conferences

Wakoopa – one of those things that I don’t get

There are things that are as obvious as daylight. There are things that I need to research and think over to understand. And there are things that feel like I’ll never understand. Wakoopa is one of them.

I first heard about Wakoopa back in April when I was in Amsterdam, at The Next Web 2008 Conference. Wakoopa is a European social network that unites people who want to share the information about software they use. If you are one of them, all you need to do is register at the network and download client software to install on your computer. Once you are done, Wakoopa will track which software you use and how (often). It will then upload these information to the social network, where you will be able to find other people who use the same software (advice? shared experience?) as well as other software that people similar to you use (expanding horizons?).

The booth of Wakoopa startup was one of the busiest at the conference. And the company went through a few investment rounds, one of which I just read about in The Next Web blog.

And I still don’t get it.

First of all, I have the feeling that software moves to the web. Not all of it and not as fast as I’d like it to, but the future seems to be pretty much web-based. Secondly, those people who are technically literate enough to find, download, and install Wakoopa, are, I belive, literate enough to figure out their issues with current software and find similar software if need be, using nothing by Google and IRC. Thirdly, there is this evergrowing privacy concern, that itches every time words “tracking” and “sharing” are used. Fourthly, there is the question of licensed software vs. pirated software, which needs to be addressed by way too many Windows users (primary target for Wakoopa software and social network). Fifthly, there are likely to be quite a few conflicts between people at work and corporate sysadmins. Sixthly, …

With all that, I can still see that there will be a few people here and there who would probably like to participate in this experiement. But, the thing that I don’t quite understand is how this experiment became so large. I mean, there are millions of investment, thousands of users, and lots and lots of hype. I don’t get it. Anyone care to explain? Or guess maybe?

P.S.: Not that I am jelous of Wakoopa or anything. They are doing something that apparently has a lot of demand, so I wish the best of luck to them.

Virtual presence with Twitter

Twitter is many things to many people. It’s a lot of things to me too (status updates, communication channel, notes application, self-reminders, etc). But for the last couple of days I am having a new experience with it – virtual presence.

Last year I attended Greek Blogger Camp. It was a lot of fun. This year however I didn’t manage to get in due to some work obligations. However those guys who are there, they twit a lot (particularly Stefanos himself). That sort of brings me there without any travelling.

Yes, I miss a lot, I know. But getting SMS updates with pointers to what is going over there helps quite a bit. And not only I get a part of the atmosphere, but also some helpful tips from the presentations that are going on. Then, with Google in my hands, I can dive deeper into the subject, and even somewhat participate in the discussion there by twitting my questions and getting answers.

This digital world sure is amazing!

Mibbit – IRC the easy way

IRC is one of the best things that happened in the world of online communications ever. But, it’s a pity that most non-technical users have no idea of its existence. Getting on IRC usually required downloading and installing a client software, and then going through a list of networks, picking a server, a nickname, and finding a channel to connect to. While not exactly rocket science, it was more than enough to seriously decrease the user base.

Via this Web Worker Daily post I learned about a great tool – Mibbit. It is a web-based interface to IRC. It is straight forward, easy to use, and doesn’t require one to know much about IRC. No installation or registration is needed – you can jump straight into it.

In fact, even many technical people who use IRC will find Mibbit useful. It adds some useful pieces of functionality which many traditional IRC clients miss (unless, of course they support plugins). Two things that I was glad to see were Paste Bin support, which is a quick way to send around pieces of text, often with syntax highlight, and editing capabilities; and integrated translations. You can pick the language you want your messages to be translated to, as well as the language you want other people’s messages to be translated to. Of course, the translations are done automatically, so they aren’t of the best quality, but at least you’ll get a slight idea of what those other people are talking about. In case you don’t speak a common language, that is.

I also liked the interface of Mibbit. It is clean, simple, and fast. You can participate in multiple discussions, which will appear as tabs, which you can switch between. Updates are fast and the whole thing feels very much like a desktop application.

Thanks to Web Worker Daily for bringing attention to this service, and, of course, to Mibbit developers for making a useful tool.

P.S.: If you are trying to get a hold of me on IRC, my contact page has all the information that you need.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for The Next Web Conference, which will take place in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I spent a few minutes in Wikipedia, reading about both Amsterdam and Netherlands. Here are some interesting highlights (direct quotes from Wikipedia):

The Netherlands is often called Holland. This is formally incorrect as North and South Holland in the western Netherlands are only two of the country’s twelve provinces. As a matter of fact, many Dutch people colloquially use Holland as a synecdoche, being well aware of the widespread use of this name.
The Netherlands is also one of the most densely cabled countries in the world; its internet connection rate is 87.8%, the 2nd highest in the world.
A remarkable aspect of the Netherlands is its flatness.
The people of the Netherlands are amongst the tallest in the world, with an average height of about 1.85 m (6 ft 0.8 in) for adult males and 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) for adult females.
There is a tradition of learning foreign languages in the Netherlands: about 70% of the total population have good knowledge of English, 55– 59% of German and 19% of French.
Amsterdam is the 5th busiest tourist destination in Europe with more than 4.2 million international visitors. The room occupation rate is the 2nd highest in Europe in 2007. Tourists can choose from 350 Hotels, 17 of which are fivestar hotels. 18,000 rooms and almost 45,000 beds are provided.
Amsterdam’s largest religious group are the Calvinists followed by Islam, mainly Sunni Islam.
Amsterdam is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world and is a centre of bicycle culture with good provision for cyclists such as bike paths and bike racks, which are ubiquitous throughout the city. There are an estimated one million bicycles in the city (total population is 742,884 people, as per January 1st, 2006). However, bike theft is common, so cyclists use large secure locks.