'Cross The Breeze

Web 2.0 compliant

March 28, 2006 by Kris Hoet 2 Comments

If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I love the new spirit the internet is in for the moment, but you also know that I think a lot of this web 2.0 stuff is basically thin air. I already talked about applications that died on the internet years ago and that would have been considered great web 2.0 applications if they would have been built today. If you agree with that you will also love this website I found through SON-OF-A-PITCH and where you can get your website web 2.0 certified in a really interesting way: certifyr.com. Is your site created in a true web 2.0 spirit, click and find out.

fun, internet

The wireless commodity

March 28, 2006 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

It's amazing how fast one gets used to technologies. For the last 2 years we have wireless internet connection in the office and at home and that was only the beginning. More and more we expect to find wireless connections wherever we go: hotels, airports, … but also public places and so on. It was the fact that the SAS Net Access didn't work on my flight from Copenhagen to Seattle that brought to mind how I started taking all this for granted. It was a real dissapointment that it didn't work, and not only because I had already paid the 26,95$ for it. I just counted on it to work, I planned on using it… while I didn't even know it existed a few months ago.

I only hope the way wireless internet is offered today. I feel pretty ok with paying a few dollars to get it high in the sky, but on public places, airports, stations, market places, … I think it should be offered for free. In the center of Stockholm that's already so on many occasions (thanks Redge for confirming me that). The webpage that you get now most of the times when accessing the wireless internet and on which you make a payment could as well be a nice advertising or local portal to get people's attention while they get their access. Well at least that's how I feel about it.

So hope to get wireless access everywhere soon, I just ordered a new smarphone with WIFI included so we'll see about that, but until then another post written using my own wireless access, goodnight.

gadgets, internet

Starbucks

March 24, 2006 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

While I was walking around in the center of Seattle today it suddenly struck me that I was seeing a Starbucks almost on every corner. Why would you need a Starbucks on every corner? Is it because Starbucks originally started in Seattle (the first opened in Pike Place in 1971) or is it the same all over the US? I don’t know but it I sure looked a bit exagerated to me.

fun, other things

Content is King

March 23, 2006 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

There’s an interesting post about the tradeoff of advanced technology versus content on Andy Monfried’s blog. Using an example of a Rolling Stones classic (but bootleg) concert DVD he makes a point about the poor technical quality of the DVD, but still showing one of the greatest Stones concerts ever. I totally agree on the point he’s making. How much I would love to get the next Sony Bravia HDTV in my livingroom, nothing beats really good content even when it’s presented in much lower technical quality. It again proves the point I made some time ago that the statement “Content is King, Distribution is Queen” still pretty much stands and that it doesn’t look like that’s going to change so fast.

internet, media

Football is hot!

March 22, 2006 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

With the FIFA Worldcup in Germany coming really close, it is getting clearer every day what the major sports brands and especially what the major online players are doing in that space. We only just saw Google launch their Joga.com as a co-branded experience with Nike Football, which clearly is a whole new kind of ball game (couldn’t resist) Google is entering there. You have MSN that have their Road To The World Cup with famous soccer player diaries (on MSN Spaces of course) of Michael Owen, Ronaldinho, Gianluigi Buffon, … While we would almost forget that Yahoo! is actually the official sponsor of the World Cup so they power the official FIFA website for that. And while we are talking about football in the online space, Puma is doing a wonderful online advertising that you should take a look at. You can find it at Pumafootball.com and it’s just very cool! So let the games begin!

advertising, fun, internet, marketing

Podcasts on Live.com

March 22, 2006 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

Yesterday, I discovered something I hadn’t seen before on Live.com that I think is really cool. If one of your RSS feeds on your Live.com page includes a podcast, you can preview the posts in that feed (like with any RSS feed on Live.com) but it will also show a ‘mini’ media player that offers you the possibility to start playing the audio. I just tested it with the new Blog News Channel’s podcast from Nathan Weinberg and I think it works great.

Thanks Irvin for showing this!

internet

Stuff we found on Ebay

March 22, 2006 by Kris Hoet 1 Comment

I’m in Seattle this week for a conference and while I was working on my pc in my hotel room I was looking at Jay Leno’s Tonigh Show. The tonight show used to be aired also in Belgium (with delay) but you can’t see it anymore now (which is a pitty).

Apparently they have a new item on the show called “stuff we found on Ebay” where they show crazy stuff they found on Ebay and the audience should guess whether it god sold or not and for how much money that was. And it’s again amazing what some people sell at Ebay… and even more amazing that some people actually buy some of this stuff. Tonight we had an Xbox 360 (empty) box that started at 0,99$ and got sold at 810$, how crazy is that? The second item had a belgian note to it, because someone auctioned an ‘unwanted Brussels sprout nobody wanted for Christmas’ and even that got sold for 2.700$!

It sure is a crazy world we live in.

fun, internet

Hotel booking

March 22, 2006 by Kris Hoet 1 Comment

While I was reading my RSS feeds yesterday I read something about this new AJAX way of booking your hotel, found on Ajaxian. The service is called Paguna.com and got me excited when I read about it. It also made me think of a service I saw a few years ago already which was called OneScreen, offered by iHotelier. I haven’t got a demo url for Onescreen so you need to see on the website on one of the hotels using it. I picked the Ritz in Paris because that just sounded cooler than the other hotels on the client list.

The main difference between the sites is that Paguna sells hotel tickets for a series of hotels that signed up for this partner model, whereas iHotelier is chosen by the Hotel itselfs as their own system. iHotelier also is created a while ago in Flash and Paguna exists only a short while and is created in AJAX as you could read. After testing a bit, I still remain a big fan of the OneScreen applicationn, rather than Paguna as I don’t see the added value of using AJAX. OneScreen makes a lot better use of Flash if you compare both.

Well see for yourself.

internet

I fought the law

March 13, 2006 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

… and the law won (Sonny Curtis).

Well not really but it just seemed the right title for this post. Just tonight I stumbled onto 2 posts that are related to law and that are in some way upsetting. The first newsitem is about France pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer to open it’s iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the iPod. I guess the strangest part of this is the following:

“It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management–the codes that protect music, films and other content–if it is to enable the conversion from one format to another, said Christian Vanneste, Rapporteur, a senior parliamentarian who helps guide law in France.“

What does that mean to DRM in the future, whatever it’s from Apple, Microsoft or any other player in the market? I don’t always understand what legal councils in countries think they need to do versus succesful businesses, you can’t blame them they came up with a great idea can you? I would love to see the iPod and/or iTunes to open up to other technology but I don’t think we should force them into that if they aren’t up for it.

The second newsitem is about the Sony Playstation Dualshock controller.

“Just to bring you up to speed: Immersion, a company specializing in haptic technology, in 2003 sued both Sony and Microsoft for patent infringement, claiming both companies used Immersion’s intellectual property (IP) in their console’s controllers. Microsoft settled out of court (buying a share of Immersion in the process), but Sony fought on. Sony lost, and the judge ruled that Sony must suspend the sale of “Playstation consoles, Dualshock controllers,” and a few dozen games, including Vice City, Final Fantasy X, and Metal Gear Solid 2. Sony filed for appeal, and has been allowed to sell all aforementioned products while the decision is under appeal.“

The appeal was denied so it remains to be seen what the future of the Dualshock will be. After the earlier rumours about the PS3 delay, this too won’t do Sony Playstation any good. It sure looks like this is going to cost Sony quite a lot of money.

electronics, games, internet, music

Absolut

March 12, 2006 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

I’ve seen some new and pretty cool advertising from Absolut Vodka the last few days which made me look for other Absolut stuff on the web. A few days ago we saw the first posts talking about Absolut Kravitz. I’ve never been much of a Kravitz fan, but it still is a really nice experience. Check out the Absolut website too by the way.

Everybody knows the Absolut Ads and while I was looking for the Ad you see with this post (created during the Y2K period) it seems there are even more than one fansites about Absolut and it’s advertising. Should have known, but never thought of it really. The best one I think is Absolutad.com, that has an immense archive of old Absolut creatives. Funny enough, while looking on the web I also found out that they’ve just decided to stop with the ads using the shape of the Absolut bottle (article USA Today).

After 25 years and 1,500 versions of print ads built around the shape of its bottle, Absolut vodka is shelving the campaign that made it famous. Absolut will spend $20 million on a new effort that starts today and includes its first TV ads as the brand battles slower growth and tougher competition for vodkas.

Well if the Absolut Tracks project is the first sign of what they’re going to, bring it on then! I’m pretty sure anyway that they will come up with some great campaign ideas that will replace what they’ve been doing the last 25 years.

Also make sure to take a look at Absolut Temptation, got to love it! [Via Coolz0r]

advertising, internet, marketing, music