Spark Armada by Nir Ofir

fresh start: BlogDay 2006

Hey,

I'm leaving this Blog . I'll be updating the new BlogDay 2006 blog here: http://www.blogday.org

Feel free to join me there and subscribe to my new feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogday2006

see you there!

Nir.

Web2.0 will kill Web 1.0?

In some way, structured blogging can be dangerous to big, well established web services that provide "structured content". Sites like ebay.com, Monster.com, craigslist.org, Yahoo Personals and more collects data from its users in a structured way and display it to other users within its search engine or category lists.

Imagine a world where people stop using those services and instead, they use their own Blogs to post Job offers, Dating profiles, items/ properties for sale/rent using a common structure and appropriate Tags.

In this imaginary world, anyone can look for a job or an Item for sale (Or a picture of a house in X street and Y blvd) just by searching Google/ Technorati or other search engine that will understand structured content and classify it in a way that will help finding the right item/ apartment/job/love.

How close are we to this world? one year? 2 years?

"The Keyboard" pics from Rabin Square

Here are the pictures that we took from the roof of Tel Aviv city hall. Unfortunately, we didn't managed to get 1000 people for this photo but the 300-350 people that came where enough for producing this great pics for the cover of the "Mikledet" book.

"The Keyboard"

Tapuz.co.il Logo

Painting the square took us 3 hours

1000 People on a cover of a book

This is the view of Rabin square from the roof of Tel Aviv city hall. The print letters say "The Keyboard" in Hebrew. This will be the name of a book that holds a collection of short stories Israeli bloggers wrote.

In October 20 we will be taking the same picture but now, with 1000 people creating the word by standing in the pattern. This picture will be the cover of the book that will be published in November.

The Future of Media consumption – Creative exercise

Recently I found myself taking a part in few conversations about the future of TV and the video entertainment industry of tomorrow. Those conversation where made with people from the Mobile phone, TV, and internet industries. All of them agreed that the today's TV is changing in different ways and that Mobile entertainment and Internet usage as an entertainment tool are increasing on the account of TV (and Cinema).

These conversations made me want to make a mind map of all aspects (I found) of TV,  Mobile and internet as entertainment arenas for the end user. After doing the mind map I gathered the information in a magic table. This magic table can make every one (Yes! you too) an inventor of new formats, experiences, models or content packages for tomorrow's entertainment era.

All you have to do is to pick an Item from every column in a random way. Then, try to think of a TV/Internet/Mobile show, Contest, event etc that is using all the elements. It's not an easy creative exercise but it is fun. Don't give your self discount, Invent something crazy that will not sound reasonable to you.

This is my take on the magic table:

I picked randomly these Numbers: A 3, B 2, C5, D 1, E 8, F 4

I need to create a concept for a Reality Mobile show in which will be delivered in streaming format. This show will be watched while going out. I will charge a monthly fee and will have to use Celebrities or stars in it. Mmm that’s an easy one :-)

This streaming mobile show will be aired every weekend night time and it is designed for people that are hanging out in the clubs and bars areas at that time. This reality show will follow 5 random people that are randomly selected every weekend in this club area and their prize in this reality show is dating a celebrity. The viewers of the show will be able to watch and help those 5 guys with their mission that involves: Drinking lots of alcohol and doing crazy things. One of the viewers will have the chance to win the same prize too.

What is your future media show format?

Flickr as mobile community translator

Here is a thought I had about taking the community photo sharing concept and flip it to something completely different.

Imagine yourself walking in a strange street on a foreign country. You do not know the language but you really need to know what is written on this sign. You feel that something is wrong:

Now, you have 2 options:

1. Imagine you are taking a picture of this sign with your camera phone and sending it to your flickr account adding the tags: Translate, English.

In that moment, a community of people that are "listening" to these tags using RSS reader (or in a special zone in flickr site) look at the picture and translate it in the comment area in your Album. Either you get an alert by sms or you will surf to your album using a mobile phone browser and see the translation.

2. You can find someone that doesn't know to keep a secret and speaks your language.

Considering a new project

Have you ever noticed the cultural differences while making a conversation with people online? I as an Israeli use different gestures and behavior while "talking" to a Chinese guy using an instant messenger. Sometimes it can create some unpleasant outcomes, especially while trying to do business using online tools like IM, Blogs, Email, skype and more…

For example: In Israel (Updated) from my daily experience, It is common to burst into someone's instant messenger with a straight to the point answer or remark without using a polite "hello" or "hi" to check if the addressee is busy or if he is on a meeting with the screen facing everyone. Is it the same in Japan? China? Finland?

I started to think about this project during my BlogDay project. There I contacted and got massages from people from all over the globe, most of them didn't expressed them selves very good in English (So am I). Every one of them has its own cultural background and Netiquette that can unintentionally create some kind of misunderstanding that will affect the conversation hence the business process, Romantic relation, friendship etc.

It reminds me of the first time I had a business travel to Korea. Before the trip I logged in and searched for information about the business culture over there. I read that it is rude to write in a red pen and that in meeting the hierarchy is very clear – top ranked speak first. I also read about the Business card craze over there so I ran and printed some more…Just in case.

Today, more people do business online. Maybe even without a real meeting. When I say doing business I don't mean buying something in eBay. I mean closing deals! I remember that Loic told me that his blog is helping him get good business deals, people from around the world contact him and sometimes close deals without even meeting him. Hell, he even organized and publicized the whole "Les Blogs" conference from his blog.

I am looking for a large group of people that have an experience in doing business online. I will put up a questionnaire for them to answer and a wiki to gather information and stories. If it will be successful I will publish an e-book with all the information in a form of a guide.

If you think you have a say about international business Netiquette or know people that are doing business online using IM, Blogs, Message boards, Chat and more please contact me at nir.ofir [at] gmail [dot] com.

Tag: Netiquette

BlogDay2005: The Blogal Village

Last night I set in my Japanese car (Made in Europe) and drove to Tel Aviv (Israel) talking with my Korean mobile phone (Go Samsung!) while chewing an American gum. A half an hour before that, I talked to a Taiwanese journalists using MSN Messenger, writing her in English (Hi Effie!). We have talked about BlogDay – a virtual global holiday for all Netizens.

Donald Trump would say that BlogDay was Huge! I think it was more than huge (is there a word for that?) It started as a crazy idea in a small Blog conference in Israel but the results proved to me that BlogDay is here to stay!

Since June 2005 (3 months ago), BlogDay have generated 30,800 new pages in Google. Technorati lists 1329 Blog posts about it and thousands of bloggers from these countries have participated: Israel, Pakistan, US, Singapore, China, France, Hungary, Spain, UK, India, Italy, Ireland, Malaysia, Cambodia, Greece, Finland, Germany, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, Japan and many more. The BlogDay description was translated in the BlogDay wiki  by bloggers to 15 languages. The wiki got more than 25,000 page views on August 31st; a Greek designer won the BlogDay design contest with his brilliant design to BlogDay future web site.

The A-list bloggers (Mostly Americans) (almost) didn't write about BlogDay. I, as a professional in this field (Blogs, Social software, web2.0 blah blah) was disappointed because I really wanted to read what do they had to say about my project and, because I truly believed that as "main information junctions" they will help me spread the word about BlogDay. Some of them did write about it. I rather some don't.

Today, I assume that most of the bloggers that have celebrated BlogDay are personal bloggers. Bloggers that write about their lives and jobs that are using community based platforms like Blogger or Livejournal in the US, "Yam" in Taiwan, "ioblogo" in Italy or "blogia" in Spain. BlogDay made me realize how huge the market share of the Personal blogs compared to professional blogs.

My "not so wild assumption" is that 95% of all blogs in the world are personal or half professional blogs that are being hosted in some kind of a community portal and the other 5% are professional blogs that are being hosted in independent servers or with services like Typepad (My virtual Home).

95% are personal blogs!  Do you capture the power of this large majority of bloggers? Do you, as I did, understand now that most of blog readers visit personal blogs and not the 5% professional blogs and those who are labeled as "A-list" Bloggers (No offense).

A week ago, me and two other Israeli Blog Platform operators, were interviewed about the state of the Israeli Blogosphere (100,000 Blogs!). I was asked why there are no noticeable Israeli "A-list" bloggers and if the Blogosphere needs them to evolve. I answered NO!
My logic came from the realization that most of the A-list blogs that I read (and that those sat in the room read) are niche blogs that do not appeal to the masses, or in other words, we, the people that are sitting in the room and you, the people who read my blog are living in a small bubble thinking we represent the majority of web users (most do not know the word "blog").

Anyway, and here is my point, BlogDay has proved that in the Blogosphere, like no other media ever, the "ordinary" writers and the "A-list" writers are both using "the first universal publishing system in history" (thanks Steven). A publishing system that do not enforce any hierarchy or editing rules, A publishing system that allow any blogger to take an idea and make a small change in thousands of people from around the world, and make them and himself feel like they are a part of something big.

I did started it with 25 individuals that use RSS to "listen" to my blog.
Thank you for celebrating with me.
Join me again in BlogDay 2006 (You can start helping now!)

Happy BlogDay!

The big day is here! (its after midnight in Israel now)

Organizing BlogDay was a fun, interesting, challenging and sometimes frustrating. I want to thank every Blogger that helped me and I will be happy if some more crazy dreaming people like me will offer their help for building the BlogDay 2006 project that will start tommorow.

My BlogDay recommendations are:

Innovation WebLog: Cool content about innovation, creativity, Mind Maps, thinking and more. This blog can really help a person/innovator to upgrade his brain with new ways of thinking

Loose Wire: The Blog of Jeremy Wagstaff a technology columnist with the Asian and online Wall Street Journals.

Jake Tracey : designer and developer from Newcastle, Australia. "For now, I am interested in new web applications, design, usability and marketing".

MobHappy: Russell Buckley and Carlo Longino on mobile technology

Quick Online Tips : Smart tips, tools and news for Bloggers. Found it on Goolge.

I will keep you updated about my BlogDay experience and the results later.

Tag: BlogDay2005

WebSite: BlogDay.org

May your blogrolls gather no moss

What a great title for a BlogDay post by Peter Griffin. Peter, may I use it for the official BlogDay Bless?

Anyway, some BlogDay News:

Me and Adam from wikispaces had a little chat about BlogDay and his wonderfull wiki platform which I use to manage this global project. This project made me discover the advantages of a Wiki platform for these kind of project and I enjoyed using just like I did when I discovered geocities back in 1996.

Mark, the Editor of the Brazilian RevistaParadoxo.com made an article about BlogDay and Blogs here

The BIG NEWS is that Tommorow is BlogDay and I'm excited! do you?

BlogDay Citation Trend by IceRocket

Today, 2 days before BlogDay, The IceRocket Citation trend diagram is showing that (only) 0.0045 present of blogs mentioned BlogDay.

The diagram shows that on the day Google launched "Google Talk", 0.6 present of blogs mentioned it.

I checked the word "school" and was amazed by the results:  3-8 present of blogs are mentioning this term all the time!"Iraq" was mentioned by 0.3-0.9 presents in the last two months.

What do you think the trend diagram will show on September 1st?

Taiwan BlogDay Meetup

Cheng Vista wrote me that Yam, a blog operator from Taiwan, is holding a Blogday meetup at August 31st  in Taipei. Here are the details:

Taipei Artist Village │ 2F No.7 Peiping East Rd.,Taipei, Taiwan
Time: 31, August 2005 PM 6:15 - 21:00
Contact: vista_cheng@staff.yam.com

It seems that BlogDay is relatively big in Taiwan. It seems that BlogDay is Big in small blog networks that pass information quicker and with more enthusiasm.

Thanks Cheng! Don't forget to tell me how was the meetup.

BlogDay Media Recognitoin?

The Indianapolis Star is the first media organization out of the Blogosphere that wrote about BlogDay.

Via Icerocket]

BlogDay in Pakistan

Look who is celebrating BlogDay in Pakistan, 124 Blogs!

Thanks Shirazi

Engines On!

Eight days till BlogDay!  Have you found 5 Blogs for your BlogDay post? I already found some for my English Blog but haven’t started looking for good Hebrew Blogs for my other Blog.

On the last few months I have “met” some great bloggers from all over the world. They are great because they agreed to help me in this crazy project without asking for anything back. Without asking any questions. I thank them for the support and I hope many more will come and help me re-create BlogDay in 2006.

Every morning, every day,  just before brushing my teeth I went to my computer and found myself amazed by the acceptance, the excitement and the distribution of the BlogDay Buzz in Asia and in Europe in any language. The emails, the track backs, the comments and the new posts about BlogDay made me understand that the BlogDay concept is good for the bloggers. Everywhere. I am a little disappointed from the Buzz BlogDay made in the United States. Probably, because 3108 is not August 31^st by the American format.

Today, 8 days before the first BlogDay and 14,000 page views in Blogday.org I still do not believe that my investment of 38 Dollars for the Domain Name and a lot of “white nights” got BlogDay to be a reality.  The simple concept, the real story behind the creation of BlogDay and the unique logo gave BlogDay a lot of spreading the word power but the real power is coming from the bloggers that are taking the BlogDay concept and hugging it and spreading the word about their new holiday.

My full conclusion about BlogDay 2005 will come after the celebration.

Celebrate!

Nir.

<a href="http://blogs.icerocket.com/tag/BlogDay2005 rel="tag">BlogDay2005</a>

Technorati is Bad for Koreans

Today I asked Hof, the korean guy that wrote about Blogday to translate the BlogDay description to Korean so I can put it in BlogDay website.

Hof agreed to do it but look what he wrote me about Korean an Technorati:

dear Nir Ofir

as I wrote in my blog, there are some problem.

most of (over 5 milion) Korean blogger is written in EUC-KR character set. because, EVERY blog service company support only euc-kr.

I guess there are only under 200 users using UTF-8 character set.

as you know, technorati does not support EUC-KR charset.

if Korean user who are using EUC-KR send a ping to technorati. there will be covered with all broken character. you can find how it look like,  at http://www.technorati.com/tag/KoreaTest

I hope that the people of technorati will fix it very soon so Korean Bloggers can participate in BlogDay2005

BlogDay Guest Map

Where are you blogging from?

what bloggers are your neighbors?

are you supporting BlogDay?

who else?

Sign the BlogDay GuestMap!

BlogDay at Hotel Paris Rive Gauche

Hotel Paris Rive Gauche will celebrate BlogDay.

thank you for your support! Maybe the hotel should offer its visitors to post BlogDay post too?

:-)

BTW. I got the first post from Korean Blog here

a lot of Taiwanese blogs are writing about blogday and I got some info that they are arranging a big meetup in that day.

Aussie Bloggers have a meetup too.

---------

Help! Help me translate BlogDay description to your language

Blogday good for Bloggers?

Kobi form “the beta tech” wrote about why BlogDay is good for bloggers and for the Blogosphere. Here is the (The best I can do) translation of his post:

BlogDay2005

“BlogDay is just the thing that can take out the Blogosphere from its own vortex. The “heavy” Blog readers are looking for new content. They are tired of the BoingBoing/ Engadget routine. The other type of blog readers. Those who do not use RSS readers need content and stimulations that some day will make them “heavy” blog readers. If BlogDay will succeed and will get recognition from the conventional media more readers will join the blogesphere.

I wrote several times about the huge importance of inter-blog links (Not Blogrolls that many ignore, but real links from posts) for promoting independent content on the net. Blogs are getting into search engines but they disappear in the huge amount of search results and will never have the chance of getting a good page rank by Google. They will never have the chance to compete with commercial web sites.

BlogDay is some kind of viral advertising. It is one of the ways to spread the word about good Blogs and raising their page rank. This will work only if bloggers will not promote their friends Blogs or Blogs that are already ranked high .“

[Technorati: BlogDay, Blog, Blogosphere, Blogs, Blogging]

BlogDayBlogCard by GapingVoid

Wow!

BlogDay2005 got its own GapingVoid BlogCard!

Thanks Hugh !

BlogDay2005