Great photos!

Mathias Norgren, glife has taken some great photos from SIME07. Check them out!

SIME Media 2007

Ett axplock av all den uppmärksamhet årets SIME fick i media!

Zennström varnar för ny Internetbubbla - Sara Lomberg, e24

"Facebook är ett underklassfenomen" "Citatet är inte mitt, det kommer från Alexander Bard, enligt SIME:s presentation filosof, popstjärna och provokatör. Det levererades under en paneldiskussion på årets SIME-konferens på Berns." - Adam Erlandsson, SvD

Hektiskt jobb för högt uppsatt svensk "Under den pågående Sime-konferensen passade sökjätten, som är en av sponsorerna, på att lansera mobilannonser på den nordiska marknaden. Om några veckor kommer mobilanvändare i Sverige, Norge, Finland och Damnark som söker på Google att få samma typ av sponsrade länkar i sina sökresultat som när de söker från en dator." - Adam Erlandsson, e24

SIME har startat på Berns "Idag drog internetkonferensen SIME igång på Berns salonger i Stockholm. Med ett husband som speler dunkande electro och ett eget filmteam som dokumenterar allt, kombinerat med en uppsjö av spex känns konferensen mer som ett Dreamhack för vuxna än en träff för IT-världens toppar. Men på talarlistan finns tunga namn som Niklas Zennström och Esther Dyson." MetroTeknik
Gratis är gott "Hur tjänar man pengar på något som är gratis? Den frågan ställdes till en panel av gratisgurus under innovationsmässan Simes andra dag". MetroTeknik
Sime har egen signal "Många mässor har anteckningsblock, pennor och fåniga knappar. Men rätt få har nog en egen ringsignal." MetroTeknik
Fyra tycker till om Sime MetroTeknik
Google börjar med reklam i mobilerna "På SIME talade Googles Sverigechef Petri Kokko: Med Google mobilannonser kan nordiska annonsörer öka räckvidden av sin marknadsföring på ett ekonomiskt och effektivt sätt. Samtidigt får användare relevanta annonser när de är på språng och behöver viktig information snabbt." MetroTeknik
Esther Dyson: "Du kommer aldrig lära känna Bill Gates" Ola Jacobsen, MetroTeknik

Google lanserar mobilannonser "Google tillkännagav idag, på det digitala eventet Sime, att företaget nästa månad ska börja sälja annonser i mobilen på den nordiska marknaden." Dagens Media

SIME - reflektion efter 14 timmars sömn - "Tack Ola Ahlvarsson & Co för att ni tar SIME till nya höjder år för år. Och tack för att ni får internetvärlden att titta på Norden/Sverige/Stockholm en gång om året" - Johan Siwers, anek.com
What's Next-panelen från SIME "En minipanel med Fredrik Wass, redaktör internetworld, och Joakim Jardenberg, vd Mindpark, om intrycken från första dagen på SIME".(Podcast)
Dialog med Esther Dyson "Min reflektion: Ester Dyson regerar. Hon är klok, kunnig och ödmjuk. Tänk att ha henne som mentor!" - Björn Alberts, bjornalberts.com

Talangarna får alltid plats"Det gick ett sus genom publiken i salongen på Chinateatern. Den första paneldebatten på webbkonferensen SIME hade precis börjat och diskussionen blev genast intensiv. Nätokraten och artisten Alexander Bard mässade ut sitt budskap, och åhörarna blev minst sagt förvånade" Fredrik Wass, InternetWorld
Vin(n)are på e-handel - "Sveriges största vinklubb, Australian Wine Club, lanserar vinförsäljning på internet.
- Vi levererar det direkt från Tyskland och betalar alla skatter, säger grundaren Mark Majzner. Mark Majzner lanserade den nya e-handelslösningen på webbkonferensen SIME, Scandinavian Internet Media Event, på torsdagen." Sofi Thunvik, InternetWorld
Google lanserar mobilannonser "Googles chef i Sverige och Finland, Petri Kokko, talade på internetkonferensen SIME på torsdagen. Han passade på att presentera en nyhet: Nu lanseras mobilannonser i Norden." Sofi Thunvik, InternetWorld
Firefox webbläsare i mobilen i framtiden "Visionen av internet idag fanns redan för 15 år sedan. Det menar Mozillas Europachef Tristan Nitot. Mozilla, vars webbläsare Firefox har 25 procent av användarna i Europa, var på plats på internetkonferensen SIME, Scandinavian Internet Media Event." Miriam Olsson, InternetWorld

Esther Dyson förespråkar digital demokrati Miriam Olsson, InternetWorld

Zennström ser tecken på ny bubbla
Marcus Jerräng, InternetWorld

Media om SIME Awards
Aftonbladet: "Aftonbladet kan få Internetvärldens Oscarspris"
NyTeknik: Polar Rose fick Sime-pris för bästa internettekniken
Metro: Google vann SIME Grand Prize
Dagens Media:
F&B, MEC och Aftonbladet nominerade till Sime
Finnar knäckte MEC och Carat i Sime
InternetWorld:
Sökjätten vann högsta vinsten på SIME

Great People

Thank you for contributing to SIME 2007. Here are some of the great people that attended the event.

Great speakers: Dan "Let is burn" Dubno, CBS and David H Holtzman, privacy guru

A real Kodak moment: Thomas Crampton, Martin Varsavsky, Jonas Birgersson and Esther Dyson.

Jockum Hultén, Snowball Capital, Joachim Hövel, Watchdance.com & David Sandgren, co-founder hitta.se

Christopher Granfelt, SIME CEO and co-host Elisabeth Madsen, Ericsson.


Old colleagues: Daniel Ek, Spotify & Henrik Torstensson, Stardoll

Carl-Johan Grandinsson and Gustav Radell, Google.

Kim Rydeheim, Press Manager, Telenor

Erik Wachtmeister, A Small World, Andreas Weigend, Stanford and Beata Wickbom, SIME.

Isabelle Hüttner and her entourage.

Michele Anenberg Poma, founder of kidsgivingtokids.org and fan. In the background: Rupert Schäfer of Burda Media.

Marie Elfstrand, Press Manager, Ericsson

Per Mosseby and Yavor Adel, PixBox with David H Holtzman, Privacy Guru.

Rodrigo Sepulveda, Jan-Eric Ramberg, Ola Ahlvarsson and Joakim Jardenberg.

Maja Brisvall, BOP network and Thomas Crampton

More Pictures:

Mathias of g-life (Flickr)

Rodrigo Sepulveda (Flickr )

Thomas Crampton reviews SIME

What did Thomas Crampton learn from SIME? Interviewed by Rodrigo Sepulveda.

The SIME backchannel is up

Thanks to Joakim Jardenberg of Mindpark for adding a Backchannel to SIME.

Do you intend to liveblog? Drop Joakim a note and he will add your feed.

SIME Anthem will be produced live on stage

Le Choix, an up-and-coming producer duo from Stockholm will produce the official SIME anthem live on stage during the course of the conference. They will collaborate intimately with the SIME Video Crew and a community of about 100 musicians in the making of the track using SoundCloud.com as the platform...

SIME Awards Nominees are announced

Today, the top nominees in each category of SIME Awards were made public. The winners will be announced at a gala dinner on Thursday night, Nov 15 at 11 pm. Very exciting!

Nominated entries for SIME Awards 2007

Best Internet Strategy
· Hitta.se (Sweden)
· Ottoboni Group - for their online strategy for Vin&Sprit (Sweden)
· Stardoll.com (Sweden/Finland)

Best E-Commerce Company
· Gimlet – for “ATG Live” (Sweden)
· Tailor Store (Sweden)
· BraByggare (Sweden)

Best Online Campaign
· Valve Branding – for the campaign “Drunk, you’re a fool” (Finland)
· Mediafront – for the campaign “Try Drugs” (Norway)
· Aftonbladet – for the campaign ”Klimathotet – gör något nu!” (Sweden)

Best Online Entertainment
· Danish Radio – Children’s service “Oline” (Denmark)
· Stardoll.com (Sweden/Finland)
· Tewonder – ”Radioapans ljudjakt” for Swedens Radio (Sweden)

Best Media Agency
· Carat (Sweden)
· Mediaedge:cia
· Toinen (Finland)

Best Creative Agency
· Ottoboni Group (Sweden)
· Doberman (Sweden)
· Forsman & Bodenfors (Sweden)

Best Systems Supplier
· ViewServe – for ”Heartbeat” (Sweden)
· Kamera - for ”APTN Video” (Sweden)
· Apptus Technologies - for ”Apptus Theca” (Sweden)

Best Mobile Solution
· Emdo - for the music service “DROPme” (Sweden)
· Kiwok - for the mobile healh check ”BodyKom” (Sweden)
· 3 – for “Skype for the mobile”

Best Technical Innovation
· PolarRose (Sweden)
· Coding Technologies - for “MPEG-4 aacPlus Audio Codec” (Sweden)
· Salling Software – for “Salling Clicker 3.5” (Sweden)

Getting psyched for SIME - 2 days to go

Ola Ahlvarsson, SIME General, Mats Larsson, Event Guru, Christoffer Granfelt, Marketing Manager, Isabelle Hüttner, Media Assistant and Felicio Da Costa, Web Manager are finalizing the details for the event. Tomorrow afternoon the first speakers arrive!

Launching SIME TV

Presenting: Social Technology Expert David Holtzman

An increasingly important question that everyone in the digital industry needs to address is that of privacy. We are honoured that digital privacy guru David H. Holtzman is joining SIME07.
David is an Internet pioneer who helped oversee the Internet's wild growth from its infancy in the middle-1990s. During the turbulent late ‘90s during the Dot Com boom, he ran the most critical network in the world—the domain name system. As Chief Technology Officer of Network Solutions and the manager of the Internet's master root server, or the dot, he oversaw the growth of the commercial Internet from 500,000 to over 20,000,000 domain names. Is that cool or what?


He is the author of "Privay Lost" - a book on how technology is endangering our society.

His bio is one of the most impressive we have ever seen. Here are some of the things he has done:

• Military code-breaker
• Russian linguist
• Submariner with the U.S. Naval Security Group
• Intelligence analyst at the Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center
• Chief Scientist at IBM's Internet Information Technology group
• Senior analyst for Booz-Allen & Hamilton
• Advisor to over a dozen high tech companies in DC, Silicon Valley, Austin, Canada and New York.
• Author of several patents including Verisign’s Domain Name Registry and pseudonymous roaming.

Read his blog on "Privacy, Intellectual Property, Security, Pop Culture, Politics and anything else that looks interesting". Or meet him at SIME07!

An interesting article in BusinessWeek "Seek and Ye Shall Be Found" by David Holtzman.

The next generation of mobile services is coming to SIME - Part 1

SIME co-host Telenor is bringing some of their most interesting partners to SIME. We will present some of them here on the Blog. Meet them live at SIME next week!




Roger Grönberg and his team is developing Momail. Momail is easy, free of charge email in your mobile. The service utilizes a patent pending technique that optimizes every email to the mobile phone to which it is sent. This reduces the size of incoming emails and attachments up to 99 percent. Go to http://www.momail.se/ and get free mobile email today.

Listen to this Podcast about Momail from What's Next. (In Swedish).




Hi Roger! What problem is Momail adressing?
”The fact that people hesitate to use their mobile phones for emails. It's too difficult to get started, to use and it's too expensive”.

What is your background?
”I’m a serial entrepreneur, strategist and hands-on software developer. I founded Memory and Storage Technology in Sweden, and was lead software developer and VP at Euronet Online.

What about your music career?
Yeah, my time as a heavy metal rock star is a great experience that I bring to Momail. I spent some time with the group Nasty Idols.

What are your expectations for SIME?
Getting new and interesting insights from the mobile industry, meet friends, get new contacts and have some fun!

Who wins the prize as most multi talented speaker?

We do have an amazing line-up of speakers this year. Some of them are just so multitalented you think they made their bios up! Just look at some of the talents of Joshua Cooper Ramo.

Joshua is the Senior Advisor to Goldman Sachs and a professor at Tsinghua University. His advisory work focuses on political, economic and business areas with a particular emphasis on China. He is the author of the widely discussed paper 'The Beijing Consensus', where he argues that constant, massive, sustained innovation is the core of the Chinese growth.

In his new report, “Brand China”, Ramo argues that China's national image, and the misalignment between China's image of itself and how it is viewed by the rest of the world, may be its greatest strategic threat. It argues that alongside its other reforms, China needs a 'fifth transition' if the trust and understanding necessary for the next stage of its development are to be achieved.

Formerly, Ramo was Editor at Large at Time Inc. He joined Time magazine in 1996, and went on to become the magazine’s youngest Assistant Managing Editor and Foreign Editor, overseeing Time’s international coverage. Ramo was also an international affairs analyst for CNN.

Joshua also holds two US national point-to-point air speed records and is an avid aerobatics pilot. He has described his dangerous hobby in the book: “No visible Horizon”.

And we know from previous years that he is an engaging and inspiring speaker as well! Don't miss him.

Pre-SIME

On Thursday November 1st, Google hosted the PRE-SIME event "Engine for business growth" together with Telenor and Ericsson.

Andreas Weigend introduces the idea of "Conversational Marketing"

"Just like actors on stage performing and expecting applause at the end of every act, companies spend endless hours internally carefully crafting PR messages, broadcasting them, and expecting customers to lap them up. Since each customer’s opinion is separated from the rest, collective voices could not be expressed.

That sweet self delusion has come to a dramatic end. We have entered the new era of conversational marketing, where the individual is clearly heard through blogs and social networks. In many cases, their credibility and outreach surpass the voices of the companies. Due to the nature of the blogosphere and search engines, critical articles often have similar ranking as the “official statements”.

Furthermore, opinions that resonate with others get reinforced and exponentially grow as people reference them, quote them, link to them and comment on them. Whether companies like it or not, conversations between customers happen, and they are fully empowered to form groups, support fellow customers, and spread the word, good and bad. And they trust each other significantly more than the companies whose PR stories they have long stopped to believe.

Companies now have a choice. Should they continue to be detached from the very platform where their customers interact and share information about their products? Or should they play an active, positive role, participating in the conversation to get feedback on improvements, while slowly understanding how they can tap into the customer pool and learn in a positive manner?

If you seek to follow the latter, what tools can you use to understand the tones and issues underlying those authentic conversations? How do you present a human face to your customers while working with the most credible voices in the audience to make your own voice more compelling and real? And at another level, what are the difficult conversations that you need to have with your various agencies to practice Conversational Marketing?"
Andreas Weigend, Nov 2007.

Andreas Weigend, who served as Amazon.com's Chief Scientist until 2004, is an expert in data mining and computational marketing. He currently teaches the course "Data Mining and E-Business" at Stanford University, as well as the executive course "Technology, Information, and Innovation". Until 1999, he was full-time faculty at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Meet Andreas Weigend at SIME 2007.

Pre-SIME Event Sturecompagniet Stockholm

Together with our co-hosts Google, Telenor and Ericsson we decided that we just could not wait to get a taste of some of the SIME magic so we arranged a Pre-SIME event at Sturecompagniet last night.

200 aficionados, media agency professionals and marketers had great hamburgers, played retro arcade games like Defender and Packman and shared beers and thoughts.

On stage Kurt Sillén, VP of Ericsson Mobility World and Business Innovation, Daniel Dersén, Head of Content and Premium Services at Telenor and Rikard Steiber, Director of Product Marketing EMEA, Google had a great panel. They all opened the hood of their respective company in an honest and educational discussion that managed to completely steal everyone’s attention. Well done guys on the panel and a special thanks to Gustaf Radell from Google who got the ball rolling!

The feeling was almost like the weight-in at a title fight, full of anticipation and excitement for what is soon to come.

This is what Jonas Hombert, co-founder, Jaycut, thought of last night:
”Pre-SIME was a great warm-up for the main event. It was actually so good that it raised my expectations for the main event! But considering the agenda, the amazing list of speakers, participants and hosts, I am convinced my expectations will be surpassed on November 14-15.”

SIME is almost here, can't wait... /Ola Ahlvarsson

Digital Dan from CBS News is coming to SIME!

Photo by Amy Nevala, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

It's Digital Dan time at SIME07. Dan Dubno, the CBS veteran and gadget guru takes us through the must haves in technology on his special SIME show on Nov 14 (at 16.30). Don't miss him!

Dan regularly appears on-air as Digital Dan on a variety of CBS News broadcasts discussing new technology. His technology website, Gizmorama, is one of the most popular technology review sites on the Internet. He also writes a monthly technology column for Discover Magazine, and contributes to other science magazines on occasion.

Winner of numerous National Emmy awards, Dubno was previously a producer of the Eye on America enterprise reports for the CBS Evening News, and he produced investigative and feature segments for Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, America Tonight and economics coverage for CBS This Morning.

Everyone vs. Facebook

We’re seeing a Flixster application on MySpace now through the OpenSocial APIs. Flixster says it took them less than a day to create this.

Wow! do things change quickly in the Internet world. I remember that old saying from back in 90s about one Internet year being like four ordinary years. Just when we thought that Facebook was about to win the social community war, Google strikes back. And they are not alone in this struggle. Just about everyone is ganging up on Facebook. I cannot wait to hear more from Google at SIME07!

MySpace, Six Apart and Bebo have now confirmed that they are joining Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle have already announced that they are Google partners on this initative.

In short, OpenSocial will launch a set of common APIs, designed to create an alternative developer platform to that offered by Facebook. The idea is of course to draw back third-party developer efforts from Facebook’s proprietary platform, and back towards the web as the platform.

TechCrunch is pretty straightforward: "Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle."

On October 31, Google stock passed through $700 a share, becoming the 5th largest listed company in the United States.

Is “free” a better business model than “paid”?

Stefan Glänzer, former Chairman Last.fm is coming to SIME07.

Tricky question #1: Who is not so smart?

1 the new companies, without business models but with many happy users?

X the traditional industrialists that say happiness is positive cash flow?

2 you

Find out at SIME07 on Nov 15 @15.20.

We expect a great discussion between:
Tariq Krim, CEO and founder Netvibes, Tristan Nitot, Founder and President of Mozilla Europe and Stefan Glänzer, former executive chairman and investor, Last.fm, founder and CEO, Myblog.de.

SIME Awards just sold out!

Christoffer just informed us that the "Conference + Awards"-tickets are sold out! Congratulations to all of you who managed to get one. We do however have "Conference Only"-tickets lefts. They are SEK 7200 excl VAT. The agenda for the conference is the best ever. Register here. Only two weeks left!

SIME looks at the Big picture

The "100 Dollar Laptop" from MIT Media Lab

Any conference of our size must focus on what is really important: how new technology can help us build a sustainable future for everyone on our planet. Nobody knows these issues better than Simon Mulcahy, Head of IT Industries Group, World Economic Forum. We are so excited that Simon has agreed to join as a speaker.

Simon heads the World Economic Forum's engagement with the IT sector globally. In this role, he works closely with CEOs, leading strategists, government affairs leaders and independent experts – to identify the most pressing industry issues, and then to coordinate Forum and joint industry approaches. With significant experience in multi-stakeholder projects in developing nations, he ran the Forum's "IT Access For Everyone" initiative (with Cisco, Intel, AMD, Dell, Philips).

Recent work includes scenarios on India, China, and the Future of Innovation in Financial Services. He is currently creating a global innovation heat-map, and running programs to bring together leading global decision makers around issues of green technology and security/privacy.

Take a look at the full updated list of speakers!

Årets SIME-bilaga i SvD

Sorry this is in Swedish only.

Ur årets SIME-bilaga: "SIME Awards, 1200 beslutsfattare, Internetaficionados, internationella talare, press, Filip & Fredrik, Niklas Zennström, Google, Alexander Bard, champagne till vinnarna, nya idéer. Äntligen SIME07."

Läs hela bilagan här. Distribueras med Svenska Dagbladet oktober 2007.

SIME goes to Web 2.0 Summit

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and Johan Battelle, moderator.

I'm here at the Web 2.0 Summit 2007 in San Francisco with about 1,000 other people. Many of whom seem to be disappointed that, being an invitation-only event, it has become a lot less intimate than earlier years. The agenda is great with names like Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, Rupert Murdoch, NewsCorp and Meg Whitman, eBay. Some SIME speakers and hangarounds are also in da house: Tariq Krim, Andreas Weigend, Niklas Zennström, Loïc LeMeure and Martin Varsavsky. The Swedish participants outnumber all the other non-American groups! Stardoll, Pixbox, Maria Plaza, Mobispine, Myblock, and a few other companies are represented.

Most memorable from day 1: Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook as a platform, Rupert Murdoch & Chris DeWolfe on myspace and Melissa Mayer on Google's new focus on health services.

Hi, there Per Mosseby!

We're going to check up what some of our favorite SIME participants are up to. First out is Per Mosseby, CEO of Swedish photo-sharing service Pixbox.

1. What are you up to right now?

We've recently launched our Pixbox Facebook application, and right now I'm visiting Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco together with my chairman Yavor Adel.

2. What are your expectations on SIME 2007?

I expect and hope SIME 2007 to be as good as it was last year! It is the only world-class interactive media event that exists in Scandinavia.

PixBox is planning an expansion, but the "traditional" markets like France, Germany, and Great Britain are not on the list. The competition is too fierce. Instead Pixbox is looking to establish operations in Eastern Europe and Russia. The first office will be opened in S:t Petersburg, and then Poland and Bulgaria. The founders of Orc Software, Ulrika Hagdahl and Johan Thorell (founders of Locellus, Din Bostad and Sagax), have invested to support this expansion.

SIME Entertainment News

(Yes, we also want to know what happened to that good looking popstar).

Our favorite elite netizen and philosopher Alexander Bard has done it again! He has managed to win a slot in the 2008 version of the the Swedish annual music competition "Melodifestivalen". His song, "Lay Your Love On Me" was one of the 28 finalists, from over 3,000 entries.

copyright: Sveriges Television.

The competition has a considerable impact on music charts in Sweden and everyone from kids to grandmothers watch it on TV. In 2007, the semifinals averaged 3.1 million viewers, and an estimated four million Swedes watched the final.

But you don't have to watch Melodifestivalen to get a glimpse of the multi-talented Alexander Bard. See him live at SIME 2007! He will participate in the panel "What is really important right now" featuring some of the most controversial and interesting thinkers in the shouting match of the year. Don't miss it!

SIME presents: Filip & Fredrik

You don't have to be interested in VC:s, Ajax, gadgets or anything 2.0 to enjoy SIME 2007. Scandinavia's funniest guys are back, and they will be hosting the SIME Awards 2007.

Above is a great moment of Filip & Fredrik-humor: the duo singing hymns with the former Prime Minister Göran Persson. More of them on their MySpace profile.

Congratulations to Jaiku

Congratulations to Jyri, Petteri, and team at Jaiku for the Google acquisition. For those of you reading this blog, you know that these Finns have always been SIME-favorites. Jaiku will be working with the Google developers to expand its technology into new, and hopefully, useful services. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, Jaiku has decided to close new user sign-ups for now. Existing users can still invite new friends, though.

More about the company: Jaiku is an activity stream and presence sharing service that works from the Web and mobile phones. The service helps you stay in touch with friends and family by allowing you to post updates of what you are up to. By inviting friends you can see and comment on each others' updates and activities.

SIME is proud that Google would opt for Scandinavian Jaiku and not Twitter. More on that aspect of the deal at Mashable.

Tools for mashups

I will be reporting from the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, starting Oct 17. Today it was announced that the event will use the Popfly Mashup Aggregator to give the participants a consolidated view of what’s going on using popular internet services like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

Popfly, still in a private alpha, is designed to allow non-professional programmers and hobbyists to build mash-ups, gadgets, Web sites and applications using pre-built “blocks.”

The interactive design surface enables you to drag and drop these “blocks” and connect them together to build your own application. As of now, there are 40 of these Web-programming blocks from which they can choose, including Flickr, Windows Live Spaces, Virtual Earth and news service blocks. Popfly users can tie together these data-source, transformation and display blocks to create their own customized mash-ups.

I like the explanation to the name “Popfly”. From the FAQ: “Left to our own devices we would have called it ‘Microsoft Visual Mashup Creator Express, May 2007 Community Tech Preview Internet Edition’, but instead we asked some folks for help and they suggested some cool names and we all liked Popfly”.

Thanks to Robert Folkesson, Developer Evangelist at Microsoft, Sweden for explaining the technical aspects of Popfly on his blog (in Swedish).

Achtung Baby!

This year we have received a great deal of interest from members of the German press. In the SIME audience there will also be several representatives from the German Internet industry, such as the entrepreneur and SIME06 speaker Nico Lumma.

I asked Ulrike Reinhard, who will be reporting from SIME07 for Süeddeutsche Zeitung to name a few of the most interesting entrepreneurs acording to her view. Here is her list:

* Boris Wasmuth, Gameduell (gaming community), Berlin.

* Till Behnke, betterplace.org, Berlin. (Enables people working to escape poverty and create a better future for themselves to connect with new opportunities.) Ulrike: "They are just about launching! Great concept and very good people.

* Axel Schmiegelow, serial entrepreneur and founder of internet agency Denkwerk Group, Cologne

* Sören Stamer, CoreMedia (social software), Hamburg. In 2005, Red Herring magazine ranked CoreMedia as one of the 100 most innovative non-listed technology companies in Europe.

* Axel Pfennigschmidt, member of the creative network Pulk, Berlin. Ulrike: "more than internet, very good"

* Dieter Rappold, Managing Director, Knallgrau New Media Solutions, Vienna, Austria.

P S Don't forget to watch out for the Swedish überkids of music sharing service SoundCloud in Berlin, Eric Wahlforss and AlexanderLjung. D S

SIME@Virtual Worlds in San Jose

Beata with Ralph Koster, CEO Areae and creator of Ultima Online.

Over 1,000 participants and 100 speakers have gathered at the Virtual Worlds event in San Jose Oct 10-11. The big discssion has been on how to blend the stickiness and ease of use of social networks, such as Facebook, with the rich user experience of a virtual world.

Many of the participants are here to further explore how to extend their product or service with a virtual environment. Lego for example announced that they are creating the Lego Universe, a proprietary world to be realeased Aug 2008.

The web is going 3D faster than anyone could have imagined. It is a bit of a cultural shock to see a speaker like Sandy Kearny, Global Director, 3D Internet, IBM (!) talk about the challenges of the conceptual age and referring to Dan Pink's "A Whole New Mind" as her new bible of creative thinking. She also admitted that "it took IBM 8 years to understand e-business, but only 8 months to get 3D Internet".

Now I am off to listen to the panel on "Kids and Teen worlds" where Mattias Miksche, CEO of the paperdoll heaven Stardoll, and Sampo Karjalainen, founder of Habbo Hotel is participating. Second Life may be at the center of attention at an event like this, but Stardoll is still three times larger! Way to go, girls!

The conference jet-setters meet at Stream

Greetings from the travelling conference jet-setters Ola, Nikolaj, Esther & Co. This weekend the brains of the Internet industry gathered at the Stream Event, which was held at Club Med in Athens. Such a hard life... Thanks to Guido van Nispen for the pix.



The conference agenda?




Grand SIME Master Ola Ahlvarsson and his conference hangarounds.



Typical conference attire?



Esther with a cool laptop.



Thomas Madsen Mygdal of 23.