We’re in such of a good mood that we’re giving out five Gary’s book Crush It! for the quickest! Just comment/email/tweet us and you’ll get a copy. Check also Gary’s message to you
Winner of the Nintendo Wii is ..
December 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Winner of the Nintendo Wii “competition” is *drumroll* Mannerheimin Lastensuojeluliitto as suggested by Fredu.
I’ll be posting the Wii with games and controllers there this week. BTW it took almost an hour to get instructions where it should be sent 
Also they said that it would be nice to get even more of these. So if you have one laying around, you know what to do!
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Free Nintendo Wii
December 6, 2009 · 9 Comments
We got rid of our TV today. Too much TV is bad for you (Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival) and we’ve basically already replaced it using TV Kaista.
Because of this I have now an extra Nintendo Wii lying around. I’ll give the Wii (including some games and controllers) to who ever gives the best reason to comments.
Rules:
1. You agree to have lunch with me in Helsinki if you win.
2. You need to post your reason to comments
3. You’ll have time to post your reasons until 13th of December
Let the games begin
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Tagged: nintendo
My digital marketing prezo
November 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Did a quick talk about digital marketing today today and I’d like to share the slides with you (in finnish):
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Taking e-Banking to The Next Level
November 26, 2009 · 7 Comments
Here’s something that was unfortunately left out in our discussion with Jussi Muurikainen in this particular Bisnesmiehet episode (in finnish).
Although Finnish banks have been very positive about Balancion, one thing that they ought to think about is building APIs. Not open APIs but APIs that would allow 3rd parties to create applications based on the customer data and even on bank’s features. Banks have a lot on their plates and building super cool e-Banking solutions for technorati may not be their first priority. Why not allow other people to do the work?
As Jussi says – Finns were the first to do e-Banking. How about if we would be the first ones to make it more open?
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Tagged: balancion, e-banking
10 Finnish people to follow on Twitter
July 13, 2009 · 17 Comments
Here are 10 Finnish people on Twitter I recommend that you should check out and follow!
The list is not in any kind of order and it has only people who tweet mainly in English.
- @moia – Marko Ahtisaari. Dopplr, CEO and Co-Founder.
- @jyri – Jyri Engeström. Jaiku Co-Founder, currently product manager of mobile and social at Google.
- @markonen – Marko Karppinen. Owner at MK&C .THE Mac / iPhone developer to follow in Finland.
- @vilpponen – Antti Vilpponen. Co-Founder Gyllene Skor, Founder ArcticStartup. Need connections in Finland? Contact Antti.
- @saarikko – Janne Saarikko. Excellent commentary on financial, design and social media issues.
- @jussipekka – Jussi-Pekka Erkkola. Web driven communicator/marketer working at Nokia. Social media extraordinaire.
- @jussil – Jussi Laakkonen. Serial games entrepreneur, currently building: http://everyplay.com/. Online and social games, virtual goods, demoscene. Main organizer of ASSEMBLY demo/LAN part. Almost everything I learn about online games and virtual goods, I learn from Jussi
- @samin – Sami Niemelä. Nordkapp co-founder. One of the best UI/UX/design/visual interaction guys I know.
- @alexnieminen – Alex Nieminen. Marketing and media geek. Managing Director at N2 and N2 Laundry. True oldschool. Just found him on Twitter.
- @mikkohypponen – Mikko Hyppönen. CRO at F-Secure. Looking for antivirus/malware info? Mikko is your source for cutting edge news on the subject.
What are your 10 recommendations?
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Tagged: twitter
My notes on Nokia N97
July 9, 2009 · 1 Comment
I was invited to Nokia’s event to hear about their the new flagship model N97. I wrote my experiences done, but hesitated sharing them because there’s already ton of reviews/bashes/etc out there. I already wrote them so what the heck. Here are my thoughts.
The event
It’s very good that Nokia is opening up. Proof of that is that in Old-Nokia’s event I probably would have been thrown out because of my questions (or they would only accept approved questions).
Venue was good except it was hot as hell.
Not enough test phones for everyone. I mean, you are a phone manufacturer? Right?
@jussipekka and @heleneauramo are great speakers.
Also Twitter screen was very nice!
Actual device
Is pretty good. Design is nice, keyboard is acceptable (for iPhone user), opening mechanism is very nice. Phone is a bit lighter than iPhone (or at least it feels like it). Touch screen needs a stylus or nail. I had hard times trying to transfer my “iPhone touch screen skills” to N97.
Software
First the good things: Homescreen is great, except I don’t like the design. I mean do you want your customers to pimp their homescreens? If someone shows their N97 to me, the first impression will probably be awful unless the person is a designer. Plus I’ll see his/hers Facebook/Twitter/Email messages which nobody wants.
Oh, back to the good things Ovi Store will have operator billing. Best thing? Finnish TVKaista works in N97.
Now the juicy part.
Homescreen widgets? Widsets? Whaat? Nokia seems to have dropped Widsets and are now calling them widgets. I asked about this, but the Nokia people didn’t seem to understand my question.
Three ways to type – stylus, “normal phone keyboard” and the slide. Why three? One is enough.
Ovi Store – (joke and punchline combined).
Ovi Store was slow, UI was horrible and they did not demo the payment.
Symbian. Symbian is still slow.
Conclusion
Nokia: Drop Symbian NOW. You’ve been building Linux based OS for long time. Take the jump. Symbian is too old and bloated.
Nokia: Take chances. Design = choices. You’re not making them, you are just passing them to the user. You can also call this engineer driven design.
@setok made really good question: “Is this the device that will help Nokia to catch Apple?” – No and I was hoping for so much more.
I also did some interviews at the event (in Finnish): video
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Tagged: Helene Auramo, Jussi-Pekka Erkkola, Kristoffer Lawson, N97, Nokia, Ovi Store
What is fast?
February 26, 2009 · 2 Comments
We released Twitbear into wild this week. Twitbear is a hobby project done by me, Helene Auramo (Zipipop) and Kai Lemmetty (Floobs). Twitbear enables discussion on Twitter.
Feedback has been amazing and it has spawned a number of really interesting discussions. I will discuss those in separate posts (such as design decisions which might have caused some discussion). Although you should understand that Twitbear is still in closed beta and should be considered more as a proof-of-concept than a ready service (for now).
I’ve been asked multiple times how much time it took to build it. There is no definite answer. I would guess it all started when we started to get frustrated in Jaiku and tried using Twitter. Decision to build Twitbear was done probably a bit over month ago. After that there was a lot of planning done. We had different kind of models how to do everything, but ended up selecting the current one. Our aim was just to enable discussions on top of Twitter. Nothing more.
After that Helene started working on the design (first the bear, then the service ;D). Once the design was roughly ready, we started working on the technical solution which we built on Ruby on Rails. Building the layout from PSD-files probably took 4 hours and the actual development around 3-4 days total. It doesn’t seem much, but we had a really clear plan what to do. Plan which wouldn’t be possible without months of hesitation whether to use Jaiku or Twitter, excellent team, great design work, tossing around model how we could do things..
We were not in hurry and that could be one reason why we were so “fast”. When there is no pressure, you have time to think what is important.
What makes you fast?
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Tagged: jaiku, twitbear, twitter
Fruugo – complete shopping experience (screenshots)
February 1, 2009 · Leave a Comment
More about Fruugo launch here, here and here. Last Wednesday I was invited to Fruugo to see their service and hear their plans for the future. I think everyone had pretty much guessed what they we’re building. Nobody (that I know) has posted screenshots that cover the whole shopping experience, so I thought to do everyone a favor and buy something useful from Fruugo (a great excuse 
)
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Tagged: fruugo
Layout updated
December 31, 2008 · 1 Comment
Site’s layout has now been updated (finally!!). Although some minor tweaking is still needed. Had some problems with WordPress.com CSS, but those should be fixed now. Give a shout if you think something needs more attention. Thanks!
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