Takeaway Festival: DIY Media Next Week

Takeaway Festival: DIY Media Next WeekNext week is the second annual Takeaway Festival at the Dana Centre at the Science Museum in London.

The event organisers at the Science Museum have a natty skill of organising some great events, so we’re hoping this one will be up to their normally high standards.

It’s a three day event (9-11 May) which sounds like it could just about start a revolution. They’ll “explore how emerging technologies are transforming creative possibilities, social structures and communication networks.”

By the structure of it doesn’t sound like it will give you a chance to get bored – even if you wanted to.
Continue reading Takeaway Festival: DIY Media Next Week

Google Developer Day Announced

All of you budding code-aholics take note, Google is hosting ten Google Developer Days in their various offices around the world on 31 May.

They’re going to have workshops, keynotes and breakout discussions on Google’s APIs and developer tools.

Google have been running a few of these already with much smaller capacity. A few have happened in Silicon Valley and a couple in London that we’re aware of, but this is on a much bigger scale.

Google Developer Day AnnouncedThe program is being headed up by code-fan pin-up girl Marissa Mayer, who’s Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. She was one of the first 20 people to join Google (just imagine her stock options!) and the first female engineer hired by them.

They’re rolling out some of their top talent to get the code-kids hot under the collar. Get ready for this …

Guido Van Rossum, Google software engineer and creator of the Python programming language (Beijing); Chris DiBona, Google open source programs manager (London); Mark Stahl, Google data APIs tech lead (Madrid); Bruce Johnson and Joel Webber, co-creators of the Google Web Toolkit (Mountain View); Bret Taylor, group product manager for Google developer products (Mountain View); Lars Rasmussen, Google Maps senior engineer (Sydney); and Greg Stein, Google engineering manager and chairman of the Apache Software Foundation (Tokyo).

The subjects they’ll be covering also sound pretty enticing. Here’s a cross section, “Developing with Geo: Google Maps, Google Earth and SketchUp,” “Tools for Better Web Development: The Google Web Toolkit, Open Source and Other Developer Initiatives” and “Mashups and More: AJAX, Google Gadgets and the Google Data APIs.”

What does Google get out of this?
Google’s going to be lashing all of their cash, time and resources on this, so what’s driving them?

Google Developer Day AnnouncedWell, people become more familiar with how to write programs to use their applications via the published API’s, which means the potential for extra advertising income for Google.

That’s all well a good but more importantly, Google get to spot the hottest programming talent around the world and can in turn try to persuade that talent to join the Google gang. Meaning Google ends up with the best programmers, not their competition.

Smart, eh?

Locations

  • Mountain View, California
  • São Paulo, Brasil
  • London, United Kingdom
  • Paris, France
  • Madrid, España
  • Hamburg, Deutschland
  • Москва, Россия (That’s Russia to you)
  • Tokyo – Japan
  • Sydney, Australia
  • Beijing,China

Those who can’t make it don’t need to be left out, Google will offer live streaming webcasts from its Mountain View office and provide a YouTube™ channel with videos of Google Developer Day sessions around the world.

Google Developer Day

Kendra Initiative Cross-Media Summit for Content Discovery

The Kendra Initiative is hosting a Cross-Media Summit about Content Delivery next week, on Friday 9th March in London.

The full day event, running at the Frontline Club, is billed as “The Strategy, Technology and Business Case for Content Description, Visibility, Search and Discovery.”

The event is aiming to tackle one of Digital-Lifestyles hobby horses – In a sea of infinite content, how do you, as a willing content consumer, locate the content you want to use? As Peter Buckingham, Head Of Distribution and Exhibition, UK Film Council puts it, “The biggest threat is obscurity.”

The approach of this free-to-attend event is from the content owners perspective, looking at what is the weakness of current metadata standards; if they can be adapted to work better; if not, what is the appetite for more metadata standards for cross-media description?

Metadata standard are all very well, but often live within a bubble of non-implementation. The need for metadata-creation tools and how to persuade the industry to use them will also be covered.

We spoke to Daniel Harris (mug shot above), founder of Kendra, “It’s all about making things work, making the open marketplace work together. We’re really pleased to see how many people are coming along to it, creating a universal meta data.”

“As with all industries that involve connecting people, some people [involved in this] gain from there being a problem, but people are seeing that they can work outside their industry sector. This is a cross-industry problem that we’re trying to solve.”

So far around fifty people have signed up including representatives from important players such as Patrick Attallah, CEO, ISAN (International Standard Audiovisual Number); Keith Hill, Head of R&D, MCPS-PRS Alliance; Mark Stuart, Principal Engineer, Pioneer Digital Design; Iain McNay, Board Member, AIM (Association of Independent Music) and Chairman, Cherry Red Records; Rich Lappenbusch, Director, Microsoft Entertainment and Board Member, DDEX (Digital Data Exchange).

Being tech driven, those not able to physically attend will be able to hook in via Instant messaging and Skype.

The event will be free and sponsored by Makeni.

Kendra Initiative Cross-Media Summit for Content Discovery

Zoran COACH 9: DivX Record Coming To Digital Cameras: CES 2007

Everyone and their uncle are making digital cameras these days and companies like Zoran help them to do that by providing the chips for capture and processing.

Zoran COACH 9: DivX Record Coming To Digital Cameras: CES 2007

The news from the floor at CES is that the COACH 9 will now support the popular DivX video format, giving the benefit of video compatibility with the tens of millions of DivX Certified DVD players.

Zoran’s COACH 9 is already capable of capture images at up to 16mpx for still images and capturing and playing back WMV MPEG-4 video of VGA resolution at 30 frames/sec including audio and 20 frames/sec at SVGA resolution.

When it first arrived, DivX was used by many to encode copied videos, including a considerable amount to p0rn. They’ve worked hard to shift that image and this support is a boost for DivX furthering its aim to become a global standard for video encoding.

DivX certification

Samsung Set Free A Septet Of Snappers: CES 2007

Samsung Set Free A Septet Of SnappersSamsung have gone new-camera bonkers, unleashing a veritable pack of seven new snappers, all set to be hitting the shelves this Spring.

Ranging from 6 megapixel budget specials up to 10 megapixel style statements, the new collection underlines Samsung’s ambition to become a big bangin’ and crashin’ noise in the digital camera market.

They’re looking to tempt punters with keen prices too, with all of the announced cameras selling for less than $350.

Top of the range S1050
Sitting right at the top of the price range, the $350 10-megapixel S1050 comes with a beefy 5x optical zoom lens, a sizeable 3″ LCD screen, a top shutter speed of 1/2000s and a high ISO rating of 1600 for low light photos.

Samsung Set Free A Septet Of SnappersRather a sleek and seductive number in an all black finish with a saucy blue trim, the S1050 delivers impressive video functionality, managing to record movies up to 800 x 600 at a baby’s-bum-smooth 30fps.

The near-identical looking $249.99 S850 also packs a similar spec sheet but with a smaller 2.5″ LCD screen and a smaller 8-megapixel sensor.

Sporting Samsung’s groovy Smart Touch interface, the pocketable L73 ($249.99.) offers 7 megapixels, 3x optical zoom lens, a 2.5″ LCD screen, 1/2000 secs top shutter speed and high ISO 1600 rating.

Samsung Set Free A Septet Of SnappersFirst seen in last year’s NV series, the Smart Touch widget lets users twiddle about with settings and camera controls via two sets of pressure-sensitive buttons. We’ve not tried it yet, but in a world of identical cameras, we like it when companies try something a little different.

Not shaking all over
All of the cameras come with the fab-sounding Samsung’s ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) system, which sounds like it’ll cancel out major earthquakes, but in fact just boosts the ISO (and therefore the noise) rather than offering a proper stabilisation system. Which is a bit rubbish, if you ask us.

Shuffling down to the cheaper end of Samsung’s offerings is a trio of snappers, the 7-megapixel L700 ($249.99), the 7-megapixel S730 ($199.99) and the 6-megapixel S630 ($179.99), all featuring 3x optical zooms and 2.5-inch LCD screens.

Samsung Set Free A Septet Of SnappersMaking up the septet of new snappers is the curious-looking i70, a multimedia-packed little fella with a sliding cover offering a
7.2 megapixel sensor, 3x zoom and a large 3.0″ LCD.

Doubling up as a Portable Media Player/MP3 player, the i70 is fitted with with Samsung’s Intelligent Face Recognition Technology (we could use that on weekends after we’ve had a few). Pricing is still to be announced..

Wisdom
The entire range will feature Samsung’s new “Wise Shot” feature, which doesn’t call up a clever owl for advice before each shot, but knocks out two pictures consecutively.

The first photo is taken with the flash doing its thing, while the camera turns off the flash for the second shot and sends ISO soaring skywards to minimise blur from camera shake.

Samsung UK

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet Announced

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet AnnouncedNokia has announced an update to their 770 Nseries widget in the shape of the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, which comes decked out in a natty industrial chrome look.

Sporting a high resolution display, Nokia say that the tablet has been “optimised for enjoying the familiar Web experience anytime, anywhere,” and comes with support for internet calling, instant messaging and email.

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet AnnouncedNaturally, the thing’s stuffed full of multimedia gadgetry with stereo audio, media support and the ability to enjoy streamed content as you amble around your Tower Hamlets bedsit Hollywood-like mansion.

Boasting faster performance than its predecessor, the N800 comes with a full screen finger QWERTY keyboard (but not a proper pull-out hardware keyboard), easier connectivity via Wi-Fi or a Bluetooth phone, an integrated web camera packed up into a sleek new streamlined design.

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet AnnouncedSoftware wise, Nokia are claiming “Internet enhanced navigation” with Navicore, support for RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service and a deal with Skype to let users make Internet calls from Nokia N800s. They added VoIP support to the 770 back in May last year. It was GTalk at the time.

“As the Internet becomes an ever more integral part of daily life, Nokia
N800 has been designed to offer quick and convenient access to your favourite Internet services regardless of location,” insisted Ari Virtanen, Vice President, Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia.

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet Announced“The Nokia N800 takes our offering to the next level combining speed, performance and mobility into a stylish, compact design,” he added, nearly running out of superlatives.

The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet runs on Nokia’s desktop Linux based Operating System and should be available immediately in the US and Europe for around 399 EUR/USD (around 250 quid).

Nokia N800

Digital Hollywood Europe:Next Generation P2P: Synopsis: (pt 3/3)

Synopsis: Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe (Pt Three)Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) concludes his synopsis of the Next Generation P2P sessions at the recent Digital Hollywood Europe conference held in London’s docklands.
Guido Ciburski (pictured right) announced that CyberSky-TV’s streaming video P2P software was declared legal in Germany two months ago, after protracted court proceedings, and that now the questions are how to put it to best commercial use and how to advertise it so that it stays that way. He said the attractiveness of the software is its higher quality online video experience, which takes advantage of higher upload speeds available to broadband users. The US Supreme court decision has been misinterpreted by many, but in the final analysis has not changed much in terms of consumer behavior. P2P usage has continued its steady expansion, notwithstanding market share shifts among applications, basically regardless of related cases and settlements.

Major record labels and movie studios need to take time at this point in their migration to a digital distribution marketplace to listen more to consumers. There has been too little feedback from users factored into digital distribution strategies. There needs to be more interaction with the community of P2P users, and an effort to maximize the satisfaction of consumers with new business models. Going forward, the increase in broadband penetration will drive more growth of P2P, and local storage capabilities and content consumption patterns will change as a function of more speed and capacity.

Dr. Nimrod Koslowski articulated a new vision by stating that content being redistributed via P2P networks can be both controlled and accelerated. Oversi’s patent-pending caching system enables ISPs to monetize P2P and deal with network imbalances arising from the widespread adoption of P2P. It should indeed be experimentation time in this channel. Major content companies can participate at very little risk by putting some of their deeply archived, least monetized, long-tail content into P2P trials. Let material that is not the highest value content travel freely and find new ways to monetize it. There are many new interactive advertising and value-adding layers and payment mechanisms. Experiment and then scale what works.

The Grokster decision should be a clear green light that P2P is legal; inducement to infringe copyright is not. Going after end-users for enforcement purposes is a failed proposition, however. Encouraging content to be redistributed with new forms of monetization will be the winner. We need to get away from proprietary formats and embrace P2P in intuitive ways and couple it with operating systems. The industry needs to relate to the way content actually is being redistributed in terms of developmental priorities and not fight it. Don’t block applications. P2P will become much more integrated into the online environment in the future; not just files, but also acceptable levels of security integrated into our digital-social fabric.

Bruce Benson concluded with his observation that the entertainment industry is indeed evolving to digital distribution – and that such iconoclastic developments as music companies learning to market MP3s rather than DRM’d content may be coming, as well as movie companies adopting new approaches to market their entire libraries online despite legacy sequential-distribution windows. What’s working in P2P is free content. What’s not working is paid content. We need to take a lesson from the video/DVD market, which learned that it could more than makeup with high volume lower-unit-cost transactions (rentals) what it lost from relying exclusively on sales.

Synopsis: Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe (Pt Three)FTI Consulting believes it could generate sixty cents per view in ad-supported P2P movies for example. There is the opportunity to put whole libraries to work in this channel. The problems are rights complications, executive bandwidth, etc. – business issues rather than technology issues. Copyright laws are outdated and the US Congress writing tuck ‘n fixes for what has become too complex is no longer going to be effective – copyright laws can’t deal with mash-ups for instance. Rights holders should digitize everything and clear the rights to be able to monetize their works as new P2P models become clarified. We will see the completion of a cable by-pass online, and content elasticity will continue to expand as YouTube has so aptly demonstrated.

Audience questions ranged from how to get tech savvy kids to pay for content to how to convince ISPs that P2P can provide desired quality of service (QoS) levels. Answers confirmed that people will pay for convenience, value, and reliability; and enhanced hybrid P2P systems can do this better than alternatives.

All affected parties need to participate actively in developing a new commerce engine, which is different from just putting up toll-booths. It’s time for more resources to be directed towards creators and innovators. This is a uniquely open environment with the lowest barrier to entry of any channel and enormous possibilities. Share wisely, and take care.

Part one of the coverage – Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe.
Part two of the coverage – Next Generation P2P – Digital Hollywood Europe.

Reproduced with permission of the DCIA. For more information, plan to attend the day-long P2P MEDIA SUMMIT NY on February 6, 2007.

Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe: Synopsis (pt 2/3)

Synopsis: Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe (Pt Two)Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) gives us a synopsis of the Next Generation P2P sessions at the recent Digital Hollywood Europe conference held in London’s docklands.

Ingjerd Jevnaker (pictured right) distinguished the use of P2P for live streaming as separate from file sharing. P2P essentially means interconnecting users computer-to-computer on the same level, and this can be to share bandwidth as well as content. There should be no contradiction between P2P and protecting content. Because of legacy issues tainting P2P’s image, however, some successful P2P applications don’t advertise that they use P2P – and users don’t care. Meanwhile, other P2P networks have increased their popularity with almost a revolutionary appeal to consumers by emphasizing P2P. The biggest emerging failures are digital services that use DRM in too draconian a manner. Flexibility is needed.

P2P companies now are either going open source and in some ways underground and non-commercial, or working to get consumers to sign onto licensed models. We need to encourage the technology sector to support and advance legitimate uses of P2P on multiple networks; and we need to encourage the entertainment sector to think about alternative business models, such as adopting RawFlow streaming and integrating ad-supported commercial content with user-generated content (UGC). In the coming future, there will be no more TVs – PCs will become the video appliance.

Les Ottolenghi explained how P2P is a superior delivery method for rich media content, with INTENT MediaWorks now delivering 370,000 licensed files per day up from 10K/day a year ago and participating in such groundbreaking efforts as the recent Coca-Cola sponsored Jay-Z P2P-exclusive promotion. INTENT uses DRM to track content, converting the open P2P universe into an ecosystem for legitimate business, which is emerging as primarily ad-supported. Licensed content is provided free, giving instant gratification to end-users, with the result that 84% of discovered files are retained. Unified file-discovery across all P2P and social networks has also emerged as an important attribute for success; hence INTENT has just launched its DelveDown service to provide that functionality.

Fostering the community nature of the channel is also very important, and P2P is uniquely configured for social networking. Post-Grokster, major entertainment companies are showing more interest in working with INTENT and, globally, copyright court cases have reduced the reluctance of majors to move forward and embrace P2P. It is critical not to let telecom firms dictate what happens regarding further innovation by eliminating net neutrality. We also need to work to make files smarter – so that content packages themselves have intelligence – plus continue to improve interoperability and attract higher quality content to be licensed for P2P.

Synopsis: Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe (Pt Two)Daniel Harris (pictured right) provided Kendra’s perspective on P2P from its alliance of content owners and software makers. Daniel’s vision is that any application on any device should be able to browse any catalog, and there should be universal interoperability. Record labels have had different ways of managing their catalogs, historically; now we need to show them that with P2P it is possible to aggregate databases and achieve across-the-board content monetization. P2P can bring benefits of non-centralized search and publishing to all sorts of content databases.

P2P can be used for information transfer – not just file transfer. Standardization will help make this a commercially viable consumer medium. It is increasingly futile to pursue legal strategies when open standards are proliferating. Huge advancements could be made in commercial development by simply bolting payment systems onto traditional P2Ps and letting developers earn money by working to make this happen. It is time to embrace, support, and extend P2P with open standards to build a market that has enormous potential. Let’s empower developers to make this succeed with the reality of more open standards.

Trevor Albery cited Warner Bros.’ recent development of new business initiatives in the P2P sphere, while also continuing a strong focus on anti-piracy activities. Examples include licensing BitTorrent and the joint venture announced earlier this year with DCIA Member arvato mobile using its GNAB platform for the In2Movies service in Germany. So far, these approaches have involved offering filmed content in traditional business models, but with a P2P delivery aspect. It is still the very early days for the P2P distribution channel, and now is the time for experimentation in what is a nascent industry in order to learn what will work best.

There should be no apologies for the Grokster case, which was about profiting from inducement to infringe copyright, not about P2P technology. Today’s challenge is to build good services that will excite consumers and compete with unlicensed online content. There may well be more litigation, as the channel continues its legitimization. We need to bring all stakeholders together to make DRM work better so that P2P can safely monetize content. P2P will find its place among distribution channels, while DVDs will continue and other electronic distribution will as well.

Anthony Rose outlined Altnet’s experience from 2001, when, in retrospect, its approach was ahead of its time. Altnet pioneered DRM-protected content distribution through open P2Ps, but major entertainment content rights holders initially resisted. Now that legal settlements are complete, however, Altnet is finally obtaining licenses. Its newest offering, the Global File Registry (GFR), connects people who own content with people who use content. Five years ago, there was much innovation in the P2P space, but then Web 2.0 became more innovative as P2Ps faced litigation. Now we are at a stage where the transport layer for P2P works quite well, but how people use it is still not working as a business. We need renewed innovation here – for example, with better indexing technologies – so that users will not be polarized.

Of concern is the fact that dispute settlements have bi-furcated the development community into those who want licensed distribution and those who are trying to anonymize usage. What should be obvious is that value will be generated by large-volume licensed-content distribution. Social wrapping in P2P is also an area of high potential. Consumers are more empowered than ever and, therefore, trying to dictate their behavior harshly will fail and drive them to the waiting darknets. The desire for control must be tempered; the winning play will be one based on equilibrium. The future will bring an increase in hybrid systems with a mix of centralized and distributed servers.

Part one of the coverage – Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe.
Part three of the coverage – Next Generation P2P – Digital Hollywood Europe.

Reproduced with permission of the DCIA. For more information, plan to attend the day-long P2P MEDIA SUMMIT NY on February 6, 2007.

Synopsis: Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe (pt 1/3)

Photo of CEO Marty LaffertyMarty Lafferty, (pictured right) CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) gives us a synopsis of the Next Generation P2P sessions at the recent Digital Hollywood Europe conference held in London’s docklands.

The Next Generation P2P sessions spread over the morning and afternoon with speakers including CacheLogic CTO Andrew Parker; Digital Containers CEO Chip Venters; Friend Media Technology Systems (FMTS) CTO Jonathan Friend; RawFlow Marketing Manager Ingjerd Jevnaker; INTENT MediaWorks CEO & Co-Founder Les Ottolenghi; Kendra Initiative Founder Daniel Harris; Warner Bros. VP of EMEA Anti-Piracy Operations Trevor Albery; Altnet CTO Anthony Rose; CyberSky-TV CEO Guido Ciburski; Oversi VP of Strategy and Legal Affairs Dr. Nimrod Koslowski; and FTI Consulting Senior Managing Director Bruce Benson.

Andrew Parker (pictured right) opened by noting that P2P first moved to the forefront of digital media distribution in 1999. It has since become the single most dominant Internet protocol now representing 65%-to-75% of all online traffic globally. Remarkably, each time that adverse pressure has been applied to slow its growth, the technology has moved forward to wider adoption. Now, economic incentives are driving content owners to explore the benefits of embracing P2P, which holds the potential to provide a near broadcast environment online.

Synopsis: Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood EuropeThere are still many technical challenges to overcome to achieve the full potential of P2P as an entertainment distribution channel, however, and CacheLogic is working in this arena with several critical offerings. It is important at this juncture to avoid a pendulum effect from swinging too far in the direction of extreme control with overly restrictive DRM implementations.

Chip Venters (pictured left) postulated that P2P is the ideal protocol for super-distribution based on the exploitation of payment systems traveling with content files – digital containers that persistently send information back to content providers – for example, when a file has moved or copies have been made. P2P today represents a market of 200 million consumers, but with not much yet available for sale to them.

Synopsis: Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood EuropeP2P has gained considerable credibility since the establishment of the MGM v. Grokster inducement doctrine, and leading content owners are no longer focused on bullet-proof encryption as a pre-requisite for exploring P2P, but rather on how to make money. The current DRM mantra has become “keep honest people honest.” We need to move beyond proprietary and walled-garden approaches in digital distribution; content must be able to be readily redistributed usably. With the coming of IPV6 and virtually unlimited IP addresses, Digital Containers’ harnessing of P2P will have even greater applicability and value.

Jonathan Friend expressed the view that there needs to continue to be a strong anti-piracy focus to fully develop the commercial potential of P2P. The fact is that the majority of P2P content continues to be copyright-infringing, despite court rulings and enforcement efforts. User education has also been deficient, with some 60% of P2P users not even aware of the legitimate uses of P2P. Disturbingly, too, is that recent dispute settlements have propelled an accelerated migration to open-source client development, which along with commercially beneficial attributes, has also brought a greater emphasis on techniques to guarantee user privacy, exacerbating the challenges faced by interdiction and other enforcement initiatives.

What is needed now is to combine FMTS’ more advanced anti-piracy efforts with other activities, such as marketing campaigns and educational programs. The inevitable movement to open standards must be guided towards positive aspects such as interoperability, and the industry will find additional business uses of P2P as the growth of decentralized networks continues to expand.

Part two of the coverage – Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe.
Part three of this coverage – Next Generation P2P – Digital Hollywood Europe.

Reproduced with permission of the DCIA. For more information, plan to attend the day-long P2P MEDIA SUMMIT NY on February 6, 2007.

PICNIC06 Review: A Very Biased Report (Pt 2/2)

Following on from Daniel’s opening piece on Picnic06 on Monday, we conclude today.

PICNIC06 Review: A Very Biased ReportI was really looking forward to John Thackara’s talk entitled “Global issues demand creative leadership” but it was skipped and he went pretty much straight into chairing the “The creative business leaders debate”. He did mention that he’s usually the one to ask “why” are we doing all this [technology innovation], asking what will it be used for and is that so good anyway? But then he ignored those questions completely and followed a more boring corporate line.

Overall, there did seem to be a lack of social comment. There was much more focus on ‘business needs to get investment and customers’ rather than benefits to society – call me old fashioned but we need to ask more ‘why’ and ‘what for’ questions.

Yet again there seemed to be an inverse relationship between the size of the company and the content of the presentation. MTV, Google, World Directories failed to inspire beyond a little spark here or there. Too much reliance on videos within a presentation didn’t help. And, of course, they can’t tell us anything new as they’d blow their competitive advantage.

PICNIC06 Review: A Very Biased ReportTo be fair I didn’t see all the keynotes nor attend all the workshops. It was simply not possible. It was a very full programme. I was a bit of a conference butterfly, catching a bit here and there, putting my oar in when I could and, of course, couldn’t pass up that free massage.

The production was slick and impressive. But more could have been done to inspire and challenge us; more focus and discussion on issues and less corporate plugs. Perhaps the real benefit of this event was the networking, which there was plenty of. This was an ambitious event and I’d say that, on the whole, the team at Cross Media Week pulled it off.

Incidentally, I found my accommodation (a room in a shared flat 5 minutes cycle from PICNIC) on craigslist – so it works for something. A bicycle came with the deal. Cycling around Amsterdam is always fun. Everything is so close. And sitting outside, by a canal, having a quality meal, one may ask what else is there to life?

Picnic06
Kendra