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Weekend Media Festival 2009 Presentation

The video of my presentation at the Weekend Media Festival in Croatia is now online. This was my last official Google event (literally) as I gave notice the day before. It was therefore a bittersweet event.

Weekend 2009. - EVOLUCIJA DIGITALNOG from WeekendMediaFestival on Vimeo.

Ian Goldin at TED - The decade ahead

A seven minute video that quickly, succinctly (and perhaps scarily) outlines the biggest challenges of the next decade.



Technology will drive development around Miniturization and Nanotech to regenerative medicine. Population growth and longer living populations will change social dynamics. "Systemic risks" of interwoven, complex systems (financial, weather, biological) will make managing that risk "the currency of the next decade."

@ev on the BBC

Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, interviewed by the BBC. He states that London is the top worldwide twittering city... And BTW for all you fans, Demi Moore's Twitter account is mrskutcher

15 seconds of fame... in Slovenia

My 15 seconds of fame on TV... Slovenian TV. Video starts around 21:30. This was from the Seedcamp in Lubjiana.

Facebook Investment from DST: A new Potsdam?

[Update 2: So it's true, Facebook has just formally announced that DST will invest $200M on a $10B valuation and make available up to $100M to buy employee options. No mention of any side deals around Vkontakte]

Over the weekend, the WSJ reported that Digital Sky Techologies would invest up to $200 million on a $10 Billion valuation plus the rumored $150 million to buy out internal shareholders at a $6.5 Billion valuation.

I will put aside the valuations or the benefits of insiders cashing out part of their options and focus instead on what I think are some social network geo-politics at play.

DST has an impressive portfolio of Russian internet properties including Mail.ru and, more importantly VKontakte, the leading social network in Russia. Valleywag had called VKontakte a Facebook clone and yet if you look at a map of the global social network world, a whole swath of it is covered in the light blue of Vkontakte.ru.

A post last March on Window on the Media had argued that russian users were switching to Facebook at a greater rate and that if it continued, Facebook would surpass VKontakte by November, 2009.

So this is where my Potsdam theory comes in [Using the WWII conference at Potsdam - where the allies defined "Spheres of Influence" and the post-war world - as an analogy]. I have to wonder whether, in an effort to both defend, and perhaps even exit their investment in Vkontakte.ru, DST has not done some sort of deal through which the investment in Facebook also comes with some provisions around defending Vkontakte's control in Russia.

This could come in the form of a commercial agreement or a JV between Facebook and DST properties in Russia. With the Russian President formally calling the Internet space a "strategic" area and warning against foreign investments, one might wonder whether Facebook just saved itself a battle, gained market share and won itself some cash for both itself and its employees.

Looking forward to further details of the DST-Facebook deal. Keep an eye out for any announcements of a Facebook-VKontakte deal in parallel...

[Update: It seems TechCrunch posted a similar theory last night also specifying DST's requirement for a Board seat along with the investment]

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Tesla test drive

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The Tesla Roadster...

• 0 to 60 in under 4 seconds
• Max speed of 125mph
• 220 mile range on a charge

AND a beauty to behold.

Test Driving the Tesla Roadster from America.Gov on Vimeo.

Now the question is whether I would willingly fork over $100k for a 2-seater or wait a few months, pray for the Obama stimulus package subsidy and go for the family-friendly 4-door, 7-seater Tesla Model S instead with an expected base price of $50k.

0-60 in 5.6 seconds...is 1.6 seconds worth 50k???

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Using Google Lattitude to Catch a Thief

Interesting news report of a woman who used Google Latitude to track down the thief of her phone. Smart user, smart technology:

Video is here

(sorry for the link... the CBS affiliate won't allow embedding)

New role, new markets

Some big news on the job front:

I wanted to share with you that as of April 1st I have transitioned from Google’s Strategic Partnerships group into a new role leading Google’s expansion across EMEA as our Head of New Markets.

I am very excited about the entrepreneurial nature of building out Google’s presence from scratch in over a dozen countries (or as “from scratch” as a $20B company allows), of leading a diverse and distributed team of country managers and account executives, and of the amazing upside in terms of revenue but also in terms of adoption of Google services and properties. This, combined with the ability to travel and do business across various emerging markets, made this an opportunity very attractive.

For the past 11 years I have had a job in which the primary focus has been the development, marketing or sales of mobile and wireless technology. I have seen the space mature from the days of WAP 1.1 to pure HTML 5, Blackberry going from a two way pager to the addictive e-mail business fixture it has become, Microsoft CE evolving into Windows Mobile, Palm being bought by USRobotics which became 3COM which became Palm, which became PalmONE, which became Palm and Apple finally getting rid of the Newton skeleton with the resounding success of the iPhone. As many of you can attest, I am passionate about mobile and, for the past 10 years, have been claiming that “this” was the year of mobile.

I do believe that 2008 was a transformational year in mobile as the iPhone, Android and mobile advertising all came of age. While this new role expands my scope across all of Google’s products, it will still allows me to continue evangelising mobile as wireless becomes a primary access point to Google across emerging markets.

As I return from my first trip to Croatia in my new capacity, I am amazed about the opportunity that lies ahead in these markets where users actively choose Google search, Maps and Youtube as their preferred properties, but where advertisers have yet to embrace digital marketing as a significant tool to reach the consumer.

Planned trips to Ukraine, Slovenia, Romania, Turkey and Bulgaria are already in the works.

Kennet puts €6.5 million into GoViral's branded video network

Go Viral, a social video network that happens to hire very, very smart people (including my friend Rene) has received funding from Kennet.

This is a very interesting space... a bit like SEO for the beginning of search, handholding advertisers and linking them up with the networks...for a fee. As the Brits say, "watch this space."

Kennet puts €6.5 million into GoViral’s branded video network

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