I read Jason Fry´s editorial in public WiFi with great interest and mostly agreed with it, except for Dana Spiegel who in typical American fashion takes adversarial views on things she likes just because she sees the world as a collection of opposites instead of as collaborative work. Fortunately Jason Fry takes a view that I share. Ultimately all of us together in the WiFi world will win and that includes Time Warner Cable and Fon of course, plus NYC Wireless, plus muni WiFi. We all share a vision: What we all want is to open our gagdets and play 🙂
2007 30
Should I be a terrorist or a model?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I was reading about the life of Anthony Garcia, the 25 year old who was hesitant between becoming a male model or a terrorist and fail at both and will now spend the rest of his life in prison. As the BBC puts it:
He worked nightshifts at Tesco but spent much of his time daydreaming about becoming either a model or a jihadi fighter.
As I read this peculiar story I thought that what these two occupations have in common is that they get your face in the media. I guess this, Anthony Garcia, born Rahman Benouis, did achieve.
2007 30
Why are European Cars so much Cheaper in America?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
My friend Manuel Antelo, creator of Argentina’s Car One but who lives in Spain, was toying with the idea of releasing a Car One for the Spanish set. Unlike in the United States, in Spain there’s no such thing as a used-car hypermarket with thousands of cars in stock, therefore making this an opportunity with major potential. Used cars in Spain are sold out of small dealerships with extremely high buyer-seller price differentials.
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Last night I had dinner with Japan´s Finance Minister Koji Omi at the home of Ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa in Madrid. During dinner we spoke at about the coming STS Forum in Kyoto that Minister Omi chairs and I will attend. This global conference –whose objective is to raise awareness on key challenges to the sustainability of our planet– has already been held 3 times before. Around 30% of the participants are Japanese and the rest from all over the world.
Personally, I found Minister Koji Omi to be a man with a strong sense of moral commitment to improve the state of the planet. His interest is to transcend beyond Japanese politics and to have global impact. This is good because Japan currently has an developmental model that is more friendly to the environment than the United States and its environmental footprint per dollar of GDP is among the lowest in the world.
2007 28
I don´t use Twitter to tell people what I am doing
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in MV with No Comments
And I don´t really want to know what people are doing. I use Twitter to share my thoughts. And I would only want to hear about some people´s thoughts. What follows is an example of what I twitter.
I have four children and they go from 16 to 6 months. As a parent of teenagers I have had to deal with the tough request of having boyfriend/girlfriend sleep over at our home. This is not surprising. While I did not want to deny this request I asked that the following rule be observed: for a boyfriend or girlfriend to sleep over they must pass the “year in love” test. If my kids are able to stay in love in a relationship for a year, then the person they are with can stay over at our home. I must say it was not easy when it happened but I rather have this rule than one that does not promote the association of sex with love and anyone can stay in, or the opposite, to never have them come in and have them do it in the back of a car somewhere. Basically I believe that sex is much better when you are in love and that´s what I try to promote with this rule.
2007 28
My Son Tom trains me on the PS3 and PSP
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Paternity with No Comments
And how they work together and make use of the internet. On how gaming move to an isolated world, the kid and his game, to a social world thanks to the net and the clever use of it that Sony is doing.
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2007 27
La Fonera Is The Number One Router Sold In Japan
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
I just saw this report that shows that the La Fonera is the number one router sold in Japan. Even though I have mentioned that I am not a religious person it is clear that our divinity in Japan is responsible for this “milagro”. Tomorrow I am having dinner with Japanese Treasury Minister Koji Omi. It will be my pleasure to share the good news about FON in Japan with him. Also to share with him that FON is now partly a Japanese company with investors Digital Garage, Excite and Itochu complementing Google, Index Ventures and Skype.
2007 26
Is Howard Webster on to a new genre?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I recently had Howard Webster of Factory Publishing for an asado at my Madrid home and he showed me his new concept that blends comics, games and video clips. I thought it was awesome. Here´s a sample of his work. And here’s a preview of one of these blended genre creatures simply called Vietnam.
2007 26
Adam Seifer from Fotolog
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Web 2.0 with No Comments
Yesterday I met with Adam Seifer founder of Fotolog. How ironic it is that when someone comes to show you something so extremely successful yet at the same time completely incomprehensible. If someone had told me that a photo website that only lets you upload a single picture per day would get more hits than the famous Flickr, I would think they were yanking my chain. But that’s Fotolog´s story. With a mere allowance of one photo upload daily, the site has an Alexa ranking of the 26th most viewed site in the whole world while Flickr trails at 42. Adam swears by Fotolog himself, and has been using it to aliment a peculiar habit of his: photographing the food he eats, for the past five years (no, he’s not fat). When I asked Adam how uploading one photo could possibly be more popular than displaying an entire Spring Break memory card’s worth, he explained that with just one, it’s the best, and everyone sees it.
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