Last post here... go to Amazee!

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging anymore for the last few months. I have been very busy getting married and building up my internet start-up called Amazee. Amazee is a platform that will allow local and global communities to evolve around common goals and collectively pursue them. We call this social collaboration, do not forget this ;-). Whatever you want to achieve in life, Amazee will be your home base!
I won't blog on blogspot anymore, but you can track my life and the ups and downs of young internet entrepreneurs on blog.amazee.com

My brand new toy

Wow, it's been a month since I posted my last post.. What have I done since then? On Friday, June 29 was my last working day as an accounting advisor. As already announced, I quit my job to realise other projects. My first task as an unemployed (or rather self-employed) person was to go on holidays for a week! I spent a great time at lake garda in Italy and was able to relax, reset my brain from my corporate life and even windsurf a bit. In the past few days I have been working on our business project with my two partners and - more importantly - I had to do get organised! Working for a big four company makes a lot of things very easy: you get a mobile phone, smartphone, notebook and other infrastructure that makes working very simple. On June 29 I handed back all these nice tools and gadgets to my employer and all of a sudden felt quite naked... So I bought some stuff for my home office.

Yesterday I found the most beautiful little smartphone in the world. My new HTC S710. It was love at first sight and I'm defintively not a very decisive person. Of course I didn't decide to buy it because of all the good features it has... which girl shops like that? But now - after one day of testing the functionalities I'm sure that I'll keep this gorgeous smartphone for a long time. The HTC S710 has Windows Mobile 6 on it, a slide-out QWERTY-keypad, a large and bright display, a 2 Mpix camera and many more. Using the organisational features such as emails, calendar and contact manager is really easy.

The positive side effect of this purchase was the price: I got it for 329 Swiss francs instead of 799, because I stayed with the same mobile service that provides my former employer. Now I'm walking around with a big smile on my face, proud of my latest acquisition.

Dumbest moments in business

You would actually think that all strategic moves in a global firm are carefully and well considered, that marketing campaigns are set up and implemented by clever people, that investor relations are led by qualified and competent people. Well, Business 2.0 magazine published an article about the 101 dumbest moments in business in the year 2006, which I find is very entertaining and refreshing. One of the grand-prize winners in the category marketing is Starbucks... here's the summary:
In August 2006, Starbucks directs baristas in the southeastern United States to e-mail a coupon for a free iced coffee to friends and family members. But e-mail knows no geographic boundaries and, worse, can be printed repeatedly. After the e-mail spreads to every corner of the country and is reproduced en masse, Starbucks yanks the offer, leading a disgruntled customer to file a $114 million class-action lawsuit...
That really was very dumb. Well, this won't stop me from drinking my coffee at Starbucks.. I guess this will even make me smile a bit each time I'm there ;)
Have a happy day, Dania

My crossroad

Long time no post... I had quite a bloggade in the past days because I didn't really know what to write about that would fit into the concept of my blog and teach you something about things going on in the Internet. So I'll just tell you something personal instead:

I quit my job as per end of June. I've been working for five years in auditing and accounting advisory and just thought it was time for a change.

I don't really know exactly what I'm gonna do yet. I have two major options: the first is that I build up an interesting web 2.0 platform with two partners and the other is that my future husband and I leave everything behind in Switzerland and go for a windsurf world trip. Not that I've been unhappy, not at all. I enjoyed my job a lot. But sometimes you are just so much into something that you don't see that clear anymore what your other options are. I sometimes feel like a slave of my own calendar. I want to take a step back now to figure out what could fulfil me more than what I'm doing at the moment.

Now, my two options are really great and I don't think I have anything to lose.

Option 1 is interesting because I want to gain some broad entrepreneurial and management experience in setting up an own company. We are working on the business plan at the moment and will start looking for investors quite soon. If we find some investors, I guess option 1 will become reality... if we don't ->

Option 2 is also great because a big dream of mine would come true to go windsurfing for a longer while and travel the world. Maybe there is a small cottage somewhere beautiful and close the ocean waiting to be discovered ;) Whatever happens, it is definitely very exiting. I'm very much looking forward to not knowing my schedule 6 months in advance and to feel freedom. My new motto: Just do it.

Dania

Fonero, fonera, olé

I'm sorry for my decreasing posting activities and also sorry for not keeping up my blog relationships that much in the past few weeks. There is just so much going on in my life right now (which I will write about soon) that I barely spend any time on the web. I promise to get better soon, please forgive me for the meantime!

This weekend I did have some time but no Internet connection, because I spent the weekend in the Swiss alps. It was nice - on Sunday we were able to sit in the garden in tank tops and today it was snowing. Is anybody still insisting that no real climate change is happening? Okay, different subject. Back to the Internet connection... I received two comments to my last post from Peluka and Steven regarding my petition for free WLAN all over the world and they both related to FON:

FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. You can become member and share your wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever you find another Fon Access Point. Now that's exactly my point! Why should you pay for Internet access on the go when you have already paid for it at home? So FON decided to help create a community of people who get more out of their connection through sharing. They call members of the FON Community "Foneros". To become a Fonero you need to buy "La Fonera". La Fonera is a special kind of WiFi router - a "Social Router". That’s because when you activate your La Fonera, you become part of the FON Community.

FON is creating a bit too many new words at once for my taste, but I guess that's part of a cult they're trying to build up around this service. This is clearly an interesting concept, but of course only works when they manage to build up a huge community. I hope they succeed.
Due to my busy timetable I haven't properly checked the map yet to find out how well "Foneros" are spread over the world and especially whether there are any in the places I often visit (e.g. windsurfing destinations, Swiss alps). But I'll save that task for another day and rather get some sleep now :)
Good night, Dania

Petition for open wireless networks

I'm just sitting in a small café in Utrecht, the Netherlands, waiting for my train back to Zurich, Switzerland. I spent a few days visiting my friend in Den Haag - my computer is with me, as always. Every now and then when I'm visiting a new place I try out whether there is any internet connection available and surprisingly there almost always is! Now, the trouble is that the networks are often secured and not open for anyone to use, which I think sucks.

First of all, in Europe most people pay a flat rate and therefore do not suffer any financial disadvantage when there are some free-riders surfing along. Secondly, people are getting more and more mobile. I don't really have one fix working station, so any nice café or parc can serve as an office as long as my notebook is with me. My WLAN at home is not secured. Anyone visiting my neighbour (or even my neighbour himself) has free access to the Internet. In return I hope that more and more people all over the world open up their connections to me. Thanks again to "Rancho Delfin" that I had Internet connection during my two-weeks holiday in Venezuela!
So, I plead for open free wireless networks. If you have a secured network please rethink and open it up! What goes around comes around.
Dania

Blog meme

I’ve been tagged for the first time by wotZcool who received a blog meme by Christy and passed it on to me.... of course I had no clue what a blog meme is.
Basically a meme is a small task you complete and then pass on to other bloggers to do the same thing. So it requires active participation by the blogger and is often a series of questions that a blogger answers to share some personal thoughts on random topics. When you choose the other bloggers and pass on the meme you are tagging them.

So the meme I received is to give five reasons as to why I blog and tag five other bloggers.

So, why do I blog?

1. First of all, because I want to learn. My blogging activities keep my motivation up to stay informed regarding latest developments in the web world and blogosphere.
2. Because it is a challenge to write. I need to come up with new topics for new posts and really have to be creative.
3. Because it does not have anything to do with my job. I work as an accounting advisor.
4. Because I want to build up a network of people all over the world. I love the global character of blogging: No matter where someone physically is, the blogosphere is a small world after all...
5. Because I'm addicted to acknowledgement. This a quite personal confession I'm making here ;)

And I will pass the meme on to:
1. Louiss
2. Billy Warhol
3. Wayne / Octane
4. Fedele
and
5. Michael Arrington (..rather known as TechCrunch... it's worth a try, isn't it?)

My first guest blog entry - Bloggade therapy

I'm very proud to announce that Steve asked my to write a guest post on his very cool blog wotZcool.com. Today I posted it and it's called Bloggade therapy... So may I please invite you to read my new post here on Steve's blog. I hope you enjoy it :)

Online advertising jungle

I've done some research with respect to online advertising and revenue potential... don't get me wrong: I am not planning on setting up google ads or something like that on my blog because I don't have enough traffic on my blog (yet, I hope). But anyway, I'm interested in what average revenues on blogs or other websites are. There are many different advertising techniques and ways of measuring revenue. Here some explanations of popular abbreviations:

PPC (Pay Per Click) is an advertising technique used on search engines and other websites. Advertisers bid on keywords - for example, if an advertiser sells shoes, he/she would bid on the keyword "shoes", hoping a user would type those words in the search bar, see their text ad, click on it and buy. The advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad. The resulting cost for the advertiser is therefore the CPC (Cost Per Click).
The cost of another advertising technique is the CPI (Cost Per Impression). The CPI is often measured using the CPM (Cost Per Mille) metric. A CPM is the cost of 1,000 impressions. The according revenue for the website owner is often related to as RPM (Revenue Per Mille). I haven't really understood how that is measured, because it seems that RPM is an average value of different advertising techniques and doesn't relate to only graphic ads or text ads. So I guess "impressions" is a quite broad term. I have seen ranges for RPM between $0.1 and $50... so here is my big question mark: what is a reasonable average RPM or other revenue key figure for text ads on a not very specified website or blog? Is there another way to track your revenue?
I've often came across the CTR (Click-Through Rate), which is another important ingredient to the advertising term jungle and a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. It is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions). For example, if your ad was delivered 100 times and 1 person clicked on it, then the resulting CTR would be 1%. The problem is that I still don't know what the earning is because I don't know how much a click costs.
Does anybody have any insights?
Thanks, Dania

RSS Aggregator Tool Wanted

I'm back to work (unfortunately) - my holiday was fantastic! I've just managed to get to the bottom of my mailbox, which took me quite a while. Now I have to get updated about what else happened during my absense. I must admit that I'm quite disorganised in some things and one of them is tracking the blogs I like. There is a good tool that supports people like me getting organised: it's called RSS Feed and you surely all know what it is.

RSS stands for „Really Simple Syndication“. This is a RCT ("really clever technology") used by many blogs and other websites to allow readers to easily keep track of new and updated content. The site creates what’s known as a feed, which consists of headlines and summaries of new or updated articles. One advantage of RSS is that it saves you from regularly visiting your favourite sites to check for new content – if something has been changed, you’ll always know about it.
You can use an aggregator tool to combine the feeds from all your favourite sites. So it is a personalised newsletter delivering web contents to subscribers. When you subscribe to a site, you are actually telling your aggregator to make itself aware of any changes to that particular RSS feed. For easy consumption all the information you wish is presented in one screen.
One of my next tasks is to find a nice aggregator tool and put in all the sites I want to track. Any suggestions from your side? I haven't had time to do any research yet. Work is calling...
Have a sunny day,
Dania

Wikinomics - Society 2.0

You might already know that I'm heavily interested in Web 2.0. What I'm telling you now goes one step further. A few days ago I started reading this really inspiring book named "Wikinomics" by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams and must say that I'm fascinated by their views on the fundamental changes in our society.

They write about how the new web is revolutionising the economy and is reshaping organisations and workplaces in a profound way. We are shifting from closed and hierarchical workplaces to increasingly self-organized, distributed, and collaborative human capital networks. The world of open source software may have set the standard, but from this point forward the whole economy will run like that: An iterative and collaborative approach, rapid incremental innovation, over and over again. This new form of mass collaboration is known as peering. MySpace, Innocentive, Flickr, second life, YouTube, Linux, Wikipedia and the Human Genome Project are well-known examples of peer production.

Peer production describes what happens when masses of people and corporations collaborate openly to drive innovation and growth in their industries. Thousands of volunteers can create fast, fluid, efficient and and innovative projects involving little transaction cost, that outperform those of the largest and best-financed enterprises.

People participate in peer production communities for a wide range of intrinsic and self-interested reasons. People jump in for fun, altruism, to achieve something that is of direct value for them. They feel passionate about their particular area of expertise and enjoy creating something new or better.

Openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally: the future lies in collaboration across borders, cultures, companies, societies and disciplines. Anyone can plug and play. I love this approach and want to be part of it! Now I just have to set up my own collaboration project... I might be back with some further insights once I have finished the book :)

Dania

HTML for beginners

Behind the fancy exterior of blogs and other websites lies the source code of the page, making it look the way it does: a simple text document written in the programming language HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which tells the Web browser how to display the text and images used on the page. Thanks to user-friendly blogging tools (such as WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get – more on this in a separate lesson) you don’t have to understand HTML in order to maintain the blog. If it was so you probably wouldn’t be reading anything from me ;)

HTML can be used to edit text, style, create lists, format your blog layout, etc. Any blog customisation will usually involve a change in the underlying HTML code.
HTML is based on tags. An open tag begins an instruction, a close tag ends it. For example putting the word “Dummy“ in between an open bold tag and a close bold tag will make the word bold on your post.

Lucky me that with Blogger I don’t need to use these tags to format the text of my posts – I just click the bold button and the bold tags are added in the background. Anyway, recently I looked at the HTML code in the background and noticed that it would be nice to at least be able to read the code a bit. Okay, I don’t want to push it too hard, but you can find some common tags in the box above in case you're interested.

I guess that’s enough for a real basic HTML lesson. If you now check your blog source code I hope you understand some of it... if you haven’t already been an HTML expert before this crash course!
Dania

WLAN on our patio

Good news: no need for me to post anymore from on old commodore64-like computer with a sticky keyboard and a really slow internet connection. I already tried out yesterday if there would be any wireless network available from our hotel room, but as I expected there wasn't. But surprise: today, sitting on the patio, all of sudden this promising message pops up telling me that a unsecured wireless network is available: Rancho Delfin. So here I am, sitting on the patio and surfing the web... thanks to Rancho Delfin, whoever and wherever you are!
Enough for today, I'm off - from websurfing to windsurfing :)
Have a great day, Dania

The rise of blogging

As I already mentioned last Friday, I’m on holiday! Goodbye Switzerland, hello Venezuela :) On the flight over I read in Jonathan Yang’s “The Rough Guide to Blogging” about the rise of blogging. Here a summary:

Before blogging became popular, personal homepages were the outlet of choice for individuals who wanted to create an online presence. Some homepages performed similar functions to today’s blogs, but the big difference was that the site’s owner needed to have at least a basic grasp of HTML to revise the homepage - more on HTML in one of my next posts, I promise :) That was a high enough barrier to put off most non-techies.

This all changed when easy-to-use blogging tools hit the scene: A blog could be updated from any computer without any specific programming knowledge. The first free publishing service was Pitas arising in July 1999, with Blogger and others following shortly after that. The first blog portal was created by Brigitte Eaton (www.eatonweb.com) to help readers find good blogs. Soon hundreds of thousands of blogs appeared. They were mostly by journal bloggers (writing about nothing more than the things going on in their lives: boring job, raising child etc.) and pundit bloggers (writing opinions about politics, movies, technology, world events and other specific subjects). These pundit bloggers served as hubs for communities of like-minded Internet users, before other specific communities existed.

By mid-2001 blogging as an activity was gaining momentum, but the public attention was still quite limited. This changed on September 11, 2001. The shock created an immediate demand for continuous coverage of the terrorist attacks and its consequences, which didn’t seem to be covered enough by the traditional media. The aftermath of the attacks pushed bloggers further into the spotlight, with “warblogs” discussing political and military developments.
With more and more professional and amateur pundits staking their claims online, politicians and media personalities suddenly had to deal with a new pack of independent watchdogs. The power of the pundit bloggers was remarkable.
As the new millennium rolled on, more different kind of people joined the blogosphere. Businesses started adding blogs to their websites to improve relations; consumer blogs started highlighting and reviewing products and so on. Blogging became the new bottom-up channel for distributing news and other information, challenging traditional media and influencing trends.
Now, by the beginning of 2007, even people like me are joining the blogosphere; posting entries from a really slow computer on the roof of our hotel in venezuela. Quite a cultural phenomenon, isn’t it?
Dania

From Flickr to Blogger

The Arenal Volcanic Plume, originally uploaded by Stuck in Customs.

I got a great tip from one of my contacts in MyBlogLog...thanks Billy! He said if I don't really feel like writing anything meaningful I should try to blog a picture. He also recommended this fantastic photographer: www.stuckincustoms.com.
So, just go to Flickr.com and register. Once you're registered you can simply choose a photo and blog it directly with the "blog this" icon. I won't explain all the steps inbetween because it is quite self-explanatory once you're on Flickr and because I decided to post this picture instead of a full article for some reason..
This picture was taken in Costa Rica and I chose it because I think it's just beautiful and it makes me get into the right holiday mood I need... On Monday I'm going windsurfing for two weeks to Venezuela, can't wait!

Get this widget now

Setting up a blog is similar to Jamie Oliver's cooking: get this widget over here, get that widget over there, mix it together and place it the way you like it... et voilà, ready is your blog! It's quite easy and still looks good.

Now what makes a widget a widget?
A widget is anything that can be embedded within a page of HTML, i.e. a web page. It adds some non-static content to that page. I guess the main characteristic making a widget a widget is the non-static content: The first widget I got was the one from MyBlogLog showing my recent readers. I'm proud to say that the content really hasn't been static since I implemented it, because more than 5 people read my blog so far. This widget has different pictures on it everyday without me doing anything - it's magic ;)

The magic works because applications can be integrated within any website by the placement of a small snippet of code. This has become a distribution or marketing channel for many companies. The code brings in ‘live’ content – advertisements, links, images – from a third party site without the web site owner having to update. Widgets can be written in HTML, but also in JavaScript, flash and other scripting languages that will be run when the page is called.

I added a new widget today, which shows the number of visitors on my blog. I hope it will be absolutely non-static and grow fast! I got it from http://www.widgetbox.com.

Although I like the idea of fun widgets on my blog, I think the comparison with cooking works again: to many ingredients can spoil the whole dish, so I'll try to select my widgets carefully!

Thanks for reading and have a great day, Dania

SNAP!

I discovered a great tool. Well, maybe it's not really right to say that I discovered it, because plenty of blogs and website already use this tool named "Snap Preview Anywhere": Since its introduction in November 2006, it has been adopted rapidly on more than 700,000 websites and continues to grow exponentially every day.

Here a short description: Snap Preview Anwhere is a free tool that lets any site owner add a previewing technology to their sites. When installed, every link on the site will show a preview of the linked site when a viewer hovers over the link. You can also turn the function off if it is starting to annoy you. This tool allows users to quickly decide if a site is really worth visiting before actually clicking on the link. To see how it works and to find out more about the company behind this tool, check out the icon and the link:

http://www.snap.com/about/about.php

I installed it yesterday on my blog and I think it is really cool :) Well, I guess I'm not the only one: Snap.com was chosen as one of TIME's magazine's 50 Coolest Websites of 2006 and Wordpress installed the previewing tool as a standard function on all wordpress-blogs. How long will it take until blogger follows?
Dania

Permalink to my Web 2.0 article on Neria's blog

Today I have an easy lesson for you. I want to post a permalink in this entry, so I'll quickly explain what it is:
A permalink is a URL that points to a specific blogging entry even after the entry has passed from the front page into the archives. So, whenever you click on the permalink you'll be directed to the article or resource you're looking for and not just to the front page of that respective blog or website.
Most modern weblogging and content-syndication software systems support such links. Other types of websites also use permalinks, but the term itself is most common within the blogosphere.
Blogging software creators and blog hosting websites have not agreed on a standard format for permalink URLs. Here is the example of the blogspot permalink format:
http://.blogspot.com/<4>/<2>/

.html

Now what do I need this for? I have great news: I had my first guest blogger appearance :) A few days ago I received a comment from Neria saying he liked my blog and used one of my posts in his blog. Of course I checked out his blog and here is the permalink to his post:

http://neriaiansebastien.blogspot.com/2007/03/web-20-as-dania-sees-it.html

I was touched by what I saw on his blog. Neria is a young man who has cancer in an early stage and writes about all kinds of interesting things in his blog. I really like the declaration of love to his "lady of his life". My best wishes are with him that he keeps up his energy, hope, humour and recovers well from his sickness!
Now I feel quite sentimental, knowing how good my life is and how lucky I've been so far.
All the best to all of you,
Dania

web = net ?

Following my confusion with respect to what an URL is, I read some articles to start filling the gap in my knowledge. It began to dawn on me that - although I always used these two words as synonyms - Internet and Web do not mean the same thing.

The Internet is a massive collection of interconnected computers. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. The computers are linked to each other by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections etc.
Information that travels over the Internet does so via IP (Internet protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)..to explain these protocols in further detail will require an extra lesson for me. But I somehow got as least the following: when information is sent over the Internet, it is broken apart and packaged inside Internet Protocol packets or "IP packets."


The World Wide Web, or simply the Web, is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the Internet and is a collection of interconnected documents and files linked together by hyperlinks and URLs (= internet addresses). The Web uses the HTTP protocol to transmit data. HTTP is only one of the languages spoken over the Internet (puuh, another lesson waiting for me on this one).

Basically, the Web is just one of the ways how information can be spread over the Internet. In fact, the Web is just one of the services deployed on the Internet. It's content vs. transport. Just as goods can be transported by a truck on a highway, a Web page is transported by packets on the Internet.

Well, I guess this is close to the easiest way the difference between the Internet and the Web can be explained. I'm happy to receive suggestions that are even more dummyproof ;)
Dania

Frequency vs. content

Maybe I should expand the topic of my blog. Today is one of those days, where I'm not quite bubbling over with ideas on what to post. It's really not that I've fallen into a blogging lethargy or so. I just had quite a busy day at work and my head is empty. Can't come up with a useful explanation on internet terms at the moment, without doing a bit of research etc. But I do feel some pressure: Ambitious as I am, I feel obliged to post something every two or three day. Why? Because I see that I already have interested people reading my blog! That is sensational, thanks to all of you for visiting my blog! I feel honoured that I'm not the only one reading it.
So, back to my problem, what do you think: Is it better to post a bit more irregular, but only useful information, or do you think it's acceptable to once in a while depart from the topic of the blog (which is for me to provide dummyproof explantions of internet terms), when you can't come up with something good within a reasonable time?
I would use a poll for this one if I knew how it worked... oh well... something more on my to-do-list ;)
Dania

"Add your URL"

I actually didn't want to start annoying you with a technical lesson in my fourth post but I think it's better to get into these technical terms rather sooner than later. I read a lot of articles and blogs on internet topics and I only understand half of them! It's not that I'm stupid (may not be an Einstein either...) or that I don't understand English (okay, my German is better...), but they're just stuffed with weird abbreviations like RSS, CSS, SaaS, SERP, SEO etc. Okay, I know that learning by doing is more effective, which is one reason why I started this blog for internet dummies. But guess what? One of the first things I had to do is "add your URL". What on earth is an URL? I thought it must be an internet address because the "http://" part was already given. So far so good, I managed that. I still want to give you the technical input because I really wonder how many of you out there really know for what URL stands for?

It stands for Uniform Resource Locator... This is about how much I understand from the Wikipedia entry.
Is there anybody out there who can give me a more simple explanation? I'd be very grateful :)
Dania

Phenomenon Web 2.0

I'm fascinated by the way our society has changed in the past few years and is still changing. The phenomenon is called Web 2.0... sounds like a new version of an old software, but in reality it is a revolution in society and technology. The dotcom hype in the 1990s didn't seem that spectacular to me - it was rather driven by an enhanced technology than by a shift in mindset. The Web 2.0 boom is different. It is a massive social experience, indicating in which direction society is moving. Some people may think it's just another bubble, but I don't.

The term Web 2.0 arose in 2004 and refers to a second generation of internet-based services — such as social networking sites, wikis and communication tools that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media used the expression as a title for a series of conferences in 2004. According to Tim O'Reilly "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."
Wikipedia states that the phrase Web 2.0 can also refer to "A social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and the market as a conversation"
This description hits the nail on the head. It is also a lot about the technology behind the Web 2.0, making this easy communication possible: look at me, I have an own blog.. blogspot.com makes this possible for such a non-techie like me ;) But basically its about people. Web 2.0 is made up of ordinary people: lobbyists, hobbyists, diarists, techies, young, old.. people like you and me, speaking up and adding their voice to the great world wide web. I'm loving it :)
Dania

What is a BLOG?

Don't expect anything worldshaking in my blog. When a friend suggested that I should start an own blog, I must admit I wasn't very enthusiastic about this idea. I had three question marks in my head: What really is a blog? What could I write about? Why would anyone on this world want to read my blog? So, as you see I have set up my blog, although the fear remains: I'm putting myself on public display! There's one good thing resulting even in the case of failure (meaning that really nobody wanted to read my blog), which is that I'm learning quite a lot with this blogging experience. So, here's your (and my) lesson number one:

* What is a blog?

Wikipedia states: "A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.
The term "blog" is a portmanteau, or, in other words, a blend of the words web and log (Web log). "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

So, does this mean a blog is just an online diary? Well, I guess so. The description in Wikipedia also convinced me that it's not wrong or bad if I don't have anything worldshaking and superintelligent to write about. I'll just keep on writing my diary and sharing it with you :)
Dania

Dania's blog for internet dummies is now online!

Yes, I really managed to set up my own blog! Nothing easier than that? Maybe for you.. but let me start from the beginning: I'm an internet idiot or let me rather say "beginner", because at least I'm willing to learn. Not that I couldn't find anything I'm searching for (Google makes that possible quite easily..) or that I couldn't book my flight holidays or hotels, I'd even say that I've been quite successful in the past in finding cheaper rates for my holidays than any travel agency could offer ;) As you see, that's not the problem.
I noticed in the past few months that A LOT is happening on the web, when all these companies and websites with weird names popped out of nowhere and I simply did not understand what their business model was or simply what they offered!
That's why I set up this blog. I want to learn about Web 2.0, Yahoo, Google, youtube, flickr, qype, xing, RSS, joomla, etc. Feel free to teach me something interesting, provide my with some good links and give me input for further blog entries. I'm going to write on a regular basis about what I experienced on my way through the web jungle and my lessons learned. Maybe this will be of interest for some of you guys (or rather girls, because my lack of internet and technical competence seems to be a bit of a gender issue...)!
Well, now I have to go back to work: that's the real problem. Because I work for one of the "Big 4" accounting firms I haven't had more time to be up to date!
I'll be back soon!
Dania