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Ladies and gentlemen, here’s some music for the weekend! The Rumble Strips! My weekend actually hasn’t begun yet, as I’m working on the first chapter of my ebook about blogging. Earlier today, I interviewed Edwin van Mijsbergen from ZBdigitaal about the archive function of blogs. He said some interesting things, which I’ll share with you later. For now, I wish you an excellent weekend and hope to contribute to it by presenting this indie sensation from British town Tavistock. They’ve found an almost perfect mix between ska, pop and rock, so they’ll probably spice up your weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes that’s right, I’m working on an ebook and a conference about blogging. Both will be in Dutch, as I think the English speaking people have enough resources on their hand. Most Dutch people also speak English, yet I feel a local approach is the right way to go. There are major differences between the US and Dutch blogosphere, only the differences in size would be enough reason to go Dutch. Most of the ebook and conference coverage will be in Dutch, yet I’ll write some English articles about it as well. You never know, it might inspire a German or a French blogger to do the same thing in his country.

So yesterday I left a comment on a Marketingfacts article about the most important Dutch blog sites. I mentioned About:Blank and the blogging category of Marketingfacts, but also said I was working on an ebook and conference. It stirred quite a reaction, as I’ve received some emails and Twitter messages from people who wanted to know more. Ton Zijp from About:Blank even blogged about it. I figured I might as well share some info on this blog, so here we go.

The Conference: BLOG08

Let’s face it, blogs are booming. Although some people from the new media industry say the trend is over, Edial Dekker and me certainly disagree. Blogging in Holland has not reached its tipping point yet, as the masses still have to embrace it. If everyone blogged about his passion, craftsmanship or specific knowledge in a blog collective, this would create a wealth of information and creativity. Moreover, people with similar interests can find each other and start a lively community. Several Dutchmen have already discovered this, especially the marketers, but when is your gardener starting a blog about growing the perfect flowers?

So let’s give the art of blogging some more attention and start a little hype. On BLOG08 we ask Holland’s top bloggers to share their best practices and visions. So experienced bloggers and people who are interested in blogging both find the relevant info they need. But it’s not just the speakers worth coming for, as we’ll organize a blog market where group blogs can scout new blog talent. Edial and me will also invite blogging artists, dj’s, and vj’s to show off their skills. In Pakhuis de Zwijger on October 24th, we want to show you that blogging can be an enrichment of both your private as your business life.

The ebook about blogging

To give the potential attendees of BLOG08 some background about blogging, I’m currently writing an ebook about blogging, based on my experiences with Spotlight Effect and The Next Web. In six chapters, I’ll explain why blogging can be useful for you:

• Evaluate your work
• Develop a vision
• Your (online) reputation
• Stay up to date
• Meet like-minded people
• Personal Archive

For every chapter I’ll also interview a blogger whose work I highly appreciate. As soon as I’ve completed a chapter, I’ll post an excerpt on this blog and ask for your comments. After these discussions, I’ll rewrite the chapter so it represents the opinion of more bloggers than just me. Some bloggers I’ll be interviewing for this book are Carlos from Sargasso, Edwin van Mijsbergen from ZB Digitaal, and Marco Derksen from Marketingfacts. I’m not sure yet who the other two bloggers will be, so please contact me if you have any suggestions. (Update: I’m glad to tell you that Erwin Blom from The Crowds has also accepted my interview request.)

What are your thoughts on these plans?

Edial and me are excited to hear what your thoughts on these plans are. Please share them in the comments, so we can you use them to organize one rocking blog conference.

Yesterday Edial Dekker and me had a couple of beers in Amsterdam’s most interesting cafe, De Engelbewaarder (The Angelkeeper). We were discussing our upcoming blog conference BLOG08 and tried to think of original ways to promote the whole thing. In order to get a good brainstorm vibe going on, I made two groups of four coasters and asked Edial to write up four PR ideas. I did the same thing. After that, we presented the ideas one by one and perfected or rejected them. It was incredibly effective, so I thought I might as well share it with you. If you have any brainstorm ideas, even if they’re just a twist on an existing on - like mine - you’re very welcome to share them in the comments.

Although I don’t know one word of Japanese, I did get an article published in the April 9th Edition of Fuji Sankei Business-i newspaper, which is being circulated to 200,000 readers a day nationwide. This is how it happened.

At the end of last March, I received an email from Masaru Ikeda. He’s running a system integration company in Tokyo and writes a weekly column about Internet innovations for the Sankei Newspaper. Masaru mailed me that he’d love to come to the Next Web Conference - which my partners from The Next Web Blog organized - but he had to stay in Tokyo for “business reasons”. Therefore, he asked me to write a column that he would translate in Japanese. And so it happened. It wrote the story, Masaru translated it, and he was so kind to sent me some copies.

But that’s not the end of it. Our overseas journalistic adventure ended with a grand finale in San Fransisco last week, where we met during Web 2.0 Expo. At moments like these, I take every word from McLuhan’s Global Village for granted.

As promised, I sometimes just cover random blogging thoughts here. Like things I stumble on when working, reading, or - most of the times - when relaxing. So today I realized that the most self-destructing thing you can do as a blogger is writing when don’t feel like it. Here’s why.

Let’s start with one hell of a cliché: blogging is about passion. Sorry, you may have heard that a hundred times now, yet - as always with clichés - it IS true. You might blog for the money as well, but it doesn’t lead anywhere if that’s the only reason. Blogging takes too much effort to make it a logical way of earning money.

So you blog because you love it. Yet after a while, especially when your blog becomes popular, you might start to feel some pressure as well. Readers want updates, you don’t want your number of RSS readers to decline, and you might let down your co-editors. Well.., screw that.

Why? Take a moment and think about the baddest posts you’ve ever written. Got some? Alright.., now go back to the moments you were writing those low-quality posts. Back then, you were probably blogging to fill up space or meet an (imaginary) deadline. Right?

My advice would be to just walk away from the screen when you don’t feel like blogging. Otherwise you’ll become frustrated every time you feel obliged to blog. So long for the passion! Just take my advice, read a book, have a beer with friends, take a walk with your lover, listen to your favorite band and come back to that screen when you’re inspired.

Oh and when you’re inspired, write more than you need to. So by the time you have to fill up some space, you always have a secret stack.

1939481920Every summer has it’s soundtrack. Last year I listened to Room Eleven while enjoying the parks of Amsterdam, the summer before that, the Beach Boys and the Arctic Monkeys (always a good combination) entertained me during a surf vacation with Peter Evers and in 2005 Gabriel Rios sparked up my trip to Italy. This summer I’ll stroll the Italian beaches while listening to Devendra Banhart.

Devendra Banhart was born May 30, 1981, in Houston, Texas, U.S. but was raised in Caracas, Venezuela from 2 to 13 years old. He is a folk rock singer-songwriter and musician. Banhart’s music has been classified as indie folk, psych folk, Naturalismo, and New Weird America; his lyrics are often surreal and naturalistic. (wiki)

I love the mysterious and somehow optimistic songs of this long-haired guy and so it was a true pleasure to create a playlist for you. Without a doubt, it will give those evenings on your balcony or veranda another dimension. Read the rest of this entry »

The LSD discoverer, Swiss professor Albert Hoffman, has died at the honorable age of 102. From 1938 he had been developing lysergic acid diethylamide - also known as lsd-25, acid, blotter acid, window pane, dots, tickets and mellow yellow - in his lab. During the fifties, outlaws like Timothy Leary picked it up and promoted it to a hugely popular drug in the infamous Sixties.

So why do I report about this? Because I witnessed the victims of this drug myself last week in San Francisco? Because I love to romanticize stuff, including drugs? Not really. I write this post because I think Internet is the new LSD. It’s a theory I came up with when I visited the exhibition Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era in The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York last June. Read “My inspiration: Internet is the new LSD” for an explanation, which you probably eager to hear by this point ;-).

Hoffman’s death inspires hundreds of writers to cover the history of LSD again. I think especially John Walsh from the Independent has done a great job with his artice “Trip of a lifetime: How LSD rocked the world - Features, Music - The Independent”.

Now before you think I’m some tripping-on-acid blogger, let me conclude with a quote from Hunter S Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create…a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody-or at least some force-is tending the Light at the end of the tunnel.