In one of my last posts, I introduced you to our marketing platform iM-Erfolg in Germany. 

After a month of operation a customer of us asked, if we were able to develop a sales concept for their network company. While we had many requests of useless products, which we turned down, we accepted this network especially because of the product. 

Continue reading this post…

Some years ago I was introduced to the idea of Virtual Real Estate by one of my chosen Internet Marketing teachers (John Reese). 

Real Estate is seen by some investors as the crown of investing. Real Estate handeled correctly creates long term value and income for its owner, regardless of how the current economy looks like. Real Estate is dealt with long term and some of the most successfull real estate owners think in generations to create wealth. 

But what is Virtual Real Estate and how can someone make long term money with it? Continue reading this post…

Another historic moment.

And I do not know if should say that in pride or as fact, that just happened.

Today is Martin Luther King Day and tomorrow the first Not-White President in the US will be inaugerated.

The people asked for change and change they shall get.

Remindes me a bit of the Children in the desert, who cried out for a king….well we know how that ended. Not so good.

Anyway it is as it is and it happens in our time. But what does this mean for a white German, with very very short hair, who is married to a black women (happily together and 4 awesome kids), who happens to have lived in Israel for a long while?

Trust me…. a LOT.

With that said, it comes down to one thing: Business. Very big huge business.

What ever you might think or say about Barak Hussein Obama - one thing is sure.

He changed the way how people interact with viral social Internet media.

Not the big budgets won, not the “old establishement”, not all that Old World stuff…

He was able to communicate his “vision” of “Change” via New World stuff and gadgets. The Internet search results you receive about Obama are staggering. Never before was one person able to motivate that many people to get up and vote literally for “change”.

The way he used blogs, viral marketing strategies, user involvement, interactivity was flat our brilliant.

Do I believe that he will bring Change? For sure, but this is the wrong question….

Will he bring the Change the voters hoped for? Dude, what can I tell you…. I am German, what do I know.. eh?

Here are the facts. Obama is hip in Germany. Germans thinks he is cool. Millions will sit in front of their TV sets and will watch the inaugaration live from their comfort of their home. And you can rest assured, they will drink alcoholic beverages.

Out of what reason ever, an important product launch date was scheduled for the 20th of January, long before anybody knew, how much effect Obama would have on Germany. There is some kind of Obamiacs roaming on German street, by the hundreds of thousands…

So we had to take a marketing descision and build the Obama event into our marketing.

The results we get are much better than ever anticipated. Our conversion ratio from lead to paying customer (recurring business model) are a very nice and comfortable 7%. In the first two months, the site generated over 6100 single user average per day.

Our campaign had to be timed and people had to make a pre-buying decsion to participate. Did I mention, that we did this with 0 Euro marketing budget?

So the big day is tomorrow. The strategy is agressiv call for change. Not by the government or other people, but change in our customer.

This is the picture and text we use tomorrow to open our site. Let’s see us, when the results are in - at the launch party.

While I am in Careyes, Mexico to meet up with a friend and partner of mine, I also have the time to relax in a very nice setting.

It is good to take a breath, take a review of the last year and get ready for 2009. While 2009 will be a year of great challenges for many, it will be also a year of great opportunities.

I wish everybody a successful, healthy and overall blessed year 2009. May you exceed your goals in this year and successful in everything your hand touches.

(btw… Michael, who owns the house I am at right now,  is renting it out during the year. To take a look where I am, and where you could be too go to: Casa dos Estrellas.)

The money is not gone; it is just in other people pockets

I have no idea, where I heard this sentence before, but I used it in some German articles I did on the current financial crisis. While the whole world asks, where the money is and how it could come to this point, the most obvious in economics is missed in the discussion. The money is not gone; it is just in other people pockets. The financial system is just fine. Those who are not able to pay their debt will go down. It has been like this for centuries and it will be like this in the future. If you are not able to pay your debt, regardless if that debt is in gold, oil, US dollar, Euro, Shekel, you have to go bankrupt eventually. And that is good, because a ruinous company, individual or state is a liability for society and cannot be the blessing it should for the family, owner, employees or customers.   Unfortunately this simple fact in life is either overlooked or willfully omitted and governments are pouring hundreds of billions into bankrupt companies. And the beauty is… you will pay the bill. Heck… I wish I could get by with a scam like that.

This is not unfair, it is unequal

It is a sentence by my friend Daniel Röder from Würzburg to his children. Sometimes a child is getting a goodie. Something like a candy, a cookie or something sweet.  Then another child sees that its sibling is getting a cookie and asks also for something, which is denied. Now child number 2 starts complaining. And you know how children can be… They put on a very sad face, perhaps start to cry, kick the floor or do whatever is needed and then start hitting father’s heart to get this cookie. One of the arguments of children is: “This is unfair. My brother or sister got candies; I also have the right to a candy. Gim’me candies.” The answer is: No, it is not unfair. It is just unequal.  Politics is exactly like this, just with one difference. There ain’t no cookies anymore, only your hard earned cash. And it is time to say to some politicians who think that our pockets are some sort of self serving bottomless pockets: “No it is not unfair – it is just unequal. I have the dough and you don’t, so take the fingers out of my pocket.”

I want change! Please send your change in cash, money transfer or check…

2008 was the year of the presidential race between Barak Hussein Obama and ….. (what was his name again?) “Change you can believe in” was the motto of his campaign and it is incredible to see how many people actually wanted change, but had absolutely no clue what Hussein’s policy goals were. I watched several of his speeches and I was puzzled to see that masses of people were watching an energetic, good looking, upcoming person who had nothing to say. But when he said something, it was mostly very negative or scary. Not about current political events or developments, but about the change he wants to bring. Voters were so obsessed with “Change” that they were blind and couldn’t see who they were voting for. I think it was the day after the election, where suddenly everybody wanted change. Never before an American president was welcomed by the world like Barak Hussein Obama. My Facebook status updates said: “I want change! Please send your change in cash, money transfer or check…” And I still stand for is today. Perhaps today even more than before.  Because of the changes Obama will bring, I want your change. Very soon, there might be no change left, because Obama’s “change” took it all.  

One of my jobs at DreamStream is to envision, how the digital future will work. What changes would be required to make digital life easier, cheaper, user-friendly and more secure.

One of the obstacles of the technological development of digital life is funding. Everybody who invests into a variable called future wants to see a viable business model to make sure that he has a good chance to regain his investment.

Many great technological breakthroughs have been financed through advertising. Advertising is what drives the development of the Net, the backbone of our digital society. Thus the preeminent business model to bring change into our digital life is advertising.

While advertising is the preeminent model, it is not the only model. Premium services offer content and digital life applications at a fee. But even here, advertising is part of the provider’s business model. Customer addresses are sold, consumer behavior researched and laser targeted advertising delivered. The argument is that people can now see more of the things they want and less of the things they do not want.

But is this good?

Good for the advertiser for sure, but for the consumer? Is it really good that he gets more of what he wants? Shouldn’t he get more of what is good for him? Should he get some things at all?

Today I proposed a new and clear company policy for the digital future powered by DreamStream:

·         No Porn

·         No SPAM

·         No Advertising

·         100% Privacy

With this policy DreamStream can clearly distinct itself from any other competitor for the digital age ahead of us.

Free, advertising driven digital services will always be available. This is and will be the digital world, where filth, spam, privacy invasion and researched user behavior will drive the content and offer to the consumer.

But there is and always will be a customer group out there, who value such a protected, paid environment over the free offer. DreamStream will be the to-go place for these user groups.

Heute begehen wir den 60. Jahrestag der Menschenrechte, dessen Leitsatz ist:

“Die Würde des Menschen ist Unantastbar.”

Diese, von dem Völkerbund (dem Vorläufer der Vereinten Nation) beschlossene Tag, hat auch noch heute sehr hohe Relevanz, denn heute werden - mehr denn je – Menschenrechte mit Füßen getreten und Millionen von Menschen sind täglichen kriegerischen Konflikten ausgesetzt.

Was bedeutet das? Oder warum ist das so?

Das Wort Menschenrecht beinhaltet das Wort „Recht“. Und wo es Rechte gibt, muss es einen Richter geben, der darüber entscheidet, was denn Recht überhaupt an erster Stelle ist.

Die Allgemeinheit (zumindestens in Europa) ist sich darüber einig, dass Menschenrechte z.B. im Irak, Palästina, China, der Türkei und dem Kosovo verletzt wurden und werden.

Menschenrechtsverletzungen werden eingesetzt, um Menschenrechte zu etablieren.

Daher muss dies zu einer Schlussfolgerung führen. Menschenrechte gibt es nicht.

Der Mensch hat kein Recht auf Kleidung.
Der Mensch hat auch kein Recht auf Essen, nur weil er ein Mensch ist.

Der Mensch hat zunächst einmal Pflichten und keine Rechte.

Der Mensch hat die Pflicht zu arbeiten und sein Essen und seine Kleidung selbst zu verdienen.

Hätte er ein Recht darauf, dann wäre es ihm auch moralisch und rechtmäßig erlaubt, mit Gewalt anderen Besitz zu nehmen. Und dies kann wahrlich kein Recht sein.

Aber wenn der Mensch seiner Pflicht nachkommt und arbeitet, dann wird er Essen und Kleidung im Überfluss haben.

Dann gehört es auch zu seinen Pflichten seinem Nachbarn Essen zu geben, wenn er diesen hungern sieht. Und es ist auch seine Pflicht seinem Nachbarn einen Pullover zu geben, wenn er ihn frieren sieht.

Hiermit rufen ich diesen Tag nicht nur zu einem Tag der Menschenrechte aus, sondern auch zu einem Tag der Menschenpflichten.

Paragraph 1:

Die Arbeitspflicht ist die Würde des Menschen

Wer nicht arbeitet, verstößt gegen die Menschenpflicht und verliert jede Würde.

That was the title of a radio show I was interview for some days ago. Now the podcast is up and for those interested in what DreamStream is all about can listen to the show at http://www.getconnectedradio.com/radio_shows.php

It seems they have the shows in chronological order, so if you read long after the blog post, you might have to search a bit.

Some days ago I went to Paris to finalize a deal with Royal Digital Media. RDM is lead by Eugene Levich one of the world-wide leading scientists in the area of optical storage.

The cooperaton between DreamStream and RDM is a perfect match. For DreamStream, RDM is the only potential partner in the area of optical consumer storage disks (like CD’s, DVD’s etc) as all existing formats either already have their security partners for years or has already such a distribution, that it is impossible to switch.

For RDM’s perspective DreamStream offers the only true alternative in the area of data encryption, as all our competitors work with standard solutions, which were all compromised. RDM has only one true competitor in the HD market and that is SONY.

Our press release from yesterday was widely distributed and very positive reactions from readers followed.

Here is the press release on Engadget.com . While you can find the release all over the web, I found that the comments on Engadget are very encouraging from our perspective as it shows the anticipation of future consumers as well as the very positiv overall feedback.

Eugene Levich and Ulf Diebel at the signing of the contract between
RDM and DreamStream in Paris

After several months of hard work last Friday we had a final call with the MPAA, who agreed to introduce DreamStream’s technolgy to the mayor motion picture studios.

Here is the press release and story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20080702/bs_prweb/prweb1069594_1