Haymarket's Digital Media promotes Web Wednesday V23.0

A short shout-out to thank Haymarket's Media group for helping promote our upcoming event, Web Wednesday V23.0, on Tuesday 7th April, by placing the banner below in their Media and Digital Media enewsletters, which reach over 20,000 subscribers across Asia.


The simple but effective banner was created by Beansbox Studios, also a sponsor of Web Wednesday Hong Kong and our favourite website design studio in this buzzing city!

If you'd like to help promote the next event, simply right click on the banner image, copy the link for the image's URL and then post it to your blog. You can also link it back to the original event posting as per this link: http://www.webwednesday.hk/2009/03/web-wednesday-social-mixer-v23-april-7.html

Web Wednesday - Social Mixer V23 (April 7)

Calling All Hong Kong Digerati! (Including you budding bloggers out there!)

For our next social mixer on TUESDAY 7th April, we've invited Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress, the blogging software that runs millions of sites around the world. (Before you ask...yes, we did change the event to a Tuesday just for Matt!)

Matt has been named one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web.


We'll be speaking about "The Bare, Naked Realities of Blogging", amongst other things.

The night kicks off at 6:30pm and ends around 9:30pm, so you'll have plenty of opportunity to mix with the movers and shakers of our local internet industry.

There will be an entrance fee of HK$100, unless you're a bona-fide student, in which case it's HK$50. This includes one complimentary drink. All other drinks are at Happy Hour prices. (We will issue a receipt, if you require one). As per our last event, we will donate 10% to charity (more later).

Do invite your blogging friends and curious colleagues to join the Asian Digerati on Tuesday 7th April at our new funky venue, Volar, Basement, 38-44 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong, Central.

You can sign for the event on this blog, on Facebook or on LinkedIn. (Too much choice?)

Looking forward to seeing old faces and meeting many more new ones,

Napoleon Biggs
Founder & Host - Web Wednesday
Internet Business Specialist - Palava Digital Ltd

AliveNotDead - Alive On Film!

Web Wednesday has finally graduated from the world of audio podcasts into videocasts! Here's the first full video recording at the 22nd Social Mixer in March 2009, where Napoleon Biggs, Host of Web Wednesday, interviews Patrick Lee and Stephen Wang about why they created Rotten Tomatoes, which they sold to IGN for US$10 Million in '04, and their plans to build (and monetise!) a new social network for artists and their fans, called "AliveNotDead".



Thank you to Patrick and Stephen for being such captivating guests and keeping the audience glued to their every word for over 45 minutes! And also to Aaron Farr, Co-Founder of Jade Tower, for having the patience and steady hand to film the whole thing!

Donating 10% to The Library Project

Now that we charge an entrance fee for Web Wednesday's Social Mixers, I will continue our commitment to do good and will be donating 10% of the entrance fees from tonight's event to help fund a library in Lian Er Ping Elementary School in a very remote part of Shaanxi Province, China. Here's a photo of their classroom:

Tom Stader, the Founder of The Library Project, tells me that "we are about 1,000 HKD short of having this school fully funded and the other two donors are Xi'an Foreign Business Forum and a student group from the Shanghai International School". So come along and help us make the difference!

Tom has been a prior guest speaker at Web Wednesday and tells me that, as of February 2009, they have established 107 elementary school libraries and put more than 71,000 Chinese language children's books into the hands of eager young readers. I love his slogan, "Together we are changing the world, one book at a time."

Web Wednesday V22 - SMS Contest

Apart from networking with Internet aficionados, Web Wednesday is also about experimenting with digital marketing channels. One of those is mobile, an ideal medium for running an on-site contest.

But, for the upcoming social mixer on Wednesday 4th March (tomorrow), we're going to stretch the promotion out by announcing it one day before. The word will go out via this blog, Facebook, Twitter and all the cross-linked status feeds we have in Plaxo and LinkedIn.

The prizes for this month's contest are provided by AliveNotDead, our guest speakers, and the Financial Times (FT.com),who've proved how a traditional media company can stay alive and not die in the Internet revolution!

3rd Prize: AliveNotDead Cap (priceless!)


2nd Prize: AliveNotDead T-Shirt (more priceless!)


1st Prize: Premium Subscription to FT.com, worth US$299 in real cash!


To enter the Web Wednesday SMS contest, text "ww quiz" to "508507" (HK$1 per SMS, only open to HK mobile networks).

Web Wednesday Launches in Sweden

Mikael Ohren, a former student at Hong Kong University and regular attendant of our early social mixers in Hong Kong, has taken the brave step of launching a Web Wednesday community in Halmstad, Sweden. Our first step onto European territory!

With a population of 80,000 people or so, Halmstad presented a challenge for Mikael to drum up interest. But, he's making the right moves with a website in Swedish - www.webwednesday.se - and a Facebook Group (only 19 members so far!).

Mikael has set himself on course to be a successful Internet entrepreneur; his first business is a marketplace for models and photographers, called "Modellbilder", and the second one helps people to laucnch a website in less than 24 hours ("hemsida24").


The second Web Wednesday in Sweden will be held on 4th March. If you're in the area (haha!) do drop by.

Sign up for Web Wednesday Hong Kong

Fill out my online form.