It's Saturday and I just spent the afternoon on my balcony enjoying the sun. It's not hot, but it has about 18 degrees which is not bad at all. In Austria, you have to wait until end of March for such a day, if you have bad luck probably even until beginning of May. That's when the advantages of living in Spain become really obvious ;-)

For the past few months I've been working on a project which finally launched this week. It is the biggest project I have ever worked on and by far the most complicated as well. Please welcome Elecciones08 to the world!

On this special page, Spanish citizens can upload their questions and politicians will answer. We managed to partner with RTVE, the Spanish public TV, which will broadcast some of these questions on TV in an interview series with the political parties' candidates. Also, the political parties committed to post videos to answer the questions on YouTube itself. You can see the intro video with Lorenzo Milá and Mara Torres here:



Not to forget, we also have some really cool politics gadgets for iGoogle in place, which one can find on http://www.google.es/elecciones08

So far, so good. To be honest, I was not super excited when I started this project, but after all the effort I am very happy to have worked on it. At times, I felt like in a real-life business case, tough decisions had to be made which made me go through a steep learning curve - the way I like it best.

Most importantly though, this is not just a marketing campaign. This project does not only give users the possibility to speak their mind, but also to reach a huge audience, through the internet as well as on TV. It has the potential to change the way the politics game is played in Spain and that's what I am really proud of.

Update: the blog post on the official YouTube blog.

Just found a video on YouTube which I thought was quite original. It's a bus ride in Klagenfurt in fast forward. Probably not so exciting for one who did not use the public means of transport in Klagenfurt for more than 14 years, but the music is also quite cool.



Then, on www.mein-klagenfurt.at I found some more (unfortunately not on YT):

- route 20 (my route for 14 years!)

- route 95 (with a cool Soundtrack from a local band, the Liquid Glam Rockets)

I read a pretty interesting article yesterday in Fast Company, about how Publicis is transforming to tackle the new challenges of the marketing business. Also, they were extremely euphoric about their creative directors' new invention, Honeyshed. Just let me tell you, I just had a look now and the result is very sobering. The next revolution in internet shopping? I don't think so.

My first national TV appearance!



Don't forget, it's not too late to Give a gift on YouTube yet ;-)
www.youtube.com/regalaunvideo

Hi everyone!

I am back from vacations, relaxed and full of energy, ready to face the last two weeks of work before Christmas.

Two weeks ago, I launched my first Consumer campaign for Google. It's called "Regala un video" where you can post a "video gift" for someone and get the chance to get featured on the YouTube homepage for a while. Truth is, it's a small pilot project, but better than nothing, right?

Here is the introduction video:



Hope you like it ;-)

Merry Christmas!

After watching some stuff about the Andrew Meyer incident on YouTube, I actually wonder why there is even a discussion about whether it was justified to taser him or not. Even if the student was provocative and "disturbed peace", the police's reaction was absolutely inappropriate and exaggerated. If at all, it would have been enough to grab him, drag him out and deny him reentrace to the hall, but my personal view is that all this was pretty ridiculous and shocking.

The video:


Fox News report, nothing surprising there:


Here is an article, defending the tasering of the student. What I really like about it, is the comment at the bottom:


Amen! What has the country come to, when obnoxious young intellectuals have the audacity to verbally challenge our senators in blatant defiance of forum rules and with no apparent fear of violent retribution? We need to start Tasing misbehaving children, too.

But seriously, the core problem with Miston's opinion, like so many of its ilk, is that it ignores the underlying issue: why was Meyer arrested in the first place? Disturbing the peace? Give me a break. He may have been obnoxious, but that would have warranted nothing more than being thrown out of the forum -- like an unruly patron would be thrown out of a nightclub by a bouncer. It was a violation of debate rules, not a violation of law.

It's good to know that debate about First Amendment issues on our college campuses has sunk to the level of people on one side telling people on the other to "shut up". There's more than a little irony in that.

Everytime I am at Retiro I ask myself why I don't come here more frequently. It's beautiful, not only because of the lush green lawn and the huge trees, but also because it's fascinating to watch the people. Families, couples, artists and sportsmen from a dozen different nationalities gather here to spend their afternoon, to relax from their busy week. So peacefully together, you ask yourself why the world couldn't be more like Retiro ;-)

For me personally, it's a bit of everything today. I went here to cruise with my new bike, work a bit, listen to music, take some photos and...chill. It's NEARLY the perfect Sunday on a sunny day in autumn.

Concerning news about Guatemala at the beginning of the week...

Letzte Hoffnung UN

Tödlicher Wahlkampf

EU alarm at Guatemala violence