Web Wednesday Podcasts

Over the past four years, I've recorded almost every Web Wednesday interview. They were originally posted to Odeo, which consequently went bust and I lost many of the original recordings! You might recall that the founder of Odeo was Evan Williams, who has now hit the big time with Twitter. But, as they say in Silicon Valley, you need to fail twice before you can truly succeed. Read on GigaOm to Evan explain what he did wrong and the lessons her learned from "screwing up with Odeo".

I've also learned some lessons from Odeo, number one being to keep a copy of every file on my own, removable hard drive. I've also found a great new service for hosting podcasts (and music), "SoundCloud". There is a backlog of over 30 interviews waiting to be uploaded, but here are three for you to enjoy first:

Inside Hong Kong's Mobile Apps Environment

One of my favourite things about running Web Wednesday is the amazingly wide range of people that I get to meet, not just on the stage but also in the audience. Off the back of our last social mixer in 2011, "Battle of the Apps II", I had the pleasure of meeting up with Douglas Crets, who seems to have a plum job flying around the world interviewing leading digerati for Re-wired and Fast Company. He also sits on the advisory board of Klout - I wonder what that job entails? (Do tell us, Doug!). Listen to his interviews on BlogTalkRadio and follow him on Twitter (@douglascrets) and the Re-Wired blog.

Unlike my Web Wednesday interviews, this time Doug turned his microphone on me to ask my thoughts on the latest developments in mobile entrepreneurship in Asia. Yes, it is far too big a subject to cover in a 25-minute interview but we made a good job of it. Listen to the interview below and read his blog post here. Thanks, Doug. I enjoyed it.

Kim Jong Il dropping the bass

Did you know that Kim Jong Il was a keen DJ? Hilarious photoshop creation of the "Great Leader" in action: kim jong-il dropping the bass. See the previous post for more fun links.

Sina Weibo Honours Kim Jong Il

Following the death of Kim Jong Il, Sina Weibo has created a special page to collate comments using the hashtag,"金正日逝世", which translates to "Kim Jong Il passes away".

The are nearly 7 million posts and comments so far about the event.

Which are being collected on this page.

Google Zeitgeist 2011

Google's annual review of the top most searched terms on the web has taken on a much more interactive graphic this year. See Google Zeitgeist for global results, you can also drill down by country.



I've been searching for Baidu's version and have yet to find it. Any suggestions?

Liberator versus tyrant

Over the weekend, two very different leaders died…

Václav Havel, Czech’s first elected president of Czechoslovakia who lead the Velvet Revolution to bring down communism in Eastern Europe. Watch the Al Jazeera news.

And…

Kim Jong Il, “Great Leader” of North Korea. Read the NY Times article.

According to Al Jazeera, North Korean media say that Kim Jong Il died on Saturday from "physical and mental over-work".

Already (not surprisingly), the word is out on social media, which loves this kind of thing… adjusted for different spellings of "Kim Jong Il" , there have been more than 40,000 tweets about him by 12 noon (Beijing time).

Three witty images:

Some links pulled off social media this morning:

So Ronery funny, old animation of Kim Jong Il

North Korea Party Rock Anthem ft. Kim Jong Il

A funny blog of official photos - Kim Jong Il Looking at Things.

RIP Kim Jong Il 1941 - Dec 17 2011 - His Vision And How He "Looked" At Things


The death of North Korea Kim Jong-il obituary 金正日逝世讣告

Funeral Footage - KCTV (Kim Il Sung Dies 1994)

North Korea Party Rock Anthem ft. Kim Jong Il

My favourite tweet so far: "☑ Kim Jong Il ☑ Khaddafi ☑ Osama Bin Laden ☑ Saddam Hussein ☐ Internet Explorer".

Upon comparing the 'hot topics' on the real-time news platforms, "Kim Il Sun" (金正日) came top of the list on Sina Weibo in China

and "Kim Jong" was listed 4th on Twitter (I'm sure this will change when the Americans and Brits wake up).

Prizes for Battle of the Apps II

We've lined up some great prizes for "Battle of the Apps II" on 14th December, 2011. (Warning: we may juggle the prizes around on the night). Please help me thank them for their generous support by sharing their links.

Amazon Web Services

• 1 x Amazon Kindle Fire (Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display with Wi-Fi)
• 1 x US$500 of EC2 cloud hosting services for the winner (voted favourite by the audience)
• US$25 of EC2 cloud hosting services for each contest participant

JigoCity Hong Kong

• 100 complimentary drinks (for the first 100 guests at Bisous on the night)
• 2 x 150 JigoPoints Credit Vouchers (equivalent to HK$150) for two winners
• Super special offer for Web Wednesday Members: Spend HK$1 to get 50 JigoPoints, a shopping credit equivalent to HK$50. Claim this special offer here. [Valid 12 - 15 December, 2011].

UX Hong Kong

1 complimentary ticket (worth HK$2,900 early bird rate) to attend User Experience Hong Kong 2012 on 17 & 18 February, 2012. The organiser, Daniel Szuc, was a previous speaker at Web Wednesday.

If you're keen to learn more about usability, read Daniel's latest book, co-authored with Whitney Quesenbery, who will be speaking at the event, "Global UX: Design and Research in a Connected World".