SIME Blog

SIME Trivia – A chance to Win SIME Stockholm Tickets!

Mahesh Kumar — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 09:37:58 +0000

Dear friends of SIME,

Beginning this week we are launching a bunch of contests to help you win free SIME Stockholm tickets giving you access to 2 days of inspiration, knowledge, business and fun on November 17, 18.

And the first of the series is what we call the SIME Trivia.

The SIME Trivia Contest

For the next few weeks, we will ask you 3 simple questions every week about SIME and things around SIME.
And every second week (bi weekly), we will announce 1 lucky winner who gets the answers to the questions right (more trivia’s participated, higher the chance of winning of course)

So this is how it works

Every Wednesday beginning September 8, at the SIME Blog (http://blog.sime.nu), you will find a trivia contest which has 3 questions about SIME. The contest runs from Wednesday to Friday 1700 CET every week.

You can answer the question by:

Filling up the Form that you can find here in the blog ( a simple Google form look alike)
Re-tweeting the answers to @simeblog or DM-ing via Twitter to the same account
Post as comments on our Facebook Page and LinkedIN Group

And at the end of Friday, our dedicated team will analyze the replies and spit out a winner every second week. Quite simple, straight forward and nice way to be part of one of the most important events of the year.

So watch out for the trivia beginning this Wednesday! :)
And oh did I mention participation like retweeting, spreading the message and interacting can also help you move up the leader board.

Amazing Augmented Reality + Facebook / Social Media Music Video! (French)

Mahesh Kumar — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:52:14 +0000

You have got to love this. This is such a cool extrapolation of the social media and the touch concept.

[Thanks for the tip @Matthew Szymczyk from Zugara]

SIME: It’s your party!

Mahesh Kumar — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:49:51 +0000

I accidentally stumbled upon this video of Ace of Base performing for the first time in 12 years at SIME 08 Awards and Gala with Mia Rose, and it struck me again that SIME is a party where entrepreneurs and people in the digital arena are the rock stars. Its a party like no other you have seen – fun, inspiration, business and knowledge. I still remember when I first went to Stockholm and someone said “Its a conference in a night club”. And how true it is.

SIME – It’s your party and you are welcome to a new world of knowledge, inspiration, business and fun :)

Register for SIME 10 here

Morten Lund’s interview with BBC

Mahesh Kumar — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:21:12 +0000

As we reported earlier, our very own SIME Star Morten Lund gave an interview with BBC on “Entrepreneuring through Boom and Bust”. You can listen to his interview now from the link below. Of course, it reeks of Morten style: flamboyant, passionate, don’t care, lucky, maverick, passion, loaded, lucky and did I mention passion?

Worth your 25 minutes in lieu of your TED-a-day- habit or reading the news :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00924n7

Dr. Werner Vogels: “The cloud is more secure and affordable than firms realise”

Mahesh Kumar — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:32:44 +0000

[This is a repost of the interview by Dr. Werner Vogels given to http://www.siliconrepublic.com/strategy/item/17491-the-cloud-is-more-secure/. Dr. Werner Vogels was a speaker at SIME 09, named the CTO of the year by Information Week and one of the most important people in the cloud computing arena]

As a revolution in technology, how would you rate the take-up of cloud computing?

Companies in virtually every industry are taking advantage of the on-demand, scalable and pay-as-you-go benefits. We believe that these services are rapidly changing what tech vendors are offering to customers and how those customers are purchasing IT.

Fast-growing start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike are leveraging the on-demand technology resources from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to innovate, rapidly scale and cut costs.

These services are available on demand so a customer doesn’t need to think about controlling them, maintaining them or where they’re located. Customers access the services when they need them and pay for only what they use.

Have businesses been reluctant to embrace cloud computing because of security fears or having their data mingle with other data for compliance reasons?

I realise that CIOs feel very responsible for the performance and security of the company’s technology infrastructure. There is an element of control in being able to walk down the hall for the throat to choke. There’s also a comfort in knowing you can take some action if there’s a problem. And relinquishing that control is understandably difficult.

Once customers understand how we handle security, many say that we provide equal to or even better security than they can achieve on their own.

Examining Amazon’s cloud, you’ll see that the same security isolations are employed as would be found in a traditional data centre. It provides the same familiar approaches to security that companies have been using for decades.

How big an aspect is the cloud for Amazon’s business into the future?

AWS was developed from a skill we already have and that is building technology infrastructure at massive scale. The web-scale computing services that AWS offers are based on Amazon’s own back-end technology infrastructure, which we’ve spent over a decade building.

In the fullness of time – not sure if this will be five, 10 or 20 years – we believe few companies will have their own data centres and those that do will have much smaller footprints. For that reason, we believe that one day AWS could be as big as or bigger than our retail business, the reason is that cloud computing is where technology is going.

What does the future hold for cloud computing?

The old world meant lots of capex, underutilised infrastructure and wasted time and focus on undifferentiated IT. The new world is no capex, pay for what you use and the ability to focus on what differentiates your business. CEOs, CFOs and CIOs owe it to their shareholders to take a hard look at their technology infrastructure and make sure it’s really differentiated and adding value … as it’s likely costing them a lot of money.

Dr Werner Vogels will be speaking at the Cloud Computing Summit at Croke Park Stadium on 9 September. To learn more go to www.siliconrepublic.com/special-events/the-2010-cloud-computing-summit

YOU are Invited to take the leap with us @ SIME Stockholm, November 17,18!

Mahesh Kumar — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:41:39 +0000

SIME opens registration today for SIME Stockholm to be held on November 17 and 18. And you are invited to be part of an exciting 2 day journey of business, inspiration, knowledge and fun. Join us and listen to over 40 international experts on the main stage talking about digital opportunities, 24 expert workshops and a match-making session all to be held at Ambassadeur & Rigoletto, Kungsgatan 16, Stockholm.

This year, we have some of the big weights from the digital arena like Rolv Erik Ryssdal, CEO Schibsted (Norway), Bruno Giussani, EU Director TED Conferences, Om Malik Industry Commentator from the famed GigaOM Network. You can view the speaker roster here while we are in the meantime continuously updating the list with more big names.

[UPDATE AND CORRECTION]

You have 2 packages to choose from while buying your tickets.

a) “The Unlimited SIME” Option which gives you access to the main stage between 0900 – 1500, matchmaking from 1500-1900 and 24 workshops to choose from (which also happen between 1500-1900 at various rooms) on both the days.

b) “The Limited SIME” Option which gives you access to only the main stage and the matchmaking sessions on both the days, no workshops to go to.

On top of this, we have an additional toping that we think is as much fun as the main event itself. The Oscars of the digital scene, SIME Awards and Gala Ticket which gives you access to the SIME Gala and Awards presenting great entertainment (in 2008 we had Ace of Base perform after 12 years for the first time :) to begin with), lot of fun and not to mention recognizing Nordic’s finest entrepreneurial creations in the Awards segment which happens on the end of the second day of SIME. Of course, we end SIME with a great party where the mayor of Stockholm gives us the keys for a night of rollicking fun.

So in short, pick a or b and buy your Gala Ticket (early, limited seats) and set aside 2 days in the third week of November for its going to open your eyes to new opportunities, new business, new thinking horizons and some amazing fun.

You are welcome to join us in this journey and we think its going to be one helluva fun ride. Go ahead, register for one of the most important events of the year and take the leap with us!

On Hacking, and How to Hack a Hotel Room – Pablos Holman

Mahesh Kumar — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:08:53 +0000

Pablos “Paul” Holman is a genius. And despite the term hacker being strewed in negative connotations, here he is channelizing all his efforts into some real good causes. Pablos hacked into a phone line live at SIME to begin with to justify the negative connotation of the word hacker, and then spoke about some of his futuristic inventions for reducing global warming, eradicating Malaria and harnessing nuclear energy (a Plan C for the world if one might call that). A classic view of how one’s skills can be garnered for a positive change.

Here are couple of his nice talks :) Lets call it dinner time viewing that would make you drop your food!

Ready for the Tidal Wave? (by Matthew Szymczyk)

Mahesh Kumar — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:26:17 +0000

[This is a repost from Matthew Szymczyk's article at AdWeek. Matthew Szymczyk was a speaker at SIME 09 and is also the founder of Zugara, an interactive marketing and advertising agency. The original article can be found here ]

Mobile (especially location-based services) is obviously here to stay and will be the critical component to any integrated marketing campaign. Also, marketers seem to understand that augmented reality can be a useful and utility-based technology. His talk from SIME 09 can be found below.

The web is becoming a Reality – Matthew Szymczyk – Zugara.com – SIME 09 from Ayman van Bregt on Vimeo.

There’s been lots of talk about the Battle for the Digital Living Room. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Roku, Boxee and a host of other players are trying to rush out Internet-enabled boxes or gaming systems that will provide digital content and Internet connectivity on standard television sets. Cable providers are also trying to get into the game with partnerships with companies such as ActiveVideo that can stream content “from the cloud” to most standard consumer cable boxes. Even Google is trying to get into the game by modifying its Android OS for this new, connected digital living room market.

Not to be left out, many electronics manufacturers that create TV sets don’t want to be without a chair once the music stops playing. So now you have companies like LG, Panasonic, Samsung and others also trying to bring Internet-enabled television sets to the digital living room as fast as possible.

Regardless, whether it’s the TV itself, a gaming system, set-top box or other connected peripheral, the Internet-enabled digital living room is upon us.

So with all this connectivity, what’s the end game for the consumer? Think of the still-exploding smartphone app market and apply that to your living room and TV set. It’s no secret that consumer electronic manufacturers are hoping to replicate the success of the iPhone app market by offering the same type of direct-to-consumer app ecosystem.

Consider these recent projections from In-Stat:

U.S. shipments of Web-enabled consumer electronic (CE) devices that support TV applications will grow from 14.6 million in 2010 to 83.4 million by 2014.
By 2014, over 59 million U.S. broadband households will own at least one CE device that supports TV applications.
By 2014, the U.S. installed base of CE devices that support TV applications will be 136 million units.

As you can see, there’s a pretty high trajectory for this market.But what of the potential pitfalls?

Well, similar to the entire mobile ecosystem, there might be app compatibility issues and, unlike “mobile Web optimization” that can act as a common bridge, the interactive television app market doesn’t appear to yet have a Plan B.

However, unlike mobile phones, most consumers don’t trade their TVs in every year or are tied to one carrier to determine what hardware they can buy. So, in this instance, you’ll probably see a few market leaders dominate the space and because of app purchases, stick with the same brand /compatibility for future purchases.

Content owners or brands that wish to create apps in this digital living room ecosystem will most likely need to go with the leaders or wait until standards are in place and uniformity exists (which is unlikely at this point, since every new emerging tech market seems to fragment).

You’ll also most likely see demographic splits where older viewers are more interested in passive viewing experiences versus younger audience viewers who are more apt to download apps that can create a more social, collaborative and interactive experience similar to online.

By replicating what already works for interactive online video on the Internet, “social TV” on connected sets will most likely start gaining traction. If you were at CES this past January, you might have also seen that almost every TV set manufacturer has a partnership with Skype to offer the service via sets with Webcam integrated into the hardware or ability to add Web cam via USB. I personally cannot wait to see connected apps take advantage of this video chat technology tied in with contextual information from shows people are watching.

Finally, there’s the whole mobile app market itself that is already offering TV-companion apps, remote control functionality and so on. It will be interesting to track how consumers will start using the sets, and where and how mobile apps will be used in relation to TV-connected apps or if they will most likely function together. I’m betting on the latter vs. the former.

However it plays out, there’s a good chance that you’ll soon “augment” your viewing experience with downloadable apps that can provide further context on a show, allow you to play games tied to content you’re watching, and create an overall interactive experience for your new customizable digital living room. The only question will be if the market dictates 99 cents for these connected apps as it did for mobile.

The 2 Faces of Marko Ahtisaari

Mahesh Kumar — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:14:14 +0000

Clearly Marko is a “He can be whoever you want him to be”. We love him in both.

Welcome to SIME Helsinki from SIME on Vimeo.

No related posts.

Online Data Collection: 10000 Times More Efficient than the KGB?

Mahesh Kumar — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:44:10 +0000

Listen to former SIME Speaker (2007) Andreas Weigend (ex-chief Scientist Amazon) talk about the social data revolution. He explains that personal data collection is growing at such an exponential rate, that it’s now 10000 times more efficient than the KGB was 20 years ago. Andreas Weigend, Amazon.com’s Chief Scientist until January 2004, is a leading behavioral marketing expert. His career as a scientist, data strategist and quantitative methods innovator has enabled him to bridge the gap between industry and academia.