On Wikipedia crowdfunding is “the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.”

I started my campaign on Indiegogo, one of the best crowdfunding platform opened to international participation. I know that Kickstarter is the most famous, but their projects are available just for americans, so I was out! I found Indiegogo after an hard comparison between some Kickstarter alternatives that gave me a good panoramic view of the web crowdfunding applications.

I started PWPC for two reasons:
1) the project itself talks about one of the biggest passion of my life, Capoeira (my group)
2) the project gives me the opportunity to experiment two important digital communication topics, storytelling and crowdfunding.

I’m opening my own digital communication agency so I hope to find new opportunities, new partners and a new professional future. I need to live innovations because I can’t help my clients just reading case histories or blog posts. I need to understand how common users reach fans telling stories and playing with them.

Following you can learn more about the PWPC project, but first watch my video containing the PWPC content format. Fund me on Indiegogo and share it everywhere #PWPC.

PWPC PROJECT
PWPC is focused on the people who practice Capoeira, not just on teachers or acrobatic movements. The workshop will host people from all over the world mashing faces, cultures, religions and traditions.

In Cesarea attendees from Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Russia, India and obviously, Israel are already confirmed. During the event the Israeli Capoeira group will celebrate its 20th anniversary with the participation of Grande Mestre Suassuna from Sao Paulo in Brazil.

An event like this can be possible because Capoeira is not just a sport, it’s culture, music, happiness, entertainment, acrobatic and sensuality.

Capoeira is a democratic world where everyone can find his role.
In Capoeira nobody cares if you are not able to do a mortal jump or a fire kick.
In Capoeira nobody cares of your religion or your skin.
Capoeira is a well-rithmed chaos of feelings, movements and people.
People who practice Capoeira is a project about faces and experiences, not only about the sport that at least is just a part of the group life.

THE FILMING TECHNOLOGY
If Capoeira is a well-rithmed chaos of feelings, movements and people, the filming technology must follow the chaos in it.

PWPC will be filmed with a GoPro HD Hero2, the best sports-cam in the world used for extreme sport movies. I chose the GoPro because I want mash the extreme shoots of the acrobatic scenes with the moving interviews of the participants. I’ll adopt an experimental shooting approach thanks to the incredible GoPro filming technology.

Fund it on Indiegogo

- verb
[no object] engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose:
- noun
[mass noun]
1activity engaged in for enjoyment and recreation, especially by children:

Yesterday march 6 , Google announced that Android Market is replaced by Google Play.
New logo and new name for more or less the same services. In their official blog post they say:

[...]Google Play, a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on your Android phone or tablet. Google Play is entirely cloud-based so all your music, movies, books and apps are stored online, always available to you, and you never have to worry about losing them or moving them again.

In my opinion Google is going to have branding problems because it’s focusing its activity on the mobile with the only one product that doesn’t have the big G brand: Android!

When they launched Android probably they didn’t expect a success like this. Today, with thousands day activations, Android is the unique OS available natively for smartphones and tablets of any price, TVs, set top boxes, car entertainment systems and probably other devices that I’m forgetting.

When Google will mash Chrome/Chromium and Android will be the world’s OS leader, surpassing Microsoft and Apple. In a near future Google will control the fruition platform of a lot of the internet devices in our daily life, except the gaming devices (for now). The best way to earn from this leader position is selling contents/services to consumer and business markets.

In these years Google built the perfect market.
It started from the www content indexing paid from AdWord. Then it offered for free services like Gmail, Gmap, Greader, Ganalytics, Gdocs, Gbooks, Blogger [etc] retaining users with their personal data, and contemporaneously selling business services versions to the small/medium companies. He bought the most important content site ever, YouTube, improving the video distribution on the web. Then Google integrated all these services in a unique social Google (+) Account and in a mobile OS: Android.
Android today can aggregate all the Google services and contents in a big variety of devices, but where’s the problem of this perfect market?

The problem is that the Google’s biggest selling channel is branded Android, not Google!

In this way BigG is wasting all his brand power exactly when it should be trusted from his consumers to sell products that others are already selling from iTunes, Xbox/Zune/Windosw8, Amazon Store or PlayStation Network.

The little Android mascote is so cute. Google can’t kill him, but can delete him from the money cloud cave of the future, the ex Android Market.

All together say hello to the rainbow triangle of Google Play.

I hope that this transition will help the open source/data world like never before. This is the first time that an Open Source project can be improved simply using an easy, known and fun application like Foursquare.

The first change reason they considered for is the economic one. Last October Google announced that more than 25,000 map loads per day had to be paid with the Google Premier API.
Thor Mitchell wrote that this change affected just 0.35% of world’s websites, but for that small amount of people the prices plans were really high.

Ed Freyfogle of Nestoria had the same 4SQ experience and solved the problem in the same “open way”. In his post he wrote strong words about the commercial attitude of the Google’s employee that represent the real value of the map services for web and mobile.

Unfortunately Google’s sales process was not good. Having agreed to a time for a call, the sales rep missed the appointment with no warning, instead calling me 45 minutes late. It was quickly obvious he had done no research whatsoever about our service, what we do, or even where (in which countries) we do it. He was unable to explain the basics of the new charging regime – for example, what exactly is a “map-view”, telling me instead to “ask your developers”. Finally he quoted a price to continue using Google Maps (just on nestoria.co.uk, one of eight countries we operate in) that would have bankrupted our company.

On the Foursquare post comments are focused on the bad OSM mapping information of cities like New Mexico and Sao Paulo, while some Russian countries are mapped better than Google Map. What does it mean?

Grawl screenshot

Civil earth mapping is still generally incomplete according to the entity that promote it. Google Map is focused on commercial scope because it works on advertising and business applications. OpenStreetMap is focused on the openness of its platform, but depends totally from the users. The advanced digital users like the russians

Unfortunately the paradox is that the Google Map success is due to his easy personalization and integration on the web. Everyone can build a little map or can add his company on it. Using Google Map gives the sense of openness that is not real!

When users put datas on Google Map give their information to BigG that first tracks our profiles, and then filsl its local databases. Ok, it gives us a a great map service, but this is not open, its a business product that users are building with their datas and a strong usage.

If I were in OpenStreetMap I focus on little instruments to facilitate access to the map instruments. For example the maps for personal web sites, small applications for mobile and so on. Untill companies will be forced to consider OMS as a Google Map alternative just for economic reasons, the OMS project probably will not fill the mapping holes of his atlas.

Open Source and Open Data should be easy end fun. 

Foursquare has the unique occasion to spread an open source project that need to be filled with users, gamification, badges, specials and so on. Foursquare could even innovate his system developing a personal reality mapping function that goes beyond the simple check-in system. Users could build their onf maps using the 4SQ mobile technology mixed to the OSM map framework, and then they could open ecommerce corners or sell local adv.

I’ll follow them, even if for me Foursquare is still an Antisocial Network

Zuckemberg and his staff are implementing the platform improving functions, mobile, and interactions among users and the rest of the web (like, fan, follow etc).

Looking at my friends, my relatives and my collagues, I think that Facebook is not only a social network, but it is going to be the official web personal page. The functions and the importance that Facebook is going to have can’t be based only on the social interaction. The normal/low profile users, the majority, are using Internet starting from Facebook. For them is normal thinking about their personal page as the official personal medium like a blog or a web site. I think that most of them ignore WordPress, Flickr or Tumblr, and probably they might not have any reason to open a YouTube Channel or a Twitter account.

In a near future a lot of people could decide to manage their digital life just using Facebook like a platform provider for self promotion, business and social interactions.
Why?
Because on Facebook you can build a personalized page (the coming Timeline) with an exclusive url (vanity url). You can upload unlimited pictures and videos that you can embed and share inside and outisde FB. You can share contents, events, birthdays and check-ins. You can write short or long statuses (up to 63.000 characters). You can video chat and mail. You can tag people (do you remember the Blogrolls or the pingbacks?). You can follow the streams of other people even if they are not your friends (something like Feed Reader). You can create a page, a sort of web site, or a group, a sort of personal community. You can advertise and analize visits (FB Ads & Insights). You can install thousands of social application and games. You can buy and sell (check Blomming, a great Italian start up) and last but not least, you can sync and manage a lot of these contents on your mobile device.

Simplify WordPress, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, MySpace, Foursquare and Twitter and you’ll obtain Facebook on dec’11. Ok, you’ll never have the functions of all these platforms, but do you think that the mass need them? Do you think that your mom will open a YouTube Channel for sharing her nephews videos or posting a comment to the new Italian Government?
No, forget it!

The strongest “function” of Facebook remains the social one. Everyone is on Facebook and all the companies are opening official pages that one day could replace the official web sites. Even Facebook for Developers is supporting the Facebook content management systemification. If you integrate FB on your web site you have a rapid subscribe process and easy share/comments functions, but remember that you are moving the attention of your users from your site to Facebook. The FB’s API are a great commodity, but they are a threat because one day your users could prefer remaining on the blue site avoiding your site.

In conclusion, I think that Facebook is going to be:

• the biggest DB of people, interests and connections for the active users and the real connection between them
• the biggest DB for marketeers for the sociographic information and the detailed maps of the user’s interests and connections
• the biggest DB of contents and contents link because the mass produce, import and link everything on FB
• the strongest conversation platform because we have more friends inside FB than outside it
• the strongest potential paid social network because anyone could live without FB
  
• the biggest publishing application platform because installing an app is easier and viralest on FB than anywhere else
• the most integrated social network on the web because to reach visitors, a web site should be easily sharable and accessible from/to FB
• the most powerful analytics platform because they collect visits, impressions and shares of real indentities building a precise social tree everywhere FB is integrated

Do you agree?

Anyway, I’ll never abandon my blogs and my other social platoforms, but fist to post this article I opened my personal Facebook Page

This Sunday I signed up on Foursquare even if probably I should have signed some years ago. Honestly I’ve never have an account because I hate to subscribe web services that I don’t need, and I didn’t need it until I read about the real time deals in partnership with Groupon.

Groupon in Italy is a sort of mania. I see people that go crazy for the offers and buy things that they never known to want. Foursquare here is used from a really small community that, especially in Milan, is composed from Digital and Communication workers. Ok, they are all good people, but not properly the typical I’d like to spend all my evenings.
Now I think that the Foursquare’s/Groupon’s users will enormously increase and so I’ll have the possibility to find my common friends around Milan.

So, on Sunday I signed up and I searched for contacts using Facebook, Gmail and Twitter adding people without any criteria.

Add him, add her, add its, add them.
No!
I shouldn’t add him!
I’m not interested in meeting him and I don’t want to know where is he.
Hey wait..there’s a paradox!
I’m really interested in his position because in this way I can avoid him or prepare myself to the “casual meeting”.
It’s fantastic!

Foursquare is the first social network that can be used for antisocial human needs with a millimetric precision. Its better than the participation lists on Facebook and Eventbrite because its preciser and in real time.
Even if the web is going to be social, in the day life we can’t be always friendly. I don’t know you, but absolutely I can’t, so sometimes could be useful to know if in a bar or in a square there’s someone that I prefer avoid.

This is a really concrete, rude and onf line use of the mobile internet (what is onf line?).
I love it!

This antisocial use of Foursquare I think that could be improved with some new functions like:

• new tagging/attributes scheme for the contacts like “follow” or “avoid”
• “avoid friend” check-in map with special alert or a new navigation tab
• places suggestions free of the “avoid friends” (powered of Groupon)

So, what are you waiting for?
Add me on Foursquare!

image property of HowardLake

I didn’t found any new job so I think that I’ll not repeat this approach, but I’ll share with you the presentations that I did for them.

The first one is for a big company that produces a unique kitchen appliance with already a really big audience on the web.
First to write this little project I studied the product and the impressive population of the “cooking web”. Then I analyzed the user’s web pages, the blogs and the unofficial Facebook pages, trying contemporary to reconstruct the digital strategy of the company.
At last I did even some onf line evolution of the strategy (what is onf line?) that could use the consumer’s contents to produce a new editorial product targeted for all the users.

There the presentation.

I’d like to develop my skills and my network. I want improve my English too, but principally I want promote the Italian style participating to the global discussion.

Professionally I’m even searching for something that could modify the classic internet entrepreneurhip through onfline communication. I think that in Italy we’ll never see million of euros of venture capitalism, and will be difficult even to have State’s support for youth entrepreneurship. so I would find a different way to share, collaborate, work and ACT!

I want work locally with the italian resources connecting them to the world through this Blog and its immature english. I know that I’ll do a lot of mistakes, but please don’t hurt me!

This is my welcome article, but I’ll post something more in the next days. In the meantime you can read something about me here or looking at the different headers that I draw by hands not (only) because I don’t know Photoshop. The concept of the headers is onfline too, but the calligraphy is mine. Sorry!

See you soon.