become even more knowlegdeable. And for that, you must know who is important and relevant on the Internet (or your area of expertise) and who is not.
His main point was that social services should make the first impression compelling and rich. I cannot agree more. The first impression you get went you enter LinkedIn, Facebook, Myspace or Pownce are not the best onces.. You really have to put in a lot of time to come up to speed.

Good presentation (not the best one I have seen, but hey).

Links he mentioned: Friendfeed, Upcoming, Twitter and many more… (all probably sponsored)

2. Six startup pitches

I am not going to do extra work here… Techcrunch made a good analysis of all these pitches. Read them here.

3. Second keynote speach: Werner Vogels

Werner Vogels is Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Amazon.com. His presentation was about ‘uncertainty’. I must say it wasn’t a really compelling speach. Werner told a lot of stuff which is true, but not new. A large part was also about the webservices Amazon.com offers (like Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2). His claim was that start-ups should not waste valuable money on services they could also buy from Amazon at a fairly low rate. Although that makes sense, this speach did not do it for me. I hope that Amazon paid The Next Web to be here as a keynote speaker

Links he mentioned: Amazon Webservices, Create server farms (Scalr)

4. Third keynote speaker: Garrett Camp

Really the best speach of the day. Garret is founder and chief architect StumbleUpon.com. His presentation was about “The Future of Search and Discovery”. Just too much to tell here in short, I will probably spend a new blogpost on this matter. Main thing for me was the distinction between ‘search’ and ‘discovery’.

Search: people know exactly what they are looking for
Discovery: people want to be entertained or do not really know what they want

Obviously StumbleUpon has everything to do with discovery. The company I currently work for is more into ‘search’ (price comparison). But we certainly must make more room for discovery as well.

Links he mentioned: Piclens, Mahalo, Wikia Search, Powerset

5. Six startup pitches (round 2)

Again, go to Techcrunch for a good analysis of all these pitches. Read them here.

6. Fourth keynote speaker: Jessica May

Arghh. I am very sorry but this speach was the worst of the day. Jessica pointed out a lot of true things ( people wanting to receive good recommendations once they bought something, everything is about me, personalize, etc. etc.), but she did not come up with any solution or best practises (except for showing the recommendations of Amazon… yeah great). Recommendating stuff is probably the most difficult thing to be solved and everybody knows that. Moods of people change, people change, people’s life changes, people get in different stages (kid, student, parent, etc.).

Netflix is trying to solve this with a contest, but even a lot of universities and commercial companies are not able to beat there own built ranking by more than 10%. That says it all.

Links she mentioned: mmm, cannot remember any..

7. Last keynote speaker: Chris Saad

Chris is Co-Founder and Chairperson at DataPortability.org and CEO of Faraday Media. Also Co-Founder at Media 2.0 Workgroup and APML Workgroup. A good speach and very interesting as well. He did not really tell anything new, but it was nice to hear him advocate data portability and data operability. Great initiative and I wish him all the best and a lot of support.

After this I left (had to be home on time to pick up the kids). I had a great day, met a lot people and interesting start-ups. I will certainly give a few of them a call!

Finally a few tips for the Next Web Conference:

• Please provide a shuttle bus service next time (Amsterdam CS to Westergasfabriek)
• If you want to promote networking, make the badge readable!! I now had to get into people’s personal space to read from which company they were.
• Provide some sort of system so that the audience can ‘press fast forward’ or ‘get off the podium’. Especially for the pitches of the start-ups. Some were really lousy…

Next Web Conference 2008

I will be attending the Next Web Conference 2008 in Amsterdam next friday. I will try to give you an impression of this conference afterwards. I also hope to run into some interesting people

See you there!

Google’s new open source mobile platform Android

Sergey Brin just introduced its new open source mobile software platform Android. I can explain what the Android platform is all about, but it guess it is much better to take a look at the Youtube video:

Google has set aside 10 million dollar to reward software developers who have written great new applications for the Android platform.

Google betting on the mobile phone?

According to their official blog Google has acquired Jaiku. Jaiku develops useful and innovative applications for staying in touch with the people you care about most – regardless of whether you’re at a computer or on a mobile phone.

Google is more and more pushing into the mobile market area. Mobile devices are rapidly getting ready for new services. With Google Maps and location based services Google has something quite powerful in their hands. Especially if they would actively improve and push Google Products, which would allow them to show you the cheapest iPod Nano in your neighbourhood (or where you are walking at that moment…). Sounds great? Well, it is not far away any more.

Web Trend Map 2007

Ok, I must admit that this post is more fun than that it will give you more insight in e-commerce. But hey, perhaps you will stumble upon some great sites anyway, which will open your eyes or give you some great new ideas!

iA have managed to fit in the 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. The new trend map features much more websites than the previous one. The focus is still on English language websites (because that is where it’s at), but iA have added some Japanese sites (a mystery to most of us foreigners), some German sites (yep, there are really some popular ones) and a Chinese line (the second Internet).

As I am Dutch the first thing I did was to check out some Dutch sites on the map… Well, it was hard to come up with one. The only one that comes close is the Dutch version of Wikipedia, bottom right corner. That probably isn’t the best place to be on the map ;-(

Go and see the interactive version! For more detailed information about this map and what they changed, visit Web Trend Map version 2 explanation page.

iA have used the Tokyo metro map, so if you have been to Tokyo you might see lots of little hints and sarcastic comments (Dave McClure explains some of them) hidden in there. Have fun with it!

If you can’t get enough about websites printed on to maps, then also try the World Web Map 2007. That one was created by Alexa and Comscore. Again, perhaps not very useful but I really appreciate the effort that has been put in!

Jaw-dropping demo of Photosynth – Microsoft’s new hit?

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo.

Will Push-to-Talk replace SMS?

UK-based Palringo (funded by Prime Technology Ventures) has pioneered the concept of Vocal Instant Messaging as the basis for a communications service that allows individuals, communities and businesses to communicate instantly and effectively at low costs across mobile phones and PCs.

Affordable video advertising, will it work?

A few months ago I heard from my former employer that they were working on a new and interesting concept which had something to do with video’s. Then the manager of Kelkoo.nl (one of our current competitors) resigned and ended up working for this new start-up company. What a small world we live in, especially in The Netherlands