Microblogging and walled gardens – post SIME debate on status updates and journalism

Over at Citizen Media Watch, Lotta Holmström and Gitta Willén keep publishing great articles based on some of the most interesting material from SIME. Check out their interview with Joi Ito on wether we’ll see a dark period for journalism, their article about music, honesty and Youtube featuring Mia Rose and the latest discussion about microblogging, journalism and Facebook status updates.

Based on a question I asked Net Jacobsson of Facebook on stage at SIME08, they pose the question on how we can or should define microblogging, and if Facebook is not only the world’s biggest photo sharing site like Net claimed, but also the world’s biggest microblogging service.

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But since Facebook status updates are not accessible outside Facebook, the updates behave less like the political arena that for example twitter has become.

Read on at Citizen Media Watch for two great posts discussing what microblogs mean today and their relationship to journalism.

SIME and Internet World Cooperate on Exciting Plans for SIME08 and Topp 100

At Breakfast for the Brain, a breakfast seminar at IDG in Stockholm, SIME’s Ola Ahlvarsson and Internet World’s Magnus Höij tell us bout the future of SIME and about how Internet World’s Topp 100-event will be organized in direct conjunction with SIME08. SIME will do a Kungsgatan take-over this year and host the event at Rigoletto and Ambassador.

Ola also talks about how SIME is broadening its knowledge efforts. SIME now offers themed SIME events for your organization, an example of this is SIME Innovation Day where Google, Telenor and Ericsson wanted to meet exciting startups.

Take a look at just under 7 minutes of talk about the future of SIME and the cooperation with Internet World (in Swedish). Video by Björn Falkevik of Lidne Inc and Stockholm Social Club.

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More clips from the breakfast seminar will be posted to this blog soon, expect some trendspotting by Ola and Magnus and interesting experiences and numbers from India, China and Brazil.

Ola Ahlvarsson talks about entrepreneurship and internationalization at TechTalk 2008

Ola talks about how he started his entrepreneurial career, and how designing and presenting the idea of a free newspaper in the metro before a big publishing house launched what is now the world’s biggest newspaper was not enough – good ideas need to be connected to structures that will make them come true. The idea itself is not enough, no matter how great. Ola talks about common misunderstandings and uneffective strategies for internationalization, and how you could approach the subject instead, as well as examples of different entrepreneurial types. Take a look for some classic SIME knowledge.

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SIME's Ola Ahlvarsson at Google Zeitgeist

Writing live from Google Zeitgeist:

Zeitgeist is Google’s think tank for 300 selected CEOs, visionaries, entrepreneurs and leaders from different walks of life and parts of the world. It is held at the luxurious The Grove country club outside London and the purpose is (to quote queen Rania of Jordan) “to put a finger on the issues of the time.”

The morning started out unexpectedly with an unannounced keynote by the UK prime minister Gordon Brown. I must say that I was impressed by his strong will to champion a international, open and increasingly digital way of doing business, changing opinion and regulation. Some of the key take aways where that in an increasingly global economy we do not have to fear low cost countries in the west and try to build trade barriers, on the contrary he sees increasing opportunities in creative industries and in moving up the production value chain in the west. He also pointed out that there is a clear need for international institutions that can better mirror the development of an international world where local legislators cannot have the right impact or insights. He sees the internet industry as a role model and thought leader in how the world must develop in terms of breaking down traditional boundaries in organisations as well as between countries and cultures. He repeatedly advised regulators to have a “soft touch” and try to let entrepreneurs and change makers lead the way to change and codes of conduct. He also pointed out the benefits the industry has reaped from openness and non protectionism and that we have a responsibility to carry that flag. As far as political systems he thinks that the autocracy of a few elected and their experts will be challenged by the wisdom of the crowds as more and more people can and will voice opinions on line. Not only all the e petitions that come to downing street but also a global agenda that is being driven against global problems by people everywhere where the Internet is creating a pivotal change.

To summarize: just the fact that he speaks at Zeitgeist and that he was so in tune with the evolving digital economy as well as trying to make th UK the naural hub for developing new businesses impressed me a lot.

Zeitgeist: Snap shots and quotes

“Africa adds 8 million mobile phones per month. Most of the subscribers have never heard a ring tone…”

“10% increase in mobile penetration equals 1,8% increase in GDP”

“New mobile services include “delivering babies via phone” “

Queen Rania of Jordania

The next speaker really blew me away, made me fall in love and even start believing in monarchies when queen Rania of Jordania took the stage. After being increasingly tired of being bombarde by misconceptions and sterotype attitudes about the arab world since 9/11 she decided to launch a Youtube campaign where she answers direct questions from all over the world and she is going to post video replies of a set period of time that ends the 12 of august this year. A scary fact today is that almost all Americans that where asked in surveys about what thought about the arab world was negative or vice versa and that most of the feeling where based on fragmented media snap shots rather than first hand experiences. Queen Rania wants to reach out using Youtube to create brides betwenne the arab and the western worlds and to put an end to the typical clichés that you so often hear such as the notion that arab women lead miserable lifes or that everyone is forced to be a Moslem. She believes that the journey can start with a single click and that the pulse of conversation is in the heart of the millions of people interacting via the web.

Todate she has received more than 1,2 million hits on youtube and the questions are diversified from “are you Michael Jordan’s wife…” to “do you have to wear a veil”. She strongly believes that people are too diversed to lumped together by simple stereo types tells about initiatives where arab and western children collaborate via the mail and how that remoes the fears as the commonalities and friendships get´s the upper hand. She alls feels strongly that her region must develop so that the next Sergey Brin or Larry Page (who is actually sitting right next to me as I write) can be spawned in the Arab world.

When asked about the (lack of) democracy her reply was that no country wants to be forced to governe in a certain way and that there must be a tailormade arab democracy and that it needs to Jordanian in Jordan and not American. Democracy is local and must be based on the present situation at hand without frog leaping the necessary evolutionary steps. She empazised that democratic principles are universal but that practise must be local and allowed to take the necessary time to become successful. In a very frank closing remark she shared that since she is a queen most information she gets is somewhat filtered and often flattering where as on the ned she gets the question unfiltered, uncensored, very critical and raw which she finds very refreshing. She also appreciated the loose dress code at Zeitgeist where the google code of CEO Eric Schmidt rules : at google you should wear…something” and the fact that since she started vloggin her kids thinks she is cool.

Ola Ahlvarsson at TechTalk 2008 in Menorca

Two videos from TechTalk 2008 in Menorca, where Ola talks about SIME and how to take your company international. Enjoy!

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Reboot 10 is about Free

Copenhagen community made conference reboot is launching its 10th installment.

reboot is a community event for the practical visionaries who are at the intersection of digital technology and change all around us…

2 days a year. 500 people. A journey into the interconnectedness of creation, participation, values, openness, decentralization, collaboration, complexity, technology, p2p, humanities, connectedness and many more areas.

Applied towards us as individuals, citizens, teachers, culture workers, entrepreneurs, creators and change makers.

This years subject for exploration by all of us is “free” – as in free to flow, no only the price point free.

German Interaction Design company mprov has a page with notes and collected presentations from reboot9 if you want to get a feel for what kind of event it is.

Some images from last year:

Learn from the conferences you couldn't attend

When video technology and web services get better, it gets easier to document and share live presentations at conferences all over the globe. Online you can cherry pick the topics that seem interesting. Like this slide presentation about how Customer Service is the new marketing, from Web2.0 Expo in San Fransisco:

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Or this talk in Swedish from Medieteknik Branschdag where Internet strategist Björn Jeffrey talks about the technical divide – about how the difference between companies who understand the power of software and see themselves as being in the tech biz as well as in their primary business and those who don’t will grow and cause big problems for the latter category:

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(More videos from Stockholm events and interviews at the Stockholm Social Club blip.tv channel)

You can watch keynote speeches and panels from SXSW in their custom video player here. I can recommend the keynote by Jane McGonigal who talks about Alternate Reality Games and her new bigshot production connected to the Olympic games where players are trying to recover a lost sport.

And every conference should probably make videos like this: The Next Web Conference in 2 minutes, as people who didn’t attend can get a feel for the topics and further explore the once that seemed most interesting.

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And remember that there are lots of great SIME TV videos from previous SIME conferences. Like this interview with Esther Dyson:

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(Catch all of them at SIME TV)