Trendwatching

Have a look at: http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/
You can find a lot of great trend reports free of charge on this website for smarties.

FastCompany Blog

I just found a smart blog on leadership and technology issues:

Have a look at these two interesting posts:
The first one on leadership:  http://www.fastcompany.com/1684491/ten-things-your-employees-wish-you-knew-about-them
The second one about the new facebook location based services:  http://www.fastcompany.com/1686108/how-to-stake-your-claim-on-facebook-places

There is much more interesting stuff on this webpage - so check it out!

Evernote business model

Have a look at this great presentation of the CEO of evernote, Phil Libin:



A lot of things to learn from him. Here are the best points (taken from the TechCrunch Blog):

• Sometimes people say “The best product doesn’t always win”, and are implying that you should focus on other areas, like marketing. In the Internet age, a good product can get the rest of that stuff (marketing, etc.) for free. So focus on that. And then charge for it.
• A year ago Evernote was making most of its money from licensing its technology, but it focused on its premium plans ($5/month or $45/year) because that was more scalable. Now, premium subscriptions bring in around $300-400k a month, and licensing represents around $45k.
• Evernote has 3.1 million cumulative users, and adds around 10k a day. Around 68k paying customers.
• Users have grown more valuable over time. New users convert to premium at a rate of .5%.  But of the users that signed up two years ago and are still active, 20% have become paid customers.
• This trend is important — most users quit quickly. But the ones that stay become much more likely to pay over time.
• Evernote’s cost per user is around 9 cents per active user per month. It makes around 25 cents per user per month. The site reached break even a year and a half ago.
• Entrepreneurs should aim to be making money on each new active user as soon as possible. Otherwise scaling just means you’re losing money faster, rather than earning it

And even if you thing that the summary is enough, watch the video. Phil is really great.

The most creative way to apply for a job on the internet

Have a look at this smart video:



Isn´t this smart? By the way, I found this on the facebook page of BusinessPunk, which you can find at:
http://www.facebook.com/businesspunk
So be flexible as you will get what you have always got, when you do what you have always done! (Richard Bandler)

4. May, 18-20h: Great DPA presentation on social Media from Anette Brandt on Offener Kanal Westküste

For all of you who are interested in social media and who understand German:
Turn on the "Offener Kanal Westküste" Station tomorrow (4. 5.2010, 18-20h)

You can listen to it either locally on air or via internet. By the way, the "ok" is a great station for smarties. they have a lot of high quality content. You can find their program at:
http://www.okwestkueste.de/wk/hoeren/programm/2010/kw18_10.php#Dienstag

Anette Brandt from news aktuell, a subsidiary of DPA, gave a great guest lecture at West Coast University, the university which has the smartest and sexiest marketing and controlling prof alive - my wife :-)


Anette Brandt gave a great overview of the current social media landscape and she presented top current studies. In addtion, her presentation was very vivid. So all of you who do get the chance, listen to her on the "ok" tomorrow.

For all of you who miss(ed) her, I have uploaded her charts on my slideshare at:

http://www.slideshare.net/tjekel/vortrag-anette-brandt-socialmedia13-4-1

And you can find more from Anette Brandt and her team on:

www.newsaktuell.de
www.presseportal.de

So keep on sharing ideas. As knowledge is the only resource that increases with usage :-) 

iPhoneBlog.de

This is a great iPhone-Blog and it is one that the professionals are reading:

http://www.iphoneblog.de/

Thank you Daniel Magin for the info and the great iPhone & iPad conference today.

Social Media in Europe and Germany

I found a great video on social media in Europe and Germany on one of my favourite blogs:
http://www.basicthinking.de/blog/2009/12/16/bilder-sagen-mehr-als-tausend-worte-aspekte-des-web-visuell-aufbereitet/



So keep on watching and more important using the web 2.0 while the web 3.0 is on it´s way. More to follow ...

Tablets will replace e-book readers

For all of you who still think that the current e-book-readers are cool, have a look at this preview:



Apple is one of the players in the market who are currently working on these next generation media players.
So I am desperately waiting for these new toys for the boys and enjoy my Sony e-book-reader in the meantime.

For those iPhonies of you who cannot wait any longer: there is a kindle client for iPhone available at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=ms_sbrspot_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000301301&pf_rd_p=498990411&pf_rd_s=center-22&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0015T963C&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0TRFBVTHG79ME9E3W06N

So keep on pimping your brain :-)

Are you ready for a new newspaper?

A great cinema spot about how we control the media or the other way round? Thank you Nici for this great link.



Think about it!

Online marketing with Slideshare

Have a look at this interesting blogpost on how to use slideshare for promoting your B2B business:
http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/why-slideshare-is-an-uber-cool-way-to-reach-out-to-your-customers/?utm_source=MailingList&utm_medium=email&utm_content=jekel%40web.de&utm_campaign=Newsletter+2009+Nov+1

Free from Chris Anderson

The long tail was a very controversial book from Chris Anderson. He now event went a step further with his latest book "FREE".

It is developing his long tail thoughts to the next level and let´s you rething the traditional revenue generating streams. Probably not everything can be taken up by you instantly, but this book defenitely opens your mind on how future business models will look like.

As the book is called FREE, you can download it as an audio book for free, too.

You find the free audiobook at:
http://www.loadblog.de/internet/chris-andersons-free-the-future-of-a-radical-price-als-kostenloses-horbuch/

If you want to order the book at amazon, you can find it at:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/140131001X?ie=UTF8&tag=nerdblogabouv-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1638&creative=19454&creativeASIN=140131001X

or in German at:
http://www.amazon.de/Free-Kostenlos-Gesch%C3%A4ftsmodelle-Herausforderungen-Internets/dp/3593390884/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253283706&sr=8-3

You should also have a look on Chris´ Blog at:
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/

This book really gave me some points to thing about. So keep on rethinking today how you are doing business tomorow!

Great video on the social media revolution

If you still think, that social media is only a toy for the boys, have a look at this video;



It gives a very good impression about how the communication habits have already changed - today!
Thank you very much Alex for sharing this great link on twitter. Another great example for sharing knowledge via social media.

By the way, when you browser cuts off the right part of the video (like mine), just double click on the video and it will open the full view in youtube. In youtube, you even have a button below the videos, to watch them in full screen mode.

Nice introduction video to twitter

If you still have no idea what twitter is, have a look at this video:



There are some more introduction videos from this user on youtube, which are quite nice, like the one on RSS.

What am I using twitter for?
-getting nice little bits and pieces of information from interesting people,
-putting down interesting little things that come accross my way between my blog posts (like when I am watching TV, reading a book or listening to a podacst),
-using direct messages to chat with some of my personal contacts,
-letting my twitter followers know, when I have posted a new post on my blog (automatically by the service of http://www.zone.de/), and
-asking questions to my twitter followers (and I am getting great and instant responses - I think this is even the best benefit of twitter)

So start twittering today. My twitter user is jekel and you can also see my latest twitter tweets on the right side of my blog. You can also use the link below the tweets to follow me on twitter directly from my blog.

Smart marketing of 7-eleven

An iPhone application developed for 7-Eleven Sweden combines a store locator with coupons for a free coffee and biscotti. After downloading the app, users plug in their phone number and receive a unique coupon code on their iPhone. To claim their coffee, they just show the code to a 7-Eleven clerk; no purchase necessary. The coupon is only valid once, and free coffee in April will be followed by free ice cream in May.

The application, developed by Stockholm-based digital agency Lonely Duck, was downloaded 2,500 times in the week it launched—a considerable number given the size of the Swedish iPhone community, and enough to place it in the top 10 of free app downloads.

7-Eleven hasn't launched the app in other markets yet, but it's a smart example for other iPhone-loving retailers to follow: don't just help (a relatively affluent group of) consumers find your store, but give them a good reason to visit and spend money while they take you up on your generous offer.

Website: www.7-eleven.se

Isn´t that cool?! I found this on one of my favourite blogs on entrepeneurial ideas:
http://www.springwise.com/

Book and videoblog on Youtube for business

I just read a great book from Michael Miller on how to use youtube for business.

You can have a preview of the book on:
http://www.amazon.com/YouTube-Business-Online-Video-Marketing/dp/0789737973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249601910&sr=8-1

The author also has a great videoblog, which you can find at:
http://businessvideoblog.blogspot.com/

Great training on internet marketing

If you want to learn how to really use the Internet as an effective marketing tool, you have to book the tempus workshop on strategic internet marketing. The trainer, Sanjay Sauldie, is THE man on this topic. Today I learned a lot of really practical things after Sanjay reprogrammed our minds on the paradigms on internet marketing.

The link with the detailed info is: http://www.tempus.de/seminare/verkauf-und-marketing/strategisches-internet-marketing.html

Sanjay also has a great video newsletter & more on internet marketing. Check it out at:

http://www.internetmarketing-newsletter.de/

THE man on web 2.0

For all of you who are german, THE man on social media is Alexander Wunschel. He really knows what´s going on and I already had the pleasure to discuss some ideas with him personally.

In addition (for the female readers of my blog) he is known for the sexiest podcast voice in Germany :-)

You find him at http://www.pimpyourbrain.de/

You can also find his podcasts on itunes. Just scroll the podcast directory within itunes, which you should do anyway, if you have not done this yet. There you find tons of high quality free of charge content to pimp your brain during your daily commute.

Just recenty Alex & friends organized a great conference on podcasting. You find a lot of wokshop results at http://www.niche09.de/

This is knowledge sharing at its best - many thanks Alex!