Image via WikipediaExactly a year after it hit SXSW, Twitter hit the coasts of Slovenia. It is tatally fascinating to watch a phenomenon like this get born, specially if you watch it twice, in different environments.
In Slovenia, it actually “happened” on one party. The groundwork was being built for the last two years on Spletne urice – weekly events, much like barcamps, that created and brought together a very strong web scene of companies, freelancers and lurkers.
Some of us here started using Twitter early on, but it turned out we weren’t alone: there was another crowd, from design / marketing space also experimenting with it. The two crowds met and mingled and twined on a NooCamp party, and created a critical mass that rendered Twitter unavoidable mean of communication. Kudos to Noovo for gathering all the amazing people to NooCamp.
The first impression was great, the scond was “argh, this doesn’t work”, followed by discussions about which company will go and do this properly. This week we got it, Domenca launched Slovenian Twitter clone Koornik and it seems both will catch on. We just have to get used to twitt in English and kokodajs in Slovene.
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Twitter in Slovenia
July 15th, 2008 § 2 comments § permalink
Spontanost in SreÄavnost
July 15th, 2008 § Comments Off on Spontanost in SreÄavnost § permalink
Image via WikipediaZnanstveniki pravijo da lahko Älovek vzdržuje razmeroma redne socialne stike z okrog 120 ljudmi. Ti ljudje so jedro naÅ¡ega socialnega kapitala. To so tisti ljudje, s katerimi najbolj raÄunamo, ko organiziramo projekte in zabave.
Seveda je ta Å¡tevilka v dinamiÄnem ravnovesju – vse življenje vtopajo v naÅ¡a življenja novi prijatelji in se vezi z drugimi rahljajo. To je naravna posledica razporejanja omejene koliÄine Äasa – edine dobrine, ki je Å¡e ne znamo proizvajat. Ko ga zmanjka paÄ ne moremo it veÄ na kavo.
Nekatere spletne storitve so glede tega precej revolucionarne. Ni veÄ neobiÄajno, da imajo ljudje po veÄ sto ali tisoÄ ‘prijateljev’ na Facebooku. Intenzivost teh ‘stikov’ je sicer neprimerno manjÅ¡a od pravih, a vsaj v bližini ostajajo.
Twitter gre Å¡e korak dlje, s tem ko omogoÄi vsem prijateljem da posluÅ¡ajo in ostajajo sproti seznanjeni z vsem kar se mi dogaja. Tako nikoli zares ne nehajo biti del mojega življenja. In Äe so sluÄajno v bližini ko Twittnem kje posedam se lahko oglasijo in se zgodi spontano sreÄno sreÄanje starih prijateljev. Take sobote se obiÄajno konÄajo precej pozno in veselo 😉
Twitter tako deluje kot platforma za podporo sreÄnim nakljuÄjem. Podobno Facebook skrbi za to, da nikoli veÄ ne pozabimo na rojstne dneve, pa Å¡e ljubka virtualna darilca si lahko podarjamo, ne da bi morali hoditi na vse rojstnodnevne zabave. ÄŒe se na Twittru lahko kljub oddaljenosti pogovarjamo, se na Facebooku kljub zaposlenosti lahko igramo.
Te platforme množiÄne intime nam omogoÄajo razporediti skrite zaloge prostega Äasa tja, kjer jih najbolj potrebujemo – med prijatelje. O temnih plateh pa prihodnjiÄ…
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Kavarne Maribora
July 9th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink
Image via WikipediaEvo, uradno lahko potrdim da je Maribor super mestece za kafetkanje. Kdor me pozna ve, da je to precejÅ¡en kompliment, za katerega se morajo dokazat tako domaÄini z odnosom do kave in gostinci s ponudbo kot mesto s primerno atmosfero.
No, tu me je res presenetila izbira kavarnic, ki ne samo da jih je razmeroma dosti v precej razgibanem centru, Å¡e zelo pomenljiva imena imajo: “Huda kava”,”Cafe Cafe”, “Studio Cafe”, “Aroma”, “ÄŒajek”, “Ilich”, “Ekspreso”.In vse to na tistih nekaj ulicah strogega centra. ÄŒisti užitek…
ÄŒe sem Å¡e katerega pozabil me popravite… 😉
Slovenia? Yes please.
July 6th, 2008 § 2 comments § permalink
Image via Wikipedia@TomazStolfa followed up on a topic @Andraz tackled a month ago – Slovenia and the Valley seem closer than ever. I had some notes floating around my desktop on this topic for some time, and no, seemed like a good time to dispense them.
Tomaz summarized the foundations very well, and I completely agree that there is a huge surplus of knowledge and experience floating around in a very open and healthy manner and relaxed atmosphere I have only seen in SF until now.
There is another very important set of similarities between the places: climate, welfare, food & drinks. There is no reason anybody wouldn’t move over here, so I am not really worried about the lack of programmers. We at Zemanta are gettings inquieries all the time.
Slovenia is cosy, and this is what geeks in startups need – to feel safe and able to focus on fun work, because everything else works. (remembering the dreadful experience of getting broadband in London, argh)
The present scene is extremely inclusive, welcoming newcomers, but has very high expectations of everyone, creating a positive peer pressure.
We are lucky to be exotic enough to be rememberable, distant enugh to see the forrest, close enogh to Balkan to inherit the “just do it” approach towards life and ideas. So, in conclusion, Slovenia is very much like California, and you can swim in the sea too! 😉
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Sunny Screen
July 6th, 2008 § Comments Off on Sunny Screen § permalink
Image via WikipediaI’ve heard an old hit from the eighties I completely forgot about – “Sun always shines on TV” by AHA. I am still surprised by the honest love of the medium demonstrated here. How can something so technical be a central metaphore for happiness?
It was written in 1985, the high point of early MTV, which was born in 1981. Amongst the first videos shown there was of course the Depeche mode’s “Video killed the radio star” from 1979. It seems that that generation rediscovered TV, not as a place of information distribution, but rather an actuall lebenswelt in which they started investing their hopes and fears. It took over the status movies had until then, embodied in hits like “Celluloid heroes” by Kinks. A disillusioned contemporary version of that tematization is REM’s “Immitations of life”, while the TV is strong in becomming the central focus of every home.
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Run, Jog, Trek
July 4th, 2008 § Comments Off on Run, Jog, Trek § permalink
Image via WikipediaTitle sounds like a list of strange SF movie characters right? It seems the oldest form of recreation is also somehow connected with our sense for future. Timeless.
I never liked running, I always lost my breath in the very beginning, suffered ’till the end. So it took me decade to try again, and it wasn’t that hard at all. Besides, mornings are meditation time anyway…
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