Tuto sobotu odlétám na studijní pobyt do francouzského Angers, kde budu se budu intenzivně věnovat imigrační politice spolu s dalšími studenty z různých koutů Evropy. To byl také hlavní důvod založení tohoto blogu.

Než odjedu, nesmím zapomenout:

• půjčit si od Ondry kufr
• sehnat kapesní slovník
• vyzvednout pojišťovací kartičku
• koupit si pořádnou reprezentativní kabelku na notebook
• vytisknout všechny letenky a jízdenky kvůli proplacení
• zjistit zda mám mezinárodní účet a vypátrat jeho SWIFT číslo
• splašit funkční sluchátka
• nabít baterky
• doplnit lékárničku, bez té ani ranu!
• vypátrat dostupné informace o české imigrační politice
• sbalit se a nakoupit jídlo na cestu

Tak… určitě to není všechno, ale je to pěkný začátek, že?

December se je kar lepo začel in po dolgem času me je zajela filmska mrzlica. Ne čisto prava kot nekoč, malček pa že. Nekega hudega izbora nisem delal, gledal sem večinoma to, kar mi je prišlo pred oči.

About a Boy – Vse o fantu

Nič kaj zahteven film, prikazuje pa tipizirane tipe ljudi in to, da je sreča relativna in ni pogojena z ničemer.

Vicky Christina Barcelona – Ljubezen v Barceloni

Berite moje navdušenje nad tem filmom v tej objavi.

Top Gear

To serijo zadnje čase spet redno gledam po daljšem premoru. Predvsem me zabava odličen humor. Poleg te serije naj izpostavim še Little Britain – ta je pa sploh huda.

Zohan je zakon – Don’t mess with Zohan

Sicer popolnoma brezvezen film, nekaj vložkov pa je ekstra humornih in me je prav spomnil na JJJ-a, sošolca iz srednje šole.

Rád bych, abyc vznikl seznam účastníků, poněvadž jsem příšerně línej to počítat. Takže, kdo víte, že budete moct přijet nebo uvažujete o účasti, prosím, napište to sem do komentářů. Napište to do komentářů. Napište i s jakým vozem přijedete. Já budu zatím doplňovat seznam:)

Díky mockrát.

Seznam účastníků

1. Skeeve, Rover 825SD
2. Honza (Daren), Rover 820SI
3. konopaslik, Rover 75 Tourer
4. Lajonel, Rover 218 SDe
5. Vilém, Rover 414
6. Tobiáš, Rover 620ti
7. Rohlik, Rover 75
8. Roman620ti, Rover 620ti – stříbrný
9. Jator_Neo.ule (ve zkratce jatorek), MG ZR 160-modrý
10. R4ms3S, Rover 214si – rudý
11. Roman 620 Ti, Rover 620ti
12. inzer, ROVER 825SI LUX (tm.zelený)
13. RichiesFather, ROVER 416i Tourer – BLUE
14. Martin01, Rover 214 zeleny
15. Franco, Rover 45 2.0TDi
16. pbin, Rover 400 1,6 černá metalíza
17. tranzi, Rover 200 2.0i
18. Skyclad, Rover 75
19. Samojec, Rover 45 2,0 iTD stříbrná metalíza

Ti, co napsali na forum ze by prijeli:
1. Elvis, Rover SD

I just posted the Wal-Mart story of the man who was trampled to death.  I found this headline on the home page of Seznam.cz, “Dav nakupujících zabil v New Yorku prodavače,” from Novínky.cz about the Wal-Mart story.  I am still in the process of learning Czech, but I can read enough Czech to know they are talking about the trampling death.  Seeing this article is sort of like when you are around bilingual people who are talking a language you don’t know and you wonder if they are making fun of you.

Last week or the previous week I posted an article from Radio Prague that Czechs value shopping above all else.  But from what I have heard about the Czech people, they are kind and considerate.  So I can’t help but wonder what they think of the incidents that transpired at Wal-Mart.  I had received a message from my pen-pal in Czech Republic.  We were talking about cultural differences regarding Christmas celebrations.  He said it is commercialized over there too.

Sedaj si ustvarjam seznam fimov, ki so mi všeč in ki si jih moram ponovno ogledati. Večino sem že videl, nekaj pa sem jih gledal, vendar ne do konca.

Seznam je pa za enkrat tak:

• Moja žena Maurice (francoski film če kej vem)
• Častnik in gentleman
• Hotel Ruanda
• Po krivem obdolžen
• Uničevalec
• Tolpe New Yorka

Iščem pa še en film. In to je nek belgijski film, v katerem se zgodba dogaja v nekem študentskem domu. V filmu nastopajo 3 fantje, ki se začnejo ukvarjati z ilegalnimi stavami. Začnejo sprejemati in izplačevati stave in pri tem pobiajo določene procente. 

Kdo ve kakšen je naslov tega fima?

Other day I listened to some interesting comments in a panel in the Internet CEE conference in Warsaw, where the general manager of Google Polska (Artur Waliszewski), the product marketing director of Yandex (Andrey Sebrant) and the sales director of Seznam (Tomas Buril) debated.

When asked about the search eco-system, all three coincided on one mission and some key assets…

All 3 agreed that R&D focus pursues their main search mission: to anticipate and answer in the most relevant manner the questions posed by the people using their engines. In this respect, all efforts on the technology move for relevancy. Up to here, all clear. But then, when establishing the key assets of turning this into revenues, they said something to this effect:

Sebrant, Yandex: direct selling builds trust and is key to the revenue model. In this respect we focus fully in training and certification of our (sales) staff and understand that the only way to build trust is by facing our customers with people, generating trust by having “someone look you in the eye”

Waliszewski, Google: certification and training are keys in the Ad Words ecosystem; without those people to educate the clients, there is no success, however much we optimize and improve our algorithms to achieve search advertising relevancy

Buril, Seznam: we employ 250 in direct sales to get our products to the clients, this is the equivalent of the Google and Yandex effort to educate staff and certify them in order to get to the final customer and show them how to use search advertising

In my understanding what they’re saying here is: our products could be extremely complex on the technical side, but making them come across to the final customers and making money from them is, still and by and large, a direct selling and educational effort.

Could this be true? How do you feel about the issue?

Is Google Searching For An Ad Agency? — The success of Google has always been that much more impressive because of the search giant’s refusal to advertise in any significant way. Its spectacular growth has always been a result of word of mouth. But that may be changing, as sources say Google has been taking meetings with ad agency executives in recent months, perhaps with an eye on launching a full-scale ad campaign. The push is not without its detractors though, and powerful ones at that. Allegedly, some Google employees were prepared to buy time during an NBC Olympics broadcast to promote a Google product, but the effort was quashed by none other than founders Sergy Brin and Larry Page, who felt a splashy television ad wouldn’t fit with Google’s image.

Ballmer On Loose In Paris: ‘Search Still In Infancy’, New R&D Drive — More on that search R&D centre Microsoft in June told advertisers it would build in Europe… CEO Steve Ballmer fronted the launch in Paris this morning for a “Search Technology Centre” (STC), which will actually be split between three centres of excellence in Paris, London and Munich and will be Microsoft’s second in the world, the other in Beijing. MS is pulling Jordi Ribas, GM of its Connected TV group, to head the centre. Though Google seems to be making a tidy buck from search already, Ballmer (via release) said: ”We believe search is still in its infancy. Developers at the Search Technology Centre will play a key role in helping us redefine search as they create new search products and services for consumers and advertisers. We need to draw on the world’s smartest, most creative minds. Increasingly, we are finding the talent we need here in Europe.”

Mail.ru Owner Wants Czechs’ Google Beater Seznam, $850 Million Price Tag — Russian tech investor Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which took a controlling stake in its native Mail.ru portal in July, is amongst the leading contenders to buy the top Czech search site Seznam, according to a local report. The Financni Novini paper also said Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus, which owns the competing Centrum.cz and Atlas, were interested in bidding but may not be able to make an $850 million asking price due to the credit crunch. Seznam has a 62 percent share against Google’s (NSDQ: GOOG) 29 percent, claiming 4.4 million monthly uniques and forecasting $90 million 2008 income, Yakov notes: “Should the deal go ahead, it will be the largest internet acquisition in eastern Europe.”

ThomsonReuters Maintains Outlook Despite Economic Deterioration — The last time we checked in on Reuters, right after the Lehman failure, CEO Tom Glocer maintained his optimism, but admitted that a sustained global depression would not be good for anyone. Since then, there hasn’t been much to make the economic picture look prettier. But Glocer is sticking to his guns: He told analysts in London that despite it all, the company would not lower its forecast. And if there are any problems, he says, they won’t be long term. For 2008, revenue is expected to grow, organically, by 6 to 8 percent.

YouTube Video Ads Goes Post-Roll; Ad Overlays Are Not Enough — While YouTube and its parent Google (NSDQ: GOOG) have been promoting ad overlays as the best format for supporting online video, the video site has been slowly employing post-roll the past few weeks, NewTeeVee has confirmed. YouTube began considering using post-rolls to augment its pre-roll and overlay ads this summer. But the decision to go ahead with the format represents something of a reversal for the site. In July, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company had evidence that embedded video ads were much more effective than both pre- and post-roll. Users probably won’t feel too put out by the introduction of post-roll, which can obviously be avoided since the video a user chose has already concluded. But it does suggest that YouTube is still struggling with its ad strategy. And as NewTeeVee pointed out, post-roll only runs on a sliver of the roughly 4 percent YouTube videos uploaded by official partners taking part in the site’s revenue-share deal.

Interesting FT piece on how Google’s global ambitions are thwarted by several key markets where they have not managed to take market leadership positions.

For instance, in Czech Republic Seznam has 62.5% share to Google’s 24.8%

Russia, Yandex has 45.9% to Google 33%

China, Baidu.com has 66.5% to Google 11.3%

South Korea, Naver 57.7%, Lycos 18.4%, Google 8.5%

Japan Yahoo 51%, Google 39.5%

As with all markets… there’s opportunity. And, there will be a niching process that evolves so that even these shares get eroded as people switch to niche search firms or bespoke search tools.

MySpace Revamps Classifieds Business With Oodle — As social nets look to increase their ad revenues, MySpace is taking a more serious stab at the online classified market with a new channel. The Fox Interactive unit’s new MySpace Classifieds promises better search and pricing guides. But the main difference is that the listings are now linked to MySpace profiles – not anonymous IDs. MySpace got an assist on the new site from online classifieds operator Oodle. As explained in a post on Oodle’s blog the hope is that users will encourage friends in their network to help them buy or sell through MySpace bulletins and blogs. MySpace says the past classifieds site drew roughly million members monthly. Now, it will be able to draw on the 200-plus listings sites in Oodles network.

IAC’s Life123 Comes To Life; Goals Include Saving You Time, Ranking Well In Search — If you must think of every new thing as the “something-killer” then you’d probably call Life123 an About.com-killer, or a Mahalo killer, or a Google Knol killer. Fortunately, as Robert Deutsch, VP of content development & operations at the new IAC-owned unit, assured me, About.com doesn’t have to die for Life123 to thrive. We first broke the news that IAC was cooking up a new how-to aggregator back in April. At the time, we knew it as Life333.com, which was in fact an early name for the project. Turns out, in testing, users didn’t like the concept of dividing content into 3-minute, 30-minute and 3-hour chunks so that named got ditched for the current one. The new site still offers users the chance to dive into a topic at various depths from quick and dirty summaries to more thorough explorations.

24/7 Real Media’s COO Hsu Upped To CEO; Moore To Stay On As Chairman — David Moore, the ad exec who has helped lead WPP Group interactive shop 24/7 Real Media since its days as a startup 12 years ago, is stepping aside as CEO and handing the reins to Jonathan Hsu effective immediately. Hsu, 36, previously served as 24/7’s EVP/COO. As part of the move, Moore will take a wider focus on crafting strategic relationships, recruitment and business development. He’ll also still work with WPP Digital on getting the various parts of the company to be more tightly integrated.

Yahoo Japan boss has not discussed sale of shares with Softbank or Yahoo — Yahoo Japan’s chief executive stated he has not discussed the potential sale of Yahoo Japan shares owned by Softbank or Yahoo. Cited in a Wall Street Journal report, Masahiro Inoue said he had not talked about any such sales with officials from California-based internet company Yahoo or Softbank, the Japanese mobile-telecoms group. Should Yahoo decide to sell its Yahoo Japan stock, Softbank would have the right of first refusal, Inoue pointed out. He added his belief that investment in the Asian region is important at a time when the Asian internet-services industry is experiencing strong growth, the report said. The piece noted that the company announced a first-quarter net profit of JPY 19.16bn (USD 177.6m), up 18% on the previous year; sales rose 16% to JPY 65.56bn. Source: mergermarket.

Google, Mediatel and several financial groups interested in acquiring Seznam — Google, Mediatel, the Czech privately-owned publishing group, and some financial groups are interested in acquiring Seznam, the privately-owned Czech Internet portal, reported E15. The brief report cited another report in Ekonom.cz but did not name any sources for the information. It said the minimum price being asked was USD 900m. The report said it is understood that Microsoft has not been approached yet over buying Seznam. E15 said Ivo Lukacovic, Seznam’s majority owner, continued to deny that Seznam was being sold. Seznam is the largest Czech Internet portal, as earlier reported. Source: mergermarket.

Sohu.com Q2 Revs Up 162 Percent; Income Soars; Will IPO Games Unit Separately — The major Chinese portals continue their torrid pace of growth, as Sohu.com (NSDQ: SOHU) announced Q2 revenue growth of 162 percent to $102 million. GAAP net income of $40.2 million or $1.02 per share was up over 600 percent from last year. The top-line was helped by 53 percent ad revenue growth, as well as 450 percent growth in non-advertising revenue, largely from online games. The company’s in-house developed MMO Tian Long Ba Bu grew 11.5 fold since its inception in May 2007. In addition to boosting the top line, it also helped expand profitability: Gross margins stood at 76 percent, compared to 61 percent in the year ago period.

Tako. Spet doma. Ne v Galuničevi oddaji, ampak doma doma. Kar pomeni, da mi spet grejo neumnosti po glavi Zgleda, da me prime swinganje samo na določenih lokacijah Skriti swingerski kl(j)ubi

Da ne bom dolgovezila (prepozno, sem že začela)…

Danes sem imela že zjutraj nekaj hudo pregrešnih misli:

• zjutraj prestavit radijsko postajo (antiswinger dejanje),
• vpiti po mestu “wicked are what wicked do” in naključne nesimpatične mimoidoče mahniti s torbo,
• pofotkati ljubek grafit, ki me spravi v romantični mood, ko grem mimo njega,
• prenehati pisati blog, če ne bi bilo do petih popoldan nobenega komentarja (hvala ti Zvita, na žalost si rešila blog; še boste trpeli, če boste hoteli ),
• napisati tale seznam pregrešnih misli.

Kaj od zgornjega mi je dejansko uspelo? Pa poglejmo:

• prestavila sem radijsko postajo in po začetnem ugovarjanju je ostala prestavljena celo do maloprej (juhu!),
• “wicked are what wicked do” sem vpila samo v glavi in zato sama sebe parkrat prav pošteno mahnila s torbo po glavi (tole zdaj pišem z narekom, ker imam roke zvezane na hrbtu),
• grafit sem pofotkala, sliko bom objavila kasneje, ko mi odvežejo roke,
• bloga nisem prenehala pisati (živi dokaz so te besede), ker je Zvita rešila moj svet in ugnobila vašega,
• napisala sem zgornji seznam in še tega, ker imam rada sezname (tako jasni in glasni so, pa še tile krogeci spredaj so mi všeč – sploh niso krogeci?!).

To je vse za zdaj, kmalu serviram še obljubljen golaž. Špecjaln golaž. Še posode ne bo treba zanj

Roke so že odvezane:

Seznam začal testovat novou službu s názvem foto.mapy.cz. Ta umožňuje uživatelům na libovolná místa na mapě přidávat fotografie. Jde o jakousi levnou náhražku modelů z Google Maps. Sice trochu pochybuji, kolik lidí ji skutečně využije k orientaci na nějakém místě, ale službu lze využít v mnoha dalších směrech. Bohužel jde zatím jenom o patlanici nesouvisejích fotek nádraží, kostelů a leteckých snímů. Určitě by pomohlo tagování nebo zatřídění do kategorií, kdy by si uživatelé našli třeba jenom místa při plánování výletu nebo významných křižovatek  a míst při orientaci.

Narazil jsem na zajímavou přednášku zakladatele seznam.cz Iva Lukačoviče. Odehrála se na Fakultě informatiky Masarykovy univerzity Brno. Přednáška je půl roku stará, takže se omlouvám za “aktuálnost”.

Na druhou stranu se domnívám, že je zajímavá a přínosná, a to nejen pro studenty informatiky, ale i pro studenty ekonomie.

Přednášku si můžete prohlédnout (nebo stáhnout) na vyvojari.seznam.cz.

Mimochodem, díky tomu jsem narazil na www.video.muni.cz, kde najdete mnoho dalších zajímavých záznamů.