Ahtisaari

The Dopplr Barcelona release: adding places to the Social Atlas

Today at the SIME event in Barcelona, I gave a short talk on "People, Places and Mobility", introducing the idea of the Social Atlas and how Dopplr is aggregating the intelligence of the world's smart travellers.



It was also a joy to be on a panel on European entrepreneurship with Jennifer Schenker of Informilo, Inma Martinez and Robert Lang of Result, all moderated by the always uplifting Ola Ahlvarsson.

We launched the next phase of the Social Atlas and gave a sneak preview of the new Dopplr iPhone app (codename Spitfire) that we’ll launch, Apple willing, next month. It was an excellent event hosted by the city of Barcelona.

Joining the Board of Newsmill

I'm very happy announce that I'm joining the Board of Directors of Newsmill. In a very short time, Newsmill has become the conversation-starting online media in Sweden. The team is developing a new kind of dialogue with readers and authors. (links in Swedish)

Read the full release in the Bonnier press room.

Dopplr, building the Social Atlas

We've been getting a great response to the Dopplr New York release and what we've come to call the Social Atlas.

Dopplr now lets you build a record of places you've been in your home city and cities around the world, like quality restaurants and hotels - as well as places you've explored. It all happens with a simple one- or two-click interaction.



The idea is that our collective travel knowledge will inform and improve the travel experience of all. Any places you've marked will be visible to the people that can see your travels on Dopplr. In addition, your choices will be aggregated, anonymised and visualised into part of a unique overall picture of a city visible to all Dopplr users. Eventually the Social Atlas will be on mobile devices, part of a Dopplr mobile application we are launching very soon.

Here are some cities where you can start finding places you may know:

• Beijing: places to eat and places to stay
• Rome: places to eat and places to stay
• London: places to eat and places to stay
• New York: places to eat and places to stay
• Paris: places to eat and places to stay
• Helsinki: places to eat and places to stay
• San Francisco: places to eat and places to stay
• Barcelona: places to eat and places to stay
• Amsterdam: places to eat and places to stay
• Hong Kong: places to eat and places to stay

For the time being you can only mark places listed on Dopplr, but we will soon allow you to add places to the Dopplr directory on both web and mobile. This is a critical part of keeping the Social Atlas we're building fresh, surprising and relevant.

2009: The soul is catching up

"While 2008 was a tough year for everyone, it was full of surprises and interesting connections." Joi Ito wrote today. I can only agree. Last week Lisa asked me what my top three moments of joy were in 2008. Here they are:

1. Lisa and I were married.


(photo: Rodrigo Sepulvéda Schulz)


2. "Peace is a question of will," said my father Martti when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Watch the Nobel lecture video and "Every conflict can be resolved" concert video with Scarlett Johansson, Elina Vähälä and Michael Caine.

3. "Kelpaisit lapiomieheksi," Juhani said in Finnish and smiled.

After several weeks working with shovel in hand and renovating a log cabin out in Eastern Finland last summer, my father-in-law, told me that I'd be welcome as a "shovel man" on any construction site.

For smarter travel

As for the startup life, it was an extraordinary year with lots of heavy lifting. Blyk, the free mobile network funded by advertising, surpassed 200,000 young customers in the UK and raised a further 40M euro in funding. Blyk's success in the UK shows that the concept works. The business is on track to launch in the Netherlands next year, with other markets to follow. After three years of growing Blyk with the team, I decided it was time for my next step. Starting tomorrow January 1, 2009 I'll become CEO of Dopplr, the online social tool for smarter travel.

For 2009, the year ahead, I'd like to leave you with a short piece I wrote for Joi Ito's book Freesouls. It was my honor and privilege to write an essay - entitled Intelligent Travel - for this amazing book. Other contributors include Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, Yochai Benkler, Isaac Mao, Lawrence Liang and Howard Rheingold.

"Sometimes one must stop and sit by the roadside, and wait for the soul to catch up..."

The essay begins with this old African proverb. Continue reading more of Intelligent travel in English or in Chinese translation.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Blyk UK hits 100,000 members

Blyk UK has reached 100,000 members. This is an important milestone in building a media for young people.

See Shaun Gregory's post on the Blyk company blog. And coverage in The Daily Telegraph today: Yesterday's blip could be today's Blyk (comment by Damien Reece) and Blyk, the advertiser-funded free mobile phone service, has hit its target of 100,000 users five months ahead of schedule.

For more on Blyk and the how Blyk works for advertisers please see our recent case studies and this short video interview covering All About Blyk (mobuzz.tv).

Dopplr in Fortune and The Wall Street Journal

Two recent pieces highlighting the benefits of Dopplr for frequent travellers. David Kirkpatrick, senior editor at Fortune, features Dopplr alongside LinkedIn and Facebook in "Web 2.0 gets down to business: Business people find ways to save time and make money from social software pioneered by their kids" in both the print and online editions:

J.P. Rangaswami, who oversees 4,000 people as a managing director at BT, has become a heavy user of this tool for sharing travel itineraries. (He also has 500 friends in Facebook and follows 300 on Twitter.) Before Dopplr, which launched last December, it took repeated e-mails to keep contacts informed of his whereabouts. Now his 140 Dopplr contacts know where he is at any moment.

"You can really optimize your time when traveling," says Rangaswami. One Dopplr friend recently saw he was going to Dublin and out of the blue recommended a good Indian restaurant.

Dick O'Neill, a former Pentagon strategist who now runs a think tank called the Highlands Forum, tracks about 115 mostly professional friends on Dopplr, even when he's not traveling.

"My business is about new ideas," he says. "I want to know when colleagues come to town because I need to keep up with what they're thinking."

And Esther Dyson writes in a column in The Wall Street Journal "The Coming Ad Revolution" about Dopplr and the business models of social networks, in the print and online editions:

Look at Dopplr (where I plan to become an investor), a site for travelers. I list my trips, and see how they intersect with my friends' itineraries. "Oh, we'll both be in London April 4? Let's get together!" Or, "Juan and Alice will be in town next Tuesday. Let's hold a dinner!" You can imagine or visit equivalent approaches for books (a hypothetical Amazon 2.0, new and more personalized), clothes (Glam.com and Stardoll.com), and even money management.

So what's the business model? I'll "friend" British Airways, which will say, "We see you're going to Moscow next month. Why not fly through London and we'll give you 10,000 extra miles?" I'm no longer in a bucket of frequent travelers, my privacy protected. I'm an individual with specific travel plans, which I intentionally make visible to preferred vendors. British Airways, of course, will pay Dopplr a handsome sponsorship fee to be eligible to be my "friend" (just as a Nike rep might pay to sponsor a basketball game and be part of the community). Someday NetJets may show up, offering to ferry me and my friends to a conference we'll be attending together.

I'm far more likely to respond to BA or NetJets within a trusted site, and for a specific offer, than I am to heed their ad while reading a newspaper article on the troubles in Russia. (As for Orbitz, my old standby: After five years, it still doesn't acknowledge my preferred airlines.)

The new model creates a more trusted environment for reaching high-value, frequent purchasers, whether of airline tickets, electronics, clothes or other items. Where does that leave the less-frequent purchasers? Probably looking to their friends rather than to advertising for advice. I'm an expert on travel; my friends may look to me for hotel choices. When I'm in the mood to buy a book or a new computer, I'll check out what my friends on Facebook are doing.

This does not mean that traditional online advertising will go away, just that it will become less effective. Value is being created in users' own walled gardens, which they will cultivate for themselves in real estate owned by the social networks. The new value creators are companies -- like Facebook and Dopplr -- that know how to build and support online communities.

For more press coverage of Dopplr check the press section at Dopplr.com.

MediaGuardian Exec Poll Names James Murdoch, Google and Dopplr as "media sensations in 2008"

Jemima Kiss of MediaGuardian cites an executive poll that rates Dopplr among “media sensations to watch” this year:

Search giant Google, its mobile developer platform Android - and James Murdoch - are the media sensations to watch in 2008, according to a survey of media executives and consultants carried out by the Guardian Media Group. GMG, which owns the MediaGuardian.co.uk website, asked 120 influential digital practitioners to predict the brands, sites and people to watch this year. Respondents picked out the social travel network Dopplr.com, the popular teen site Bebo, tech giants Apple and Microsoft as well as TokBox, the online video phone service.

Dopplr in TIME Magazine: Let's do Lunch in London

The European edition of Time Magazine (Feb 4) has a full-page story on Dopplr entitled “Let’s Do Lunch in London.”

“If karma isn’t quite working out for you,” writes Vivienne Walt. “Dopplr could be the next best thing.”

Check out the full story in the print edition or online.

Blyk Update: First European Expansion and Goldman Sachs Invests

Blyk has been live in the UK for four months now and we are well on track to hit 100,000 members in our first year of operations. This will make us a significant high-growth youth media in the UK.

I'm truly excited about two announcements today from the Blyk team:

First, Blyk announced its expansion to the Dutch market. Blyk will use Vodafone Netherlands as its host operator. From a marketing industry perspective the Netherlands is an incredibly creative and dynamic market, so it is a perfect fit for an innovative interactive media like Blyk. Blyk will launch in the Netherlands in the second half of 2008. Other European markets are under discussions and details will be released later.

Second, Blyk announced new investors Goldman Sachs and Industrial and Financial Investments Company (IFIC), who will join a roster that includes Sofinnova Partners and a number of private investors.

For more on the Blyk model and user experience you can watch this video: All About Blyk (mobuzz.tv).

All About Blyk

I recently met up with Olivia and Anil from mobuzz.tv. This short clip about Blyk was recorded at the Monaco Media Forum. At the end Olivia refers to the open code approach of the Blyk brand.