Search
Search Menu

Back in California for the SES San Jose Show

Just arrived in San Jose last night. Feels good to be back in California 🙂

I have picked up posting on my Swiss Video Blog as of the beginning of August. On netznews.tv I interview a bunch of interesting internet decision makers and try to transfer some of their insights to the viewer.

Also I have purchased a couple of new domains and am now up to 421 :-).

I will post about my newest project in a few days here, but want to apply some of the know how I’ll be gaining here first.

So what am I doing in San Jose? I am registered press for the Search-Engine Strategies Conference, will be attending the Google Dance 2007 as well as AOL Search Lunch and WebmasterWorlds SearchBash. Today, I will also be at BarCamp Block and have an interview with a few interesting people there. Stay tuned 😉

Also, last night, when I arrived at my hotel room, the fire alarm went off and we all needed to evacuate. Afterwards the building was cleared again. So why did the alarm go off? Some idiot urinated on the hot sauna stones… I guess I won’t be using the sauna, while I’m here…

Last day and feeling free…

So today, was my last day at Scout24. I held a nice presentation and all went great. Had a nice chat with an interesting SEO guy on the train.The last couple of weeks, I was working on my start-up and have gone through a great course called ‘venture training’, offered by http://www.venturelab.ch. The guy running the show is Dominik Tarolli. Doing a great job at it, he provides young swiss startups with know-how and network.

I met a few cool guys on the way. eLoad24 is a companyproviding web-users with access to condensed knowhow. LogCut.com is a micromedia-commercialization-assistant :-). Need an airport shuttle? Use transferbus.net for european airport transfers. Social collaboration? amazee.com might be what you are looking for…

Anyhow, it’s interesting to learn, how the visual enfavors perception.

A friend of mine recently had a IM-mood-tag: ‘the future is here to take’. Let’s see, what the future brings.

"Historical Achievements…" WhiteLabeling….

Oh, my…. so it’s been a very long time, since I last blogged, it seems… Not quite so, I have recently launched and blogged on my own “TechCrunch for Switzerland” Swiss Internet Blog website netznews.tv.

Just came home, from having dinner with one of Switzerland’s leading online classified websites. Very interesting “historical” conversation. So on my way home, I thought of my “historical achievements” with Scout24.

I guess one of them might have been to introduce the term “WhiteLabeling” to the Swiss Internet Market. In August of 2002, Andrew Mueller and I, were given the Task of building up the “leading real estate platform of Switzerland“.

One of our fantasies was to build a network of premium online websites catering to an opposing targetgroup of partners, to deliver great value for money experience (that expressing user-experience).

So we had to come up with a term for this type of new product. As my Dad had been a scientist and provided me with tons of ideas and models on how things work and where to research them, I stumbled across the therm “white-label drugs”, being medicine being produced for 3rd party companies, to be resold under their brand. These products where delivered with blank white-labels, so that 3rd parties could print what ever they intended on the “front-end” of the product.

My dinner colleague had an opposing view of the term “white labeling”, as his understanding was, that whitelabel meant, everything in your colors (but our structure), but mainly the ability to have an individual “back end”, thus being filtering and enrichment of content.

Same term, different understandings… WhiteLabeling rules… 🙂 My “historical achievement…”

What to learn more about WhiteLabels?

WEF Open Forum: World Economic Forum Davos 2007


As in the past 3 years, I attended the Open Forum of the WEF this year again. My posts on the topics covered are in the “politics” category of my blog.

It was fun and as always, a very entertaining weekend. Novalis, a student friend of mine, and I had a Suite at the Hotel Europe right on the Promenade in Davos.

Usually you get to meet cool people at their piano bar. Two years ago, when we were there, Arthur Andersen had an invitation only cigars & jazz event we snook in to… 😉 This year it was open to the public, by the time we got there.

I was great fun mingling among people like former Swiss ambassador to Germany, Thomas Borer, who was accompanied by Victor Vexelberg, one of the Russian oligarchs, who is now increasingly based in Switzerland.

Also standing next to Google’s Eric Schmidt, while entering the Davos Casino, and seeing him sent away, as he wasn’t carrying his passport with him, was kinda fun. Imagine a casino sending away one of the worlds most influential persons, because he could not present proper ID… 😉

A great chat with a guy from the US Homeland Security Department, while having Fondue at a local Chalet was another unforgetable chat and allowed a new view on the current events in the middle east.

If you ever have time in January to attend, you should definitely plan a nice week of skiing vacation in Davos and while doing so, visit the WEF, you’ll really enjoy it!

Good bye Scout24

It’s official…

After 6.5 years in various positions with Scout24 Switzerland, I have decided to leave the company and persue my own way. On January 16 I handed in my resignation, which will become effective July 31, 2007. I still have approx. 6 weeks of vacation, so I can’t say exactly as to when I will no longer be there.

I had a wonderful time there and learned a lot. Unfortunately the company does not offer a stock option plan for their employees, due to the fact, that it is part of Deutsche Telekom. So I guess it will be dificult to hold the entreprenurial employees within the group.

Good learning for my own company setup, use the “Trivadis” participation model I heard of. Employees vest shares with each year they are in the company. They can additionaly buy shares at their own expense. The company is valued independently once a year. If you leave the company, you must return your shares by the time of the next valuation and at that price. This way, the company avoids former employees to bring in new proprietors (see craigslist & ebay) and yet allows them to participate in the company growth during the time, they contribute to it.

I will be founding my own company on April 21, 2007, turned out to take longer, but was founded in September: Idealizer AG a Swiss eMedia Lab.

More on what I plan to do, the developments around this, etc. to follow… 😉

My new portal!

Today I am happy to announce, that one of the options I had recommended for realization during my work on the pan-european Strategy Team of Scout24 in Munich has officially been launched in BETA mode.

www.scout24.ch is Scout24 Switzerland’s newest portal. It’s a general merchandise (or “stuff” as my friends) classifieds portal and covers about 300 different categories.

Also we cover events as an own category and have approx. 10’000 events on file.

I have been named Director of this new portal and have staffed 5 new positions for it.

So in case you happen to be searching for a place to post your “stuff” in Switzerland, come and visit Scout24!

Wiedermal im Flugbus….

Lustige Woche… Bin gerade auf den Weg nach Frankfurt, wo ich anlässlich einer Fachtagung der Zeitung Marketing Gesellschaft (ZMG) ein Referat zum Thema ‘Branchenfremde und Medienpartner bei Online Immobilien’ halte. Fragt sich nur, wer der Branchenfremde und wer der Medienpartner ist :-)Am Abend zurück nach Bern, morgen Zürich, dann Donnerstag – Samstag Management Klausurtagung. Am Sonntag ab nach München, PR-Workshop bis Dienstag, Dienstag abend Rückflug nach Bern, Weihnachtsessen und Mittwoch morgen 08.00 Soll-Ist-Vergleich… Danke Toni 🙂

Hugh Hefner's Suite in Vegas!

Last week, I was at PubCon in Las Vegas, learning about Google AdSense, Duplicate Content issues and a lot about SEO in general
(You can read some of my keynote blog posts in my business blog).Additionally I got to meet a bunch of cool people.

Whoever knows me, knows that I am rather good at bullshitting myself into as well as out of things. Well, at PubCon, there was a special party, hosted by YAHOO! (use their services if you can).

Luckily enough and thanks to some SEO friends, I got an invitation and attended the party. It was in Hugh Hefner’s Las Vegas suite, at the Palms Hotel what a location, wow.Now of course I would love to give you all the juicy details, but I’m afraid you know the rules: ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ 🙂

Thank’s again YAHOO!

Atlanta Hartsfield….

And here we are again… Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport. Gosh, I love travelling, especially when I get an entire 3 seat row for myself 🙂 Who would ever want to fly business?

Then again, on the other side, if you fly alot, you will most likely share the evil most travellers experience… You get to sit next to that fat sweating ugly guy. Where the heck are all the women?

Is there an airline men haven’t heard of sofar, one, only women use? Do women, no, let me rephraise that, do GOOD LOOKING women not fly on commercial airlines?

Actually, I think I’m wrong. Today I was proven wrong. Not only did I have a 3 seat row to myself, but so did the woman in front of me, and to keep things simple, wow! Anyone not on my plane today and not in my seat sure missed out on something.

CH (her initials) thanks for beeing on that plane and making my day. Hope to hear from you.

To all others reading this, travel, meet and be marry, for gosh, it’s worth it.

Thank you Atlanta Hearts Field…