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A few minutes ago, I met with Khris Loux at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Khris is the energetic and supercool founder of Js-kit, a service that offers rich and interactive services for web sites. We know each other from the Next Web Conference, where he gave a keynote speech about widgets and open standards.

He showed me some of the features, of which in my opinion Score stands out. It allows visitors to give a thumbs up or down. Simple, effective and in combination with the Navigator a great way to show the most popular articles on a blog.

Yet I’d like to use for something else. I want to know what YOU would like to read. Although this is a personal blog, I feel like the whole publication process makes more sense when I share what my visitors - that also means you - wish for. Would you like to read more about music, or would you like to read more of my thoughts on blogging? As soon as I figure out what the majority of the readers like the most, I can start working on the perfect foundation for good conversations by writing posts that match the general interest. Read the rest of this entry »

Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas, original design by Stamen

• More webart here

Generally, I hate tourist traps. I don’t care for the Eiffel tower, Big Ben or the San Marco square, I prefer to hang out with locals and discover shops, museums and bars I won’t find in Amsterdam. But to be honest with you, sometimes I actually do enjoy the typically tourist stuff. Perfect example, American diners who try to revive the fabulous fifties.

When Boris and me sat down in Lori’s diner for a quick break of all the Web 2.0 Expo chaos, I discovered an old-fashioned jukebox. So I robbed Boris, ended up with six quarters and enjoyed my jukebox moment. See a visual- (via microblogging service Twitter) and music (via Mixwit) representation.

After posting some pics on Flickr, I discovered I’m not the only Dutch fun of Lori’s cooking skills. Jeroen Mirck has also visited the place a couple of times and made some nice photographs.

When you’re a tech blogger, you can’t afford to miss the infamous pre-conference meet-ups. Those are the ideal places to meet start-ups and influentials who can tell you the latest about developments in the web industry. Moreover, if your blog isn’t all too famous yet, meet-ups are perfect for getting the word out. So how can you make the most of these events?

Boris and me are in San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Expo and are visiting a lot of these meet-ups, here’s what I’ve learned so far.

1. Bring something to remember you by

When you’re at a meet-up, you’re likely to shake at least twenty hands. That means lots of names, companies and groundbreaking technologies in a short time. So you tend to forget most. And you’re not alone. Thus it pays of to bring something with you that you can hand out. People will come home, empty their pockets, skip through all the business cards, and then see your funny gimmick. They’ll love it!

So Boris and me brought tons of “This object has been marked: BLOGABLE” sticker with us. See Laughingsquid’s Scott Beale Flickr photostream for the result.

2. Look remarkable

For the same reason as no. 1. You might find inspiration in our white suits.

3. Make pictures and publish them right-a-way

As you can tell by the last paragraph of tip 1 - the link to the Laughingsquid photo page - , making pictures also is a good way to get people to remember you. So give your buddy a camera, lay your arm over somebody’s shoulder and cherish the snapshot on your Flickr page. Tag the pics accordingly with the names of the subjects and consider writing them a line saying that you’ve published a picture with their face on it.

We also decided to include them in our blog posts to give it a personal touch. So when people ask us to write about the start-up, we say: “Maybe! But we need a picture first”.

4. Take advantage of web celebs (no, not in that way!)

As long as you’re not a web celeb yourself, you might as well profit from other people’s fame. Especially here in San Francisco, there’s a culture of worshiping some successful entrepreneurs and bloggers. The success of dirty gossip blog Valleywag is just one example of that. You can do it the nice way, or the dirty Valleywag-like one. Boris and me, naturally, choose for the friendly way and smooth talked our way into the small circles of famous techies. Pitch your blog, and they might even take a look. Don’t worry about being too pushy, since these guys are used to people who want their attention and trust me, there a lot of rude people out there. So if you approach them in a friendly way, they could be pleasantly surprised.

5. Blog about it…

People love to relive the moment. So write some good, extensive, short ‘n’ sweet or sentimental - as long as it’s remarkable - posts about the meet-ups and publish them as soon as possible. Link to the blogs and sites of attendants to make sure they’ll notice your writings. Have a look at our altsearchengines meeting coverage to see how we do it.

Hope this posts helps you to make the most out of those meet-ups. If you have any tips about how you stand out from the crowd, I’d love to hear those from you. For now, let me conclude with the two most important tips: have fun and don’t get too drunk. Cheers!

Life is hard… but not in San Francisco! We arrived yesterday, had a burger in a rooftop restaurant at Union Square, took a swim (see above) and had dinner at Scott Rafer’s house with my favorite British blogger TechCrunch UK’s Mike Butcher and the ambitious guys from Zemanta. Today we’re live reporting from the altsearchengines’ meeting.

Keep an eye on Boris’ photoset, The Next Web Blog and this one to see what we land into in San Francisco.

I’m sitting in a typical airport diner, waiting for the gate to open. That gives me time to tell you I bought a white suit last week. For those of you who don’t know why, I’m glad to tell that it’s one of the most infamous clothings in the Valley. Ask the San Jose Mercury News, ask Micheal Arrington, ask Wired. They’re all familiar with the meaning of the suits: entrepreneurial trouble from Amsterdam. And now they’re coming back, with me on their team.

Boris and me want to put our European Web 2.0 blog under your attention and discuss the European start-up scene and its influence on the technology industry.

It’s 00:50 there right now, so I guess we’ll act like it’s night in the airplane and throw a small party. I hope the flight attendants have cold beer available. In the meantime, consider reading this post by Boris about our promotion plans in the Valley.

If you’d excuse me now, I have a plane to catch. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I participated in the Don’t-do-it-yourself-days. That might sound kind of awkward, so please allow me to explain this awesome concept:

• Invite 30 professionals from the creative industry;
• Put them in an industrial room with good food, drinks, web connection and four tables;
• Ask those professionals what their area of expertise is;
• Ask them what they want to get done;
• Get a speed date process going so that people who can something for each other will connect;
• Let them do great things for each other.

So why is this a great idea? Firstly, in less than two hours I’ve met some really interesting and inspiring folks - like Rolf Coppens from Grrr and Odilo Girod. Secondly, most cash-jobs suck. But when people meet to help each other out for free, creativity flourishes.

Photo by Frank Schuil

As a blogger you have to read a lot, scan hundreds of short articles and write up your thoughts immediately. So there’s hardly any time left to really think about the bigger picture. Is this making us superficial?

Today I didn’t feel that good and was too tired to do some serious Web 2.0 reporting for The Next Web. On a normal Sunday - after an easy start - I read my feeds, empty my inbox and write a couple of stories. Today I only wrote one about my upcoming trip to San Fransisco. When I sensed this was going to be it for today, I decided to read the articles I had saved on Instapaper.

So I’ve read some really interesting stories. Like The Zen of Blogging by Hunter Nuttall and People power transforms the web in next online revolution by Charles Leadbeater. I also turned a few pages of Everything bad is good for you, an eye-opening book by Steven Berlin Johnson, a guy I really admire for his work.

All this captivating stuff got me thinking, and not just about the content. The thorough analysis and deep thoughts of the writers made me wonder if I wasn’t getting a bit too superficial. Since I was only trying to keep up with the fast pace of the technology industry and hardly saved any time for slower thinking. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo service Flickr is an almost endless source for beautiful, grungy, business, artsy or hip pictures. Since their archives contain literally billions of photos, you’ll find pictures about any given subject. So, if you’re running a non-commercial site, why would you mind buying photos at iStockphoto or risk some serious suing by violating copyrights? Just browse to flickr.com and discover the plethora of creative highlights.

Whenever I talk with bloggers about visuals in their publications, I always advice them to use Flickr. Which they all do. Moreover, as big shots like Seth Godin also preach the Flickr evangelic, the use of Flickr pictures is now widespread. Yet not everybody gets it right.

The most common mistakes are 1, using pictures that are not licensed under Creative Commons and 2, not giving the photographer credit for his or hers picture. The latter is worse, since you miss out on three things:

• When you link to the original photo page, you send your visitors on a exciting journey through the astonishing archives of Flickr. They’ll be thankful for that.
• Giving the photographer credits is good for his reputation. More people will find his work, maybe hire him, which enables him to shoot even more great photographs. Because of you, creativity and art will flourish.
• If people use your work you were kind enough to share, you would them to link to you as well. Not only is it appropriate, it’s also a gesture of appreciation.

So I decided to write a short manual to use Flickr (and for that matter, other CC licensed content) in a proper way. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine two girls on stage, rubbing each other’s asses, asking the audience to shout “fuck!”, lifting their skirts while dancing and singing a song about a night they were so drunk that performing any sexual acts was impossible. It would be one embarrassing show right? I mean, look what it did for Britney Spears. But you know what, French girls can get away with it. Only if it was just for the cute accent.

I’m talking about Nouvelle Vague, a French musical collective led by musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their famous for their covers of legendary 80’s songs like Dancing with Myself, Love Will Tear us Apart, Just Can’t Get Enough and Blue Monday. Yesterday, my girlfriend and me went to see them in de Melkweg. Tristan Thomas already warned me on Twitter: the show was going to be impressive.

And it was, but not just for the sensual performance of the ladies, also because of the musical quality and the gifted musicians. Their version of Love Will Tear us Apart reminded me of Ian Curtis‘ intensity and In a Manner of Speaking is a tear jerker. I’ve made a playlist on Mixwit for you guys, so that you can enjoy la musique incroyable as well. Read the rest of this entry »