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It’s strange sometimes how things come and go (and come back) on the internet these days. After having been tagged earlier this year by Helen and Enrique, I blogged previously 5 Things you might not know about me. Recently, I got tagged twice again, but now with 8 Random Things by Heike Scholz and Jonathan Greene, so I digged up my 5 Things again and added another 3

So, here are the rules of the new 8 Random Things tag game:

• We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And here 8 Random Things About Me:

1. I played the saxophone in the early eighties. I made it to Mr. Shiseido’s (himself) private club in Tokyo to play there for week with Elisa Waut, an at that time popular Belgian jazzy pop band. I was playing the alto-sax. BTW did you know that the saxophone is a Belgian invention from Adolphe Sax (patented in 1846)?

2. There exists a picture of me with Dennis Hopper when hosting the Brussels Film Festival in 1998 at the Cybertheatre, I was managing at that time - If ever the photographer who took that picture reads this, please send me a copy The Brussels-based “CyberTheatre” was a precursor of the now classic cyber café idea. Based in an old movie theatre, it was renovated to a three-floored space including a graphic-design workplace, a 3-D studio, video and sound producing facilities, and giant-screen displays with a trendy club and restaurant. All events happening in the CyberTheatre were tightly meshed with the Nirvanet web site (offline now), constantly providing it with fresh content. Our web team won the UNESCO award Web Prize in 1999 and many other prestigious awards. We also hosted the first online live streamed concert of The Simple Minds. Many “cyber” artists like Jaron Lanier , Stelarc, Atau Tanaka, etc. peformed at the CyberTheatre, we even had a 2.0 version back in 1997

3. Before that I managed ‘Le Beau Bruxell’, at the time the most cosmopolitan cultural centre in Brussels. I remind organising great concerts with now legendary soul artists, such as Isaac Hayes, Afrika Bambaataa, Gil Scott-Heron, Junior Walker, Rufus Thomas, and many others…

4. I fell in love with technology when I got the chance to work with a Macintosh Plus, when working at Les Disques du Crépuscule. My passion for mobile started while working in Helsinki in 1999 with Mindworks. In that period, I saw my first mobile video on a Nokia. In 2001, with RandomOne, we introduced SMS to TV in Spain. We went live on TV early 2002 in a talkshow with Jordi Gonzalez, a famous TV presentor over here. We managed to convince the popular Jordi to dialogue with live SMS messages send from the audience through a moderated screen - this dialogue became so popular and led to numerous spontaneous fun scenes and became an important part of the show that run for 2 years on CityTV before the presentor went national (again).

5. My all time artist is Miles Davis, which leads me to my favourite quote of him: “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there…”, and that’s still what I’m trying to do every day

6. I co-founded MobileMonday in Barcelona. I’m running this now with Carles Ferreiro and the help of Barcelona Media. You can check out which topics we covered and who spoke at our events the first season (including downloading presentations). Our Flickr Group here. MobileMonday has been a lot of work but very inspiring and rewarding, I met a lot of great people through this global network. A lot of exciting stuff to come next year too!

7. I quit smoking on January 6, 2004 with the help of SMS text messages. Together with Juha, Kasimir, and founders Javier Creus and doctor/writer Miguel Masgrau, I was part of the original development team that worked out the whole concept of Dr. Masgrau’s ideas to quit smoking with the help of the mobile phone. Basically, smokers could send a date they wanted to quit smoking to an SMS short number; one week before you wanted to quit, the system tracked your smoking habit -> every time the user lit a cigarette, he/she needed to send an SMS, then the system sended back a text message preparing the user to quit; when the user finally quit, the system send back a kind of positive ‘haiku’ text message supporting the user in this process; after a week the system knew your habit, thus pushed an SMS to the user at crucial moments. This went on for a week and afterwards on regular times whenever the user needed support. I was the first to test the system and simply quit After delivery, I don’t know how come the project never got out of Spain, I thought it was really great and I still believe it’s one of the better mobile projects I was involved in. Some original press release available here and a website of the current project conelmovil.com (both only available in Spanish!)

This one actually to just give a thumbs up to Darla

8. I was born in Bruges, also called the ‘Venice of the North’. One of my favourite songs, called Marieke by the Belgian Jacques Brel, describes the environment and spectacle of the nature between ‘Bruges et Gand‘, the area where I spend most of my childhood. Afterwards I lived in Ghent and Brussels - maybe next time I have to write 8 Random Things I still like about Belgium I moved to Barcelona in 2002 and enjoying it still… By the time this tagging game gets to 11 Random Things, you might just want to knock my door and get out for a drink with me to know more about me

I’d like to tag: David Harper, Ajit Jaokar, Daniel Appelquist, Mike Rowehl, Russell Beattie, Carlo Longino, Xen Mendelsohn and Judy Breck (just let me know if I’m I too ambituous here

5things, 8 random things, about me, Ajit Jaokar, carlo longino, Daniel Appelquist, darla mack, David Harper, enrique ortiz, Five things about me, Friends, Fun, heike scholz, helen keegan, Ive been tagged, jonathan greene, judy breck, Mike Rowehl, Personal, rudy de waele, Russell Beattie, xen mendelsohn

Carnival of the Mobilists Nº 65 is on at goldenswamp.com, this week hosted by Judy Breck who also writes for Smart Mobs.

Greetings from New York City — where our biggest and best Carnival is Coney Island, called “the playground of the world” since the early 1800s. The Wonder Wheel image used in this Carnival of the Mobilists is from Wired New York.

Judy is also taking care of planning the Hosts calendar. To qualify as a host you need to have entered a Carnival of the Mobilists post at least 3 times. 2007 is shaping up as a pivotal year for mobile. The Carnival of the Mobilists is a unique opportunity for you to be heard and have impact, so what are you waiting for to enter the Mobilists Hall of Fame To sign up, email Judy directly with your available dates at jbreck AT nyc DOT rr DOT com.

So if you’re in for some straightforward analysis and thought-provoking pieces, head over and read all those wonderful posts from this week, the quality is really very high lately and it covers many aspects of mobile technology of today. If you’re interested in M-learning, check out Judy’s blog, she covers a lot of interesting things around this topic.

Announcements, Carnival Of The Mobilists, carnivalofthemobilists, carnival mobilists, cotm, goldenswamp, judy breck, mlearning, mobilists

Welcome to the Carnival of the Mobilists No. 64, this is the third edition I’m hosting (read my previous host contributions nr. 3 and 33), and once again I am delighted to host another edition of this so called mobilists group - a loose network of bloggers all writing passionately but mostly lucid about mobility, contributing all in their own personal style, bringing insights, tips and discovery, but also expressing their doubts about mobile technology development and deployment. The mobilists include developers, journalists, executives, marketeers, designers, entrepreneurs, consultants working in the mobile and wireless sector and also, why not, just users reporting on something essential from a user point of view.

This weeks ‘celebration’ of the best writing on the evolution in mobility from the previous week include some of the best blog writers with contributions from Ajit Jaokar, Bill Day, C. Enrique Ortiz, Chetan Sharma, Daniel Taylor, David Beers, Dennis Bournique, Eduardo Cruz, Farooq Anjum, Graham Brown, Jason Delport, Judy Breck, Justin Oberman, Kelly Goto, Michael Mace, Mike Rowehl, Tomi Ahonen and Xen Mendelsohn. Some of them you might know, others not, it doesn’t really matter, they all have great knowledge about a certain aspect in mobility and they contribute through this initiative, to bridge, reveal and support the latest in mobile innovations, it’s a real resource centre to catch up with what’s currently happening in mobile if you ask me!

One of the things that struck me the most this week was the death of Jean Baudrillard. Justin Oberman wrote a R.I.P. Jean Baudrillard piece on him:

Baudrillard always brought some great thought provocative issues to the forefront, especially on media culture, society and technology. Isn’t this what we’re dealing with every day? So, I mourn his death by honoring this Carnival issue to the spirit of Jean Baudrillard.

Graham Brown kicks off quite unusual and audacious with some critical reflection on the evolution of social media in his A new age of Digital Maoism 2.0?

Very interesting thoughts brought forward here by Graham, an interesting discussion follows the post. If you want to go for the full blow weekend reading (and thinking!), read Jaron Lanier’s “DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism” he published last year on the Edge, The Third Culture. Don’t miss out on the responses to Lanier’s influential essay from Douglas Rushkoff, Quentin Hardy, Yochai Benkler, Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow, Kevin Kelly, Esther Dyson, Larry Sanger, Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg, Jimmy Wales, George Dyson, Dan Gillmor, Howard Rheingold, etc. Just essential reading if you’re working in the media and technology field.

Eduardo Cruz - also known as Ed Cross, is wondering about the fragilities of the internet we currently experience in our lives, related to the unprecedented movement Turkey has released this week on a court order to block all accesses to the internet video website Youtube.com.

But what about the gatekeeping of all this ubiquitous access? True Baudrillard spirit, Ed!

Judy Breck is convinced time has come now for mobile learning in her No more pencils, no print books, no more analog backward looks:

And concludes…

I was used to read a book before sleeping but my 14-year old daughters are doing a lot of different things with their mobile phone before going to sleep, hardly books to notice… if you like it or not, this is what screenagers do these days!

Justin Oberman writes about his thoughts on NGO donations like Amnesty International using PayPal Mobile or rival LUUP to donate directly to them. BTW: did you know that secure donations of up to £800 can be made now via mobile handsets?

This week in design interaction and imaging: Kelly Goto published an excellent interview with Ignacio Mondine from Daem Interactive on linking bits and atoms – basically two-dimensional images to information using your mobile device in real time. Jason Delport learns us about Image Optimisation Techniques for Java ME Development and the use of the PNG format. Bill Day is wondering if Apple’s patent team licensed any of Perceptive Pixel’s work, after seeing their impressive multi-touch screen interaction demo here at m-trends.

The most interesting discussion topic of some mobilists this week was definately the Nokia Ad Service anouncement. Ajit Jaokar named it A potentially revolutionary milestone for Mobile advertising.. causing Mike Rowehl trying to get grip on concrete details of this anouncement passing by Eduardo Cruz (again!) drawing some more insights to finally arrive at Farooq Anjum’s take on the subject. Anyone interested in this topic should follow all ongoing discussions leaving this paragraph a summary of what’s it all about

If you ask me, I’m not against advertising on the mobile, it will be more and more used as mobile becomes more web (or was it the other way around?) and devices more usable to acces web-content. One thing though for this part of the industry: keep the ads contextual, please. If they don’t make sense for the user, there’s no point. Personally, I don’t want any PUSH ad content on my mobile screen that doesn’t make sense or has any reference to my interests, what I do at a given moment in time or is related to where I am… Great move by Nokia though who understood time is crucial in positioning NOW, knowing mobile advertising has a lot of potential in the near future wether it’s on- or off portal and this creates new opportunities for new companies entering the mobile ecosystem.

Another example related to advertising comes from Xen Mendelsohn who looks at the Ringback Tones TV Commercials and the way operators are advertising these products, have a look how she integrates the operator commercials from YouTube and how media blogging tools can be used to document and report. And do check out Chetan Sharma update on the US Wireless Data Market Update - 4Q06 and 2006; I wonder where he gets all that data from, I need more time to dig deeper in the figures, but at first sight, this looks very impressive and relevant. Check it out!

Tomi Ahonen, always been a true inspiration for me, explains pretty brilliantly why he sees the Mobile as 7th Mass Media; if you’re weren’t convinced yet, head over and read this exciting post and its following discussion.

Daniel Taylor recently made the point that the retail channel for mobile services will continueto be an important component of the mobile enterprise. Read how he’s going in a slightly different direction this time explaining about liability for mobile telephone services. Interesting!

David Beers, host of Carnival 63.01 last week, has a really great post about the return of the command line interface, a replacement for the whole idea of menus, applications and forms used now to access every feature of your device:

I can’t believe the mobile user interface will be heading back in the direction of the DOS command line but looking at Mobile Search now, David comes up actually with some real good suggestions.

C. Enrique Ortiz keeps the ‘necessary’ dialogue going on in his Transitioning to Mobile 2.0 and adds some new insights to the ongoing discussion what Mobile 2.0 is all about. There has been some great thinking and insights from mobilists the last weeks/months on this topic and the discussion how to define what is currently happening is not an easy one. Let’s keep the discussion going and the dialogue open in a true philosophical spirit, if only for the benefit of progress

Probably one of the most faithful mobilists is Dennis Bournique, at Wap Review this week he’s examining Full-Web Mobile Browsers: “With more and more hits coming to PC sites from mobile full-web browsers, web designers need to start paying attention to how their sites will look in this new class of browsers.” Don’t miss his analysis and resources to help web developers optimize their sites for the small screen.

Michael Mace, one of my favorite blogroll reads, gives us some great insights titled What we’re learning from Web apps, part two: Community = shared obsession (FYI part one here). Michael opens with this paragraph below:

I thought that was a real nice one to close this Carnival. Every1’s a Winner to me this week! I hope you’ll enjoy the reading as much as I did.

Next week Judy Breck has agreed to host the next Carnival. Send your entries before Friday midnight PST to mobilists AT googlemail DOT com. For detailed instructions and archives about the Carnival of the Mobilists, please visit the mobili.st website.

We are also launching a new round of hosts for future Carnivals. Being a host normally gets you a nice boost in traffic and is a great way to showcase your blog or website to a wider audience. Drop a line to Judy - jbreck AT nyc DOT rr DOT com - and tell her when you CAN’T do one between now and summer. You must have entered the Carnival 3 times to host, but everyone is welcome - new and seasoned veterans alike. What are you waiting for?

Thanks to Andrew Berglund for the contextual mash-up images!

Ajit Jaokar, Analysis, Andrew Berglund, Bill Day, C. Enrique Ortiz, Carnival Of The Mobilists, carnivalofthemobilists, Chetan Sharma, Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow, cotm, Dan Gillmor, Daniel Taylor, david beers, Dennis Bournique, Douglas Rushkoff, Edge, Eduardo Cruz, Esther Dyson, Experience Design, Farooq Anjum, Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg, George Dyson, graham brown, howard rheingold, Ignacio Mondine, image recognition, innovation, Jaron Lanier, Jason Delport, Jean Baudrillard, Jimmy Wales, judy breck, justin oberman, kelly goto, Kevin Kelly, Larry Sanger, michael mace, Mike Rowehl, mlearning, mobile 2.0, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Apps, Mobile Content, Mobile Lifestyle, Mobile Search, mobile video, mobile web, mobilists, mtrends, Operators, Quentin Hardy, rudy de waele, social media, startups, The Third Culture, Tomi Ahonen, Trends, Ubiquitous Devices, usability, user experience, web 2.0, xen mendelsohn, Yochai Benkler

I knew it would come my way soon and here it is: the Blog Tag Game. I was already tagged by Helen at Forum Oxford, and now again by Enrique, so here are five things you might not know about me:

1. I played the saxophone in the early eighties. I made it to Mr. Shiseido’s (himself) private club in Tokyo to play there for week with Elisa Waut, a at that time popular Belgian jazzy pop band. I was playing the alto-sax. BTW did you know that the saxophone is a Belgian invention from Adolphe Sax (patented in 1846)?

2. There exists a picture of me with Dennis Hopper when hosting the Brussels Film Festival in 1998 at the Cybertheatre, I was managing at that time - If ever the photographer who took that picture reads this, please send me a copy The Brussels-based “CyberTheatre” was a precursor of the now classic cyber café idea. Based in an old movie theatre, it was renovated to a three-floored space including a graphic-design workplace, a 3-D studio, video and sound producing facilities, and giant-screen displays with a trendy club and restaurant. All events happening in the CyberTheatre were tightly meshed with the Nirvanet web site (offline now), constantly providing it with fresh content. Our web team won the UNESCO award Web Prize in 1999 and many other prestigious awards. We also hosted the first online live streamed concert of The Simple Minds. Many “cyber” artists like Jaron Lanier , Stelarc, Atau Tanaka, etc. peformed at the CyberTheatre, we even had a 2.0 version back in 1997

3. Before that I managed ‘Le Beau Bruxell’, at the time the most cosmopolitan cultural centre in Brussels. I remind organising great concerts with now legendary soul artists, such as Isaac Hayes, Afrika Bambaataa, Gil Scott-Heron, Junior Walker, Rufus Thomas, and many others…

4. I fell in love with technology when I got the chance to work with a Macintosh Plus, when working at Les Disques du Crépuscule. My passion for mobile started while working in Helsinki in 1999 with Mindworks. In that period, I saw my first mobile video on a Nokia. In 2001, with RandomOne, we introduced SMS to TV in Spain. We went live on TV early 2002 in a talkshow with Jordi Gonzalez, a famous TV presentor over here. We managed to convince the popular Jordi to dialogue with live SMS messages send from the audience through a moderated screen - this dialogue became so popular and led to numerous spontaneous fun scenes and became an important part of the show that run for 2 years on CityTV before the presentor went national (again).

5. My all time artist is Miles Davis, which leads me to my favourite quote of him: “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there…”, and that’s still what I’m trying to do every day

Oh, I also run MobileMondays in Barcelona… check out our next event, MobileMonday Global Peer Awards 2007 if you’re coming to 3GSM, it’s free!

I’d like to tag:

• Carlo Longino
• Darla Mack
• Judy Breck
  
• Justin Oberman
• Kelly Goto

5things, carlo longino, darla mack, enrique ortiz, Five things about me, Friends, Fun, helen keegan, Ive been tagged, judy breck, justin oberman, kelly goto, rudy de waele

Judy Breck did a wonderful job hosting this weeks’ edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists at Smart Mobs.

It’s great to see the Carnival of the Mobilists 38 at the weblog mother of mobile communication, pervasive computing, wireless networks and collective action.

I am pleased to receive the very first $500 “Host of the Month” award, sponsored by Khosla Ventures for my hosting of the Carnival of the Mobilist 33 here at m-trends.org in June. I am also pleased to see that the $250 “Post of the Month” award went to Stephanie Rieger with her post on “Casual mobile snacks for everyone”, my selected post of the week from the same nr. 33 edition.

If you would like to participate with a post or as a host to the Carnival, read the instructions here at the mobili.st website. I would like to thank Khosla Ventures for believing in the value of this network, especially Russell and Carlo at Mobhappy for making this all happen, and all the mobilists for their continuous support, belief and enthusiasm towards this project, a proof that collaborative writing projects work!

Announcements, carlo longino, Carnival Of The Mobilists, carnivalofthemobilists, howard rheingold, judy breck, khosla ventures, mobhappy, russell buckley, smartmobs