Hello Zagreb!

Posted on | February 8, 2010

At the end of this week Zagreb will be the place to be for tech-entrepreneurs in Central and Eastern Europe. The local crowd is preparing two smashing events that you do not want to miss if you are near.

Mini Seedcamp Zagreb

It is finally here - the week of Mini Seedcamp Zagreb, taking place on the 11th of February as part of Seedcamp. I will be mentoring there along with a pack of incredible mentors in order to help and advise 20 selected startups from the region.

Mini Seedcamp Zagreb finalists include:

AdCaptcher - Bucharest, Romania
ALBIA - Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Clover Studio - Zagreb, Croatia
CO2cut - Zagreb, Croatia
Flowr - Ptuj - Slovenia
GaMiTech - Bucharest, Romania
Garmz - Vienna, Austria
GIS Cloud - Zagreb, Croatia
Kubu Stream - Bucharest, Romania
mmatcher - Maribor, Slovenia
Mojnogomet - Zagreb, Croatia
Ninth Prime Technologies - Bucharest, Romania
Physio Software - Paris, France
PLAY.FM - Vienna, Austria
Primabit - Zagreb, Croatia
Readster - Bucharest, Romania
SalePod.NET - Zagreb, Croatia
Talentoncampus - New-Delhi, India & Cardiff, Wales UK
TB Soft - Sofia, Bulgaria
Visionect - Ljubljana, Slovenia

I already know some of the companies and I am looking forward to meet the others. Personally I see a lot of potential in many of them, but will have to see their pitches and meet the founders before I pick up my favorites.

IT Showoff 2010

The day after (12 Feb) the Tomislav Car is organizing IT Showoff. An annual event to showcase Croatian (and regional) IT projects in addition to talks focused on very technology oriented topics. I will be there and expect to learn about what our Croatian friends have been up to. Tadej from Motiviti will be speaking as well. Full details and schedule can be found at www.itshowoff.com

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{ Filed Under Funky Places, Innovation, Web Karaoke, Web Strategy | Comments }

Do you Poken?

Posted on | January 26, 2010

A while ago I talked about The Internet of Things at Webcamp Ljubljana. One of the most interesting “things” according to the crowd were Pokens. I first saw one of those devices around Torgo’s neck at Over the Air and got intrigued immediately.

What is a Poken?

Poken is a technology that utilizes a proprietary Near Field Communication technology to allow the exchange of online social networking data between two keychain accessories.

Source: Wikipedia

Do You Poken
Image by tomazstolfa via Flickr

In less wikipedish words - Pokens are small devices (the size of a USB key) that serve as a handshaking object that

connects two Poken owners’ social network accounts. Once you get home, you just plug your Ninja or Gorilla in your computer and the contact info is automatically synced to the beautifully designed Poken Hub.

Where to use them?

It is great to have at conferences and on other occasions where you expect some heavy networking to occur. Pokens are still fairly new, but they are becoming quite popular with geeks, so I guess they will become a must have gadget for tech and mobile conferences. If you ask me Pokens can be a great addition for the goodie bags at events in the next year. Once Pokens become ubiquitous, exchanging business cards will be an obsolete ritual.

The Hub

Do You Poken
Image by tomazstolfa via Flickr

Pokens have a really well designed (and useful) web application to complement the hardware. All the exchanged contacts get transferred automatically every time you plug your Poken in the USB of your computer. You can see contact’s cards and their social networking profiles.

Of course you can set up what you want to exchange with others. You can create a personal card that is linked to your devices (yes, more than one).

Where can I get one?

You can get your Poken online from one of the resellers. They finally available in Slovenija, Srbija, Bosna, and Makedonija from the cool folks at Poken Slovenija.

Happy Pokening ;)

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{ Filed Under Design, Funky Web, Innovation | Comments }

Books Are Not Just Text on Paper

Posted on | January 24, 2010

I’ve been thinking about buying an e-book reader for a while. During this pre-purchase process I tried to explore a bit further the reasons that motivate my book purchases and why I am still so intrigued with (and still buying) real books.

A special book
Image by tomazstolfa via Flickr

In the web era where we can get basically all the information and knowledge we need on the web, I keep buying real books. But during my last trip to London I had a revelation - I am only buying books that are beautifully designed and have some special real-life feel to them, that e-books will never have (because digital books are not touchable objects). I bought two books and both have beautifully designed covers with 3d touchy details such as a letter-pressed title and en-carved details. The inside of both books is lively and picturesque, something that current e-readers still do not support. So the question that arises is: “How will I touch the cover of a design book with letters pressed in beautiful retro looking carton on an e-book reader?”

The answer is: “You will not.” This will be a lost feeling, a remaining memory of the good old days, similar to the feeling you get when listening to a record on vinyl.

Of course books with 95% of textual content are much better off on e-ink, and the economy will push e-readers in the mass market in the next two or three years. I absolutely support e-ink and e-book readers for that kind of content, but I wish real-life books would not die. I hope they will at least become collectables and that they will be regarded as retro-chick objects so those beautifully designed covers and diagrams should stay alive, so at least we can use them to make the real world around us a nicer place.

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