When I see the stats of when is it that people visit my Spanish and English blogs I see that most people read them during work hours while probably, at work.  And probably this is not only true of blogs.  I would imagine that the stats at Facebook, Myspace,  many gaming, music and entertainment sites that are most likely unrelated to work, would also show that most visits come from people who are at work.  Now what I wonder is this.  Is there going to be a point in which corporate productivity goes down because people are listening to movies, watching movies, flirting, connecting with their friends they have not seen in a long time….at work?  If this is true I guess I should also stop blogging…and get back to work!

This week I had the priviledge of having David Sifry from Technorati staying at my home and helping me as CEO of Fon with a bunch of great ideas on how to make our services better and easier to use.  While we were working on Fon and looking at different advertising models (Fon´s revenues come from selling services to non foneros or non wifi donors partly with advertising) we came across Viddler and we both were very positively impressed.   Yes, I know you may say that Viddler will turn all videobloggers into infomercial machines but men does not live off the internet alone.  I hope my friend Loic Lemeur adopts a similar model for Seesmic, his new video start up.  I love the way that Viddler mixes contextual advertising with people´s comments making you want to read the video timeline.

CBS has just announced that the launch of its CBS Mobile Zone project to “Light Up Midtown Manhattan with Free Wireless Internet Access”. This is great news for WiFi and free access and for everyone with loves NY. FON was one of CBS’ partners to make this new project a reality. Other partners include the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New York City Transit, as well as several next-generation companies including Tropos, BIG, Ning, Goowy, Veoh, Yelp, 1020, Aptilo and Can-Do Entertainment.

The “CBS Mobile Zone” or “Wi-Fi HotZone” is already up and running in certain areas in Midtown and will be fully operational by the end of the month with a footprint of more than 20 city blocks from Times Square to Central Park South and from 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue.

New Yorkers who access the “CBS Mobile Zone,” will be greeted by an ad-supported homepage that includes hyperlocal content such as breaking local and national news, sports highlights, weather reports, music discovery, wallpapers, ringtones, maps, a social network and the ability to search for nearby restaurants, shops and entertainment complete with geographically-targeted community reviews.

This is another great step forward for WiFi and for a city that I love!

I am on Facebok, so are three of my four children. Last night we were having dinner and my two daughters ages 17 and 15 kept talking about older guys who frequently try to connect to them on Facebook, invite them on dates and so on. From the way they spoke about them they sounded as if they were being spammed and I could see that I had not much to worry about as they just ignored them. Still just like I don´t like the thought of 35 year old guys hitting on my daughters on the street, I am quite uncomfortable about the same guys being able to hit on my daughters on Facebook. I like to think that my daughters party with kids their age which for a 17 year old I would consider anyone between 15 and 22. In Europe, where I live, it is not illegal for a 35 year old man to go out with a 17 year old girl as it is in the States. The concept of statutory rape does not exist over here and I think that overall we are better off for that since nothing magical happens when people turn 18 and rape in my view has to include some lack of consent.  So without going as far as coming up with an artificial concept such as “statutory rape on Facebook”,  should Facebook monitor older men and women who are frequently contacting minors and flag them? I think they should. Of course older people could lie about their age, or put fake pictures, but Facebook already has rules about this type of deception and if somebody is found lying about their identity in Facebook they can get thrown out of the community. During my conversations with Chris Kelly at Facebook I found out that thousands are banished every week. Still this does not address the whole issue. Personally the way I would do this is to give an easy way for minors to flag potential molesters. Right now this is not clear. A minor who feels molested can block or report this person but in the main reasons to report the molester there is no one clear category which is “this person is molesting me”. In my view if older men or women clearly understood that they are risking getting banned from Facebook if they try to hit on a 15 year old girl or boy my daughters and everyone else´s children would not be so frequently contacted by older men/women.   Another idea could be that anyone who is a minor appears with a clear indication that they are minors to anyone who is older than say, Mark Zuckerberg´s age.  In this way both minors would be protected and older people warned.

I know this sounds like a commercial, and I don´t even own shares in Asus but here it goes anyway.   I just saw this laptop (site loads slowly but it´s worth the wait) that went for sale in Taiwan for NTD 7000 or around 160 euros and I am in awe.  I want one!

If you work on the internet you can thank the world of atoms.  If it wasn´t for them as everything digital goes to a free model we can only use the virtual world to advertise on things sold in the real world as those things do not run the risk of being given away for free anytime soon.

This week I am attending SIME 07 a conference hosted by my friend Ola Ahlvarsson. I just saw the IPTV Clips that SIME is putting together before the conference at SIME TV. In it there´s a clip from an Indian guy,  Mahesh who asks a simple question. How are 9 million million lazy Swedes going to compete with over a billion Indians and their 100% English trained college graduates?

The whole clip is meant to be funny but the question is reasonable. I will try to give my answer.

Some countries developed ahead of others. The first country to develop and become a global power in recent times was the UK, followed by the US. The US and the UK will probably be followed by China in the next 25 years and India in the next 50. But having said this most people around the world do not care as much as to who has the most power as a country but care more how they live themselves as individuals in that country. And the world is very unevenly divided more along classes than along nations. Think about this: 2% of the people of the planet own half of all planetary wealth.  This uneven distribution of wealth is true in Sweden as well as in India. Sweden, as socialist as it seems also has some insanely rich people like Ikea´s owner Ingvar Kamprad the richest person in Europe and fourth richest in the world. Considering the fact that I am in that lucky or oportunistic 2% I probably sound absurdly Marxist in saying that class matters more than nationality when it gets to competitiveness but this is true. Except that class membership is still somewhat of a merito but in some way or another all countries that develops successfully seem to develop in the same way. They globalize, compete and grow very fast until they reach a glass ceiling on the average GDP per person, after that the race is a class race and not a national race. So my answer to Mahesh would be, worry less about your nationality and more about whether you, personally, will be able to become an entrepreneur and join the 2%, wherever you are.

There are many music platforms which allow you to ban songs that you don´t like as they stream music to you.  In this way they learn how to make you a happy music listener.   I know that if Facebook or Myspace allowed people to ban ads they could not survive.  But isn´t it times that instead of Facebook getting trashed for invading people´s privacy to show ads that they allowed users to actually favor or reject a certain type of ads so long as they get ads?  I think there´s a tremendous opportunity in turning this problem around and instead of spying on people you allow them to speak up and profile themselves in a positive manner.  I would love to see a button that says, do not show this ad again.

The troubles of the music industry are not caused by Apple. They are caused by heads so deep in the sand that they have not seen the light for the last 10 years.