2007 16
Live on BlogTV
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I am at the game room at Kinnernet and I am testing BlogTV as demoed by Nir Ofir. BlogTV is the fourth most popular web site in Israel, the secret over Youtube is that it is live. People make live shows with their webcams and mobile phones. They also have a good revenue model cause they share revenues on video calls from mobiles. In most countries video calls have been a big failure cause they are very expensive. With Fon and a Nokia N80 or other models you can do the same thing with WiFi and broadcast yourself for free. I have been blogging for a while about the potential of a Youtube Live type platform but in Israel this is a reality. My live transmission was done in their new Canadian site cause their Israeli site is in Hebrew.
2007 15
The La Fonera in Sony Style shops
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
I already reported that while Japan was one of the last countries in which we launched the Fonero Promise (the last one was USA) that FON Japan grew so fast that it quickly became a top Fonero country. Today I am happy to announce that the enthusiasm shown by the Japanese people is showing up as well in Japan’s top corporation. FON has reached an agreement with Sony to sell the La Fonera in the Sony Style shops. I understand that it is very uncommon to sell non Sony products in a Sony Style shop, and we are very pleased that Sony has trusted FON. We are very grateful.
Read More
2007 15
Is Israel worth the attention?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I am in Israel now. In Tel Aviv. I came to attend Kinnernet, Yossi Vardi’s tech fest.
Read More
2007 14
The Economist: The Best Magazine in the World
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I normally hate to write uncritical posts which sound like commercials (unless they are about FON, of course), but I will this time. The Economist is simply the best magazine in the world.
Read More
2007 9
Giving up religion continues
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
This article that I wrote about what happened to the ethics of the Spaniards when Spain mostly gave up religion (I argue that not much) continues to make the rounds of American sites like Digg that are based on users voting what is and what is not interesting. Now what is good about these sites is that when they pick up your articles tons of people read them. What is bad is that the debate moves elsewhere. So here´s a copy of the latest comments.
I am happy to announce that FON has raised another 10 million euros (or $13 million for a total of around $35 million raised since our incorporation in Feb 06). Funds were raised from a combination of current investors including myself and 4 non US new strategic investors whose identities we will disclose in the near future.
Proceeds of the round will be used for R&D and growing the number of Foneros around the world. Foneros are members of the FON Community, the largest WiFi community in the world. With FON you share a little bandwidth at home or work and you get to connect for free to all the other FONspots of Foneros around the world.
Foneros join FON by buying the La Fonera, FON’s unique WiFi routers that safely partition your WiFi signal into a private WiFi network that you access at home and where you have guaranteed bandwidth, and a roaming WiFi community called “FON” that other Foneros occasionally use when they pass near your home or workplace and log into. The La Foneras cost $/€39.95, their purchase price includes a lifetime free membership to the FON Community.
FON is now present in over 80 countries around the world. Key FON countries are USA, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, UK, Sweden, and Holland. FON distributes its WiFi routers directly through retailers or through our ISP and telco partners around the world. In key countries, FON is the first or second largest WiFi network by number of hotspots. The financing round closed yesterday.
2007 6
Money and Football
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Below you’ll see a video of an amazing goal scored from mid field by Argentina’s Boca Juniors player Palermo against Independiente. What’s interesting about Palermo is that he is a player who has only played well for Boca Juniors, my team. He went to Spain to play where he was paid much more than in Argentina, and yet he played poorly. This frequently happens to top Boca Juniors players who leave the team and country for the big money abroad. Even Maradona’s worst playing took place at the Barça.
The International Herald Tribune reports today that China has the largest pool of assets in the world. Over $1 trillion dollars. That in itself is significant news. Most people who follow international politics knew about this however.
Now, what I and probably many others did not know is that this pool of assets is managed by 3 women known as the three Xiaos, because their last names are coincidentally Xiaoling, Xiaolian and Xiaohui. Why is this significant? Because I think gender equality is a very significant yardstick by which to measure progress and in this sense China is very modern.
My foundation Safe Democracy –co-organizer of the International Summit on Terrorism, Democracy and Security in March of 2005 and host of the Atocha Workshop 11-M— will bring together a diverse group of academics and experts specializing in various disciplines from all over the world on Saturday, March 10th, in Madrid. Guests will debate and work in 9 parallel groups towards solutions to the main challenges facing different regions of the world.
Read More
2007 2
Comvu/Youtube Live
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Since I met Chad Hurley last July I kept saying that Youtube needed two main enhancements, one was languages other than English and the other to offer a live format. Well, today I tested a service provided by Comvu over my Nokia N80 and it worked extremely well, first live and then stored on Youtube (the video is boring and in Spanish, but it was done over Comvu and then automatically sent by Comvu to Youtube after the live stream was over).
Read More