„Dinner in the sky“ Sweepstake in Germany

In Germany, bloggers receive presents from time to time, from companies who are probably hoping to stir up conversation about their product.

I have received some presents in the past already, however the most interesting one I got last week: a voucher for a „dinner in the sky“ for one person from mydays.de.

Very nice idea, I have to say. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit useless for me, since I am afraid of heights. Hence I have decided to give it away, via a sweepstake on my German Blog. Since the voucher can only be redeemed in 5 German cities, I assume this really is only interesting for my German readeres. You can find out more about what to do and until what date to enter my own little private sweepstake on my German blog.

For those thinking about it, here are the dates for which you can redeem the voucher (no guarantees given):

21.05 – 24.05.2009 Köln
12.06 – 14.06.2009 Frankfurt am Main
26.06 – 28.06.2009 München
17.07 – 19.07.2009 Berlin
07.08 – 09.08.2009 Hamburg

Is Facebook going down?

Mark Lazen is bold on the idea that facebook might soon be on death watch. One of the main points is that Facebook is trying to be all things to all people. (Sort of like AOL a few years ago.) Which is supposedly the first step of being nothing to nobody, resulting in comparative irrelevance.

I am of a more cynical mindset. I believe that when you’re everything, you are actually nothing.

Right – and not, at the same time. Yes, there will always be more specialized sites for everything FB offers. Flickr is better for photos (in quality, not quantity!), twitter is better for realtime status updates. Many community sites are more topically focused, gaming sites offer better games,… the list can go on and on.

But yet: Spreading your digital acitivities and personas over x-many sites is tedious. Especially if you have different IDs (ok, there will be solutions) and different social networks everywhere. Trying out the top-notch applications everywhere is only fun for the digitally inspired early adopters. For everyone else, a good solution will just do. And believe me: the majority is „everyone else“.

In my own personal circle of friends, facebook is still growing, gaining new fans everyday. (And watching the newsfeed has only become interesting in the last couple of months, as my own network of friends grew.)

I am convinced that the digitally inspired (native or immigrant) underestimate the size and power of the late majority. These people (most of my friends amongst these) will praise those sites, that make a digital whatever easy with a one-stop-shop solution. Of course the quality of the applications and offers can’t be sub-optimal. And for certain topics of interest people might migrate to a specialised competitor. But the rest of their digital activities they might still keep at places like facebook or other sites like it.

The key factor is relevance: as long as facebook offers sufficient relevance, aggregated across all service offers, applications and the individual social network, it will stay top of mind with a large audience. The problem only arises, if facebook becomes second rate at everything they offer. Here I assume: the personal social network is the last resort of stickiness. As soon as your own social network has mostly migrated to other sites, you don’t care to stay either.

What do you think?

Remix09 in Hamburg, 12th and 13th of June.

Some of you might have noticed the event tip/ad in the righthand column. This is something particularly interesting for my German readers: the remix09 conference is happening on the 12th and 13th of June here in Hamburg. Title: „online meets classic“. The setup of the event is a mixture of barcamp and a regular conference:

Fachleute aus dem klassischen Marketing-Umfeld treffen die Aktiven des Web 2.0 für einen professionellen und persönlichen interdisziplinären Austausch.

Feste Konferenzelemente treffen auf die adhoc-Strukturen von BarCamp und Open Space – Beim remix09 mischen sich Unternehmerinnen und Unternehmer, Vorstände, Freelancer und Angestellte. Von U-30 bis Ü-60. Eine breite Wissens- und Erfahrungsbasis aus klassischem Marketing und Web 2.0 – ganz ohne Peergroups, Selbstreferenzialität und Tunnelblick.

A few days ago, the agenda has been published. There will be two tracks. The first track is mostly with fixed slots and offers speaches and discussions by quite a few well-known people such as Bernd M. Michael (ex-CEO of Grey Germany), and Prof. Peter Wippermann of  Trendbüro.

Some of the other slots in track 1 plus most slots in track 2 can be filled by participants, in true barcamp style, I suppose.

Working in an advertising agency that offers both classic and online, I am particularly interested to see how the discussion between the two disciplines will develop. We’ll see. I shall be updating this blog shortly before and during the conference with more news on the ongoing discussions.