No Google Ads here….

A few days ago I decided to experiment with Google ads a bit on my blog. I went to the adsense site and requested an account. Today I got a reply:

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. After reviewing your application, our specialists have found that it does not meet our program criteria. Therefore, we are unable to accept you into our program.

We have certain policies in place that we believe will help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as for our advertisers. We review all publishers, and we reserve the right to decline any application. As we grow, we may find that we are able to expand our program to more web publishers with a wider variety of web content.

Guess I won’t do any experimenting after all.

Could it be that my Vibrator post scared them off?
Maybe they don’t like my face?
Maybe I’m right after all about Google cheating on its search results to promote their own services?

I wish I could ask them but…

Please note that we may not be able to respond to inquiries regarding
the specific reasons for our decision. Thank you for your understanding.

Definitively no photo blogging with the Blackberry pearl…

Wilfred with the iPhone….
Photo by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.

My contact at Vodafone just contacted me with some bad news. RIM told him that the current version of the Blackberry Pearl Software does not support attaching photos to emails. The current release is still in beta (4.2.1).

I was sure that this was a Vodafone trick to charge me for the photo sending. Now it seems that the problems lies with the Pearl software.

So maybe I should wait for the iPhone after all?

Photography session with Martin Dijkstra

Photography session with Martin Dijkstra.
Photo by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.

This is Martin Dijkstra.
He is pouring dirt on my shoes.
He is a photographer.

BlackBerry Pearl: You won’t be able to blog with it!

A Blackberry with a camera, how cool is that?

Well, not as cool as I imagined. In fact, it looks like I won’t even be able to honour my sponsor agreement with Blogads.nl.

If you haven’t read my previous blogs here is a small summary: I wanted a Blackberry Pearl and asked for one on this blog in exchange for a link under each blog I posted with the Blackberry Pearl. Within a few hours someone from Blogads.nl contacted me offered to send me one. Within 2 days I had it and started playing with it.

I received the phone on friday but Vodafone told me they had to fix some stuff and that I wouldn’t be able to email photos until monday. On tuesday I got a message from the Blogads.nl people that It finally worked.

Except it didn’t…

Well, it does….

Just not as expected.

I have been using a Blackberry for years now and love it. I love the fact that I can email anywhere in the world for a flat fee and am always connected an have everything in sync. The only feature I was missing was the camera. When the Pearl came out I didn’t think I could get used to the different keyboard. But then I tried one for a few minutes and it looked easier than I thought. I started looking forward to being able to take photos of things and people and events and sending to my blog from anywhere in the world! How cool would that be!

It would be cool. But it seems that this is not what Vodafone had in mind. They came up with a way to actually make lots of money of these photos!

This is what they came up with: MMS!

When you make a photo with the Blackberry Pearl you can’t just send it as an emailattachement. The Pearl does at first present you with a choice: select an emailaddress or a phonenumber to send your photo to. When you select an emailaddress you get a normal email interface and send your message. Then the magic happens…

The Vodafone Server turns your emailmessage into an MMS, charges you 50 cents, turns the MMS into an MMS formatted emailmessage, changes your ‘From’ address into your phonenumber and delivers it to the emailaddress you provided.

Yep, it’s true.

If the recipient of your photo replies the reply will be returned to Vodafone who will turn the email into a MMS again and send it back to you.

I think.

All of this is based on my own testing and research. Vodafone hasn’t confirmed it yet.

My main problem with this is that I can’t send a normal email. This means that you can’t use the Blackberry Pearl as a blogging tool. Blogging software detects an email and adds the attached photo to your blog. The MMS mail is a styled Mail Message with Vodafone logos and links in it and it contains 19 attachements, including your photo.

Oh, and the 50 cents sucks too.

And yes, you can still just send text emails but then the qwerty Blackberry was more convenient.

And yes you can still take photos on the road but than you would have to transfer them via USB to your laptop and then you are better off with a digital camera.

I know that the people from Blogads.nl are talking with Vodafone now trying to find out if there is any way arround the MMS service and they must be just as surprised as I am.

I am going to try to get used to the new keyboard layout. If I manage to get used to it an type faster or just as fast with it as I did on the qwerty Blackberry than I am going to keep it. Even without the camera the Pearl is still a beautiful machine. I love the trackball, interface and look and feel of the Pearl and can recommend it highly.

But if I’m not used to the keyboard by then I think it would be fair if I would return it to Blogads.nl. The deal was that I would use the Pearl for blogging and the reason I would use the Pearl is because it has a camera. But unless I can attach a photo to an email this is NOT the Ultimate Blogging Machine.

UPDATE: the very friendly people at Vodafone contac ted me this morning and told me they are now talking to RIM/BlackBerry to see if they can change this. A glimmer of hope!

Am I a Networking Guru?

Something interesting is happening.

Today Nextstage, NeBIB and Skillcity hosted a ‘Cross network event’ in Utrecht at media Plaza. They figured it would be fun to hear me talk about networking. I hope it WAS fun for the 300 or so people in the audience. I was introduced there too as the King of Networking and the obvious choice as speaker for their event.

Then there was the article in Bizz magazine a few months ago that called me a Super-Networker.
I’m flattered and intrigued by all of this. It feels good to be an expert in something an I like talking about these kind of things and you know I have a strong opinion which I like to share with others.

Now all I have to do is find a way to monetise my new status.

Maybe I should talk to a Monetise Guru…

Are Google and Yahoo changing search results in their own favor?

I regularly do a Vanity Search at Google. A search for “Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten” gets me 28,500 results and I know the first 10 ones by now. Today I did a search for my own name at Yahoo and noticed an interesting difference between the search results at Google and Yahoo. At Google the first result for my name is my profile at Blogger but at Yahoo the first result is my profile at Flickr.

Flickr is owned by Yahoo and Blogger is owned by Google.

Maybe its nothing.

Maybe…

The House Always Wins!

Oops, somebody blew our cover!
They are on to us!
Our little scheme is falling apart!

The guys at Spunk.nl found out that Fleck is hosting the Dutch Web2.0 Awards and is also nominated in several categories.

It IS true!

But the fact that we host the event won’t guarantee victory.

What WILL guarantee victory is the fact that we have some pretty amazing videos of the Blueace fellows which we have threatened to post to YouTube in case we DON’T win.

(Just in case that doesn’t work please vote for us anyway!)

Please go and check out this video:

Spunk — As the world Spunks - Dinsdag 9 januari 2007

Yahoo Buys MyBlogLog: Congratulations Scott!

Techcrunch, Scott Rafer and Om Malik confirm that MyBlogLog has been bought by Yahoo.

Yahoo Buys MyBlogLog. No, They Didn’t. Wait, Yes.

I congratulated Scott the last time when Techcrunch reported this and that turned out to be too soon. Let’s try again now:

Congratulations Scott!