Silicon Valley everywhere?

Why are almost all of the great websites and internet applications created in the Silicon Valley? Think of Google, Amazon, PayPal, Digg, eBay, Facebook etc.

Is it the proximity of the universities, Stanford and Berkeley? The venture capital powerhouses residing there? The inspiring environment? The multiple founder phenomenon (founders starting their 2nd or 3rd website)?

Probably it's a combimnation of all these. Certainly the universities have contributed a lot by fostering an entrepreneurial and creative climate. And the money was there to make the entrepreneurs think big. As well as the trial and error approach to founding companies. Many successful websites are the consequence of ideas taken from others that were not so successful or even went bust. Serial founders like Marc Andreessen, Max Levchin, Kevin Rose contributed a lot by being the living examples of entrepreneurs making dozens or hundreds of millions out of multiple companies founded by them. Very attractive and inspiring for other young talent to join their firms, found their own, having the ambition to make it there, too.

Will this climate also emerge elsewhere on the planet? Will the next big thing come from the Valley again? Or from Russia, India, China, Bresil, South Africa? Anyone could do it, anywhere. Web 2.0 makes it easy. Little investment is needed. So, let's see what comes next. Hot spots are the Web 2.0, the iPhone, the social networks, ...

Response to 'Time for a Twitter Reality Check'

In response to a question around 'Time for a Twitter Reality Check' asked in LinkedIn I wrote the following (you may want to have a look at the original article first):

I look at Twitter as a startup with huge potential, like Google or Facebook were a few years ago. Personally I use Twitter as a marketing channel to bring people to my website and blog. Some make direct money of this by generating enough traffic to their blogs to be attractive for AdSense to place ads. Others are looking for jobs and find offerings, or they can attract recruiters to their CV / LinkedIn / Xing / Viadeo / Hi5 webpage. Still others get user feedback and support requests (like Dell). Or they distribute coupons, 'secret passwords', promotions like Starbucks and generate massive physical traffic to their outlets. Some use it to attract people to their Craigslist ad extending reach. CNN and many other media bring traffic to their websites and news channels. The British and Swiss Government use it to distribute information about events, politics and legislation. Churches distribute bible verses. etc. etc. So there are many faces and uses of Twitter.

You can't really say that users are only interesting if they're active. It is the normal business model for broadcasters to have passive users and still they make money out of the business model (news or entertainment against suffering commercials). Similar for 'gurus' and celebrities who give some little stuff or nice words to their fans. The user activity lies in consuming the information, just like reading a newspaper. Listening to the global chat. And sometimes this becomes very active like during the Iran elections, where even the White House asked Twitter not to interrupt the service, as it gave voice to the Iranian opposition (and channels to CIA and NSA, probably).

Is no one 'using' (what do you mean by 'using') it? Have a look at Alexa stats: yesterday 3.45% of Internet visitors (most from US) used Twitter (Google: 34.35%; MSN: 11.69% sinking; Facebook: 21.93%; AOL: 2.34%). With this Twitter is on rank 15 of the top sites accoring to Alexa. Not bad. No one??

'Using' for evil? NO. Most 'users' are listeners, spectators, consumers. Personally I've found huge value and insights from using Twitter. I found stuff and made connections with interesting people I didn't know about 5 months ago, and I'm a rather senior guy.

Numbers lie? You trust Nielsen? Have a look here http://en-us.nielsen.com/main/news/news_releases/2009/june/time_on_facebook . 3712 pc year on year growth in the top 10 social networking and blog sites list.

And just thin of the combination potential if Twitter did join forces with Amazon, Goole, CNN, Facebook or whatever. Does Twitter as a company have a value? Yes? Well, the founders already founded Blogger and sold it to Google. Why would anyone want to buy it? Think.

Ok, nuf 4 now. Sure, I do agree with some of what you say, BUT, I'd advise not to underestimate the power of Twitter. I think it will become or already is a major force on the web. And the potential is by far not exploited. Creative firms and users have found and will find ways to build new businesses, marketing approaches, distribution models based on Twitter.

What do you think?

We choose THE MOON

'We choose THE MOON'. I heard these words from John F. Kennedy over 40 years ago. And it was unbelievable. Except, that it was the President of the United States saying this. And we'd better believe him. He set the agenda, and, as we all know, on this very day forty years ago 'the Eagle has landed' on the moon.

It is one of the dates in my life I can remember exactly. I was actually meant to be on a small airfield near La Chaux-de-Fonds attending flight school. But, due to some strange reasons, all of my three colleagues had decided to leave the course and therefore it was stopped. I would go back to another course in August only for the rest of the flight training leading to the private pilot's licence.

Thus I was at home in my summer college vacation with plenty of time. This allowed me to follow the full TV coverage of the Apollo 11 mission's approach to the lunar orbit and the moon landing, which can now be followed again on the web. There were a lot of explanations by our Swiss commentator Bruno Stanek. Everything was very thrilling as in the ex-ante situation it was not for sure, that things would work out so well. The characteristic noises of the communication between Houston and the astronauts were the messengers of superiority of American technology, of the American 'can do' mentality, of the ingenious achievement of this huge project team.

Finally, the Apollo 11 crew succeeded, Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle, and the names of the astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins would become unforgettable for my generation and immortal for the memory of mankind. We admired their courage, their perseverance, their will to go to the limits. Many young guys like me were fascinated by the technology and we re-planned our career objectives. I choose to become an engineer and an airforce pilot.

In the middle of the night CET the whole family got up to watch the first steps of a man on the moon. And Neil Armstrong's words while stepping down from the lunar module as the first human being on the surface of the moon were imprinted into our minds forever: 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'. Today and tomorrow we commemorate this awesome event with its effects far beyond technology. Still fascinating to look at the pictures again and a lot of memories, like this little story of a kid saving the mission, about a very exciting and remarkable day of our life.

Links zu Stellenausschreibungen und -portalen

Fach- & Führungskräfte

Here I publish a number of links to HR recruiters and job portals in Switzerland. The list will be enhanced from time to time (comments are in German).

Die nachstehende Liste soll Stellensuchenden in der Schweiz den Zugang zu Personalberatern für mittlere Fach- und Führungspositionen und Job Portalen erleichtern.

www.jobs.ch
Monster
TopJobs
Placement24
Experteer

www.job-online.ch
www.aab-personalservice.ch (Basel)
www.abs-personal.ch
www.asmartmove.ch
www.atkinsonstuart.com (Executive Search only)
www.bconsulting.ch
www.bellini.ch
www.catchyourjob.ch (HR Associates AG, Zürich)
www.cms-ag.ch
www.compers.ch
www.da-personal.ch
www.dmsselection.ch
www.esprit.ch (für Wiedereinsteigerinnen)
www.execunet.com
www.fair-job.ch (Langenthal)
www.futurestep.ch
www.go4work.ch
www.gst-stellendienst.ch
www.humanis.ch
www.ibt-personal.ch (Ost-CH)
www.inovajob.ch (TG, Winterthur)
www.interim.ch
www.ivp.ch
www.jobbase.ch
www.jobklick.ch
www.kaderberatung.ch
www.kaener.ch
www.melipartner.ch
www.nellen.ch
www.oprandi.ch
www.professionelle.ch (Frauen)
www.psp.ch
www.schaeferpartner.ch
www.selecteam.ch
www.s-p.ch
www.spoerripersonal.ch
www.swisselect.ch
www.swisslinx.com
www.triopersonal.ch
www.universal-job.ch
www.uniwork.ch
www.vsmgroup.ch
www.careerjet.com

More information on Twitter for starters

As many before me have already published useful information on getting started in Twitter I would just like to give you a link to a website of Mashable here, a rich source for additional information on Twitter.

How to get the right followers on Twitter (2)

Now after my blog on the general strategies for your Twitter usage and some insights on how to connect your blog, website, Twitter account and other social network presences, here are some simple points for getting followers:
- make sure that you mention your Twitter account name in everyone of you other social networks and invite your friends to follow you on Twitter, or invite them to open a Twitter account (most of them will then follow you);
- celebrities have it easy to get followers: as soon as they are on Twitter, word of mouth will spread (or their manager / agent will make sure this happens) and they will get their fans following them in masses (you can observe this with Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Oprah and the like). Normally they will only follow a few of their personal contacts. If you make it on their list, big advantage.
- for the rest of us following brings followers. Start with a few people who have many followers and just follow them (like Guy Kawasaki, Pete Cashmore aka Mashable etc.). Some of them use auto follow services and will automatically become your followers. They also will publish a lot of insights on Twitter to help you for next steps.
- you can also use auto follow websites and the system will make sure that you follow anyone who follows you. I recommend to use TweetLater for this. They also allow you to send your tweets at the time you wish them to go out (ideally when many users on Twitter are online).
- now you should start to use a more convenient interface than the standard Twitter one. I recommend to use TweetDeck or Seesmic, in which you can build groups and have a more selctive view on your followers. These interfaces also allow you to follow others in just a click.
- this is also the time to start tweeting and re-tweeting (RT). Many of those you RT will become followers. What to RT? Up to you, this can be news, interesting insights from others, tweets with interesting links etc. Showing what interests you will make it easier for others to decide whether they want to follow you. Be aware that at the same time you also become more transparent to all kinds of people in the online world by showing your preferences.
- you can also use link shortening services like Adjix which allow at the same time to multiply your tweets by sending them out several times (ie for Asia, Europe, US morning, midday and evening)
- your tweets should be attractive, interesting, unique, vivd, special, in order to attract followers. Otherwise you would just be one of many contributing to the information overload.
- the next thing is to be interactive, asking specific questions via @replies or DMs, thus building closer connections.
- also, you need to be generous by re-tweeting interesting tweets from others. Some will thank you by following.
- if you find especially cool twitters you can help them, by nominating them for #followfriday on Fridays (format: #followfriday @top007, that's me), again, often they will follow you.
- and then, of course, as mentioned before, the interaction of your witter acoount, blog and website will start to pay off.

When starting up you can't follow more than 2000 twitters, as twitter has built in limits to avoid spam. Once you have reached 2000 followings you need to weed out a bit and develop you follower base to come near to 2000. This is a major hurdle with which I'm currently struggling.

In my next blog I will publish a few selected links to additional information and videos.