Ralf — 24100.NET

MLOVE, I love you

03/07/2011 By Ralf

MLOVE 2011 is over and somehow I wish, it could have lasted forever.

Last year, my MLOVE post was titled “It’s all about the people“.

This year, I struggled finding a headline, that would potentially express it even better. I couldn’t. MLOVE 2011 still was all about the people and hopefully that aspect will never change.

Covering the spirit and nature of MLOVE in a blog post is virtually impossible. You have to be there and experience it yourself to completely understand it.

So this year, here is my unordered list of feelings and observations that I’d like to share with you:

MLOVE still is the one and only industry event – if one can even name it like this – that I’d pay for privately to attend. I’ve had the pleasure to visit SXSW, LeWeb, eComm, NEXT Conference, WWDC and many others in my professional life. Don’t get me wrong. Those are great conferences. But they are not family. And MLOVE sort of is.
Thanks god, MLOVE does not suffer from “tech celebrification”. The speaker and attendee lineup was impressive. But it’s not the MG Sieglers or Michael Arringtons that you meet during MLOVE. In fact, at LeWeb 2010 those guys were escorted like superstars, as if they had to escape their audience. At MLOVE, Thomas Goetz the Executive Editor for WIRED Magazine and Chamillionaire, a Grammy-winning rapper, could very well end up next to you during dinner or in one of the Future Cubes, applying design thinking methodologies to complex problems. After all, we’re all just humans and in this together.
Big company names just mean nothing. The MLOVE team made a good decision not even printing the name of the company you belong to on your badge. At MLOVE whether you’ve been sent by a giant telco or just launched your one-man-passion-startup, everybody gets treated equally. In other words: You get an audience because of what you have to say, not whom you work for.
What happens at MLOVE, stays at MLOVE. During his opening remarks, Harald Neidhardt put it this way: “We try to make you leave your comfort zone. And hopefully find a new one here at MLOVE.” And while it takes MLOVE newbies some getting used to, I’ve never seen so many people whom I just met opening up like this. A truly rewarding experience.
It’s like coming home. MLOVE is a truly international event. People from all over the world gather in the MLOVE castle. I’m connected through various Social Networks with many, but unfortunately, some I only see in person once a year. At MLOVE. And it always feels like family. Returning to the castle. Returning to this inspiring group. That is a fantastic feeling!
Though I don’t have any official numbers, MLOVE felt bigger this year. In 2010 we were a group of approx. 150. The crowd since has grown to roughly 250. While adding more diverse viewpoints, perspectives and stories of life is a good thing, I hope MLOVE will stay with this size or even downsize a bit. Why? Because everybody is worth spending at least some time with. If MLOVE keeps growing, you don’t have a chance to spend much time with most of the attendees but instead risk feeling in a constant hurry.
No corporate BS. Financing an event like this without falling into the trap of giving sponsors tons of time to present corporate slides is extremely difficult. MLOVE has always been different in this regard. Even Nokia’s German MD, the company was an MLOVE 2011 sponsor, talked about sustainability. And donated grassland and a wish tree to the MLOVE castle. I hope that MLOVE will find a way to keep the balance between size and not being 100% dependent on corporate sponsorship.

Then there was Bernd Kolb.

From the MLOVE website: “Kolb left behind these accolades [he was a chief executive with German Telekom and is the founder of I-D Media, RR] to work as a ‘social entrepreneur’ and ‘change agent’ helping to navigate the complex challenges amongst us and to develop innovative new solutions to deal with those challenges. In founding the ‘Club of Marrakesh’, Kolb gathers international thinkers, scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs to develop integrated ground-breaking projects and to implement them. The approach is entrepreneurial in nature and follows the principle that sustainability can be only achieved through profitability.”

Bernd’s talk about the fundamental global challenges our planet and society are facing and his passion to transform the world towards sustainability was one of those rare defining moments in life for me.

It’s not, that Bernd presented any facts that haven’t been around or available before. It again, was all about the people. I happened to sit in the first row during Bernd’s talk and could literally feel his dedication, passion and strong believe in our ability, to help driving that transformation.

It was mind blowing, touching and a wake-up call much deserved.

When Harald thanked Bernd for contributing this to MLOVE, he could hardly hold back his tears. The crowd gave standing ovations.

Finally, the MLOVE Teen Camp.

Last year, Harald’s daughter Toni Neidhardt gave a talk about the impact of Mobile to her teen life. At the age of 15. It’s available at vimeo and I strongly encourage you to watch it.

That discussion sparked the idea of doing a Teen Camp at MLOVE 2011.

On day three the young MLOVErs from countries all over the world presented their work. And boy did they deliver.

To me, the strong contrast between Bernd pointing out the global challenges we all are facing and shortly thereafter seeing these wonderful, brilliant young people shaping their ideas for their future, that made it an even more intense experience.

And sort of reemphasized our mutual responsibility and the fact that each and everyone of us can and must help. As Aape Pohjavirta put it during his talk: “We have no excuses.”

Besides this, I think these kids should go out to German schools and teach the teachers to teach.

Thank you.

I’d like to thank Harald and his wonderful team for putting this together and letting us feel their passion. Back into my home office, I hope I will be able to carry some of it over to my professional and private life.

Namaste.

Filed Under: News, Personal Tagged With: mlove

CocaCola Reason to believe – a wonderful commercial

03/06/2011 By Ralf

CocaCola’s Reason to believe is just such a wonderfully optimistic commercial. Lean back and enjoy!

Interesting little detail: The German version has some slightly different scenes and wording. It also does not explicitly include folks drinking Coke!

Filed Under: Shareables Tagged With: ads, coca cola, Commercials, tv spots

Finding a memory leak with Xcode 4 Instruments

25/05/2011 By Ralf

Over at the fantastic Facebook iOS Developers group, we had a discussion yielding 40+ comments about a memory leak and how to detect it with Instruments.

I’ve created a brief screen cast based on the discussion we were having. While it actually shows pretty basic Instruments stuff, I still find even experienced devs struggling with the details.

Follow me on Twitter (@24z) for mostly iOS related tweets and if you’re not yet a member, join the tribe on Facebook.

Filed Under: Development, News Tagged With: instruments, ios, iosdev, iphonedev, memory management, Xcode

Ignore ringtone mute switch during MPMoviePlayer video playback in iOS

24/05/2011 By Ralf

Recently I stumbled across an issue in one of the apps we are creating over at GrandCentrix: When playing back video using the MPMoviePlayer framework, the ringtone mute switch switches off all audio.

This default behavior is significantly different from the one iOS users learned from the built-in YouTube app.

Worse: If users start video playback with the mute switch turned on, they might believe they’ve got a faulty signal, as they won’t here any audio right from the beginning.

Turns out, it’s easy to fix:


- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://cdn.grandcentrix.net/video/ios/stream.m3u8"];
    MPMoviePlayerViewController *moviePlayerViewController = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:url];

    NSError *_error = nil;
    [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory: AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error: &_error];

    [self.view addSubview:moviePlayerViewController.view];
}

Note that you have to add the AVFoundation framework to your project. In Xcode 4 to add a framework select the topmost node in the Project Navigator, select your Target, click Build Phases and hit the little + icon.

Adding Framework in Xcode 4

This and more tips frequently get discussed over at the great iOS Developers Group on Facebook. If you’re on Twitter, follow me (@24z) for mostly iOS related tweets!

Filed Under: Development, News Tagged With: ios, iOS Development, iosdev, iphonedev

How to not get fooled by a social media expert con artist

14/05/2011 By Ralf

I live in Germany.

We are not exactly known for being a social media friendly country.

Some rightfully call us Blurmany, since our not-so-tech-savvy government forced Google into pixelating Street View images on home owners’ requests.

Also, we usually come a bit late to the Web 2.0 game, while letting Silicon Valley take the lead.

Lately, I noticed a disturbing trend in the timelines of my various social media outlets: More and more German Social Media Experts pop up out of nowhere.

While I strongly believe that given the pretty short history of the Open Social Web, nobody really qualifies to hold an “expert” title just yet, it’s interesting to see how many folks are bluntly trying to jump on the bandwagon.

Sure, there’s money to be made. Companies strive to invest their dollars into seemingly new holy grails. Advisers have been living from riding on trends for decades. Hence the Social Media Expert boom.

Fortunately, there’s one subtle difference this time.

Social Media is largely driven by transparency and the public availability of data. It’s way easier to verify, whether somebody trying to teach you, actually has a track record in the art of social media or just pretends.

In this article, I try to give some by no means expert tips, that hopefully help you to unmask your next Social Media Expert con artist. For the sake of brevity, I call them SMECAs for the remainder of the post.

1. Check out whether your SMECA believes Social Media equals Facebook

Oddly enough, I found many SMECAs confusing social media with just Facebook.

Strictly speaking, Facebook isn’t even a media outlet. It’s the largest social network in the world. It might turn out to be a great source for learning about behavioral targeting. And finding out whether people actually want targeted ads and offers. Early studies show, they might not!

But Facebook is not the only important player in the game.

So, if you find a SMECA talking 99% of his time about just Facebook, ask him about his experience on Twitter, Quora, Foursquare, Buzz, Digg, StumbleUpon, Amplify and others. While you’re doing so, ask for links to his profiles on these services.

If it turns out he’s not present over there, he might be an avid Facebook user, but unfortunately doesn’t have a clue about Social Media.

2. Check out your SMECA’s history

Things on the web move fast.

I’ve seen SMECAs being almost inactive on Facebook and Twitter for years and literally becoming hyper active when they wanted to get into the Social Media Expert business.

Now, you don’t become social overnight.

Social is all about building and maintaining relationships. It’s about long-term commitments and leveraging valuable networks. It takes time.

Unfortunately, Facebook does not provide an overview about a users activity over time. Try this: Visit the profile of your SMECA and switch to her or his Wall. Click on the little link named “Older posts” at the bottom of the News Feed. Click again and again. You’re moving back in time within the News Feed.

If you reach the beginning of his social media lifeline within less than 20 clicks, he’s a newbie. And maybe can learn about Social Media from you. But should never pretend being able to consult. We also don’t trust our businesses to first-graders.

Also, if you recognize that large parts of the older timeline comprise just so called mini-activities but at a certain point in the not so recent history, you see a sudden spike in daily posts – mostly sharing links from Washington Post and the likes – you likely talk to somebody who just got into the game. As he likely missed the impact of Social media for months and years, how good are the odds, he can help you develop a successful strategy?

Thanks got, it’s not easy to pretend a long standing history in Social Media. Even if hiring an expert PR person for the topic, aggressively pushing out messages on ones behalf, Twitter and Facebook timestamp every move. If you haven’t been part of the Social Web for long, this will remain pretty obvious.

3. Check out whether your SMECA actively participates in the Social Web

I’ve said this before: If your SMECA just lives on Facebook, drop him immediately.

Ask for a link to his Twitter profile. Check his followers, not only the total number but also who is following him. Do you find familiar experts like @scobleizer and @chrismessina following back your expert? These folks usually don’t easily follow everybody. Also, check the Twitter lists your SMECA is on.

While the total number of Twitter followers is not a straight indicator for Social Media expertise, in Germany if you’re having less than 1.500 followers, this usually means, you’re watching the game, but not driving it. Simply speaking, the expert voice you’re having doesn’t seem to attract a great enough entourage.

If your SMECA – for whatever weird reason he might give – is not present on Twitter or inactive, drop him immediately. He’s gotta go back to school.

The next thing you might want to check, is her or his blog.

The Social Web is one of the hottest topics in tech these days. Blogs still play a vital role. In fact, they are the most linked-to content sources on Social Networks. Real Social Media Experts usually have a lot to say. And they are eagerly sharing their thoughts. Not just by quoting Washington Post, but by voicing their own ideas.

Thus, almost every Social Media Experts maintains a personal blog.

If your SMECA states, content creation is not his specialty, or hides behind a huge multi-author company blog, invite him for dinner, but don’t ask for advice.

This post got longer than initially planned. I hope the next time, a Social Media Expert approaches you, you’re prepared to ask some key questions.

What’s your experience? Have you seen folks in your network trying to participate from the hype, lately? Do you have anything, I might want to add to this list? Feel free to voice yourself in the comments!

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: social media

My two favorite Google I/O 2011 announcements and some other observations

13/05/2011 By Ralf

Like many of my friends, I’ve been following Google I/O 2011 curiously earlier this week.

Much has been said about the event, but I cannot resist to add my thoughts about a few of the announcements and Google I/O in general.

Blocking non-US developers is evil (and certainly not open)

When the keynote address started, I was surprised to find Google blocking the live video stream for anybody outside the US. The fasted VPN tunnel provider in the world solved it for me, but I really wonder why Google thought that Google I/O would only be valuable for the Northern American Android developers.

Me being in Germany, for Google I must live in a very fragmented part of the world.

Google Music – not interested

I might very well have been one of the first to request an invite for Google’s new cloud music service, as I accidentally stumbled over the invite link even prior to the announcement, but haven’t heard back from Google since. Not a single word.

And today, I’m not even interested anymore.

Pretty much anybody seems to agree, that Google Music will be just another big fail. Unfortunately, we’ve seen many of those coming out of Mountain View lately.

It’s not only me who doesn’t get how forcing users to first download music from a third party and then asking them to upload everything back to Google should have any advantage over what cloud storage providers like Dropbox have been giving us for years.

So, I’ll sit and wait for Apple. Very likely, they will get it right, again.

The Android Anti-Fragmentation Alliance

It’s not its real name. I made this one up.

Anyway, probably the single most important announcement for me – apart from remote controllable light-bulbs – was the foundation of the Android Anti-Fragmentation Alliance.

Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola, and AT&T joined a special task force promising customers to bring updates to devices quickly and efficiently at least for the first 18 months after the initial release.

I have no details as to how this alliance is formally structured. It’s also difficult to imagine what sort of pressure (and how) Google could potentially put on any of its members, in case of not fulfilling the promise. Given the open nature of the Android ecosystem it’s hard to really see this working.

However, at least this broadly acknowledges the biggest problem in Android: fragmentation. And it offers a neat solution. Whether it’ll work out, remains to be seen.

My Motorola Xoom is still eagerly awaiting Honeycomb 3.1…

The Google Places API, now open for everybody

I’m a developer at heart.

Opening up the Google Places API for the mainstream developer was the single most valuable development related announcement for me. This means, web and mobile developers are now able to not only leverage Facebook Places but also seamlessly integrate Google Places into their experiences.

Facebook Places has been available a bit longer via the Open Graph API and I’ve been using it to offer users faster input in many iOS applications.

Also I very much appreciate that Google not only opened the basic Places API, but also took care for the auto completion part. The latter one facilitates the integration of nice text fields with speedy suggestions with almost no code.

I got so excited, I wrote an iOS prototype the same day.

Planning to publish the tutorial and sample code here later today.

Apart from that, too much “in a few weeks” and pseudo exciting stuff for me

Besides that, I’m pretty much disappointed.

When I wanted to learn about “Android Market for Developers” this morning, I found the Google Mobile Blog being down. Or at least the link on google.com/io no longer working:

I like the spirit of “beta” but not if all beta means simply is: down.

While one might not like Apple’s secretiveness, usually when Apple announces stuff during these sorts of events, it becomes immediately available. After all, that’s what a developer event is for: Get us excited, get the stuff into our hands! Or?

For me, this year’s Google I/O had way too much announcements that got me excited the first place, only to find out that it’ll not be available for the next few weeks. Or US only.

Honeycomb 3.1 being a pretty good example. I get tired of asking my Xoom to check for updates, just to get disappointed day after day. The lack of a clearly communicated roll-out plan does not help either. And no word about Android 3.x becoming Open Source.

Also there were too many things I found pseudo exciting.

While my respected friend Robert Scoble seems to like them, Android remote controlled light bulbs that might be available at the end of the year, didn’t really click with me.

Home Automation has been a pretty hot topic here in Germany for quite a while. We already struggle from fragmentation in that area, too. Adding another standard to Z-wave, Zigbee and the likes might not make things better.

Taking into account how Google TV (last year’s big Google I/O announcement) totally flopped, I don’t have great hopes for Android Home.

Overall, I disliked more parts of the keynote than I liked.

Hugo Barra carried it out a bit too wanna-be-cool for my taste.

At the point where he’d mentioned “and all without a single cable” the fifth time, the obvious attempt to shoot at Apple really got on my nerves. After all, Google doesn’t even have an online music store. Dismissing the amazing success of the iTunes ecosystem doesn’t do any good.

It gets worse, when you come up with something as terrible and not thought through as Google Music.

I’d love to see Google focus more on existing products

Closing this article off, I’d like to make clear that I’m not a Google hater. Not at all.

I do love Apple. Not for their business ethics. Not for many things. But ultimately for their ability to focus on their products and making things right. In an era where everything is beta, and beta almost seems to become a quality certificate, I in fact love Apple and if it’s only for not bothering me with beta quality products, but putting the user at the center of everything. Not the geek. Not the tech blogger.

In fact, I personally am an avid Gmail user and have two Google Enterprise Apps accounts. My company heavily relies on Google Docs.

It disappoints me even more, that there hardly seems any innovation in that area. Or at least nothing worth talking about at Google I/O.

I still can’t check out with my Google Enterprise Apps account, but have to keep Gmail for that.

There are many other services, that have not been transitioned for paying Google customers either. They killed Wave. Google Profiles only work with Gmail accounts. The list goes on and on.

Remote controlling my fridge from an Android device might be good for getting a laugh in front of a large audience, but it doesn’t add a lot to the value of the Google products most people use every day.

My hopes are out for Google I/O 2012. I hope the company will find back to its strength.

Now continuing to wait for Android updates to be rolled out to the fragmented part of the planet, I’m living in.

Filed Under: News, We love Google Tagged With: Android, google i/o

Missing the YouTube app on your Xoom?

10/04/2011 By Ralf

If you happen to be one of the first to own a Motorola Xoom, chances are, you’re running into an issue where the native YouTube app is not available.

As of this writing, the Xoom is the only tablet that runs Google’s shiny new Android 3.0 for tablets, codenamed “Honeycomb”.

Given that Motorola and Google demoed this exact YouTube app as a proof of Honeycomb’s great new capabilities, it is extremely unfortunate, that there seems to be an increasing issue with the app not showing up on freshly unboxed Xooms.

While I absolutely love my iPad 2, my professional life sort of forces me to play with the Xoom, too.

I admit, Honeycomb is not all that bad. There are almost no apps, yet, but overall I’m surprised by its performance, pleasant animations and smooth operation.

The YouTube bug is plain annoying.

As is the total silence from Google’s and Motorola’s side. This problem has been reported by hundreds of users since the Xoom launched. It should have been commented about and addressed by now. Well, there’s still a lot to learn from Apple. Certainly, just “being open” is not enough.

After digging for almost six hours, I found a non-official fix, the exact steps are available over at The Next Web.

Hope it might help other disappointed Xoom early adopters.

Filed Under: Gadgets, News Tagged With: android 3.0, honeycomb, xoom, youtube

Misa Textures for Minecraft 1.4 Beta

01/04/2011 By Ralf

If you haven’t been living under a rock and like casual gaming, you might be a Minecraft player, too.

Recently, the game got updated to version 1.4.

Now, the build-in textures are pretty basic. That’s why many players patch their Minecraft binaries to run with Misa’s 64 HD textures, a third party texture pack that is not officially supported, but greatly enhances the game.

These textures have not been created by myself. I’m just a regular Minecraft user loving the work and effort Misa has put into these. So, full credits go out to Misa!

The community forums over at Minecraft can get pretty spamy with now well over six million registered players, so I’ve taken the liberty to provide direct access to the texture pack and the tool to patch Minecraft 1.4 (Windows/Mac).

I provide a mirror to the files for free, as a courtesy to the Minecraft community. I found the original links to be quite unstable under heavy load.

Installation instructions outlined here are still valid. (This links back to Misa’s original thread, which gets updated whenever a new version gets releases. So check it out frequently!)

I hope you enjoy it! If you do, why don’t you hit the little tweet button at the top of this post, or like it on facebook (below)?

Filed Under: Digital Life Tagged With: minecraft, misa

iPad 2, speedy and just beautiful in white!

26/03/2011 By Ralf

In June 2009, over at TheNextWeb, I talked about how different the iPhone 3GS felt compared to its predecessor. The post was titled “It’s all about Speed: My first weekend with the new iPhone 3GS”.

Yesterday, the second iteration of Apple’s magic tablet launched in Germany and 24 additional countries.

And boy has it been a success for Apple!

A Google search for “iPad 2 sold out” yields 1.2 million results. I (successfully) queued in front of the Apple Store in Oberhausen where the staff had to send away more than 1.000 customers as they completely sold out within an hour and a half. Here is a short YouTube video showing the moments before the re-opening.

As many of my readers know, I’m one of the founders of Germany’s largest iOS development companies. I sort of have to always get the latest Apple gadgets. Not that I regret – of course.

Beautifully white

When I departed for the Apple Store, I planned to grab two black 64 GB WiFi + 3G models. Those sold out within the first 30 minutes. I was left with two white ones.

Prior to having the white model in my own hands, I was pretty biased that I wouldn’t like it. Many have stated the black bezel around the screen would make it feel larger to the human eye, so a white model would feel too small.

None of this is true.

I have to say that after spending a few hours with it, I even start to like the white model over the black one. As we expect from Cupertino, the white is a very elegant, glassy and stylish white. It’s not a cheap-crappy-plastic-white as we see it way too often in consumer electronics these days.

Now, I’m mostly using the device for media consumption.

Tons of US TV Series, kindle books and discovering stuff on the Web. As a consequence, I naturally use the iPad in many different living situations, places and even in bed. That’s where another advantage comes into play:

The white model simply blends in better.

It’s difficult to describe. It’s one of these subconscious subtle little differences that just feels better. But you have to experience it yourself.

All I can say is, if you’ve made your decision for a black model, make sure you play a while with the white one in an Apple Store nearby. As it happened to me, you might fall in love with white.

So speedy

I have to admit, I don’t care about the two cameras added to the iPad. FaceTiming with my family members is fun on the iPad 2 but I hardly ever FaceTime, anyway. You might wonder, if it’s not for the cameras, why go for an iPad 2 at all?

Well, almost two years after the iPhone 3GS I experienced a deja-vu:

Clearly, the performance boost is the key feature for me and the more I’ve used various apps on the iPad 2, the deeper the overall impact on my happiness. (I’ve written this exact last sentence two years ago, too, and today it is more true than ever.)

I am aware of folks who couldn’t wait to hooke the iPad 2 up to benchmark suites just to find out it’s not that much better in terms of pure technical specs. But I don’t care. There’s likely not a single consumer running benchmark apps anyway.

It’s the experience that counts. And the experience is dramatically better on the iPad 2.

Along with the new multitasking gestures introduces with iOS 4.3, the iPad 2 now switches between apps blisteringly fast. There’s hardly any recognizable moment anymore when you foreground your apps.

So lightweight

Another interesting area: Though the iPad 2 has only up to 100 grams less in weight (depending on the model), it feels significantly more lightweight. And I have to reiterate: It’s the experience that counts. Not tech specs. Consumers touch and feel – and decide.

I never had an issue with the weight of the original iPad, not even after hours of reading ebooks. But the much improved iPad 2 form factor is a very welcome addition.

Do I recommend an upgrade? Absolutely yes!

If you do use your iPad regularly, upgrade as soon as possible. You won’t regret it.

If you bought into the initial hype but found yourself not really being an ebook person, you don’t watch great movies and tv series while you’re traveling or love the many great social media apps available for the platform, you might stay with your original iPad.

There’s one more thing I generally like about Apple products:

Hardly any other consumer electronics product in the market, has such stable second market prices even after a successor has been announced. I was able to sell my used original iPad for 500 Euros, effectively bringing down the cost for the new one to 299 Euros.

My lady keeps her original iPad for a while until it moves to our own little Apple Museum and I will be forced to get a second white iPad 2.

Filed Under: All Things Apple, News Tagged With: apple, ipad 2