Posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 at 6:23 pm (One Response)
I spent the day at MBC09, Europe’s first microblogging conference, organized beautifully by Cem Basman. The day was organized in panels and sessions, one of which was given by Evan Prodromou, founder of identi.ca, with some very interesting ideas on interoperability between microblogging platforms. (UPDATE: you can watch Evan’s talk here)
Beyond the sessions, it was interesting to see the “silent discussions” being held behind-the-scenes on Twitter. At any given moment, dozens of people were tweeting away with updates and discussions on the sessions and off-topic themes. I especially enjoyed the discussions folks were having on the future of microblogging, it was interesting to see that many people felt that we’re on the verge of having this type of online communication go mainstream. If Evan’s predictions about standards-based microblogging interoperability come true, we may see this mainstream adaptation happen sooner, rather than later.
This was also my first opportunity to test some “power-tweeting” with my new Blackberry 8110 with Twitterberry (more on that at a later point). This is an excellent setup for microblogging. Text input is easy and besides for some minor connection-dropping issues, Twitterberry works well. On the same subject, I had a nice discussion with Thilo of Twibble fame on the subject of mobile app usability. If you’re not familiar with the Twibble mobile client, check it out!
And of course, it was great to meet with “the crowd”. You know who you are – you make these events fun for me.
Posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 8:03 pm (5 Responses)
The internet has been heating up in the past few days on the subject of the conflict between Israel and the Hamas. Cem wrote an interesting post (translation) on the improvement of the relations between Turkey and Greece following the 1999 Izmit earthquake. I commented on this post, and then realized the comment would have been a post within itself, so here it is:
While I’d like to believe that the previous situation between Greece and Turkey would have been a viable benchmark point, unfortunately reality, from my perspective, is somewhat different.
The earthquake was indeed a catastrophe, and Greece’s willingness to extend a hand in aid was admirable. Set to scale, Palestinians and Israelis alike will mention that life in the Gaza Strip is catastrophic from a day-to-day perspective, however the international media has largely chosen to ignore the little-known fact that Israel has provided and continues to provide the Gaza Strip with electricity infrastructure, water, communications systems and medical aid. When the situation between the Hamas and the Fatah escalated, injured parties from both sides sought refuge inside Israel and were treated at Israeli hospitals. Israeli organizations routinely operate inside of the Gaza Strip in order to distribute food and supplies.
Inside Israel, pictures of Israeli/Palestinian cooperation are routinely shown in the Israeli media. Palestinian media professionals are routinely interviewed and the stories of life inside the Gaza Strip are aired. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of reporting by the Gazan media specifically and Arab media reporting in general. If the Turkish media would have chosen to ignore the Greek aid and not report on it, the situation today between Turks and Greeks may have very well been different.
For any type of “miracle” to happen in the future, Israel needs to uproot it’s settlements outside the borders and the Palestinians need to stop indoctrinating their children to murder. The situation will not get any better before the Palestinian people have something to live for, and no longer feel like they have nothing to lose. I believe Israel needs to take a harsh stand against the Hamas, an organization which is bittering the lives of both the Israeli and Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Under Hamas, international aid money (and Israeli money, including the taxes I continue to pay) has been directed towards trafficking and deployment of weapons. Since the Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip, what existed of the Palestinian economy and the quality of life in the region has plummeted. Israel needs to go into the Gaza Strip (despite the controversy) uproot the Hamas (for the sake of both peoples) and start controlling and distributing aid directly (instead of just funneling money globally, like they do now), while investing finance into Palestinian businesses and promoting Palestinian grassroots organizations to build up the Palestinian economy towards self-sustainability. The moment this happens, international businesses will take notice, and the Palestinian economy will boom – leading towards a new era of cooperation and security.
This is why I am not entirely shocked or horrified by the situation in the Gaza Strip in the past few days. Olmert himself (who I am not normally a fan of) had a moment of honesty and clarity when he declared to the Israeli media: “It is going to get worse before it gets better, for both sides of this conflict”. I can only hope that the decisions made from this point forth will be beneficial towards both peoples. It’s going to be rough, but we’ll get there eventually.
So that is my “official” take on the current events in Gaza, make of it what you will. Despite the circumstances, I’d like to wish everyone (everyone) a happy and heartwarming final night of Hanukkah, from my small little apartment in Hamburg.
Posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 11:09 pm (No Responses)
My friend Yoav and his super-talented band Bend played at Arlene’s Grocery in NYC a few nights ago. For those of us who weren’t able to attend, here are a few videos from the show.
You can download their new 5-sing EP “The Helpless E.P.” here.
Posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 5:56 pm (6 Responses)
Okay, I admit. I watch the Eurovision. There’s something to be said about the understated joy of watching countries embarrass themselves on live television with 100 million viewers watching. I was actually pleasantly surprised this year – the entries were pretty good and some of the songs were really well put together and well preformed (keep in mind, I said some).
After Israel’s painfully embarrassing stunt at last year’s semi-finals, I was really happy to see that we sent a respectable entry this year. Boaz Mauda’s voice is great and even though Israel only made 9th place, I’d say that’s quite an achievement considering Israel’s current place in European public opinion 2008. Anyway, I’m not complaining. We won 3 times already.
Anyhow, here’s Israel’s entry, in case you missed it. I really think it was one of the best this year.
Posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 4:30 pm (2 Responses)
Thursday night was the Next08 conference party here in Hamburg which I happily attended with my coworker Sven. It was nice! I met a few of people I had been wanting to meet for a while (exhibit a, exhibit b) and some new acquaintances as well.
On Thursday afternoon I recieved an email from Kartenhaus.de, Germany’s largest online ticket provider (and daughter company of Ticketmaster), to let me know that my credit card details had been stolen along with 66,000 other folks. After talking to a Kartenhaus representative on the phone (I used Qype Mobile to find their phone number, since Kartenhaus “forgot” to include a contact number in their email), I promptly called my credit card company and cancelled my card.
The German blogosphere has been posting up a storm about the Kartenhaus fiasco, for good reason. While I’m no digital seurity expert, it looks like Kartenhaus had a security hole so wide, that makes swiss cheese seem like concrete.
There’s only very little we, as consumers, can actually learn from this story. Most of us online shoppers are already well aware of how to spot the warning signs (small, badly designed sites with little company information, for example) but when it comes to large, well known sites like Kartenhaus, we put our data in their hands and trust that they hold it secure. I will no longer order through Kartenhaus via credit card – if they allow such a well-known security exploit through their servers in the first place, there’s no knowing what would happen in the future.
