No no no :-( + Yes yes yes :-)

No no no:


Yes yes yes? (more to come....in about a week)
Nabaztag

Going to work with the digital rock stars...

I'll sign papers next week on my new employment contract. The rock star comment ..well, will be explained at another time. A bit of an inside joke. Will reveal more soon. Am VERY excited and pleased.

Photo collage from weekend

I admit that I wanted to do a much more interesting version of what I'm posting. I was thinking a humorous photo timeline from my weekend. But I'm short on time, so what you get instead is just a photo collage. Some amusing photos in there, hopefully.

Most are self explanatory, so only a couple comments:
All were taken within a ten minute bike ride from our apartment, if not in our apartment.

The angel winged lamp was a cute little lamp we saw (Ingo Maurer is the designer) which had a touch mechanism on the wires to turn it on and off. Andreas seems to think that maybe I could just make one.

Chestnuts are unfortunately not edible - they are horse chestnuts and the building we live in is surrounded by the trees. Bummer. I love chestnuts. Well, at least they're pretty to look at.

The food there is from a really yummy ethiopian restaurant that we visited for the first time since being back here in Munich. I love ethiopian bread - injera - that everything is served on (you scoop up bites of food with the bread).

You have a view of the Isar river near our home.

A little flower shop around the corner (how can you not want to buy flowers at such a shop?)

And of course a Sammy and Sophie shot for you. Sammy looking mad because I am not giving him enough treats for his taste and Sophie hanging out on our stairs spying on me.

Ah - and my thumb maneuver? That's me renting a video over the weekend. I love the 24-hour service - all possible with an entry card and a kiosk that verifies my identity with my fingerprint. Since it's not legal to work in a video store on Sunday, they had to come up with a work-around here. This work-around works for me. Of course video on demand is even better BUT the download time must be taken into consideration (30 minutes to one hour with our broadband speed for a standard movie) AND the fact that the selection currently with iTUNES kinda STINKS, makes us still "normal" video/DVD consumers. I'm sure that will change within 12 months at the latest. (And don't tell me T-Net offers video on demand - have you seen their CRAPPY selection? Terrible...)

Test Run Video

I'm not sure if this will work without conversion.
If it does, it's a quick video of me riding through the English Garden on my bike....from my perspective of course...

Ah...it does work. Nice. Although very pixely.
Here's another snapshot.


Now that I know it works I'll try to do more. :-)

Vocabulary Lesson and Tenori-On

So there was some feedback from a few readers yesterday (not only the one who posted a comment) that I might have ...um... gotten too technical on people and way into discussing what I was doing rather than sticking to food, life in munich, friends, etc. Sorry Balu. (Although you should know that there are other readers who dislike my food postings...)

I certainly don't want to alienate people or use strange vocabulary that you don't understand.

In Germany especially, I have to be careful about vocabulary. I was in the car the other day with a neighbor of mine - we were visiting Ikea - and I was talking about life in Singapore, the MBA, etc. And I referred to "the MBA" a few times and finally at some point in the conversation she said..."so what is an MBA?" And I have to admit, it was tough to keep my expression neutral, but really that's not quite fair. In Germany, MBAs are not that common, and the equivalent here is simply called something else.

With this in mind and for those who are interested, here's my best shot at some definitions from yesterday:

1. web analytics: A generic term meaning the study of the impact of a web site on its users. E-commerce companies often use Web analytics software to measure such details as how many people visited their site, how they came to the site (i.e., if they followed a link to get to the site or came there directly), what keywords they searched with on the site's search engine, how long they stayed on a given page or on the entire site, what links they clicked on and when they left the site.

2. target audience: (Zielgruppe) simply the people that read my blog in this case. The people that I am addressing.

3. widgets: This is a bit hard to describe. Two examples are right there on the right hand side of my blog - the 3jam widget (where you can send me a text message to my mobile for free) and the Voki widget (where I greet you with the little cartoon image and where you CAN ALSO LEAVE ME A MESSAGE - by recording one there.) Essentially widgets are little pieces of code that are not whole websites by themselves, but have a function that you can use within another website.

4. my voki - this is the name for the widget that I just installed (the cartoon of me). The company calls it a "voki."

5. avatar - An avatar is an Internet user's representation of himself or herself, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, or a two-dimensional icon (picture) used on Internet forums and other communities. So the voki, which is a widget, is an avatar widget. I know, it's getting confusing...

6. web 2.0 - watch the video link I posted yesterday. The term refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites and wikis — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. (Sorry - I know I'm speaking Greek here - I need to define some of the words in the definition...)

So on a MUCH LIGHTER NOTE. Take a look at this video. I had a me-consumer-want moment when I saw this. This is a new musical instrument (called a Tenori-On) that has been released in Great Britain. It looks really interesting. I thought about getting one of these INSTEAD of an iphone. (I mean...if I have to choose at some point...maybe this would actually be more fun...then again..maybe not.)

Web 2.0 Bubble?

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you might have noticed a few things:
1) I'm not posting as frequently as I have in the past: I'm sorry - it's just that I'm really wrapped up in a bunch of projects and I also really want to say meaningful things on the blog and not just post for the sake of posting. I listened to part of a webcast of a web analytics expert this morning who reinforced this feeling with his views. His name is Avinash Kaushik and his webcast was of a talk he did at Google about web analytics. Quite interesting. But in his introduction to the talk, he also mentioned the feeling that "nobody wants to hear about your date last night" or something to that effect. And I often feel like the blogs I write are a bit "yeah, so WHAT?!" (I also think I've written some interesting blogs - at least for *my* target audience. Which is why I keep hacking away at it. Although sometimes I would like to write blogs which I dare not to...)

2) I've been outfitting my blog with all kinds of wacky widgets: Yup - as I mentioned in the last blog, I've been working with andUNITE and we're considering a whole bunch of different ways to drive users to the site. :-) So this is a little bit of a test pad to see who uses what, to play around myself, etc.

3) Latest widget: my voki. A bit boring at the moment cause I chose the very conservative look and my vocal message is not exactly EXCITING. But I think the idea is cool and has a lot of interesting potential. There are lots and lots of places to create an avatar for yourself, but these guys were able to personalize it a lot more than others - if you press the play button, you hear my recorded voice welcoming you to my blog. (Claudia - maybe Mika can create one for your blog.)
_________________
On a seperate note. Last night I was trying to explain to my mother what web 2.0 is. I keep sending around this really cool youtube video that does what I think is a really good job of explaining it. I think a simple text definition is boring.

And especially since I started working with Christian and Bernd, I've been really excited about web 2.0 projects. But I've also been worried. Because I remember web 1.0 and the big crash and I have this ominous feeling. I read this blog this morning (yup, where I first saw "voki") and had that sort of sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach...

Julie andUNITE

I've been holding out waiting for the English version to go up, but I simply cannot wait anymore. The English version will be up by the end of the month at the very very very latest. And then all you English speakers can also go see what I'm talking about. Never fear, there will be another post - inviting you to check out it out.

So, especially for the GERMAN speakers out there - take a look at the place I've been spending some of my spare time. And certainly *don't* hesitate to go take a look at it (the website, that is). Technically, you can't get in unless I send you an invite. But...this is only for a few more weeks and if you want to peek inside right away, then by all means, shoot me an email (or write a comment below) and I'll give you access as soon as I get the communication. Who ARE these people and what AM I TALKING about? Such good questions.


I've been working primarily with Christian and Bernd (top photo), the founders, since almost the beginning of July on their start-up venture called "andUNITE." "andUNITE" is a *different* web 2.0 concept. (Don't know what web 2.0 is? Go look at this very cool little video on You Tube - I think it does a really nice and also beautiful job of explaining what web 2.0 is.) Yes, it is community-based, yes it has to do with networking. But to cut to the chase, it's actually quite a simple little (BIG!!!) concept):

1) You use Google or some other search engine, probably on daily basis, to look up information.
2) Sometimes you find what you're looking for. Sometimes it takes pages and pages to find what you're looking for. Sometimes you don't find anything you're happy with.
3) the new service "andUNITE" helps to solve this problem.
4) by simply using the andUNITE interface (either the website or a toolbar you can install on your browser), you CONTINUE to use your favorite search engine to look up words. BUT, all the terms (or just the terms you want) you look up, get collected on your profile page.
5) People with similar search terms will be "matched" with you. Don't worry - it's not like you have to be best friends forever. It's only to show you when someone else has looked up the same term.
6) The idea is that a) you can find PEOPLE who might know more about the thing you're looking for and can help you or b) you might be looking for people that are simply like you.
7) Sort of a mix of search and networking. Social Search.

What do I have to do with all this? Well, I've been working on the sales and marketing plan, helping prepare the site for its U.S. entry, doing some usability analysis and consulting, and talking to as many end-users as I can for suggestions on how to make it even better.

Ich bin eine (gulp) Ami - (I am an (gulp) American)

I was not quite prepared, I think, for last night's party - although, don't get me wrong - it was lots of fun. :-)

It wasn't really until this morning that things hit me that the conversation around me (at least partially) has changed in the two years I've been gone. I guess last night was actually the first time since we've been back that I was at a party with a larger group of my peers. Until now it's been family and individual friends and occasionally a small group of people from the building we live in (older crowd).

What am I talking about?

Here's the thing. When I left two years ago and in the year or two before that, when I'd talk to people on a personal level, the topic of "being an American in Germany" would often come up. And we'd chat about my political bent and my views on the war in Iraq and more generally "how it is to be an American living in Germany." Then of course there's the standard curiosity about what's the same and what's different, etc, and that will always be there.

But last night was a whole new ballgame. The standard question that most curious people used to begin a conversation with an American with: "What do you think about Bush?" has changed. It's reached a meta level now. People are no longer curious about what I think about Bush (thankfully mostly done with that embarrassing and painful conversation). They want to know "How it is to be an American living in Germany having to face the conversation/criticism about my country, people, and president?" They're fascinated to hear about the nail-biting, cringe-inducing stories about having to somehow defend my country in public. (Because, yes, I have tried on some level to explain that not everyone in the US supports the Iraq war and really not everyone voted for Bush.) They already KNOW without having to ask that I face this all the time. And they want to know how I respond to it. Something that I find absolutely fascinating, although I don't know if it's true, is that one of the guys I spoke to last night told me that in Munich there is now a course being offered to Americans to help them RESPOND to Bush criticism in public! OMG!

Another woman I spoke to had a different, but somehow related set of questions. She was curious about my media consumption habits. More specifically, she wanted to know where I read/consumed the news. Her questions revolved around the concern that I might have a hard time finding out the "truth" if I read American newspapers *or* German newspapers. I.e. American newspapers were obviously bent so far right that I couldn't possibly read truth from them and German media was obviously bent so far left, that here too, I might not figure it out...pretty interesting.

For both conversations I was really unprepared. What to say? I think I need to take that course - or the follow up meta-level course.

In all conversations I am of course immediately and verbally excused as "an exception" (an exceptional?) American. I bothered to learn the language, I am not "typically arrogant," and "self-centered." (Wow - how to respond to that?)

And they were more than willing/wanting to follow up the initial conversation with a trade-off "love-hate" fest. Which is: "what do you love/hate about the Germans/Americans?" and then each party makes lists. They want to know why they have a reputation abroad (U.S., Singapore) for being stiff, formal and humorless. :-)

I sort of stuttered my way through the evening, albeit with lots of laughing, but whew! Need to think about that one a little more.