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I use Fleck, Google Reader, Twitter, and Delicious. So that basically means I’m sharing loads of articles everyday. Yet I have the feeling, no, I’m sure, that most of these links get lost in the overwhelming amount of social bookmarks and Twitter updates. And yes, that fine. Except when it comes to those posts that have a little something extra. Posts every blogger or web-savvy should read. From now on I’ll highlight these posts on a daily basis. Here we go, no. 1, tipped by Edial Dekker.

Ten Basic New Media Skills Journalists Need To Know

Tom Foremski, a former IT journalist and and Silicon Valley columnist for the Financial Times, blogs on the Silicon Valley Watcher about the business and culture of the Valley. Besides the post I’m highlighting here, his about page is also worth your attention.

Foremski sums up ten basic skills for journalists, because ‘most traditional journalists can barely type (..) but they know how to create compelling media and are able to do it consistently’. The striking thing about this list is that the skills are really basic for experienced bloggers. Yet we - the bloggers - tend to forget that. So next time we complain about the lack of journalists in the blogosphere, we might think about improving accessibility. What about a New Media Skills Volunteer Group?

• Read the article on www.siliconvalleywatcher.com

Update: Tim Overdiek, correspondent in London for the NOS Dutch public broadcasting posted two interesting updates on Twitter in reply to this post:

overdiek @dutchproblogger Don’t fully agree w/him. I prefer a journalist who can’t type but can tell a good story. Let others help the poor bastard. (about 18 hours ago)

overdiek @dutchproblogger But of course I love the top ten. (Although confession: Can’t do them all.) (about 18 hours ago)

Overdiek is a blog evangelist and even convinced some famous Dutch news anchors to start blogging. I admire his work yet I don’t agree with him on this. Shouldn’t we redefine the definition of a journalist? Just like a chiropractor has to learn new techniques, journalists should as well.

Times are changing, people have less attention and ask for a different kind of reporting (with deeplinking and all), so journalists have to adapt to these new needs. What do you think?

After a rather impressing Rolling Stones concert in Budapest during the summer of 2007, me and four friends decided to start a band ourselves as well. Not with the ambition to become as good as The Rolling Stones of course, yet we felt like it would be fun to practice every now and then and have some beers afterwards. I mean, every guy should at least play in a sports team or a band, we have chosen the latter. The band is named after a boat we used to party on, the Christina (Five).

Now, six months later, we were offered the opportunity to play on an open stage in the Verkadefabriek (old chocolate factory in Zaandam). We couldn’t think of a reason not to. It’s all about fun after all. And the crowd would mainly consist of friends, so the quality of the music wouldn’t be all that important. And so it happened. After three hours of jazz, we were called to the stage. As you can imagine, we were pretty frustrated by that time. Which is good, if you’re in a rock band.

So watch the video to see the manic performance of Jerry Houtman (key-guitar), Ridzert Beetstra (bass), Peter Evers (drums), Sander Ritman (guitar) and me (singer front man):

The last couple of months I’ve covered three conferences for The Next Web: Le Web 3 in Paris, LIFT08 in Geneva and Plugg in Brussels. Before that, I didn’t really supplied my readers with live coverage. So when I opened my macbook in Paris, I was pretty surprised by the energy and the attention conference blogging asks. You have to listen, write and think about what the speaker is saying at the same time. Moreover, people expect you to post soon pretty fast after the speaker has left the stage.

During Le Web 3, the whole act of live blogging was pretty overwhelming for me. After that, I started thinking how I could make conference blogging more easy. So I started working on a list of tips. Yet also during LIFT08 and Plugg I sometimes thought I was losing control. So I guess it really is a learning process, and this list is still just a start. I decided to publish it now, since The Next Web conference is on its way, so some preparation doesn’t hurt anybody.

Oh and by the way, I’ve left out the obvious ones like ‘charge all the batteries of your devices’. I assume you’ve thought about them already. If you have any advices to add, please drop them in the comments. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I talked about my inspiration for blogging on the Spin Awards Inspiration Days. I wanted to give the audience something to think about, instead of just give them an insight in my blogging mind. So I made a comparison between LSD and the Internet.

I came up with that comparison when I visited the exhibition Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era in The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It showed what the hippies were all about: their ideas about sexual revolution, equal rights and anti-war attitude were revolutionary back then. Yet because they fought so hard for it, we consider them normal now.

The hippies were partly inspired by LSD: the greatest musicians used it for their songs, gonzo journalists like Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the trips he had and Timothy Leary researched the effects. The last one called upon everybody to turn on, tune in and drop out: explore several states of consciousness, join the movement and say goodbye to the materialistic society.

Leary, who had received a master’s degree at Washington State University in 1946, and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1950, started a LSD promotion tour. He inspired many men and women to take a different view on modern-day society. Unfortunately he lost his job as lecturer in psychology at Harvard and eventually ended up in jail for a while. For many people though, he’s a still an enlightened hero.

For some reason I experience a weird nostalgic feeling about this summer of love. It doesn’t make sense though, since it all took place 19 years before I was born. I think I just love the idea of fighting for new values and opinions. Yet I won’t put my hands on LSD and the summer of love is only experienced by toothless hobo’s. So how can I experience the feeling of this time? Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday was hectic day. First I went to the Web 2.0 conference PLUGG in Brussels, to do some hard conference blogging. It was a fairly interesting and well-organized conference. However I did find out that I hate panels. See the Next Web for more coverage.

I had to leave kinda early, to show up at the Dutch Bloggies - The Dutch Oscars for blogs - in The Hague. The Next Web was nominated three times (ICT, Technology and Marketing) and Spotlight Effect managed to get a nomination (Marketing) as well. I was happily greeted by my dear fellow Spotlight bloggers. After a few beers, the time for the ceremony had come.

Unfortunately The Next Web didn’t make it, since the jury thought the blog was too young. However, they did say that it’s a ‘very promising concept’. But the good news is, Spotlight Effect DID win! We celebrated and cheered so loud that the audience was really surprised. We stormed to the stage with 8 guys, where Jeroen Mirck handed us the award.

Jeroen Mirck congratulates Spotlight Effect, photo by Anne Helmond

Standing there with my team was awesome, and I’m really proud what these guys have done. As I said during the ceremony: they’re one inspiring group of people. And yes, this is one proud editor in chief.

If you’re Dutch I recommend reading Philip Rouwenhorst’s post on Spotlight Effect. It’s really funny.

Last month I was reading Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers by Micheal A. Banks. One of the thirty bloggers featured in this book is Dave Taylor. On Askdavetaylor.com he answers tech questions of his visitors. He inspired me to start a blog version of this concept. So, do send me your blog questions and I’ll give you my answer. You can reach me by sending a line to ejpfauth@gmail.com or @dutchproblogger on Twitter.

How do I get attention for my blog?

Two weeks ago, Corné Kox asked me on Twitter how he could get some traffic to his blog. Of course there’s a lot to read on this subject. Australian problogger Darren Rowse has written a zillion posts about original, dirty, simple and beautiful ways of driving traffic to your site. So I gladly refer to his posts if you want to know the basics.

My personal advice is short and sweet: do something extraordinary (and nice). In a blogosphere where everybody does the same: “The 10 best …” or “How to…”, the perfect way to gain attention is to do something completely different. Read the rest of this entry »

When Mark Everett performs these days, he only needs one man besides him on stage: ‘the Chad’. Together with Edial Dekker and Peter Evers I drove 2,5 hours - which is a really long drive for Dutch standards - to see these two men playing the beautiful music of Eels in the theater of Enschede (Try to pronounce that if you don’t speak Dutch, The Chad came up with enchiladas).

My first thought was: how can only two men capture the rich sound of Eels? Yet after four songs, these doubts disappeared: I was blown away by the version of My Beloved Monster. Imagine Everett on just his white Holloway, singing the first lines, and then The Chad hitting the drums - to later switch to a guitar. Oh well, why don’t you just watch the video. (Recorded in Vicenza)

So both guys mastered all the instruments on stage - although I didn’t see Everett playing the saw - and they knew exactly how to show that off. During a raw version of the infamous Flyswatter - due to Desperate Housewives - The Chad and Everett switched piano and drums twice, without stopping the music. Impressive and exhilarating! Everett managed to get the whole theater in some sort of euphoric state (which is hard in the Eastern part of Holland, trust me) and then threw us back in his misery again by suddenly starting one of his sad songs. Read the rest of this entry »

On a daily bases, I have to at least explain twice what Web 2.0 is and what it means for us. Unfortunately too many people shrug their shoulders after my lyric and slightly persuasive story about this revolution. Sometimes however, a somewhat smarter person does get excited about the new developments. He or she wants to learn more! Debuzzing the buzzword Web 2.0! From now on, I can refer to this blog post, since I’ll list some blogs to get you and others started with keeping up to date on the Web 2.0 news. I’ve also included a link to all the RSS feeds.

First of all, this is a selection of the blogs I keep track of for The Next Web Blog. This blog is all about international start-ups, so not just news from Silicon Valley, and also discusses the personal side of being an Internet entrepreneur. Next to keeping you up to date, we strive to inspire you as well. So that’s tip no. 1! Let’s get started with other great Web 2.0 blogs. Here we go! Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend was all about photography for me. Let’s start with the most interesting part: I’ve visited the MAGNUM exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in my hometown Amsterdam. The independent photo agency celebrates its 60th birthday, thus the extra attention. Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymour founded MAGNUM in 1947. They were convinced that photography was the best medium to document world events and raise public awareness. Yet to be able to tell their stories they way they wanted to, they had to be independent. So from the start, the agency was distinguished by its complete independence.

Magnum now is a legendary photo alliance and over the years they’ve published some photos most of you will never forget. The photographers are celebrated for their courage and many of them died during their work. Robert Capa’s D-Day pictures are the best example I can think of, also because this famous photographer died during the first Indochina war.

“If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” Robert Capa

I’ve always been interested in photography. As a kid, I spent hours watching my father’s photography books and now no month goes by without visiting an exhibition. Some photos fascinate me, others are horrifying and there are even pictures that simply seduce me. One of the most striking remarks I’ve ever heard about photography was made by Natalie Portman in the movie Closer. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I witnessed music history, at least that’s what I thought. Tim Heineke and I sneaked into Paradiso to see the Reverend and the Makers, an indie-electro band from Sheffield, UK. I saw them before in December 2007 when they were the supporting act of that other band from Sheffield, the Arctic Monkeys. It was the first time I fell in love with a girl from a 60 feet distance, that’s what a dancing Laura Manuel (vocals/ keyboards) does with a man.

The vibrant performance reminded me of a combination between the woodenly moves of Ian Curtis and the enthusiasm of Bez dancing with the Happy Mondays. Every time frontman Jon McClure spread his arms to act like he was an actual reverend, the crowd went absolutely mental.

Jon McClure performing on Lowlands 2007. Photo by my favorite hard bloggin’ scientist Anne Helmond.

No wonder the audience screamed yes when McClure asked them whether they wanted to hear more. “Alright”, he yelled, “You and me, outside”. And that’s exactly what happened. While McClure made his way through the stunned audience, I decided to ran after him. I’m glad I did, and so were fifty other people, since the Reverend played some of his songs on an acoustic guitar while he was standing on the steps of a upper class high school. Read the rest of this entry »