Global Nomad

Future of Curation Networks

2012-02-07T09:10:00.009Z

One of the hottest social networks right now is Pinterest. It his a nice spot at the need for organising huge amounts of information and our look out for beautiful inspirations. One important aspect is a high rate of female adoption, that continues to drive the adoption of eCommerce. Hence Pinterest is interesting for commerce, as some sources indicate that every click to an webshop site is worth an average of $5 in purchases.

What I am interest is the communal aspect of the service. It heavily focuses on recipes, travel imaginary and to some length fashion. For anyone interested in these, the site is interesting. However, the huge and growing adoption of Pinterest might eventually be the downfall. It might not be able to hold up to its community and therefore loose users to more highly niche focused communities. Curation is not curation if will not be able to edit out the unnecessary noise. Even following feature will not be enough eventually.

So what if we look this from another perspective. What is we think curation as a disruption to marketing, rather than just another social network. Currently online marketing is push with high volumes of banners. What if marketers would enable cashpools for users to create curated contents around topics, and earn real revenue from their curation work.

I think by creating well operating service that enables focus around nodes of interest or brands, we can enable these nodes to create actions that are fulfilled by the crowd. This crowdsourcing will boost highly focused and curated content for relevant target groups. All evolving around the node, rather than in a huge mass of different content. That is the real disruption potential of curation.

Marketers, remember. This could also make the world better by distributing revenue around to the best users. Do not think people are willing to work for free forever. I’m most certainly going to look at niche-curation content platforms as a powerful way to encourage a meaningful interaction with prospects and buyers.

About saving the magazine industry

2012-01-26T15:33:00.001Z

Everybody wants to be digital today and most magazine executives today seems to be building iPad apps. Yet the user experience of a print magazine is unmatchable: they’re cheap, never out of battery charge, not a target for thieves and they have twice the screen space when spread as an iPad screen.

The concept of magazines is great and without bringing it to the same level on digital, the executives are running a losing war. Lets consider the recent experience of one of my favorite magazines, The Economist. I subscribed to their iPad mag. First of all, the subscription takes me away from the app, to website with 2 options. €32 13 weeks and 125€ for 51 weeks. But I'd like to pay monthly as is the status quo on most of my subscription services. Sure I could pay per issue, but then there would be no auto-renew.

Granted, this is a small issue in the grand scale. But come on, take a que from something like Spotify, where I do not need to renew, they have my credit card info and its conveniently everywhere I go. That is a well done subscription service. Secondly, most successful magazine concepts in digital media are blog communities. No fees, no limits but high quality accessibility, funded by quality and relevant advertising.

I believe the key on saving the magazine industry is accessibility. Whether it is magazine subscription or advertising funded, the key is to provide seamless accessibility. Let me work a little at the beginning if needed, but aim to guide me to a state where I have the magazine when and where I want to, without forms to fill. This obviously needs security matters, but that I trust you've taken care, right? That is accessibility.

So remember that:
- Monthly fees appear lower than yearly fees
- Cancel anytime feature will enable easier testing
- Have auto-renew as default
- Advertising should be relevant and considered part of the content

If this is taken care, all you really need to focus is having great content.

Photo by: Teppo Hudson

Mark Cuban's 12 rules for Startups

2012-01-13T08:00:00.002Z

These are reblogged from Mark Cuban's post on Entrepreneur.com site. Love the suggestions. Embody these.

1. Don't start a company unless it's an obsession and something you love.

2. If you have an exit strategy, it's not an obsession.

3. Hire people who you think will love working there.

4. Sales Cure All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.

5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but aren't as expensive to pay.

6. An espresso machine? Are you kidding me? Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.

7. No offices. Open offices keep everyone in tune with what is going on and keep the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show him or her how to use the lock on the bathroom. There is nothing private in a startup. This is also a good way to keep from hiring executives who cannot operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over a personal secretary, run away. If an exec won't go on sales calls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.

8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the most inexpensive way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista, ask yourself why, then use it. It's a startup so there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.

9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.

10. Never buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo-embroidered polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, it's okay to buy for your own employees, but if you really think people are going to wear your branded polo when they're out and about, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money.

11. Never hire a PR firm. A public relations firm will call or email people in the publications you already read, on the shows you already watch and at the websites you already surf. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them a message introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communication with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.

12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out $100 bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. The Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or ten for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party.

Fotoshop by Adobé

2012-01-11T16:46:00.002Z

No surprise this went viral like a wildfire. Everything is spot on: concept, production, design (especially the package design), talent, voiceover, and most importantly the satire that is so true.

Top 10 Blogposts 01/2012

2012-01-03T09:42:00.002Z

I will be curating 10 great blogposts each week. Published at Publishzer obviously! Below is the first one for this year!

The Demographics of Cool

2011-12-15T15:56:00.001Z

Last week Harward Business Review had an article titled "The Demographics of Cool". It talks well about the waves that really make some products to become cool and how the message is distributed. Basically the question is about the fact that no longer can advertising lecture or dictate to customers; marketing to the group conversation must be seamlessly incorporated. Basically social media enhances the fact that once in the hands of the tastemakers, consumers gravitates en masse to the seller's offerings. Below is a video with more about this in the form of an interview.

This demographics of cool is a devolution away from segmentation of smart cross-cultural or multicultural marketing strategy. As a society, the western cultures are more and more melted culturally, and the meaningful identity is changing according to the situation you are at the moment. The categories are not relevant anymore and the identity is evermore complex.

Still, the demographics of cool is more than just trying to define a new meaning for demographics. Steve Stoute is arguing that out of hip-hop, a new culture has emerged, one "shared mental complexion" that no demographics can capture. Age, race and income don't matter. Only the mind-set matters. 34-old Indian bluecollar worker, 16-year old high school kid from the UK and 45-year old whitecollar from Japan worker are all the same demographics. In the modern world, urban has nothing to with place or race and everything to with attitude.

These consumers, choose what becomes cool and, more crucially, decide when something isn't cool anymore. Remember the champage Cristal's fall from grace, just because Jay-Z said so? When the importance is the psychologic, the demographic data and quantitative research become meaningless. Because when you define a market by how people in it think, not by who's in it, the definition process is far mor complex and expensive.

Just think of the Apple iPod's now-iconic silhouetted hipsters sporting white earbuds, striking poses. You can't tell if those silhouettes are 18 or 34 years old, rich or poor, black, white or asian, from Helsinki or from Tokyo. All you know for sure is that they're cool!

Christmas Calendar is Here!

2011-12-08T09:39:00.003Z

Publishzer is going to publish a Christmas calendar for this festive season 2011. The calendar will be in finnish, as it is a testbed for some advertising features and the results will be published on January. I strongly believe that this kind of advertising will be highly valuable, as part of the content.

In the calendar, you'll find a magazine for each day leading to Christmas eve. There will be videos, photos, christmasrecipes and gift ideas. So go and check it out AND please follow the calendar facebook page.

Below is embedded the latest calendar, updated daily:

Are kids more tech savvy than parents?

2011-12-06T09:02:00.003Z

Most, meaning 90%, of the parents think that they are more internet-savvy than their kids. But are they? In this video Lydia Leavitt and Leila Makki went out to find out.

Think About Your Metadata

2011-11-25T15:29:00.003Z

This time I wanted to get a bit more relaxed from all the deep thoughts on the change of the digital media. I thought to give a little update on what we worked on lately. This category feature on Publishzer is not much obviously, but I would recommend thinking about categories and other metadata from early on.

Why? Metadata (metacontent) is traditionally found in the card catalogs of libraries. As information has become increasingly digital, metadata is also used to describe digital data using metadata standards specific to a particular discipline. By describing the contents and context of data files, the quality of the original data/files is greatly increased. That's why!

This sunday was another hackday for our team. We decided to focus on category feature. Now you can categorize your mags, which helps others to find them when we get all the social elements ready. Go creating some mags and register at publishzer.com

...and you can also define the magazine into subcategories. Helping readers to find it even better.

Happy Publishzing!

Social Curation and Evening at REVS Fashion Mag Launch Party

2011-11-23T09:43:00.012Z

Yesterday I spent an nice evening first at BonnierDevCamp talking about Social Curation. There is more about it in this blog, but I thought to share the slides I used. My focus was five points to cover the current change in the media industry and what opportunities social curation brings. I'm happy that the 30min talk turned into a discussion with active interaction with the hackers. I all up for you guys hacking the media into the digital future.

The five points were:
1. Media is under digital revolution and will follow the fate of music.
2. Social Curation's value is in filtering out noise to focus on niche interestgroups.
3. Enabling readers to use their own voice has huge advertising opportunities.
4. Through these bloggers have opportunity to become a shaping force in the media industry.
5. Mobile is the most personal device and therefore very good for media consumption.

Also after the break you find a nice picture of REVS magazine launch party. It a rather artistic magazine coming out from few of my friends. Nice picture and all, but I see them having hard time making this into a business...well it is very artistic.

Social Curation and Mobile

View more presentations from Teppo Hudson.

Bonnier Lounge

Revs visuals

Moomins 3D

2011-11-10T06:22:00.000Z

Searching the soul of

2011-11-09T09:03:00.001Z

Last week, me and Helene have been touring the Golden Triangle area of India. This means basically the cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. These are the monumental and historical part of the old Mughal empire and Rajastan Maharajas. Words cannot describe the awesomeness of grand buildings like Taj Mahal or the colors and tastes of Jaipur's local markets.

(photo by Helene Auramo)

However, the trip has made me think a lot about the essence our actions. Ayurveda treatments been part of our trip with both purchasing natural food supplements and having an insanely great Ayurveda massage that still after two days is energising my body. India overall is so much about balance in yourself and the surroundng ecosystems.

As well as looking for personal balance, the same balance is important for companies. Publishzer is all about high ambitions and willingness to change the world. Still this has to come with balanced methods, respecting especially the blogging communities. We have pinpointed the principles to the following ones:

- Empathy, the intimate connection with the feelings of the users and customers. We want know their feelings better than anyone else

- Halo, the signals that the company emits. People form opinions from the first moments, and therefore designs has to be perfect.

- Focus, we must concentrate the limited resources to the businesses we are best of, and eliminate unimportant opportunities. Learn to say no.

With these principles, nothing is impossible.

Publishzer about to launch

2011-10-18T17:33:00.004+01:00

We are finalizing the first release of Publishzer.com - I am just embedding a couple of magazines here, but if you wish to read more about it go for the Publishzer Story.

Magazines are losing the publishing war to bloggers

2011-10-05T09:09:00.001+01:00

Digitalisation hit first on the music publishing business. Currently similar impact is happening in the magazine publishing industry. The main reason for a distruptive change is that consumer are receiving and subsequently increasingly expecting to have content for free. For example, many bloggers do write and publish content online that include faster and even more relevant info than most printed magazines. My personal interest is in how can these bloggers get paid and be brilliant. Is there an answer to this in the disruptive changes on the markets?

The internet is a double sided sword, well, is if you look at it from the traditional publishing point of view. It has never been easier to reach large numbers of readers, but these readers have never felt more entitled to be informed and entertained for free. The market for books is continually shifting beneath our feet, and nobody knows what the business of publishing will look like a decade from now. Still many authors and publishers are still pretending that the Internet doesn’t exist. Some will surely see their careers suffer as a result. One fact now seems undeniable: The future of the written word is (mostly or entirely) digital.

I'm not a businessman, I'm the business, man! (Jay-Z)

Still, consuming blog content is more popular than ever. For example fashion blogs gather followers like fireflies, most of the are still run by individuals, not media companies. If added the average 5€ each click through is of value to eCommerce stores, the average 10.000 readers a mid-range blogger has, in a month, could earn substantial income for him/her. There however, are no polished processes and most of income is of low-engagement banner ads and endorsements. Beside a gallup involving 17.000 social media users concluded that "brand-sponsored social media initiatives have very little impact on consumer decision making. Nor do they drive prospective customers to consider trying a brand or recommending a brand to others in their social network".

Digital publishing is gathering some success in small printing of €1.99 stories, something similar as selling single songs rather than a full album. However, these third party objectives are gathering much less engagement than subjective blog posts where the blogger is the objective. The amount of engagement bloggers drive is about 10-20 times higher than advertising, based on the same gallup above.

So my argument is that rather than relying on producing magazines and hit ebooks (which thou are interesting from content point of view, but not from business point of view), magazine publishing should enable bloggers to earn revenue from issues that they are passionate about. Revenue could come from brands that wish to be included in this passionate conversation by providing content to reference, analyse or just do some shout-out. Results would be much more focused and much higher engangement, and would result in a better service for readers. Afterall, we all loath banner ads, right?

Digital is either Global or Hyperlocal

2011-09-13T07:30:00.000+01:00

(This is an excerpt from an essay for the Community Media Expert Meeting's whitelabel)

Filtering is not a new phenomenon as news agencies have done this sincethe beginning of media. The difference is that now “we all can be small newsagencies” and curate the most intersting content we find. Content is global andthere is infinite amount of it, enabling easy cross-referencing and such.

This development requires media to look at their operations as global.National level is diminishing and readers are increasingly gaining influencesfrom the global community through the networked societies. This will obviouslybe a long transition, but when national borders used to regulate the flow ofcultural phenomenoms, today’s flow of information has no borders. Thereforecultures are most likely going to go global, and media will as well as animportant mediator of it.

However, as the media will go global beyond national borders, it is fragmentinginto niches. As the post modern society tends to categories everything in orderto be functional, so will the cultural interests be categoriest. For example teenagers willlisten a certain kind of music of their niche, not just from the nationallevel, but from the certain niche on the global level. The media that will beable to focus on these niches will gain most viewerships from the fans. Morethan from the general focused media, because of the stronger community ties,feeling of belonging and enjoyment through sharing of similar ideas.

Beside cultural, this feeling of belonging on communities can be seen inthe idea of hyperlocal. Media that focuses on cities, on the neighbourhoods oron the certain streets, will most likely gain interest of the locals regardlesof their cultural interest. Locals are a part a community that is not bound byculture, but by physical location. News of what happens on your street isalways interesting.

So, media organisations will face options to choose global niches, whereviewers are bound by cultural interests, or hyperlocal communities, whereviewers are bound by interest of their physical location. Communities, culturalor physical, are the most important aspect as no viewer will be interested ofinformation on which they cannot relate to.

Eric Ries & The Greatest Book Launch Ever?

2011-09-11T09:54:00.000+01:00

Eric Ries is going to have a busy one next week as he launches his book, The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation To Create Radically Successful Businesses. The book is brilliant I believe (haven't read it yet), not just for the content is contains, but also for the incredibly innovative way it has been launched. Eris is giving away great stuff to people who buy the book, stuff that the people that are likely to read it will really like. If that works, it will hit the Amazon and other best seller lists and this will mean it will be bought by people who wouldn’t normally know about it.

Because of the launch promotion bonuses, minimum tier one gets $246 (retail) worth of bonuses for a $14.50 book. And it piles up the more you order. Pretty nice. This bundle is 100% stuff I think you will really use. No phony discounts. No free trials.

This really is genius in two way. a) The more books you buy, the more valuable the rewards and b) it is restricted to one week to boost the sales to the bestseller list, which if achieved will push the sales even further. Oh, and the time limit is from 12th September through 19th September.

Go Eric! Love your thoughs and would love to see your book go bestseller. Below is a video we shot when Eric Ries visited Helsinki in 2009. Most likely the content of the book is similar to this.

Customer Development is everything thinks Steve Blank

2011-09-05T20:30:00.000+01:00

Business

Watch Top Gun. And you understand how it feels to run a startup. I really loved this analogue by Steve Blank during his lecture today.

Think how the fighter pilot operates in the cockpit: OODA loop. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. This concept is basically a strategic level mindset in military operations, and can easily be applied to understand startup leadership. It is a rather complex system of decision making and imagine you have to do all those decision while flying mach 2.1, and you have only split seconds to react. That's how it feels.

The quest for a business model

In a scalable startup (for more on different type of startups here), the founding team is in a search for a repeatable and scalable business model. That is very different from actual execution in a company. The main difference with startups and corporations are that, in the latter one, the executive management already knows the business model because it has already been found. The startup phase should be temporary during the project's transformation into a company, and the sole purpose should be to understand the metrix needed to make reliable decisions.

Unlike in a corporation, the only accounting needed in a startup are a) burnrate and b) how much is left at the bank. Nothing else. Profitability or such do not matter until the startup team has verified the business model. When the model is verified, the company will actually deliver a valid value proposition for the their customer segments.

Do the customer development

Please, do not waste time on business plans. No business plan will ever stand the test of an initial customer encounter. This is often the first fatal flaw. The second flaw is to think all the imaginable features should be in the product. Learn to go lean and have just minimal viable feature set to test your assumptions. If your assumptions are correct, you should have no problems to add revenue to pay for the future development. If not, it is time to go back to the drawing board and tweak the model a bit.

Steve Blank thinks that many startups fail because they found no customers. Not because they could not deliver what the technical feature set failed. The startups just ended up building "a house where nobody wanted to live". So like the fighter pilots in "Top Gun", the startup founders have to move fast with limited resources. They have to do decision calls with limited amount of data. Essentially the thrills come through those decisions made blindly, with gut feelings. Just remember, your gut feeling will only emerge by talking to the customers and developing from there.

Most importantly, remember to find and document "what have we learned about customers and what is our story". That is what makes headlines.

Flow Festival 2011 feeling

2011-09-02T14:13:00.002+01:00

I went to Flow Festival 2011, this came out. Just one on the series, more of which can be found at Stadi.TV

Rush only to have a great product

2011-08-17T12:03:00.007+01:00

Business

"What are you waiting for?" That is something many pro-entrepreneur individuals say when you have an idea or would like something to be better. I completely agree, that yea "What are you waiting for!". Just do it. After that, everybody starts talking you should go lean, fail fast and learn while doing it. This way there might be better chance to find a fit for the market and start collecting those dimes worth more than variable costs per unit sold.

Therefore, just as an idea: When you start your business, there is an immense rush to get stuff done. It stresses you out in the nights, gets you a positive rush the next and anxiety the day you look into the business' bank account. And the latter one is the one you are rushing for.

Be the first in the market...er...not

Be the first in what you do? Well, I don't think so. You might have heard the praises for blue ocean strategy. In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid. In blue oceans, competition is irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be set. Blue ocean as a strategy is correct, but it often is mixed with the idea of being the first.

It is true that you have many advantages if you execute an blue ocean strategy. But the advantage does not come from being the first.

The gold rush

So, what is the key when you go out and start your business? I would argue that is it the rush to have a great product. You are definitely in a rush, especially every time you look into your bank account. Eric Ries argues that an entrepreneur’s greatest advantage is their obscurity. If your first product sucks, at least not too many people will know about it. But that is the best time to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them to make the product better.

Therefore, the rush is to have a great product that creates a blue ocean before you run out of money.

Freedom is... the ability to choose

2011-08-16T09:26:00.020+01:00

Philosophy

"I'm not afraid. I'm standing on top of this building, watching the storm approaching. I am not scared, taking on any weather it takes, cold or warm. We walk this world together afterall".

Filmmaker Pedro de la Fuente @pfuente, a good friend of mine, is currently working on to make people think what is freedom? I would start asking what is the value of freedom. To start, lets say loyalty has an important aspect. Loyalty to believe and to trust that the other will or can go out to do what is decided. When you trust, you can propose freedom.

This summer I've had the freedom to go fishing at 11pm

Loyalty and freedom

The key to understanding freedom is to recognize and respect that people are deeply loyal to themselves and those they love, but not to products, brands and governments (as society could be understood). They are loyal to their own values and the (relatively few) people and causes they truly believe in. What looks and feels like loyalty to a government, product, brand, company, etc. is driven by what that product, service, brand says about who we are and what we value.

If I buy from you, with money or by action, it’s not because I like you but because I like myself

This summer I've had the freedom to enjoy time in the park with my girl

Value of freedom

I also discussed this in a study on branding (pdf here). The value of freedom can be understood through an idea of post-modernism: the need to order the world into easily identifiable ranks and categories. Categories are society's way to interpret, to contrast and compare objects. The values signify the person's identity and leads to an active enjoyment of the specific object. The value of freedom is, therefore, the emotional interaction in a world of free choices. In a post-modern society, the citizen freely collects signs that signify the self.

The value of an object is the ability to create emotional loyalty, which emerges from the signification of the self. Hence the value of freedom is about the option to choose.

This summer I've had the freedom to enjoy a cup of tea with magazines.

6 business opportunities with social media overload

2011-07-31T19:03:00.009+01:00

Business

Mashable here has a great article about "Sharepocalypse", or how social media overload will generate an expanse of new problems. However, this will generate a new opportunity for social assistance — a new category of software and services — and therefore, a ripe environment for startups.

Social Relationship Management (SRM): : Services that help people create, organize and manage sets of social network relationships — for example, sets of people to follow and/or share with on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.

Social Awareness: Services that help people keep up with their social networks, especially among a user’s friends.

Social Curation: Services that help people organize and make sense of their streams and messages.

Social Personalization: Services that help people sift through the network noise for information most relevant to their particular needs and interests.

Social Analytics: Services that help to measure online social behavior and trends, optimize engagement, monitor activity and communicate more appropriately.

Social Automation: Services that help to automate activity in social networks, like automatically updating your status, helping to increase your influence, suggesting what to share, matchmaking, alerting, and using bots to intelligently interact with and assist users.

Because social assistance will become so necessary, both vertical and horizontal social assistance could mean interesting opportunities for startups. Ventures that provide vertical social assistance for particular networks, like Google+ and Facebook are going to be early build versus buy acquisition targets. These are rapid innovation opportunities for individual developers or small teams.

Louis Vuitton S/S 2012 for men looks

2011-07-10T15:51:00.006+01:00

Style

I really do enjoy Louis Vuitton style and here is a nice look at the latest style for their S/S 2012 men's collection.

Manifesto to End Digital Divide - by FACT Liverpool

2011-06-20T08:53:00.007+01:00

Philosophy

Posting an manifesto I was given a week ago at Liverpool. It gives you a nice overview of of challenges societies see regarding the growing digital divide and how to tackle it. This is super important for societies in Europe, and rest of the world as well.

Tackling the Digital Divide

1. Give older people access to enter the digital world - Residential care homes, sheltered accomodation, clubs for the elderly and care centres should be digital hubs - providing mental stimulation and opportnities to explore and learn new creative media skills. Digital technology can help older people get socially connected, with lessons in how to surf, blog, make short films or even DJ.

2. Let's open the doors to the online Town Hall - Community activity is increasingly happening online via forums and websites for the local population. Democratic debate and participation is thriving o the internet. Older people should have greater access to the tools and skills needed to participate in their online neightbourhood.

3. Online Freedom Passes for over 65's - The internet is now the primary source for public service information. From collecting pensionsto legal advice, everything is going digital. To ensure pensioners can make the most of the opportunities available, the Government and Internet Service Providers should provide over 65s with subsidised internet access, and make access to super-fast broadband for the most vulnerable a priority.

4. End digital illiteracy - 10 million people in the UK lacking basc digital skills os a social injustice ans an economic liability. The government should set a target for eliminating digital illiteracy by 2013 and established Government's national youth service where young people "buddy-up" with the elderly online.

5. Social networking across the ages - Conversations between the generations are fundamental to a well-functioning, happy society - and the Internet is the perfect place for those conversations to take place. From webinars which bring older people into the classrooms to online Q&A's, the young and the old should meet in the digital ether - actively promoted by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Putting Power in the Hands of Citizens in the Digital Age

2011-06-16T09:15:00.006+01:00

Business

I am attending and speaking at The Finnish Institute in London organised Community TV Expert Meeting, held at FACT Liverpool. This is a roundtable event trying to promote cooperation and best practises of Community media.

One idea forwarded during the day is to look back at community media of 70s and 80s. Curation and social identity through pirate media stations gained traction in these centuries. So we argue that, putting power in the hands of citizens will be one of the first choice for curators and media.

Community television is a throwback to a time when cable technology was new and the web was not yet born. It allowed anyone to create a program that could be seen on cable. Community television was the youtube of its day; but things have changed. Downloading and streaming have precipitated a complicated restructuring of the television industry, brought on in part by new viewing habits. Traditional TV now seems to be on the wane. But there are some things that are harder for the internet to replace.

Most television takes more than one person to make. The internet cannot replace the studio space, hands-on training and possibilities for in-person collaboration and mentorship that community television allowed for. It won't replace the sense of place provided by a community production studio; a space where people can gather, work, learn and create together.

We are at a critical moment when traditional media ownership is more concentrated than ever, and yet we have perhaps the most participatory medium in history at our fingertips. As such, citizens need access to media literacy, knowledge and media production skills more than ever before. Community media centres--modeled on the idea of recreation centres and local libraries--may be a crucial piece of the digital divide puzzle

Finally an nice overlook of Liverpool from the rooftop of FACT.

The Restaurant Day in Helsinki

2011-05-27T07:53:00.006+01:00

Style

A week ago me and Helene had the pleasure to attend as guests the community led Restaurant Day. We went to the Restaurant "ViiniTV" As it is, from the link at Visit Helsinki site you will find more info.

I do not really have any opinion on the current state of food and beverage industry, but in my opinion such actions are amazing to boost activity within Helsinki Region. Not in commercial way per se, but think about the new connections people ended up having during that evening last saturday. Just myself happened to gain 3 new contacts that evening, some might even end up being business friends. And thanks for the 1976 Port guys!

Food and drinks are one common issue we all have and there is nothing better than Michelin-grade dinner, served in 3 room apartment with 14 smily faces around you. I myself hope the next such day will be held on August as it is planned. See the meal photos below, taken by Helene Auramo

Breads

Starter

Main Course

Dessert

Value of Curation

2011-05-23T09:47:00.005+01:00

Business

(source)

Why is curation so important for the future of web content publishers? I believe the content curator is the next emerging disruptive role in the content creation and distribution chain. With increasing amount of information shared, curation is tremendously valuable service to anyone looking for quality information online: a subjective and qualified selection of the best and most relevant content and resources on a very specific topic or theme.

I could argue that a content curator is someone "who continually finds, organizes and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online". The most important component of this job is the word "continually."In the real-time world of the Internet, this is critical.

The idea of curation goes back to the art world, where galleries have for decades used professional curators to shape the experience of the visitor. This is the key element. As a curator, one has to think about the gallery visitors. The individual experience from the accessibility to the end thoughts about the art pieces are extremely important. And as the possibilities are endless, curation brings a lot of value to the experience. Afterall, I very much enjoy the explanations about the gallery's arts, on which I can build my own view.

(source)

When we go back to online media, the value gained is not any different. Mastering how to create niche-targeted compilations of content is indeed one of the key lifesaving strategies that online publishers can adopt to offer greater value, even at a price, to those interested in it.

We live in a world where attention has become so scarce to become as valuable as currency. The ability to organize, select, compile and edit the most valuable information on anyone topic is ever needed.

Hence, I am well underway on working on a solution for this. :)

Helsinki Trivia on Stadi.TV

2011-05-23T09:40:00.002+01:00

ON Stadi.TV, the service that focuses on local Helsinki region issues, you'll find these amazing Helsinki Trivia videos. Go check out how much you know about Helsinki

Analysis of Business Ecosystems

2011-04-13T07:51:00.009+01:00

Business

Yesterday I was at a TIVIT next media event, listening to for example Burton Lee from Stanford University. However the most interesting keynote came from Saku Mäkinen, a PhD and Tampere University of Technology professor. And it was about Ecosystems.

Ecosystem Properties

Ecosystems in the nature are about energy flow. Similar idea should be applied to to the business ecosystems, where the energy flows through all the organizations and aims to add value to the end user, argues Mr. Mäkinen. Ususally ecosystems are extremely messy systems (note that these are still organised systems!) and works best if the players are striving towards similar value adding goals. Disruptions, both innovations or market cycles, often break the value adding chain and requires heavy adaptation from each organisation involved, expecially the so called keystone or dominator organisations.

Key points:
- Ecosystems are hierarchical systems
- Ecosystem's organisations have interdependence on each others
- Ecosystems have to be goal oriented
- Ecosystems have modular approach to organize itself
- Ecosystems have to a feedback process in place to enable evolution

Evolution of Ecosystem

Ecosystems tend to organize itself around a certain technology, manufacturing or service process. Mr. Mäkinen says this core element needs to be build down the system as far as possible to make it worthwhile. However, depending on the role of the organization, it can focus on certain niches and still be a very important part of the ecosystem.

According to Mr. Mäkinen, the ecosystem have 3 possible roles: Keystone or Dominator and Niche. Great ecosystems are organic, with no added 'preservaties' or non-natural (for the ecosystem) ingredients. Growth usually evolves around certain roles.

Main role is Keystone player who acts as a source of income and energy for the rest of the ecosystem. This organization is thus usually facing the consumers and needs to have a very need knowledge of the market's needs. This main role is usually taken few big organizations within the markets. These roles are usually created in a heterogenous, fragmented and lucrative markets.

Dominators are similar to Keystone players, but do strive to control the ecosystem to a much higher degree. These organizations need to have massive resources to both create stable energy flow and to adapt on market disruptions. And they need to have even deeper knowledge of the market's needs than Keystone organisations. Usually Dominators evolve in market that are homogenous, mature and lucrative.

The bulk of the ecosystem will consist of specialized niche organization that fulfill a certain role to serve the keystone or dominator roles. The strength of niche is focus, that generates higher productivity and better quality. Therefore keystone/dominator organisations tend to work with these organisation, rather than maintaining all the required parts of the ecosystem themselves. Through innovations, niche players might evolve into keystone / dominator roles.

It is all about the end user!

Mr Mäkinen pointed out that quite often, organisations tend to forget that ecosystem's energy flows towards the end user. The aim of this energy is not to work to the end user, but for the end user. As Charlie Leadbeater has said, ecosystem, like any system, that is self-interested works to you, not for you.

Short summary:
- Ecosystem leadership is no guarantee for advantage nor profits
- Nothing last forever as innovations can disrupt everything
- End user value adding is a focal point. Remember to work for the end user.

Sometimes it is nice to buy presents

2011-04-05T15:55:00.002+01:00

I love shopping at Louis Vuitton store. The service is exceptional and when you walk out, you know your present will make someone happy. :)

Organic Breakfast

2011-03-18T11:31:00.001Z

Breakfast: organic rustic bread topped with organic garlic cheese. Goes down with Golden Needle tea.

Some Beijing Roasted Duck

2011-02-26T07:19:00.005Z

Log

We have had a busy week behind, with tons of meetings, product development. Later on I am able to tell you more about them, however to celebrate this me and Helene decided to go for some Chinese. Got to love Beijing Duck aka Roasted Duck. Superb Chinese dish.

Promotion Day

2011-02-17T19:51:00.005Z

Business

ArcticStartup made an article about our latest project Blog!flow. I also love the hectic feeling and excitement to see what people think about your work. Today created some buzz and a lot of new users.

My advice would be was to prepare better for the promotion. And make sure you are technically ready for the increased traffic or users. But more important is to release and prmote often. No use in creating the greatest product of all time and never releasing it. Overall a great day.

The Man in Black - CQ UK

2011-02-09T14:59:00.006Z

Style

Overall, I am a big fan of "The man in black" himself, and these pictures just refresh the style I am kinda fond of. Not on this style everyday, but kinda need to get my groove on towards this gravitational force of a style.

Style the City goes London

2011-02-08T16:57:00.007Z

Creativity

Our creative project Style the City is going to London. First video uploaded today and now we are already covered style from Helsinki, San Francisco and London. I am super excited about this development and hope to see more cities added in the near future.

In Style the City I am interested to understand how the style of a city forms using an artistic approach of video. Using this approach, I wish to be able to create a network of videographers to work together on this and other projects

For more go to www.stylethecity.com

Augmented reality magic in Davos by Marco Tempest

2011-02-01T09:37:00.001Z

Nick Knight shoots Lady Gaga

2011-01-27T20:36:00.001Z

Amazing data visualisation!

2011-01-10T09:37:00.003Z

Creativity

Why is dreaming so important?

2011-01-05T09:53:00.003Z

Philosophy

...because people crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones that do!
Steve Jobs, 1997

GoPro HD camera

2010-12-29T21:08:00.012Z

Log

Got this new toy delivered on my doors steps. It is GoPro Hero camera for extreme situations. I really need to go scuba diving now. Shoots HD, is really small, 30/60fps and the best part you can take it to 60m depth!

Below are a couple of videos what you can do with it.

And this is what I am going to do with it.

The State of Online Video [Infographic]

2010-12-28T09:26:00.000Z

http://www.clicker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/YOUTUBE-NATION-12-2.png

Thanks to Jeffthomastech.com

Diving. My love.

2010-12-15T09:11:00.008Z

Creativity

Somehow I like Cecilia's Style the City video

2010-11-11T20:51:00.002Z

Style the City Launched

2010-11-08T15:39:00.015Z

Creativity

We launched Style the City today. It is the one the first street fashion blogs on video in the world. a Vlogazine as we call it, with features from San Francisco and Helsinki at the moment. We are super excited about this so go check it as. Built on Videoflow.

Traditional TV ad has it's place online

2010-09-27T11:17:00.006+01:00

Business

(image source: Techcrunch)

Accoring to a research conducted by Dynamic Logic, reported at Adweek.com, that TV spots perform just as well as video ads created specifically for the medium when it comes to several brand attributes.

"It was my thesis [that] made-for-Web [ads] will be more effective than [repurposed] TV ads," said Chris Bian, research analyst with Dynamic Logic's custom-solutions team. "In the end, I found it wasn't necessarily the case that repurposed was inferior. Each had their own place."

Dynamic Logic found that repurposed TV, often done as the cheapest way of running online video campaigns, works well when tactics mimic the wide-audience approach of TV. Original video works better, Bian said, when the Web's targeting capabilities are put to full use.

Dynamic Logic culled the findings from 59 campaigns and 75,000 respondents for repurposed efforts and 135 campaigns and 150,000 respondents for the made-for-Web content. It examined online video shown in streams and in banners.

Meaningless Online Video Can Kill Your Credibility

2010-09-12T17:45:00.006+01:00

Creativity

The majority of independent online video content being created is mostly unwatchable. I'm the first to admit that I am guilty of creating some of this unwatchable content as well, but as the Internet matures, grows and brings in new audiences something has got to give. Do I mind when someone I know and admire just riffs off of their built-in laptop video camera? Usually no, it depends on who that person is and how relevant the content is. Do I ever think that the content adds to their credibility? Hardly ever.

If you care about how much impact your video can have, remember Content is King, Context is King Kong

I quite often say this aloud. What I mean with it is that if you are looking for relevance, it is not the HD quality or how much your camera does not shake (or does for that matter). It is all about the fact, that you need to think before you shoot. Even the lousy phone cameras works well, if that has a meaning in the context you are working with. And please, learn the basics of editing. You do edit your texts while writing, so why not take all the unrelevant stuff off your videos as well.

- Think why are you shooting it?
- What is the context your viewer will see it?

Here are 5 ways to produce online video that will not kill your credibility (from someone who knows nothing about it):

1. Audio balance. Whenever there is more than one person speaking, please ensure that everyone's level is equal prior to publishing your final piece. All too often, I have to watch the video and work my volume control like I'm doing a final mix on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon.
2. Eye contact. It's hard and awkward to speak into a camera. That's why great broadcasters make the money that they do. Take some media training or do some pre-publishing practice runs. Letting your eyes wander, not looking into the camera or not being one hundred percent comfortable makes the viewer uncomfortable too.
3. Speak. Way too many "ummms" and "ahhhs." It takes practice not to stammer and stumble over words. Don't just read off of cue cards and don't try to improvise either. Find a healthy balance by writing out a script, but knowing how to speak it instead of just reading it.
4. Backgrounds. Do you really think that recording in your basement with a broken bookshelf in the background or cat pee stains on the couch is screaming, "hire me!"? Find a background that fits the feeling you are looking to tell. Well, if it is the basement, then go for. I would suggest outdoors whenever you can.
5. Edit. Think about how you can better edit your final product. Keep the information tight and be ferocious with what makes it to the final cut. The audience will thank you for not wasting their time or letting the content wander too far off of topic.

Finally, remember these 3 when filming. Background tells you where you are, middleground is where the subject is, and foreground tells the feeling you are looking at the subject.

The value of curating online

2010-09-02T07:36:00.006+01:00

Business

A good friend of mine has launched a curated online news media Topiikki, which aims to give you the most relevant news items, whether in blogs or in a more traditional news sites.

This makes me think about the slow transition towards curation in online media, as opposite to rather than just aggregating content. It is nothing hugely new, but just as in arts, the importance of value and meaningfullness found within a huge mass of content rises to the top. This is in the heart of the move on from web 2.0, where people and content are more connected.

The Digitalisation is not about move from analog to digital, it is a move from scarcity to surfeit. The best curators are nodes and connectors, guiding you to a more insightful understanding of what you are seeing (or reading) around the world. Like art curators have for centuries, great online news curators have a knowledge to balancing content and value.

Edit: Mikko Järvenpää blogged about the same theme, going a bit more indepth with this issue.

Flow Festival 2010 - 5 Styles in 3 Minutes

2010-08-23T21:56:00.000+01:00

The Future of TV Is Not On Cable

2010-08-23T18:42:00.000+01:00

I re-post the blogpost on NewTeeVee. This just hits the spot.

The $100 cable bill is dead. The cable industry just doesn’t know it yet. What killed it was not just a combination of ad-supported online video sites and cheap subscription video services, but a fundamental inability on the part of TV programmers and cable companies to reach the next generation of consumers.

It’s still heady days for the cable industry. Cable, satellite and IPTV companies have continued to draw in new consumers to their pay TV services, and have even been successful in convincing existing subscribers to pay more for premium video content. But one needs only to look at audience demographics to see that big cable’s ability to draw in new viewers is waning, and that spells trouble for the TV industry as a whole.

CNET reports that the average age for broadcast TV viewers has risen dramatically over the past two decades. Marguerite Reardon writes:

Twenty years ago, the median age for ABC viewers was 37; today it’s 51. Fox’s median age has also jumped, from 29 to 44. And NBC and CBS, which have always had older viewers, are also seeing the median age of their viewers rise.

Even the NY Times, which took on the cord-cutting phenomenon with the headline “Plenty to Watch Online, but Viewers Prefer to Pay for Cable,” couldn’t ignore the obvious. Despite the fact that 677,000 new subscribers signed up for pay TV services in the first quarter, the number of young people that are willing to pay for cable continues to decline. According to a Times/CBS News survey “found that people under the age of 45 were about four times as likely as those 45 and over to say Internet video services could effectively replace cable.”

In other words, cable companies and broadcasters aren’t bringing in new customers. They’re just selling more stuff to existing customers.

Some companies have tried to remedy the model, with new services that are meant to appeal to the on-demand everywhere demands of the next generation. Comcast, Time Warner and others are pushing hard to make their cable programming available on-demand through broadband TV Everywhere services so that their subscribers can watch shows online at their leisure.

But so-called TV Everywhere services miss the point: the existing audience paying $100 a month for TV doesn’t care about watching True Blood on a laptop. And the people watching True Blood on a laptop aren’t going to shell out $100 for a cable subscription.

Consumer behavior is fundamentally changing, and it starts with the young people who don’t see the need for cable.

Today, there’s an entire generation of consumers that has grown used to turning to Netflix and Hulu for their video entertainment. You think you’re going to sell them a $100 a month cable subscription, when they’ve been doing fine just paying for broadband? The TV industry is going to need to find a way to reach those consumers — because there’s only so long you can cater to an increasingly aging audience.

Content Creators "Have No ROI" in Producing Videos Just for Their Own Destination

2010-07-30T14:51:00.001+01:00

Business

We at Videoflow have been working heavily on this opportunity. Truly, on web you are connected by nature, therefore there is no reason to produce content just for yourself or for you own properties. As a content owner you should distribute, distribute and distribute!! And use Videoflow to help you distribute and monetise your content. I believe this way you are able to reach more and wider audience for your kick ass content. Makes sense, right?

Lets say you are a wineblogger producing high quality content. Or you are a production house creating a 15 episode show for TV. Would it be nice to get access to different medias by someone else working for you without fee. Thou taking a cut from your advertising sales. Cooperation on the distribution benefits the whole ecosystem.

Here is a link to the Beet.TV article about it.

A little videopost about Videoflow.com

2010-07-18T21:42:00.001+01:00

10 Things CEOs Need to Know About Design

2010-07-04T17:02:00.001+01:00

10 Things CEOs Need to Know About Design

View more presentations from Jason Putorti.

Videoflow beta phase (sample video)

2010-07-02T11:31:00.001+01:00

As some of you might know, we have been busy developing Videoflow, an online video distribution and monetization platform. For more, go check out www.videoflow.com (in Finnish at the moment). We are currently testing the service out with certain bloggers.

Here is a link to Pupulandia lifestyle-blogger, where you can see the service in action. http://pupulandia.indiedays.com/2010/06/22/pikavisiitti-my-o-my-putiikkiin/

Content's Three Pillars

2010-05-03T09:50:00.001+01:00

Business

Video content involves production, publishing and distribution. More dedicated followers, viewers or fans you have, the more you should focus on Production and less on Distribution

Production is a commodity and expensive; hence why both companies are trying to inject more science into the art to drive down the price of production. A low cost approach can maintain a high enough quality with text content, but with videos it’s more challenging. Moreover, a totally freelanced production team can also have some iota of consistency across text content, but with videos, nothing looks alike and marketers don’t feel any confidence in running ads. Quality content requires consistency. If a media planner agrees to spend $1M on a website running ads next to certain content, it assumes that the content the publisher produces tomorrow will be as good (and similar) to what it sees on the site today. A freelance model does not guarantee consistency and a UGC platform guarantees that it won’t be, especially with video.

Publishing (i.e., building a destination) is a challenge. Demand Media doesn’t have a destination but has a lot of eyeballs through its many sites; AOL meanwhile still has oodles of traffic and in addition to the AOL.com portal has many smaller niche sites with the potential to drive traffic too. Here, we see a divergence between Demand Media and AOL. On the one hand, AOL really does not need to focus purely on search traffic because it has traffic from its sites. Demand Media, however, has a more byzantine traffic pattern on its many sites, so I can understand the focus (and need) to focus on search traffic. However, search traffic is “in and out” and not the kind of engagement that branded marketers look for.

Distribution is increasingly fragmented, to the extent that even AOL is migrating from the one size fits all portal to the multiple web properties, and Tim Armstrong citing “fragmentation is our friend”.

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/10/aol-demand-media-content-farm/#ixzz0mqXnuM7L

Online Video Advertising to increase 35% in 2010

2010-04-30T11:05:00.000+01:00

On Beet.TV blog they say, online video is the fastest growing sectors in advertising, with spending expected to be up nearly 35 percent this year, says Geoff Ramsey, CEO of market research firm eMarketer.

This poses some interesting points. Online video is really the fastest growing sector in online advertising and has some real meaning for paying customers. Still, despite the rapid rise, the medium faces challenges in technology and content quality.

According to my own knowledge, I have learned that the challenges are:
- How to produce quality content
- How to distribute the content to generate good enough reach
- How to develop more intuitive technology
- How to target your target group better

Two latter ones are on acceptable level by know. Currently media are wondering how to solve the two first points. Well, we are developing a service this, check it out: Videoflow

Freedom

2010-01-31T01:29:00.001Z

Creativity

There is always pain
To struggle for freedom
If we don't get it easy
It would not feel good

If we success we probably
Sue each others in the end
Still, that is cool
Just feel the vibe

What I am looking for
Is the beauty
To feel the moment
And finish the journey

That is freedom for me

Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

2010-01-02T15:26:00.000Z

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

View more presentations from Carmine Gallo.

Gaga wears Daniel Palillo (video)

2009-12-08T14:32:00.000Z

Impressive I must say. Here is an interview of Daniel Palillo in his native finnish.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly8pj6c_BrY]

New Office

2009-12-02T18:00:00.000Z

We have moved. To new office space in Central Helsinki. Museokatu 44 to be exact.

Strategy In Online Video Syndication

2009-10-29T11:09:00.001Z

While many video publishers seek the widest possible distribution of their videos through an embeddable player and Media RSS, some, like HealthiNation and Virgin Media, are using a syndicated player which is placed on specific sites.

Controlling the "off domain" strategy is important for many publishers: Some are cautioned about where their videos will appear, often reflecting the concern of advertisers. For others there are rights issues with their content.

So what is the difference to Embeddable players?

With a traditional embeddable player, people really think about viral syndication where a consumer sort of takes the video and embeds it maybe in their personal blog or MySpace page or something to that effect. What we've found is a really effective strategy for content owners is for them to build sort of trusted relationships with distributers--be it very large portals like AOL Video or niche websites that have a really valuable audience. For them to build that relationship with them and to package specific content that they deliver, you know, through a platform like Brightcove, directly through those websites. That really becomes a safe environment for them to build audience off of their own web properties.

Great slides about Social Media

2009-10-25T22:56:00.000Z

[slideshare id=2005829&doc=wtfissocialmediapgedition-090916075838-phpapp01]

Nearing the tipping point

2009-09-24T23:49:00.000+01:00

In this blog post, Jason Glickman, CEO of Tremor Media tells us how we are nearing the tipping point with online video advertising. The point where Online Video is becoming a major part of the media mix.

Yes, online video has garnered enormous buzz – and venture investment dollars – but the medium has yet to secure much more than a sliver of the $65 – $70 billion advertisers spend annually on television spots.

Until now.

Now I would not be so bold as to call “time of death” on the television model. In fact, with all due respect to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, I think reports of TV’s death are greatly exaggerated. Viewership is as high as it’s ever been and the medium will (and should) receive the lion’s share of advertising dollars now and in the near to mid-term future.

But I do believe that when we look back years from now, the period starting from the third quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010 will be remembered as the turning point for online video advertising.

Beginning of Time

2009-09-20T19:37:00.000+01:00

Poem

The pedals of flowers are vain
Even roses do sting and cause you pain
We sat through the blossom
just waiting for the wind of change

The sun cast the last light of day
moon arrived, chasing the blinking ray
We still sat on the couch with a stare
thinking of the moment, is this really so rare

The feel, the touch on your knee
felt like a thousand years, nothing to spare
The fairness of your skin and stare
bought me to sting myself without care

That night didn't bring me to you
still separated by the distinct cove
The moment set ground on the play's set
telling our story, the story of love

Time tested

2009-09-18T23:08:00.000+01:00

Poem

I want to remind you
of the time I saw you back then

You had your pink scarf
I was late...and I'm never late

Your smile, your lips
Your eyes, are so perfect

Had never seen anything so pure
Had to have you or to die in vain

In time you said you love me
Those words make me so peaceful
Therefore I love you

Test of Time

2009-09-18T00:07:00.000+01:00

Poem

I've always wondered when will this moment come
The test of time, a test for some
To find the flaws in perfection
thats what we face in the end...well...some say.

Night and night you feel nothing
and my pleas count to fuel the feel
Though I've promised to hold my breath
for you until the death

This happened before, with the precious stone
far far away from my current home, so I've seen it
The flaws get sour and never heal
and my love you are lured away by this 'cool' little thing

Hide your face forever
to dream and search again
I will love you forever
And never search again

Short film for Finnish Catwalk

2009-09-06T13:47:00.000+01:00

I did direct a quick short film that was played as opening for a fashion show here in Helsinki. Zero Budget, 4 hours of fun in the forest and few hours of editing. Simple, effective and we gained very good feedback on this. Have a look.

Flow Festival 2009 Helsinki

2009-08-16T12:53:00.001+01:00

Art Review

Flow Festival 2009 is fucking amazing. Never been in Flow before and I'm surprised of the quality. Finally an event organised in Helsinki has the similar quality as a whole as what I used to in London. 3 days + 1 special concert by Kraftwerk. Full of art, design, good food, and great soul and electro music! and its just 5min from my apartment! Best ones, Nitin Sawhney and Fever Ray coming tonight
[gallery columns="2"]

Mårten Mickos on effective teams

2009-07-03T12:20:00.001+01:00

Academic

I am reposting a great summary of team building, expecially for executives. By Mårten Mickos of MySQL.

1. The team members ask each other "How can I support you?"
2. The team members hold each other accountable while also allowing each one to show vulnerability.
3. The team practices open and authentic communication.
4. The team arrives at key decisions together through discussion, debate, and synthesis.
5. The team has fun.
6. The team members see success of the whole team as the best form of success.
7. The team operates at a strategic level and empowers the organization around them to make and execute operational decisions.
8. Each team member builds his/her own teams following these principles.

And there is an implicit characteristic number zero (which should be self-evident): 0. Each team member individually follows Drucker's eight practices for effective executives.

Some observations and further comments on the team practices:

Item 1: In a great executive team, all executives help each other, and they engage in the broad management of the business and not just in their own area of responsibility. This cannot happen if there is a team member with a supersized ego. So by defining this practice, we are also saying no thanks to people with egos too big to fit inside an effective team.

Item 2: There is a virtuous circle in all of this (and a vicious one in the opposite scenario): When each team member does his/her job, trust emerges between team members. When there is trust, you can admit and show your vulnerabilities and weaknesses. When you can admit your weaknesses, you are also bound to improve. When you improve, you do your job better. When you do your job better, more trust ensues.

Item 3: It could be added that this practice is both about communication inside the team and outside.

Item 4: How a team arrives at decisions is a very important issue. Note that it says "key decisions" -- non-key decisions can be made individually or at a lower level in the organization. Arriving at a decision "together" means that everyone will be heard, dissent will be encouraged, pros will be weighed against cons, and so on. But it does not mean that it is a democratic decision or a decision by consensus. At the end of any decision-making process in a corporation, there will be a single responsible decision-maker (many times, but not always, the CEO) who will have to make the final call. But during the process, he/she will engage the whole team and build up better insights, common understanding, and broad commitment, no matter what the ultimate decision will be. Many times in such an open decision-making process, new ideas emerge that shape the ultimate decision.

Item 5: Fun means genuine fun, not superficial fun. Fun doesn't require money, great surroundings, great food, or great wine. We have nothing against those things, but at the end of the day they are not vital for having fun. They only add luster to something that it is fun by itself. Fun happens when human beings interact on a plane deeper than what they are used to or what they expected.

Item 6: It takes a lot to get a team in a condition where overall success is more rewarding than success of any given individual. But when it happens, it is an amazing feeling for all involved (and for all who are observing from around), and it produces better results.

Item 7: Teams need to not micromanage the world around them, but to build layers of managers and teams that can run the show.

Item 8: Building a team is very difficult, but also incredibly rewarding.

My hope is that these practices can be useful to those who build executive teams. I have seen, participated in and built a number of executive teams in my career and I know firsthand the turbo boost a company gets from having an effective executive team. The one we built at MySQL was unique in this regard, if I may say so myself. I am very eager to hear comments and suggestions for improvements on this text. Please send them to

Despite Recession, online video is growing 40% in 2009

2009-07-03T11:35:00.000+01:00

In Beet.TV interview, American eMarketer Senior Analysist David Hallerman, believes that online video is becoming a very important medium for advertising. He calls for longer content, thus there could be more ads.

“Overall, online video advertising will grow at a 40% clip this year and for the next few years, outpacing most other ad mediums, Hallerman said to Andy in the interview.

That increase would bring online video ad spending to $1.1 billion this year and $4.1 billion by 2013. Other estimates place total spending at a smaller amount: media agency Magna projects Web video will corral only $699 million this year and won’t reach $1 billion until 2011.

Despite the different projections, researchers agree that Web video will remain a rare bright spot and continue to outpace other mediums. But, the recession is still affecting Internet TV, and its growth this year is well below last year’s more than doubling of dollars, Hallerman pointed out”.

Well… in CityVice we wholly agree, thou the growth will also come from more focused short-form content. Relevancy is the key word.

Advertisers are following Online Video space

2009-06-09T14:59:00.000+01:00

A Helsinki based media agency Dagmar, wrote about the use and future of online videos and web-tv. According to them, currently videos are the faster growing advertising platform online, with a market of $4,6 billion in US by 2013. European figures are very similar, as Tekes forecast (in finnish) online video to have €6 billion by 2013.

All these forecast and market researches echo what CityVice has been building on. We have some great news to tell you in soonish. We have come up with a great solution for the market, for media, advertisers and media agencies. Here are some points from the studies:

Online videos are perfect way to continue the advertising campaign shown on TV. One point to note however; most of the spots used in traditional TV does not work perfectly online. So for advertisers it is important to tweak the online ad according to needs. CityVice has the best knowledge on this data, so get in touch. :)

- 20% of 16-25 years do not own a TV.
- 40% of 16-25 years are watching TV & videos mainly online
- Online has much better tracking and reporting tool, therefore more meaninful advertising.
- Brand Lifting value is exceptional in online videos
- Click Through Rates in CityVice network is 4.5% - 5%, Interaction rates massive 40%.
- TNS Gallup has started a video tracking service. We are not familiar with this...yet that is :)

So overall online videos are booming, regardless of the recession times. CityVice is there for you, serving the needs of online video.

2009: The year of Re-Designing the Content Business

2009-05-13T11:45:00.001+01:00

Business

The disruptive force of the Internet has finally hit home. A quick look at some trends in this context:

* Newspaper revenues are seriously down (25% in some cases); and magazines and other print media are severely challenged, as well
* Digital music revenues are still going up, overall, but very very very far from enough to stop the free-fall of the recorded music industry, in general (approx 20%, globally, would be my estimate for 2008) *pennies for $$, see below
* DVD sales are declining, worldwide, prices are falling, too - and this will only accelerate next year
* Online video views and audiences are up a lot - but so far pretty much everybody has trouble making any real money with online video

Ad survey

2009-05-05T16:18:00.000+01:00

Business

Brightroll's Video Advertising Report 2009 on Q1 is released.

Some findings:

* 87% of agency executives plan to spend more of their online advertising budgets on video in 2009
* 71% of survey participants view online video advertising as a complementary medium to television
* A majority of respondents estimates CPM prices to be at their lowest, and 20% thinks the price of pre-roll will drop to half what it is today
* Prices of pre-roll continue to fall (early Q2 data suggests this trend will continue)

BrightRoll's average CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) numbers from the industry at large confirm the trend:

* Average pre-roll CPM: Q408 vs. Q308 – down 12.5%
* Average pre-roll CPM: Q408 vs. Q407 – down 25.0%
* % of Campaign Revenue from Pre-roll: Q109 (80.6%), Q108 (63.1%)

The drop in CPM pricing "could be a good thing," because cost may have been limiting growth, TechCrunch observed. If they come down further, say to $7-9 instead of $20, they'll give TV commercials, which range between $15 (primetime) to $50 (niche, targeted cable channels).

In addition to cost (27%), 31% of agencies cited "lack of targeting capabilities" as a factor limiting online video ad growth. Some 18% said online video has limited reach, and 12% cited ad format limitations. Just 7% thought it was held back by poor inventory quality.

Both pre-roll and in-banner ads were regarded as preferable units, with one out of two respondents saying their use of one or the other depended on the situation and advertiser goals. Reasons for their preference, according to the survey, are guaranteed impressions, overall engagement, and noticeability.

The most surprising finding of the survey was the lack of data and effort around video advertising efficacy; 87% have not performed any in-house research around their online video campaign efficacy.

Asked what they would want to know if they were to conduct research:

* 39% would explore the impact of online video advertising on offline purchase behavior
* 36% would explore changes in purchase intent / brand lift
* 25% would measure efficacy vs. television advertising

Video Viewing Exceeds E-mail Use, Nielsen Reports

2009-04-22T20:08:00.000+01:00

Business

Reblogging from Beet.tv: Visitors to video sites now exceeds users of Web-based e-mail, according to a report released today by The Nielsen Company. The study reports on monthly unique visits to various Web sites and online applications.

Video passed e-mail monthly unique visits in 2007. This number is not the total number of e-mails sent or received or videos watch, just monthly visits to the e-mail or video sites.

Digitytöt Making Waves

2009-04-22T11:09:00.000+01:00

Visuals

Digitytöt are one of CityVice's projects, in which we take care of the video production. You all know Diggnation? We’re creating our own except that it’s pink and pretty. Helene Auramo, CEO of Zipipop, and her friend Sanna are Digitytöt (tranlates into Digitalgirls from Finnish).

It’s going to be lots of pink, giggling, partying and some interviews with the local start-up stars. We are already being featured in ArcticStartup, Digitoday and some blogs such as Tuhat Sanaa and Maurelita's. Good times!

Work Harder AND Smarter

2009-04-19T20:36:00.000+01:00

How about this article as an inpiration for Entrepreneurs. Are you a Lifestyler or a Hustler?

Me? I’m a hustler (aww, yeah!). I escape 9-5 by working 8 to 8. I work weekends. When I’m not working, I’m thinking about work. Sound bad? Maybe we have different ideas of what work is. Work has no negative connotations to me. It’s equally rewarding as it is inspiring; equally exciting as it is relaxing. I always have my eye on the prize: making things better all the time for our company, for our community and for our customers. It’s not that I have no life, hustlers are expert life-multitaskers. They recognize that ideas or opportunities can arise at any time, and they’re always prepared. Ever seen Gary Vaynerchuk speak or watch WLTV? Hustler. Ever notice how Marc Ecko always has 100 things going on at a time? Hustler. Hustlers work smarter and harder.

Cool add video with interesting statistics

2009-04-17T14:59:00.001+01:00

Online video consumption rising!

2009-04-13T22:20:00.001+01:00

Business

People watching online video in the U.S. now watch more than three hours per month, according to new data from Nielsen Online.

In February, video usage was 169 minutes on average, but in March, it rose 13 percent to 191 minutes, Nielsen said.

Also growing fast: the total video streams viewed increased 9 percent from 8.9 billion to 9.7 billion. And the number of videos per user grew 7 percent from about 70 to 74.

Since the number of minutes per user is increasing at a faster rate than the number of videos per user, that means people are gradually moving to longer and longer videos--from 2.4 minutes in February to 2.7 minutes in March.

Google's YouTube continues to dominate the category, with 5.5 billion videos and 89 million people using the service in the U.S., Nielsen said. Hulu is in second place with 348 million videos and 9 million users. Yahoo is in third place with 232 million videos, but it's got more users than Hulu, about 25 million users.

A Good Pitch

2009-04-10T23:12:00.000+01:00

[slideshare id=811429&doc=canaanentrepreneurspitchworkbookpoptech-1228358648663549-9]

Media Conversations | Future Talks

2009-04-09T17:34:00.001+01:00

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.2342299&w=425&h=350&fv=]

more about "Media Conversations | Future Talks"

8 key trends and some foresights for the next 5 years

2009-04-07T22:01:00.000+01:00

Academic

I'm becoming a bit of a fan of Gerd Leonhard. Gerd’s work focuses on the Future of Media, Content, Technology, Business, Communications and Culture, and he is considered a leading expert on topics such as Web/Media 2.0, social networking and social media, cultural changes due to disruption by new technologies, copyright vs. technology issues, online content commerce models, media convergence, mobile entertainment, entrepreneurship, the future of advertising and branding, future planning, digital content strategies and next-generation business models.

In his latest post on MediaFuturist he gives an amazing rundown of future development within media. Here are the key points, please read the complete post.

1. We will soon see the emergence of many different kinds of iPhone-influenced Netbook-like devices
2. Very cheap or free wireless broadband - at fairly high speeds, i.e. at least 2MB / sec
3. Collective blanket licenses that legalize and unlock legitimate access to basic content services via any digital network
4. Fuel-cells and other next-generation mobile energy sources are a certainty
5. Completely targeted and personalized advertising
6. the core economic business models - of newspapers, magazines, CDs, DVDs and books will be completely re-written
7. Today we pay to go online and connect; in the future we may end up paying for the luxury to go offline
8. Travel 2.0: alternatives to 'actually going there'

The Future Of Music And Media

2009-03-29T11:32:00.000+01:00

Academic

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.2289851&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D3596445%26server%3Dvimeo.com%26autoplay%3D0%26fullscreen%3D1%26md5%3D0%26show_portrait%3D0%26show_title%3D0%26show_byline%3D0%26context%3Duser%3A1409904%26context_id%3D%26force_embed%3D0%26multimoog%3D%26color%3D00ADEF%26force_info%3Dundefined]

more about "The Future Of Music And Media on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

Dream and Search Forever

2009-03-24T19:35:00.000Z

Poem

Hide your face forever
dream and search forever

Open your eyes, open your mind
proud like a god
trapped in yourself, break out instead
beat the machine

The look in the eye of the storm, say what are you afraid?
Smile, your eyes are the ones that meet me half way
The drops, cries, open your eyes and see
We are searching and dreaming forever

Hide your face forever
dream and search forever
night and night you feel nothing
we have to believe in what we feel

Take the first step to the unknown
Freeze the air like you do
Where my words weight a ton
but hardly ever come out right

You are the perfume in the air
I am the utopian craftsman

In that moment I will love you forever
And never search again

Venture Cup Final

2009-03-24T19:19:00.000Z

Business

CityVice is selected to be one of the 10 finalists in Venture Cup business plan competition. This is great news and actually I don't really care if CityVice wins, the publicity this generates is what I'm after. Be ready, we are preparing to come out strong!

Better Than The Best

2009-03-13T12:46:00.001Z

Poem

Why oh why are we looking for control?
There is nothing you can do
The chaos theory will prevail!

Why oh why are we looking for love?
There is nothing you can do
The love will find you eventually!

Why oh why we say something is the best?
You can't rank it like that
The best is something given your heart into it!

Young Adults Giving Up TV in Massive Demographic Shift

2009-03-09T20:36:00.000Z

Business

Reblogging from Beet.tv: Online video is replacing television for consumers 25 years and younger as part of a dramatic demographic shift. Watching video on a personal computer is becoming the principal way young adults consume video.

Adobe business development chief Bill Rusitzky thinks that for many young adults 25 and under, there is a greatly diminished interest in watching television as video consumption is shifting dramatically to the PC, he told me. He says that as this population grows, there will be a big change in media consumption patterns over the next ten years.

While the nascent online video industry is figuring out business models, a big demographic shift is on our side.

Crossover of Senses to Helsinki?

2009-03-03T16:55:00.000Z

Visuals

I graduaded from LSBU Arts Management course on 2006, which is one of the best arts courses in Europe (officially rated). Arts Management students from London South Bank University (LSBU) have been presenting high quality, innovative events for the last ten years. Featuring a wide and diverse programme and benefiting from a skilful group of tutors, the Art Management events have received high acclaim from artists and audience members, as well as professionals in the industry.

Given this strength of quality and reputation, people are often surprised to learn that the events are an entirely non-profit operation. But it's true. Each member of the group contributes his or her talents entirely out of personal passion and out of the desire to enrich the cultural terrain of the community.

Some videos in my portfolio

Now to continue the heritage and a project that was running 2007-2008 Crossover of Senses, I am thinking of bringing it to Helsinki as well. The idea is simply to mash up two different disciplines together. Do you have any ideas which to mash up?

Sex in High School

2009-02-24T11:09:00.000Z

Love this quote on a Videoplaza blogpost of their CEO Sorosh Tavakoli. So true!

“Online video advertising is like sex in high school: Everybody talks about it, nobody really does it and the ones doing it are pretty bad at it

Home in 2040

2009-02-21T11:07:00.000Z

Academic

There was an interesting article in Tekniikka & Talous webzine in Finland about a design vision of a home in 2040. Below is the English translation.

”I wake up in my multiroom box and go from the bedroom to the bathroom. When I return through the same door, bedroom has turned itself into a kitchen, as my home will guess that it will the step in my morning routines.

The breakfast is already made. I spread the table wider with my hands and look around. I'm in a Parisian cafe. With a gesture of my arm the view changes in a safari scene. I pick up a banana, peel it up and throw the rubbish on the table, which instantly drops it into the waste disposal system.

I go to work at a wikibar, which is at the street level of my condominium. At the wikibar, I go to the brainfloor, which stimulates my senses and wakes me up for thinking. At the workconsole I will save the intuitive created thoughts and continue to the team working space. My colleagues are gathering there as well.

Our ideas are displaced on the walls, the space will listen to us and saves all the new thoughts from the brainstorming.

We have a break at the bar, where I get a new idea. I go the information display, which does offer me more info about the subject. After the break, our team goes to simulationroom to have a look at the plan, product or project would look like when completed.

After work I go to the condominiums meeting space. I will meet my family and friends, pick up an apple and sit by the river under a blue sky. In reality the meeting space is part of the series of rooms, but with display systems and mirrors, it looks very realistic outdoor space. In our room its spring, though elsewhere it could winter wonderland or a tropical sunset."

This is a vision of architecture engineering student Juuso Kangas about living in 2040. He is a member of the group which won a Finnish award for future visions.

The core idea around the vision is "metamaterial", in which the material will mold into the needs of the user guided by AI. Bedroom will become living room and the bed becomes a couch. The design sculpture becomes a table.

Metamaterial creates a wealth of opportunities. In the future, shops are not selling pieces of furniture anymore, but codes for materials that creates certain shapes.

Staggering Teenage Online Habits

2009-02-19T16:12:00.000Z

Business

I repost this info from a great blog site of Flypaper.tv. Go the flypaper post for links to more in depth data of the surveys.

Telegraph.co.uk reported that Teenagers spend an average of 31 hours a week online, according to a study by CyberSentinel. The study interviewed 1000 teenagers, all between the ages of 13 to 19 years. In addition, Paidcontent covers a music-related study around youth, which asks: would you rather go without sex or music?

Below we gather a few key statistics, in the hopes such insight helps us cater to our customers in more profound and effective ways.

Internet Habits Per Week (CyberSentinel):

* 3.5 hours communicating with friends on MSN

* 9 hours spent using Chat rooms, forums, MSN, and social networking sites such as Facebook to communicate with friends

* 1 in 4 teenagers polled admitted to regularly chatting with strangers online - the majority of whom think it is harmless

* 2 hours watching videos on YouTube

* Over 1hr is spent looking at cosmetic surgery procedures

* 1.5hrs are devoted to family planning and pregancy websites

* 1hr 35minutes spent on diet and weigh loss websites

* 14hours per week are spent surfing the net un-chaperoned

* 1hrs and 40 minutes browsing sites for pornography (If you do the math that equals 87 hours per year!)

* 1hr and 40 minutes spent downloading or listening to music

* 33% of teenagers surf the web in the bedroom, while 27% surf in their parent’s study or living room

* Thankfully, its not all fun and games, as these teenagers also admit spending a minimum of 3hrs per week use the internet as a homework and academic resource

SEX or MUSIC?

A recent study by Marrakesh Records and Human Capital shows that:
(Surveyed 1,000 15 to 24-year-olds)

* 60% of young people would rather give up sex than music
* 70% say they don’t feel guilty for illegally downloading music from the internet
* 61% feel they shouldn’t have to pay for music.
* 43 to 49% of the music owned has not been paid for
* The majority think £6.58 is a good price for a CD album
* They also believe downloaded albums should be £3.91, singles 39p

* 75 % have watched a music video online in the past three months
* 70 % bought a CD in the past three months
* 62 % played music on their phone in the past three months
* 52 % have paid for a music download in the past three months
* 45 % have played music on their games console in the past three months

* 67 % think radio is still the best medium for hearing about new bands
* 63 % say they rely on recommendations from friends for hearing about new bands
* 49 % prefer music channels like MTV for hearing about new bands
* 21 % prefer newspapers for hearing about new bands
* 17 % prefer music magazines for hearing about new bands
* 14 % prefer blogs for hearing about new bands

* 38% think YouTube is the best way for exploring new music
* 15% feel MySpace is best for exploring new music
* 8% think Facebook and official band sites are best for exploring new music
* 4% think NME and Last.fm are the least important sites for exploring new music

Brain Hacking

2009-02-17T22:28:00.000Z

Visuals

I guess these projects in advertising were inevitable. In a blog run by Taneli Tikka, he explains geniously the way to "hack you brain". Or more perhaps way to fuck up the way brain functions and operates the evolved and learned patterns of understanding the world around. Read the blog post for the explanation.

I wonder how many examples of such there is in the arts? What kind of experiments? There are many I know, most well known maybe Dali using this hacking of brains idea.

Web Real Estate vs. Content

2009-02-14T11:08:00.000Z

Business

Raising funding in the current economical situation is tough. However,Twitter has raised $35 million from Venture Capitalist. Well done for them for the amazing service that I as well use. Thou this raises some questions about the current state of online business and so called real estate.

For me, working on the online's content side, all the technological development and platform systems with API's are like real estate land. Currently everyone is racking up users as fast as they can, still not aiming to make money from the huge amount of users populating their service. Like Facebook, over 200 million regular users and very low income compared to their size. Obviously there are few examples like Finnish Habbo Hotel, which are actually racking up a solid cashflow.

I think all this architecture building should start looking for more opportunities. Like what to build on this land they have acquired? Technology, or kinda infrastructure is important and a base on everything, though the actual service and monetizing that service is very important.

Just relying on user generated content is not enough, because no one is really not interested to pay anything for it. It is low quality, badly designed and it is not regularly generated.

Dream of Forgiveness

2009-01-29T02:13:00.000Z

Thoughts

What characterises the human race more, cruelty, or the capacity to feel shame for it. I'm lonelier and wiser now, and I know it isn't cruelty or shame that characterises the human race. It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history.

Without hope, the would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.

- Roberts, Gregory David (2003) Shantaram

Diving to turn 30

2009-01-25T17:30:00.000Z

After a lot of work, me and my dear family took a week of to dive at the Red Sea. This was part of the celebration of my 30th Birthday, which by the way is on the same day as my dad's 57th. I say, diving is just amazing. Can't talk enough of it. Here are a few photos.[gallery]

CityVice won an award

2008-12-17T09:50:00.000Z

Business

Last friday, on 12.12.08, CityVice was awarded "Willi Idea 2008" award for the best business idea in the south eastern Finland. The review had 27 teams returning their idea for the judge panel compromising from top public business development and funding agencies representatives. Such as Technopolis, Tekes, Lappeenranta Technological University.

CityVice won the awards with a clear unanimous opinion of the panel. Were were praised for the idea, markets that were well defined and for a team that has resources to make it happen.

CityVice salutes and thanks all who have been part of this so far. It is great to see such interest toward the idea. Much more to come.

Risto Siilasmaa Keynote in Helsinki

2008-12-02T17:04:00.000Z

Feature

Risto Siilasmaa, the founder and former CEO of F-Secure (among other tricks of trade), kicked off Slush Helsinki last week with his keynote addressing the current economic situation. Mr. Siilasmaa is one of the most famous Finnish entrepreneurs of all time, having IPO’d F-Secure and now directing such companies as Fruugo, Nokia and others as a board member. Few very good points.

Keynote Video

By ArcticStartup

Web 3.0

2008-11-28T11:01:00.000Z

Business

Last couple of years the development of the web has been dubbed as web 2.0, which is about the social media, networking and users contributing to the content. In addition there has been talks over terms such as Enterprise 2.0, in which the business development, intellectual capital and innovation come from community ideology. Or mine Creativity 2.0.

I agree that this is very important in the new age, and definitely networking technologies have propelled opportunities of a community based knowledge further than they have ever been. However, over a year now, I have said that such a huge amount of content in places like YouTube, needs curation and editing. Someone to edit the information to a package that is high quality and to the point.

Now there are indications about the next phase of web development, and its curating. Dubbed as Web 3.0. Here is a quote by Michelle Madhok, published on Beet.tv

"Web 2.0 was all about everybody having access...Everybody had an opinion," she says. "What we're looking for now in Web 3.0 is curation."

Beautiful Mine

2008-11-22T22:34:00.000Z

Thoughts

Every time I see you, the film of high heels and silver plates runs through the void. You can't ease what the pain divides, and I don't want this state of mind. You are a stress factor that I can't handle, while at the same time I prostitute myself trying to understand you. It is hard to be strong when I crave you like I do.

At the core is the ruthless and emotionless change within a day. Where is the smile, open heart and willingness to involve? Now, all I see is distorted dreams in silence. No vital signs just the violence. Please, push me away because I can't do it myself.

Online Videos Are Booming

2008-11-21T12:34:00.000Z

Business

According to TNS Gallup's online video research 2008 (PDF here in Finnish) online video usage is booming through the roof in Finland. 40% of the users are watching videos every week. Most of them uses home computer to do this, a third at work as well. I however doubt that a portion did not want to plead using work computers for watching videos.

Men are interested about music, sports, news, lifestyle and porn.Women say watching music, news and gossip vids. Mostly free content is interesting, however 36% are ready to pay to watch films and other high quality content.

In addition, the research concluded that advertisers are extremely interested to use video as a tool.

The Peace Is My Culture

2008-11-18T03:20:00.000Z

Thoughts

I was thinking about another kind of soul, one that runs through every one of us, no matter where we come from. It's the pure, essential truth of what each of us is, and can achieve. All my life I'd been a fighter. I was always ready, too ready, to fight for what I loved, and against what I deplored. In the end, I became the expression of that fight, and my real nature was concealed behind a mask of menace and hostility.

They nailed their stakes into the earth of my life, and marked it with a new name, Shantaram - man of peace. Whether they discovered that peace or created it, the truth is that the man I am was born in those moments. The better man that, slowly, and much too late, I began to be.

- Roberts, Gregory David (2003) Shantaram

The Soul Has No Culture

2008-11-17T03:57:00.000Z

Thoughts

I was falling a sleep. At that very moment she came and touched my shoulder. Reached out to comfort me; only there and then did I see and feel the torment of what I'd done, and what I'd become. My heart broke on its shame and sorrow. I suddenly knew how much crying there was in me, and how little love. I knew, at last, how lonely I was.

But I couldn't respond. My culture had taught me all the wrong things well. So I lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no colour or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can't be stilled.

I clenched my teeth against the stars. I closed my eyes. I surrendered to sleep. One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.

- Roberts, Gregory David (2003) Shantaram