It’s got one of those hard-to-get domain names. No, not hard to get what they mean, hard to find one that isn’t taken, because they sound and look so fashionably Web 2.0.

Poolga is a site with a simple mission: to populate your iPhones with better wallpapers. It’s perfect for those of us who say they’ve got better taste than what many fanboys have posted on Flickr. Poolga has become my first source for changing boredom on my brand new iPhone.

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Today is Blog Action Day. For 24 hours, 19,974 blogs write about one topic: the environment.

It seems that everyone agrees: the environment is one of the most important issues. Again. That’s right, there was a similar movement going on in the eighties, and it subsided in Green parties, Greenpeace and a few laws about whale hunting, which have been undermined and loopholed by Japan ever since.

I remember anti-nuclear energy stickers on school bags next to ACDC stickers, local WWF collections to save Pandas and schools here in Europe were spreading the belief that earth’s supplies of fossile energy would not suffice beyond the year 2007. In 1985, that seemed a long time away in the future.

Having lived in San Francisco off and on, from about 2003 until spring 2005, I learned that having anti-SUV bumper stickers on your car is fashion of the same chic like wearing an old army jacket with a pink ribbon, while you’re walking down Upper Height, demonstratively presenting your solidarity with a widely overrated and romanticized group of college dropouts with rich parents in the sixties.

I can see the same patterns reappearing today. It’s all tres chic. Of course we are all for saving the environment. Who isn’t? Since we’re all one happy family of geeks, I feel it’s safe to say we all are on top of this topic, with our RSS feed readers with 41’365 messages waiting for us.

Together with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, and while reading about his new book (which I honestly heard is good), we right-clickingly buy a symbolic bottle of water to support well drilling somewhere in Africa.

I am no better, I am no different. The question is, what could make a difference? Many say, turn off the lights. Turn off your computer. Do a walk in the park instead. While I agree that 20,000 life switches being turned off in the same moment sounds like such a pretty idea, I’m not sure if it’s really cutting it.

Let’s face it: the biggest source of trouble on earth are humans, and the biggest oil guzzling, energy demanding, pollution crating source among all humans are the United States of America. (I know China has more citizens, but guess what, they also use more bicycles.)

Among some of my friends, I am known to support quite unpopular ideas, such as removing all borders and getting rid of the concept of countries and nations. Yes, I know, it’s radically utopian and frankly sounds like a nut idea. But it wouldn’t be the first nut idea that carried further than the words proposing it.

Prepare for even more insane ideas: What if we wouldn’t have nations and borders? What if our value system was equalized and the same matter wouldn’t cost ten times the price of what it costs at another point on this planet? What if we had local governments ruling over small communities, connected in a network that is supported by global laws, not national ones? I am not thinking about the United Nations. I am talking about truly global laws to protect the environment.

Nature is a global thing, you know. It’s not a local issue or a national discussion topic. Nature has no borders and nations. That’s an invention of humans. Nature is evolution, and currently we are interrupting its natural development, disrupting it with massive shifts of elements. This is what pollution and oil consumption are all about, a shift of elements, caused by Western Civilization.

By now I might have lost a couple more readers than just the ones who were looking for gossip about Paris Hilton. But if you’re still here, do me a favor. Pardon me, it’s two favors. One, go read Al Gore’s new book. (It’s less about environmentalism and more about the troubles caused by the U.S.) Two, tell me your idea of changing the world in global context, not only as one, or a couple of nations. I’m really interested to hear your thoughts on new concepts of living together, ideas beyond our worn out models of nationalism, economic efficiency and our all too well established value-system of “you have it and we want it”.

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Life on the fast lane, that’s how we used to describe people who lived a life of sex, drugs and rock’n roll. It had usually to do with social ignorance and there was always a certain amount of alcohol, cigarettes or other drugs involved. Life on the fast lane meant a candle that burns brighter and for less long, to pull a nice Bladerunner quote.

Today, life on the fast lane means something slightly different. At least for the geeky crowds I sometimes exchange myself with. Some live a life so fast, or on a lane so far out, I don’t even get any life sign from them in several weeks. Like last week, when I completed a demo for soil / seed / plant, a new project I had started to work on several weeks ago. It’s basically a concept to improve collaboration and help sorting our thought process out.

I sent it out to my closest friends and the brightest minds I personally know in the blogosphere. But until today, nobody has replied. I know I shouldn’t put that on the content of my email, or the ideas proposed in the demo. It’s just an idea after all. The reality is, most of the people I know and sometimes work with don’t have the time to look into everything they get. Talk about Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero.

Another project I’m working on is notepin. I can’t disclose too much about these two projects, but if they come along like I envisioned them, they will both bring something new to the Web 2.0 universe. So stay tuned for my life on the fast lane, and if you do, I promise I will be a good boy with updating you with what’s going on.

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Google’s Ride Finder is the kind of application that will become handy when you have an iPhone. A Google Map shows updated real-life data of cabs in U.S. cities, tracked by location. I zoomed into San Francisco and clicked “update location” a few times. It really shows how the cabs are moving. Say you are stuck in the city and need a ride. You simply walk to the next cluster of cabs and get a ride home.

Expect a lot more of these applications to emerge with devices like the iPhone. A year from now, competing phone manufacturers will have updated their browsing experience to catch up with the iPhone. On the users side of the experience, the Web is now leaving the desktop or laptop and evolving towards a semantic web, where Web applications tie in with real life objects and situations.

On my way to the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, I read a short column in the International Herald Tribune. It was a small note on the upper right corner of a page dominated by a headline about Thailand blocking Youtube access.

The article, subtly titled “U.S. hits high-tech visa limit”, dryly reports that the U.S. immigration authorities have started to reject applications from skilled foreign workers seeking visas to work in America during the 2008 fiscal year.

It is quite early in the morning and I had only one cup of coffee. I have less than 20 minutes to go and yet I dared to start another blog post.

The trick is not to think of those 20 minutes. I think of it as a sprint, not a marathon, which my articles usually are. While this will be a quick and dirty post, I hope you will find it contains some useful information that will help you through your day.

A big mouth full? Maybe, but now I got your attention.

It usually takes several hours at night to complete an article and post it here. I do this to maintain a certain persistence in quality and clearness. Because I tend to write a lot, I often end up bloating up a topic that was originally merely three lines in my Moleskin notebook.

The do approach

The secret of writing a post or article that makes sense, and doing it in less time than it usually takes, is this: Choose one single line in your head, one idea, and stick to it. It’s working better if this idea isn’t a key to a million other questions, and you will have a less hard time staying focussed if it is a practical idea, like “How to do your dishes without getting bored by it”. (The answer to that would be to disconnect your hands from your brain and let your mind wander off; but this topic is exactly the kind of distraction I am trying to avoid here).

Never the less, the approach of simply doing it is the same. You may have forgotten it, but “just do it” was there before Nike claimed it as their territory in the late nineties.

The rule

Few people I know like rules. Everybody I know likes the idea of breaking with the rules better than following rules. Still, we all live by rules and we all like doing so. We depend on them actually, and most of them have sneaked in our lives without us realizing. You accept a rule when it works for you, and that happens independently of whether you like the rule, its principle or the reason why you have to follow it.

I started a new rule, and it rarely happens I exclaim something like that publicly. But the rule is so simple and has some real value, I don’t want to hide it from you.

It is called “one hour”.

I will take one hour of each day and dedicate it to write for my blog. Sounds simple. Where is the news? The new thing is, this is a mandatory rule, that it must happen within the time frame of one hour. I certainly haven’t invented the effect of the rule. Writers like Jack London or Thomas Mann were both known for their tightly scheduled hours of writing. But they took eight hours a day in which they locked themselves up in an office and you were not allowed to disturb them.

I have to leave for work in less than five minutes and I am still writing my one hour post. But that is the magic to it. I will be done before I have to go to meet my client. And it will still be one of the better posts I’ve written on this blog.

Make that “to go” please

How do you do it? Make your mind run, not walk. It is a lot of fun to let it walk and pick up every little string of associated thoughts and ideas you come across along the way. But look at the goal for your one hour-post. What you want to convey is a dense but useful bit of text.

Don’t look back, don’t correct. Don’t change, add or tweak. Let it stand. Train your mind to become better at being direct and concise. (And yes, you may break with this rule occasionally. Trying to stick with it is what improves your skills though.)

The one hour rule fits better for a writer of today. It doesn’t apply to everything I write, but it works for this post and others to follow. It is actually a lot of fun, and you should try it too.

Now I am a little late for my meeting, but I feel so much better now.

There is something about unconferences I find extremely attractive. I have been to uncounted meetings, workshops, conferences and events. Most of them are presentations of slideshows, filled with programs, shows and the firm idea of someone trying to sell you something.

A BarCamp sells ideas, and more than you can handle. It does this without trying. That is its secret; it doesn’t sell products, it provides humus.

From the moment I heard about BarCamps and its underlying unconference format, of which I read just prior to my first encounter of them, I was intrigued. It fits so well with with my nature, or let’s say my view of nature. Put a random number of people in a room, let them reflect their experiences, let them ask interesting questions, let them be skeptical, suspicious, curious and, most of it all, eager to learn. What you will get is what makes a BarCamp work.

I should be clearer about this: You don’t preselect, choose or guide it in any way. In fact, you don’t have any influence on what will happen. You provide structure, space and resources, but you let go of the power to organizing content. Its general topic will attract the right people. Those who can, will speak up. If you only let it happen, a great amount of creativity and inspiration may emerge. It may not always work smoothly, but give it some space let the smart minds wander, and the flaws will be minor in relation to what you gain.

The first BarCamp I attended happened to be BlogCamp Switzlerand 2007. Dannie Jost aptly described it as the BarCamp its initiators “insisted to call BlogCamp”. I read her notion with a smile.

You have the power to fill it with what you care about. The passion, thoughts, ideas and reflections you carried up on that hill to ETH Zurich. I wouldn’t be overly enthusiastic about this BlogCamp, but take a look around on the Web in Switzerland. These are real people, Switzerland on the move, our minds crossing borders. How could this not be a good thing? In the end it doesn’t matter what you call it, if you only make it happen.

All sessions I attended were held in English. With most people I met we spoke English. Stephanie Booth declared at some point, this was a Swiss-German blogger meeting, but coming from the German language side, I didn’t experience it quite as drastic. From Bruno Giussani I learned about Bondy Blog, a unique case of French young people, who started to move French politics, backed by Swiss journalists. Stephanie Booth’s session about language and bloggers being bridges made me think deeper about what borders we really have on the Internet today. Dannie Jost’s session connected straight with previous thoughts I had but couldn’t formulate properly. Gabor Cselle’s session opened up basic blogging questions I hadn’t thought about before.

Only when I returned home, a full day later, I grasped that BlogCamp Switzerland had effectively demonstrated what Dannie’s session was all about. Blogging is not about blogging, the Web is not about the Web, and we underestimate the Internet if we reduce it to what we see in it.

What makes the Internet really work is the people using it. People want to express themselves because it is in their very nature. It’s refreshing to experience that those borders we built over generations only last in the backpack of our education. Lose that backpack for a day, and you will feel how easy you can walk without it. You might even cross a bridge to a different culture and language.

All in all, the sessions themselves weren’t all equally resourceful. Some open ends remain, some things I’d like to explore more deeply and learn more about. No clear answers were provided. I think that is what makes this work so well.

Resources

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Boy, did I want to write this post. For a long, long time. But I never got around to do it. If I wasn’t working, you guessed it, I was twittering.

Expect “twittering” to line up next to “googling” as a new word in the dictionary any time soon. It’s not just a new social Web app, it is a rocket booster of a pop phenomenon.

It is hard to tell when exactly that point emerges, when a product, person, brand or name reaches this point of critical mass. But it has typically reached that point when literally everybody is talking about it. It is that moment when you can read about it in mainstream media, and when your dad calls you and asks you if that is what you’re doing. That’s the moment when you know, something has been taking off really.

It was like that for terms like Web 2.0, Myspace, Google, Amazon and the iPod. And it’s undeniable now that all these names, companies, brands or things have settled deeply in the mindset of the average consumer. Ask anyone on the street, and they will know what Google is. They don’t need to own a computer to know it.

A number of smart people have already talked about Twitter, written articles and essays, and elaborated on what Twitter what Twitter is and how it works. Most conclude in unison that Twitter is easy to use and a lot of fun. But try explaining it until you really used it. You can try, but it will always be a blurry image of the actual experience. Twitter is a lot about the experience.

No one, not even Twitter’s founder, could possibly estimate or explain beforehand how Twitter would pull off, and why. My guess is, they just had a hunch about doing the right thing, and Twitter prove them right. If something is proven this way, by people using it around the clock, and numbers of users growing exponentially, what better way do you know to demonstrate this was a brilliant idea?

Twitter is not used by individuals only. You will find companies like Adaptive Path, Technorati and even the Bay Area’s BART have started twittering. Among its most famous adopters are Steve Jobs, Jeffrey Zeldman and iJustine.

Aside of all the hype, joy and simple fun people get out of Twitter, I made a couple of thoughts on my own. I too can enjoy Twitter without analyzing it too much. It simply works, and it works beautifully. But I wouldn’t be me if I wouldn’t want to know why it actually works. What makes this a brilliant idea?

1. In my opinion, Twitter hits the nerve of what makes a good Web application. Why?
2. Because I think for now, in our time, it is just the right balanced amount of aggregating, delivering and consuming chunks of information
3. These chunks are consumable bites, small enough to create a constant flow of get and give
4. With our habits and behavior patterns changing, maybe this alone won’t be enough for Twitter to remain attractive in future, but for now it is
5. What makes Twitter work at its core is its unobtrusive push- and pull effect, which is carried by your existing network of real life contacts and friends
6. Twitter doesn’t stick to a website, it is a lot more interactive than most social apps are
7. It isn’t a social website that makes you fill out lengthy profiles or forces you to adapt to a given grid of content offerings
8. It doesn’t define what you do with it, but restricts your data format to 140 signs
9. It can do one thing only, but does this quite well
10. It has an open interface that works with multiple communication channels and devices

Next week on Saturday, I’m going to attend the Swiss BlogCamp. It’s taking place on 24th of March, at the campus of the University of Zurich.

I’m really excited about the opportunity to meet Swiss bloggers and generally people who are involved in current developments of Web culture. I heart communication and exchange. Envigorating conversations and discourses about the Web, brands, people’s behavior patterns, usability and design patterns are fuel for my mind.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, have a look at the official BarCamp website (which runs on a Wiki system by the way).

Resources

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Today, as part of the opening of the MacWorld, Steve Jobs will hold his traditional keynote at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. And I’m finding myself posting the third article about Apple’s upcoming phone in a row. Why? Because I believe it’s going to be released today. Second, because it’s going to be big, very big.

It’s unconfirmed directly by Apple of course, but Think Secret gives the Apple phone release today a 90% chance of probability. This isn’t speculation anymore, as everybody from Stock Markets to technology leaders is watching Apple today.

But why now? Why do we all think Apple is ready? A phone from Apple has been on the wish list of many avid Mac users for years. And dreams about PDAs, game consoles and tablet PCs from Apple seem never to subside in the blogosphere. Apple is one of those brands that has replaced Santa Clause from our childhood. You really, really want to be a good kid to get what you’re wishing for. Apple’s brand is iconic in a true sense. People watch Apple’s activities because it is this one technology brand, that is able to change our lives. We’ve seen it happening before.

There are a number of factors, which I think are indicating that the time is right now, that not only Apple but also the world is ready for Apple entering the phone market.

1. Apple has now the technology and the experience now to manufacture extremely small high-tech devices. First there was the iPod Mini. Then came the iPod Nano. And it was as if someone at Apple had said “Let’s try making it as little and thin as possible”. To me, the Nano was a test for Apple to reduce an iPod’s size, while keeping up its entire functionality. Now add phone technology to it, and you’ll still get a slim and small phone — with a built in iPod.
2. It’s not unprepared and out of the blue. Apple has taken considerably long to prepare this step, and they made a serious effort in considering all odds and factors. They’ve been talking to Google, as well as with Motorola, Cingular and other network providers. Leander Khaney pointed out there has been a historically similar case, when Apple teamed up with Sony engineers to get more experienced in building their first super slim line of titanium PowerBooks.
3. Ever since he returned to the board at Apple, Steve Jobs had been asked in interviews and during executive meetings, what he was thinking of a revival of the Newton, which had been the world’s first PDA, several years before the Palm Pilot hit the light of the day. (If you remember, the Newton was the beloved project of its former CEO Sculley, who had fired Jobs.) It was no secret that Jobs wasn’t fond if the idea of a Newton revival. But he also made very good points about why not: The technology wasn’t there yet to provide a decent user experience, he said, and existing PDAs on the market are not working right. Screens, resolution and processing power were all too little, and besides, the PDA market was small, hard to expand on, and it wasn’t really what people wanted. Of course, the latter statement wasn’t reflecting the wish list of forementioned avid Mac users, but Jobs was right. Eight, five years ago, it simply wasn’t the right time for anything like a PDA or small tablet device from Apple. And the question whether people were really going to buy something like that, was a valid point. Another reason Jobs repeatedly stated was, that Apple is thinking PDAs are not what it is going to be about in the future. It’s communication devices like cell phones. With that, he gave the first hints to an Apple phone release in the upcoming time.
4. They wanted to come up with something ground-breaking, which will have a similar impact on our lives like the iPod had. And you can’t do that with just a nicer or bigger screen, or with hot little features like built in GPS. What Jobs repeatedly said was, cell phones are too hard to use. So watch out for a brand new operating system, which will beat Symbian and Windows Mobile by simplicity, elegance and ease of use.

iTunes made the introduction of the iPod a success. Similarly to iTunes, it might be possible Apple is again putting its money on a more seamless integration with computers, Windows and Mac alike, by providing better user experience overall. I really think ‘user experience’ is the key element here for Apple.

If you throw a stone into a pond of water, it will create symmetric ripples. If you throw multiple stones in the same point at the same time, those ripples will run into another and create just disturbed water. It is pretty much the same in markets, particularly in the consumers technology market, where new products are introduced by the minute. And each one wants to call for your attention.

Apple had to wait for the right timing. Until it was ready, with its experience, technological capabilities, production lines and a market that’s ripe and ready for a phone from Apple. I’m sure they know what they’re doing, and they haven’t been waiting for no reason. We will know more in a couple of hours.

I have to admit, when I started reading this blog entry of Leander Kahney and Pete Mortensen, I thought it was missing a point. But when I continued reading, I knew they’re right.

Aside of a few other factors of influence, like ease of use and being there in the right time, what made the iPod the market leader of mp3 players wasn’t the iPod. It was iTunes.

With the tech world watching Apple these days, everyone seems to know or have an advice what Apple is supposed to come up with. An “iPod to make phone calls with” seems to be the most commonly believed expectation, followed by a phone with “seamless iTunes integration”.

But I believe that is just the tip of the ice berg actually. If Apple will come out with a phone, its user interface will be so blazingly simple, and synchronizing features will just work, so everyone will be blown away. Facing the elegance and simplicity, we’ll be asking ourselves “why hasn’t anyone else come up with this?”.

Think of the introduction of quite complex applications such as iMovie and GarageBand. Even in their earliest release versions, these programs hit the nail right on the head, with regard to usability and working how consumers think.

Personally, I’m waiting for another phone introduction from Nokia, the N95, expected to hit European markets within the next couple of months. It’s got quad band, Wi-Fi support, bluetooth and all the bells and whistles you could expect from a smartphone these days. Its camera is 5 megapixels, which is a big leap compared to my current 1.3 MP of my Motorola RAZR (which admittedly uses outdated technology).

Ever since the release of the first Mac, Apple had this reputation of being the renegade in the industry. The way Apple did it, quickly became the standards-leading way for everyone else making computers, operating systems and programs. Every comfort you enjoy today, about the Internet, about computers and operating systems, has its roots at Apple. The company has had a catalyst effect for years, with industry-changing ideas.

For some period of time, shortly before Steve Jobs returned to the company, Apple had lost this power and its focus. They had become followers instead of leaders. In this hostile atmosphere of shareholders in doubt, users annoyed and the media bashing Apple, some industry leading celebrities demanded Apple should be sold to someone. They called it doomed.

In a surprising strike of destiny, everything came differently. Apple reinvented itself. With Jobs returning, a new advertising campaign demonstrated how Apple had found back to its roots. “Think different” wasn’t just a credo, or a reminder of the good old days at Apple. Thinking differently was what they actually did: First, the iMac came out, then the iPod, and the rest is history. We live in a different world today. Together with iTunes, the iPod didn’t only have an influence on our lifestyles, it also changed the entire media industry.

The next big thing

Apple is fully aware of what they have done. They know you can’t pull off tricks like that very often. But they also know they don’t want to stand still here. So what is the next big thing?

Aside of all the things I didn’t like so much about advertising, one thing was a good learning. The creative department was called “creative” for a reason. People inside an ad agency were always referring to them as “the creative”. I always found there is nothing more rewarding than the feeling of being part of a group that is creative, that actually creates things.

The bad side of advertising is, 90% of what you create goes to the trash bin. And that’s not for early ideas only. It’s for everything, also the big campaigns you work out to the last detail. Depending on your agency style, you usually present one, perhaps two, up to five different ideas to the client. With five ideas, if you’re lucky, he will like one. If not, you’re going back and come back with another set. If you are not so lucky, he will give you a new brief with each turn.

Vox, the new service of Six Apart, went live on November 29th. I had the opportunity to betatest Vox for a couple of weeks, testing its features and delving into content other users provided.

Vox is a free social website with similar features like Myspace, Tribe, Xanga, Orkut, Tagworld, Facebook and others. You can publish your posts, including audio (your own music, or reviews of what you are listening to), add pictures, video clips, or comment on other people’s posts. You can also connect to other people by adding them to your neighbourhood, or asking them to be your friend.

So what’s the difference to other social websites?

First of it all, Six Apart’s main expertise is blogging. With Movable Type, they had a big share in contributing to the blog revolution. Some would say they started it off, but they didn’t invent it. Blogging had been around since the web started, but it took a while until it became a cultural phenomenon. To make that happen, software that was easy to use was required. Web based applications like Movable Type made it easier to update content, and everything grew from there, enabling regular people to publish content on the Web.

Today, October 19th, Microsoft has released its long expected browser update, Internet Explorer 7. Several years behind the introduction of tabbed browsing in Firefox, Internet Explorer now features this function, as well as handling of RSS feeds and improved security.

A blatant lack of security, and tying users into forced usage of Internet Explorer only, had been on top of the critique list for Internet Explorer 6. Additionally, for developers it was simply put a nightmare to make proper W3 compliant websites work with Internet Explorer. The engine of Internet Explorer was based on an aging license of Spyglass Mosaic, from 1995.

TechCrunch wrote an article about DOPA, a new law proposition passed by the U.S. House, that will require schools and universities to block social websites on their networks and computers.

An incredibly vague law, DOPA will require schools and libraries to block access to a potentially huge range of sites on the Internet. The goal is to protect children from adult predators. Sites that must be blocked include those that allow people to post profiles, include personal information and allow “communication among users.”

You are kidding me, right? “The goal is to protect children from adult predators.” — How dumb can a government be?

This story could be all “look, how cute, they love each other!”. It could be heart-melting, to learn that myspace.com is not only for teens, freaks and child molesters. It could transmit that through the Internet — source of so many bad stories, freaking out people every day — something positive and great has happened. Two people jumped over borders. Two people found love, crossing barriers of culture and religion. Two people overcame fundamental prejudices of their culture.

But no. Our time doesn’t allow this kind of positive view. We are trai