I’ve been following the hype and launch of the much anticipated Nexus One phone, a.k.a “The Google Phone”. Here are a few pointers I took away from it all:

1. If you want the tech crowd to pay attention you need to come up with a cool and geeky-powerful name. Nexus One is probably as good as it gets, and also hints at the fact that there may be more Nexus phones coming. I was surprised to see this was actually the final name too. Often you only see the power names used as code names, but Google went all-in. I disagree with Guy Kawasaki on this point, although the name won’t work for a bigger market. Can you see your Mom say “Nexus One”? No, but you also can’t see her ever wanting a one anyway.

2. If you want tease the tech blogs you make sure plenty of leaks occur. They have to cover it, or someone else will, even though it’s only rumors and half-baked information. There’s been a bunch of first the traditional blurry photos, then blurry videos, and finally good-quality unofficial video too. How did they do it? Google circulated lots of phones before launch, both to high-profile technology personalities, such as Michael Arrington and Fred Wilson but also unknown people such as the guy behind one of the first blurry videos. What does it do? Creates anticipation, speculation, discussion. Miles and miles of column space and free PR.

3. Timing. I was watching the live press event on Ustream (courtesy of Scoble) and paying attention to www.google.com/phone. I’d picked the URL up from some of the leaked photos showing a label on the phone mentioning it. At the time of launch it was dead. A minute before they started talking about the store it was live. It still has a few bugs and in the Q & A session Google also mentioned “robustness” as the reason for why the US currently is the store’s only country, which further indicate the pressure the team must have been under.

4. Believe in your product and deliver. Working in software myself, I’m almost in awe of the execution of this launch. Google, also being mainly about software, managed to coordinate manufacturing with HTC, set up their first real store, upgraded Android to 2.1 – and had the launch date ready months before. The sheer amount of coordination efforts, bug fixing, last minute panic etc. must have been overwhelming. I wonder if anyone at the Android team actually celebrated Christmas… The success of this launch is as much about organization as it is innovation and development.

5. Keep a few goodies to yourself. As the presentation went on, I (and 6-7000 other people watching Scoble’s stream) started to think there wouldn’t be any surprises left, as most of the stuff had already been deliberately leaked. But the Android team still had a few great surprises, namely Google Earth, noise-cancellation, custom engraving and more.

6. Google introduced a new term, “Superphone”. It’s a clever move, saying they’ve upped the game and created a new league that makes smart phones archaic. It’s not just the first Nexus, it’s also the first superphone (a term no doubt adopted from the auto industry).

What could be better? I don’t think the launch could have been much more successful. Everyone who needed to know about Nexus One now does, and I’m sure the orders already have been pouring in overnight. But still I would have liked to see Google do live streaming in good quality (although that might have resulted in less coverage from all the live blogging?). And maybe a little more preparation on the side of the presenters. They weren’t bad at all, but they were miles away from both the iPhone launch and the Palm Pre launch. But I guess the Android team wanted to keep things more down to earth and hands on. Especially since more Android handsets will come-a-knockin constantly throughout 2010.

Probably the design and naming of the Nexus One is not perfect for the mainstream market. It’s very much similar to the G1. That’s why I’ll be anticipating a “Nexus Two” soon, although with a different name and a colorful or customizable design. Just like we saw when G2 and Hero followed G1. Google also promised that more handsets would make it to the store, but not just any handset.

It no longer says “With Google” on the phone. It says “Google”. I recommend you read more about Google’s new aggressive role in the handset market, best outlined by Tim O’Reilly here.

Here are a few personal reflections on New Media Days that ended a few hours ago. I should add that I of course only had partial experience as I couldn’t be everywhere. Also, full disclosure, Issuu (of which I am a co-founder) is sponsoring the conference, but these are my personal remarks as just an average participant.

• The venue (Koncerthuset) was excellent. Worked really well with the many different studios and the small corners for more intimate sessions.
• The program had great variety and more than a few top media people.
• Staff, tech and wifi worked excellent.
• The branding and marketing of the conference was impressive.
• Very well executed, except for the opening session(s) that was too long with no break (any conference organizer should know about The Learning Meeting. Hire Ib Ravn as a consultant).

It should be no surprise, given the conference’s title, that this conference is about media. There were quite a few techies craving more technology. I recommend you go to Reboot instead, but you probably did already.

There were also quite a few negative voices about this being old media rather than new media. I don’t think it’s the conference’s intention to be cutting edge, but rather to give media professionals an overview of where the market is going. As someone who keep up with the state of innovation in new media, I didn’t learn much new, but it was still great to see some of the big Kahunas and listen to argumentation from the biggest media companies in the country (which, at times, is scary business).

What I found annoying was that many of the presentations were heavily self-promoting. Of course you can rely on media people to put themselves front and center, but it got too much at times. Maybe because (some of?) the speakers weren’t paid? I was both impressed and sad watching my hero Shane Smith of Vice do a heavily branded tour de force of Vice’s many media outlets with practically no learning or pointers attached; maybe except the very ungrounded claim that they had no clue what they were doing.

But what really bothered me, and this is not owed to the organizers, was several demonstrations of very poor presentation skills. And from media professionals! The worst example was Julia Dimambro of Cherry Media who presented a few slides with loads of bullets and speed talked like a true champion. And to make matters worse, the footer revealed she had done the same presentation over half a year ago somewhere in Norway! Death by PowerPoint in action.

The Award show was pretty great, although people we’re perhaps a bit too tired after a long day. It was a pleasant surprise to see it hosted by Mikkel Munch-Fals, and the overly progressive choice of music performed by Giana Factory and Mouritz/Hørslev Project was a treat. The best service, Spotify, won the award but had no one present to accept it. I’ve never seen a company get so massive mention throughout a conference without being present or a sponsor.

I was happy to hear that Spotify may come to Denmark soon, although the following day Koda said that they had rejected the offer from Spotify. Probably it’s just Spotify nurturing the pressure from the public that thrives already. As a member of Koda myself I say take the best offer you can get. Spotify is available in Denmark through French and Finnish proxies, or friends abroad, and Danish artists are missing out the longer we wait.

Another highlight was Michael Wolff’s aggressive epitaph for newspapers, where self-proclaimed old media and newspaper man Martin Krasnik was clearly provoked.

In conclusion a great conference that did what I expected it to do. Next year I’d like to see some more surprising panels with a bolder mix of people and professions; and perhaps a little more cutting edge with less old media people (such as it were with the Free vs. Fee session that did nothing for me regardless of the very important topic). And I’m hoping to see every single media and technology spokespeople from the major political parties; not that New Media Days hadn’t tried, as their great opening satire demonstrated.

Also read my post from earlier today, about the ebook session that briefly talks about the coming role of publishing in the digital medial landscape.

I’m at New Media Days, listening to a talk about ebooks with

• JØRGEN BALLE OLESEN (DK) direktør / SAXO.com – The Retailer
• LOTTE GARBERS (DK) formand / Dansk Forfatterforening – The Author
• JAKOB LARSEN (DK) Supply Chain Manager / Lindhardt & Ringhof – The Publisher
  

The discussion is very symptomatic of what we’ve been hearing the past few years:

The Author wants more distribution options, and a bigger piece of the pie. New technology creates new readers, so let’s get this thing on the road.

The Retailer wants to aggregate more content to sell, regardless of the medium. He will support whatever format and device the public wants.

The Publisher is waiting for the market to arrive, instead of actively participating in the creating of this market.

Of the three there’s no doubt that The Publisher stands to loose the most, and in this session he actively expressed this fear.

And that’s why publishing needs to be more active in creating their position in the digital era.

My favorite example right now is Penguin’s Publisher’s Office. They are creating both video, digital editions, and audio around their content (the books).

The publisher’s role in the future is curating talent and refining content (not matter what medium).

I’d like to see more Danish publishers thinking this way.

Sorry for the lame title but it made you look, didn’t it?

Below is an interactive Shelf that just came out of the Issuu labs. It syncs with a folder in My Library on Issuu and updates whenever I add more stuff. It’s perfect for showcasing your archive or a collection of bookmarks.

In this case, I’m sharing a collection of Michael Jackson related publications that came out just around his death.

Read all about Issuu Shelf.

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You would think that the makers of Zinepal read this blog, but I’m sure it’s just coincidental: A while ago I wrote about similar services FeedJournal and Tabbloid and called for a somewhat different model: Using technology to repackage, edit, and re-distribute blog posts, instead of ‘just’ offering PDF dumps via email.

Now Zinepal does that, well … more or less. You import your blog via RSS feed, and is granted with the option to edit and improve content and layout before packaging into PDF. Oh, and not just PDF, it supports Epub and Kindle/Mobipocket, which increases distribution options significantly. You can even insert logo and ads. Check out the features, including the new Pro package.

Room for improvement

In case Frank Worsley, founder if ZinePal, does read this blog here are a few more features I’d like to see. It looks like he’s doing everything single handed, which is impressive, and of course he needs to specialize before he broadens out the specs. But allow me to dream a little:

• A subscription badge to put on my blog. Readers subscribe to a specific format, which would mean downloading or getting the latest edition via email using my custom layout settings.
• Automatic export to/embed with digital publishing sites such as Issuu (disclosure: I’m a co-founder). It could be done via the Issuu API.
• Professional templates. Newspaper design is an art form, so get a designer to create a number of templates. In the future you could even imagine a platform where people can submit and maybe even sell templates. Don’t forget: The PDF has the option to make content more beautiful than on the average blog and this is one of the most essential features that should be prioritized.
• Handling of rich content, e.g. inserting a JPG or icon with a link to YouTube videos etc. Right now rich content is just removed.
• And one for the future: Offering newspaper-esque HTML templates out of the box. The user (publisher/editor) just needs to input a domain to host it under. It would help add credibility to the content and effectively rid of the dull newspaper vs. blog discussion (at least in terms of technology and appearance). Of course, there are many blog templates to help achieve this already, but meddling with a blog template is still something very few can handle.

Why are ZinePal and similar services interesting?

It seems to me these services right now are ’stuck’ in the realm of what is technologically possible. Which is understandable. But in the very near future I don’t believe PDF, Epub etc. formats should matter much to the consumers as their devices will read everything. They don’t care if content used to be a blog, because the distinction between blog or, say, newspaper is irrelevant (even non-existing to coming generations). Consumers want to get their content whenever, however, and wherever.

ZinePal et al should focus on seamless user experiences with a minimum of technical knowledge required. Pretty soon technology will effectively have democratized (replaced and made free/cheap) specialized newspaper production tools. And that’s why Zinepal is interesting, because it’s a step in the right direction.

It may be the future of publishing will be made up by several service providers, such as we’re seeing right now. But eventually consolidation will happen, making production and consumption easier. The small and innovative services getting it right today, may be the YouTubes of tomorrow.

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A while ago I did an interview with Monocle (together with their Danish correspondent Kim Flyvbjerg). The print version of the new issue is now out, and, eh.., let’s say they edited it a bit. Think quote-size interview.

As happy as I am with any mention by established media, I thought it would be good to put it all up here, as I imagine it won’t make it into either print or web. It’s a Q&A focused on entrepreneurship and learning from your mistakes. It talks about stuff I and our team learned from starting up Issuu:

What is the most important thing to think about, in practical terms, when you are setting up a new business?

”We started to talk about people in everyday situations, rather than talking about cool things you could do with new technology. We asked ourselves: Where is the pain? Not physical pain as such, but something that annoys the hell out of people in daily life. If you can find a way to ease that pain and know how to scale that solution to an international crowd, then you’ll probably end up with a successful business.”

What mistakes did you make when setting up your business?

From the get-go we were so focused on being innovative and doing things differently. I guess we focused too hard on cutting edge technology, as it was at the core of what we believed in. But it was too early for the average user and we found that more common technology actually performed better for certain things. You should never blindly expect people to adopt technology because it’s new, rather you should always try to adjust technology to fit people’s habits and needs.

What did you find was the most useful thing you discovered when working out how to brand your company?

”We believe that the best marketing comes from people in love with your product, so all our resources went into design, innovation, and development. We would then invite people from the creative industries to try Issuu, and hoped they would spread the word and invite their network to use it too. To this day we haven’t spent a dollar on conventional marketing.”

How did you decide the name of your company and how does it work? How much do you think it has to do with your success?

”We brainstormed for a month and it was on a long list of possible names. We chose it because it’s both descriptive of what we’re about, but it’s also something new. It looks good in a logo, it’s easy to type and works both as a noun and verb. Choosing the right name is probably one of the most crucial decisions a business can make. If people hate your name or, worse, can’t remember it, they’re probably not going to share it, right? People seem to remember our name pretty well, and although some misspell it and a few found it too dotcom’ish at first, it’s worked really great for us so far.”

For non-bloggers it must seem a little weird, all this preoccupation with how many comments your latest post got (or didn’t get).

But the comment is the unrivaled currency of social media. It’s the proof that someone listens, that someone cares about what you said.

In essence the comment is the evidence that the Internet, unlike all other types of media, holds a conversational nature. Consumers talk back to the media, they become producers, they become (part of) the media.

Common sense you say? Maybe. But take a look at how few newspapers and companies actually allow comments at all. Adopting new social media approaches successfully means subscribing to a whole new level of openness, vulnerability even.

“When magazine lovers get nostalgic about print, they cite the feel of flipping pages, the shock of seeing an amazing layout and the physicality of being able to hold something in your hands. Maybe a gadget like Amazon’s Kindle can compete with the old-fashioned ink-on-paper experience, but for our money — which, in this instance, is zero dollars — we’ll take Issuu, an online newsstand with infinite shelf space, hundreds of interesting micro-publishing projects and a slick online reader. Spending time browsing through the titles that are archived on the site comes so close to the feel of the actual thing that you might forget you’re in a magazine matrix.”

Via TIME.com

Recently both Google Reader and Delicious offered easy syndication, or ‘re-sharing’ you might call it, of content. I’ve been doing this using RSS feeds for quite some time, but now it seems that finally the need for easily sharing across multiple platforms dawned on the two giants.

Using the Delicious Firefox add-on (which is a must) you can now set it up so that you share public bookmarks directly to Twitter. Google Reader offers more services, including Facebook, and even custom setups for services not listed.

Why is this important?

Well, no man is an island, they say, and your social graph (friends, followers, subscribers, contacts, and what else they’re called) is distributed across several platforms. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could update/share to all of them at once? Sure, and the easier access you have to more platforms, the more rapid distribution you can expect. Essentially everyone is becoming a news editor, selecting the good and important stuff (or the funny and irrelevant junk) and broadcasting it to their network. Essentially everyone is becoming a news network.

Is it dangerous?

The obvious danger is adding to the increasing redundancy in the cacophony media space today. I wrote about quantity vs. quality here. Another thing to consider is annoying the hell out of your contacts. I for one have had a quite a few Facebook ‘friends’ hide me on the their wall because I RSS syndicate my bookmarks, blog posts, tweets, Google reader favorites and more right into my wall. The true downside is that when I finally post an authentic and hilarious status update (which has been known to happen), no one is listening.

More about Delicious’ new features here, and Google Reader’s here. Proceed with caution.

Just a quick post about the new Posterous & Issuu integration announced today. If you are a Posterous user, all you need to do is navigate to a cool Issuu publication and hit the bookmarklet in  your browser (get it here).

It’ll automatically embed the publication for you. Here’s an example of an Issuu publication on my own Posterous blog. (Update: Posterous also carries over custom viewer themes. Woot!).

I’ve long been a fan of Posterous. I hope Posterous will feel inspired to add API support for Issuu too. This way you could publish through Issuu simply by emailing stuff to Posterous. It would also be cool if your Issuu bookmarks were automatically posted to Posterous.

Man, I love all these cool integrations, making my life easier one mashup at a time.

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