a little while back i received an invite for ping.fm from ryan merket, who i worked with before. in short ping.fm is a status update tool that sends your updates to a bunch of your favorite microblogging services like bebo, blogger, facebook, hi5, jaiku, linkedin, livejournal, myspace, pownce, tumblr and twitter and there are more to follow. you publish your update at ping.fm and within seconds all services are updated with your message.

"ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap."

"ping.fm was created for the sole purpose of making it as easy as possible to share your posts with the world. now you don't have to fumble around the web in order to post anymore, you can just post once, and be done with it. the idea came about when making some posts to twitter and tumblr. the idea of posting the exact same information in two places seemed a bit tedious, so ping.fm was born.

you can update your status through the ping.fm website or a number of other tools like instant messengers or mobile email/sms, i usually use the iphone interface at ping.fm/iphone/.

this is an extremely handy tool and i love it. if you wanna check it out, just use the invite code "dreamofping" while signing up.

update : ping.fm just redesigned their ui (courtesy of jyoseph and it looks great) and added more services like plaxo pulse, plurk, brightkite, mashable and xanga.

[tags: ping.fm, ping, ryan merket, status, updates, lifestream, facebook, twitter]

Posted by netzkobold in technology at 20:54 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

a couple of weeks ago rainer invited me to the firefox 3 download day - guinness world record which is taking place today until tomorrow 17:00 utc, june 18, 2008.

"join us in our mission to set a guinness world record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours! set a guinness world record, enjoy a better web. sounds like a good deal, right? all you have to do to help us set the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours is get firefox 3 now – it’s that easy. we're not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome. please download firefox 3 by 17:00 utc on june 18, 2008. that's 10:00 a.m. in mountain view, 1:00 p.m. in toronto, 2:00 p.m. in rio de janeiro, 7:00 p.m. in paris, madrid, berlin, rome and warsaw, 9:00 p.m. in moscow, and June 19, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. in beijing and 2:00 a.m. in tokyo."

i wrote about the incredible customer evangelism around firefox earlier and the spread firefox initiative when it was launched in 2004. firefox 3 download day - guinness world record is part of spreadfirefox.com, an amazing community driven word-of-mouth marketing force spreading the word about the world's best web-browser.

"welcome to spread firefox. you are our marketing department, a diverse community of people tired of swatting popups, chasing spyware, combatting identity theft and installing security updates you could set your watch to. You have a vision of the 21st century web and are ready to push it to the world, wresting control from a monopoly that has let it stagnate [...] as a small, non-profit organization, the mozilla foundation has very limited resources at its disposal to market firefox to the world. spreadfirefox was created to fill this void, and was founded on the same principles of community involvement that drive the development and testing of firefox. we believe there is nothing that a large community of enthusiastic volunteers can't accomplish, and this site exists to unite the community into one cohesive marketing force that even competitors with unlimited resources can't compete with."

i'm one of these enthusiastic firefox fans and happy to spread the word about the world's best web-browser, the tool i use the most everyday. so far and within just a couple of hours firefox 3 has already surpassed 2,3 million downloads ...



join the firefox 3 download day - guinness world record and enjoy the best firefox yet.

[tags: firefox, firefox 3, mozilla, mozilla foundation, spreadfirefox, guinness world record]

Posted by netzkobold in word-of-mouth at 02:34 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

this morning steve jobs held his keynote address at the worldwide developers conference in san francisco's moscone west unveiling the new apple iphone 3g to be available on july 11th 2008 at $199 (with a two-year at&t contract of course).

"apple iphone 3g - twice as fast. half the price."

some of the new features are: 3g broadband wireless connectivity, built-in gps and a couple of great location-based services like loopt, contact search, full iwork document support, microsoft powerpoint support, bulk delete and move, saving email image attachments, scientific calculator, parental controls (mainly for youtube/itunes), many more languages supported (on the fly switching), plastic back and thinner edges, the new apple appstore and many more. the new iphone 3g is now also more enterprise-ready by supporting microsoft exchange activesync - push email, calendar and contacts - "the power of a laptop into the size of a smartphone" - more ... but i'm actually most excited about mobileme, which is "exchange for the rest of us".



i'm already a sync fanatic, all my phones (including my iphone), my two laptops (mac and pc) and my desktop at home are synced with each other and with multiple online address books through plaxo, but so far it only syncs my contacts, calendar and notes. mobileme takes this two steps further.

"access and manage your email, contacts, calendar, photos, and files at me.com. All with amazing applications that are so feature-rich and easy to use, you may end up preferring them to your regular desktop applications."

this is not only an even nicer, more structured and more instant contacts, calendar and notes sync, i can even access my picture gallery and idisk from wherever i am, either through my iphone, my macbook pro (pc's are supported too) and any web-browser through a feature-rich desktop-application-like web interface at me.com. changes on your iphone for instance will will take immediate effect on your computer, you can access the same files, folders, pictures wherever you are.

i love it, i'll get the new iphone 3g on july 11th and you can watch the whole keynote here.

[tags: apple, iphone, keynote, steve jobs, wwdc 2008, microsoft exchange, mobileme]

Posted by netzkobold in technology at 02:38 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

i'm following the live wwdc 2008 steve jobs keynote updates via macworld right now and reading

"iphone 2.0 software has three parts to it: enterprise support, the sdk, and some new end-user features. 'let me start with the enterprise. customers have demanded microsoft exchange, so they've built it in out of the box for 2.0 software: push email, push contacts, push calendar, auto-discovery of exchange severes, global address lookup, and remote wipe security feature. all built in to iphone 2.0 software. they've added secure vpn services from cisco and other network service demanded by the enterprise market. everything that apple was told enterprise users want, they've built in."

reminded me of a conversation which i had with my brother in law regarding the enterprise capabilities of the iphone and that at that point it wasn't quite ready for enterprises' security and exchange requirements. in a later interview with business week's olga kharif i have been quoted

"if things like this are available, companies will give employees a choice of an iphone vs. the blackberry," says frederik hermann, director of global marketing at jajah.

so i guess now enterprises will seriously consider to replace the old rubbish blackberries against apple iphones

read on the live notes at macworld.com

[tags: apple, iphone, keynote, steve jobs, wwdc 2008, wwdc, san francisco, developer]

Posted by netzkobold in technology at 21:08 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

this is just a quick post but maybe you'll decide to join us tomorrow at there's a new conversation in palo alto, may 29, 2008 at the sap labs.

"ten years ago, four authors came together to start a new conversation about marketing. the result was a book called the cluetrain manifesto and with it, chris locke, rick levine, doc searls (with whom i coincidentally shared a cab with on our way to the hotel during leweb3 in paris including a great conversation), and david weinberger nailed 95 theses on the door of the internet and challenged us all to wake up to a transformation underway in how companies and people engage in markets. looking back over the past ten years we have learned a lot about what happens when mass markets adopt collaborative online communities and it is time to revisit this vital document that played an important role in starting a new conversation about what it means to be a marketer. what have we learned? what was right and wrong? what was left out that we should have been thinking about? what should we be thinking about for the next ten years?"

here is the schedule for tomorrow 8 am to 8 pm:

8.00 am -- registration set-up (dc / vc)
8:30 - 9:30 -- continental breakfast
9:30 - 9:45 -- intro, ted shelton
9:45 - 10:30 -- intro, doc searls
10:30 - 11:00 -- find your teams + morning break (same room)
11:00 - 12.00 -- deb schultz + breakout
12:00 - 1.00 -- lunch & networking (upstairs balcony)
1:00 - 1:45 -- thor muller - customer service from the outside-in
1:45 - 2:30-- giovanni rodriguez - positioning today
2:30 - 3:00 -- breakout + mini-break (same room)
3:00 - 3:45 -- andreas weigand - conversational data
3:45 - 4:30 -- jeremiah owyang - getting your company conversation-ready
4:30 - 4:50 -- breakout
4:50 - 5.30 -- peter hirshberg - wrap up / future
5.30 - 5.45 -- ted shelton - closing remarks / conversations / open discussion
5:45 - 8.00 pm -- reception (upstairs balcony)

here you can find more information about the event, sign up, and the conversation group.

i'm really looking forward to this, meeting friends and joining the conversation.

[tags: there's a new conversation, conversation, the conversation group, cluetrain manifesto]

Posted by netzkobold in word-of-mouth at 01:40 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

the french electronic music duo 'justice' just released their music video for their new track 'stress'. the violent clip is directed by romain gavras and obviously wants to provoke and causes controversy. it reminded me of a movie i saw in montpellier in 1995 called 'la haine' taking place in the banlieue (suburbs) of paris.



(via libération)

[tags: justice, stress, electronic, music, clip, video, french, haine]

Posted by netzkobold in clips at 01:30 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

brilliant, more info at www.goodbyetothenormals.com

[tags: goodbye to the normals, goodbyetothenormals, short film, robbie williams, rudebox]

Posted by netzkobold in clips at 01:01 | Permalink | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

sony does it again, they are shooting another spectacular advert by drenching downtown miami in millions of litres of foam - sony foam city. sony is well known for it's massive productions starting with a true masterpiece and my all time favorite the sony bravia bouncy balls ad filmed in san francisco by director nicolai fuglsig and the song 'heartbeats' by josé gonzález.



this spot was followed by the sony bravia paint spot in glasgow and the stop-motion play-doh bunnies in new york.

now director simon ratigan of hla has worked with a crew of 150 to demonstrate the capacity of sony hd handycam and cybershot cameras to capture the beauty of bubbles.



200 locals were provided with the cameras and asked to record their foamy frolicking. their footage, along with professional shots, is being combined for a campaign that will be introduced to the public in stages, finally reaching televisions in the uk and europe on 1st may, 2008.





find some more pictures and info at behind the buzz and adland.

(via yasir from immediate future and duncan's tv ad land)

[tags: sony, foam, commercial, ad, miami, handycam, cybershot, bubbles]

Posted by netzkobold in advertising at 22:37 | Permalink | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

i actually bought the apple iphone the day it came out and signed up regularly for the two year contract during the activation through itunes. but now i had a couple of friends from europe visiting who bought an iphone over here (in the us) and of course wanted to use it with their sim cards from germany, austria or uk. i still thought it's quite a hassle to unlock, jailbreak and activate your apple iphone, but no! that's the reason why i quickly wanted to share ziphone with you. a super slick and simple tool you download and install on your mac or windows computer, you press one button and three minutes later you can enjoy your fully functional, activated and free apple iphone - no contract, you can use any sim card anywhere in the world and everything including updates and syncing via itunes works perfectly.

"ziphone - iphone unlock tool by zibri. no computer knowledge required. enables you to activate your iphone on any network. you don't need to provide any information to att. there is no need to soldering/opening your iphone. you can use it on as many iphones you want, it works with any iphone, any provider and any sim card in the whole world! actually you only need an iphone and a computer (windows/mac)."

you'll find the tool and more information at download.ziphone.org / www.ziphone.org

[tags: apple, iphone, att, activate, unlock, unblock, jailbreak, ziphone, zibri]

Posted by netzkobold in word-of-mouth at 19:04 | Permalink | Comments (4) | Trackback (1) | Bookmark

thanks to the excellent goviral newsletter i found out about the word of mouth marketing forum 2008 conference in london. the topics were how to develop effective and integrated word of mouth strategies, identifying influencers, creating trusted relationships with customers, engaging with communities across networks, word of mouth tools like seeding panels, social networks, blogs, buzz and viral campaigns, learning from contagious stories – why some campaigns get talked about more than others and how to calculate the value and effects of word of mouth marketing.



robin hilton wrote a report on yesterday's word of mouth marketing forum at the warc wom forum blog. the conference provided a mix of case studies, theories and how to's, starting with what word-of-mouth marketing is "giving people a reason to talk about your product/service and making it easier for that conversation to take place" (source womma) to wom as a discipline, read more.

a couple of my friends were there like paul marsden and martin oetting but i was hoping to find some more material from this conference online like blog posts, slideshows or video material. hopefully some of the speakers or participants will provide more information for the ones who couldn't make it there.

(via goviral newsletter)

on another note, check out this article on "common word-of-mouth beats 'highly-connected' influencers" from the december 2007 issue of the journal of advertising research.

"we find that trying to track down key influencers, people who have extremely large social networks, is typically unnecessary and, more importantly, can actually limit a campaign or advertisement's viral potential," said james coyle. "instead, marketers need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages."

the study reinforced that consumers respond more to messages that are unique and trusted. in addition, consumers who believe they are capable of performing the advertised behavior are more willing to pass along information to friends and relatives within their social networks. coyle added that this isn't new. "it's always been this way. what's changed is that digital media makes it so easy for everyone to forward messages to contacts within their social networks. for most everyone, digital media just extends a very human desire to help others."

(via guy kawasaki)

[tags: viral marketing, wom, word-of-mouth, warc, conference, goviral]

Posted by netzkobold in viral marketing at 02:04 | Permalink | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

the new south wales police force and ddb sydney have released a print campaign to raise awareness of the fact that teenagers get injured or die as a result of listening to music whilst they cross the road.



(via werbeblogger and advertising/design goodness)

[tags: nsw, new south wales, police force, ad, ddb sydney, ipod, australia]

Posted by netzkobold in advertising at 19:52 | Permalink | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

i'm really looking forward to le web 3 '07 - fourth edition in paris, packing my stuff right now and taking off tomorrow morning. leweb3 conference, talking about the web of the future and the people behind, it's a great program and amazing audience.



if you are interested in meeting up during the conference, partnering with or integrating jajah, then please don't hesitate to drop me a note at frederik [at] jajah.com or call me through www.jajah.com/netzkobold or my local number there +33-1-79976374 (courtesy of maxroam).

[tags: leweb3, le web 3, fourth edition, loic le meur, conference, jajah, paris]

Posted by netzkobold in word-of-mouth at 08:07 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

and i'm right in the middle where it's all happening ...

(via techcrunch and richter scales)

[tags: bubble, silicon valley, startups, palo alto, google, facebook, techcrunch]

Posted by netzkobold in clips at 01:34 | Permalink | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

tomorrow is my second thanksgiving and i like eddie izzard's point of view.

"the founding fathers landed in 16..., they set off from plymouth and landed in plymouth, how lucky is that ... we can raise our families here, we can practice our religion here, there's nobody here, a land empty of human existence ... who the fuck are these guys [native americans] ... no, we don't want any of your food ... meanwhile that winter ... excuse me, do you have any food?"

in that manner, happy turkey day ...

[tags: thanksgiving, turkey day, eddie izzard, united states, us, america]

Posted by netzkobold in clips at 18:29 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark

i referred to google's influence on the information age landscape earlier and stumbled over john arlidge's article in the times online this weekend in my feedreader - good writing and absolutely worth reading.

"in the blissed-out california sunshine, the glistening glass-and- steel curves of the googleplex seem to sweep you up off the pavement with the promise of a glimpse into the future – and a good time. it is 8am on a monday morning and battalions of high-tech foot soldiers arrive at the gilded palace of the online revolution. laptops and lattes in hand, they step off conga lines of biodiesel-powered buses, chatting loud and fast about the latest skyrocketing silicon valley start-ups, which have names that sound like teletubbies: jajah, orgoo, ningo. geek by geek, they head inside to begin surfing and controlling the quadrillions of bytes of information that surge through google's giant servers, and which crash on to our desktops and mobile phones every minute of every day."

"but as it prepares to celebrate its 10th birthday, google has developed serious engine trouble. a series of missteps have left it facing claims that it has gone from a benign project – creating the first free, open-all-hours global library – to the information society's most determined big brother. it stands accused of plotting some sinister link between its computers and us: that it wants, somehow, to plug us into its giant mainframe – as imagined in the matrix or terminator.

the crisis began a few months ago when google's chief executive, eric schmidt, popped up in london and made some extravagant remarks about the firm's ambitions. he declared that the company's goal was to collect as much personal data as it could on individual users so that it could improve the quality of its search results and even start making recommendations, like a trusted friend. "we are very early in the total information we have," he said. "we cannot even answer the most basic question about you because we don't know enough about you. the goal is to enable google users to be able to ask questions such as 'what shall i do tomorrow?' and 'what job shall i take?'"

his comments provoked a firestorm. right-to-privacy campaigners howled that a machine that knows so much about us that it can tell us what to do would be the biggest-ever threat to personal privacy. no totalitarian regime, no bond villain had dreamt up anything so creepy. "at what stage," one critic asked, "did the company whose motto is 'don't be evil' evolve into the evil empire?"

what's going on? is google trying to take over the world's information and worm its way into our consciousness? when he said he could implant a google chip in our brain, was brin not joking, after all? or have we all got the wrong end of the memory stick?"

read on "google. who's looking at you?" by john arlidge in the times online ...

you can also download and print out the pdf for easier reading.

update - october 23. 2007: i received a message from blogger friend timo heuer pointing me to another good article by michael agger "google's evil eye" over at slate.

[tags: google, big brother, artificial intelligence, times online, john arlidge]

Posted by netzkobold in technology at 02:01 | Permalink | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark