English Version below.

Der Bus nach Belgrad am Donnerstag Abend um 19 Uhr war komplett voll. Ich bin in der letzten Reihe ganz in der Mitte gesessen. Absolute Beinfreiheit. Ich glaube, ich war der einzige Tourist.

Neben mir im Bus saß Dragan. Er hat sich so im 30-Minuten-Takt seine roten Marlboro angezündet. Er arbeitet in einem Würstelstand in Wien und verbringt mit Frau, Sohn und Tochter ein verlängertes Wochenende in seiner Heimat. Leicht hat er’s nicht in Wien als Serbe. Er wird oft attackiert und beschimpft. Wir haben uns sehr gut unterhalten. Wobei er die Politik von der rechten FPÖ und HC Strache nicht so schlecht findet. Er hat ja “Recht hat”. Diesem Phänomen begegne ich leider öfter.

“Jetzt bist Du gleich Tschusch“, meinte Dragan, der links neben mir gesessen ist, kurz vor der Einreise nach Serbien. Sein 8-jähriger Sohn, links von mir, meinte darauf: “Sonst sind wir es immer in Wien: Tschusch.”

Grenze. Zwei Stunden hat die Einreise nach Serbien von Ungarn gedauert. Zwei Stunden sind wir gestanden und es wurde kontrolliert: Gepäck, Pässe, Passagiere. EU-Außengrenze - wir verlassen “Europa”. Vor 10 Jahren, während des Krieges mußte man für 250 ATS (ca. 20 EUR)/Person an der Grenze noch eine eigene Autoversicherung abschließen. Niemand aus dem Westen trug das Risiko.

Die Ausreise war schneller. Der Busfahrer hat auf der Grenze “geschmiert”. 40 EUR hat’s gekostet. Eingezahlt in der Geldwechselstube. Die Quittung wurde dann dem ungarischen Zöllner gezeigt. Bargeld wäre doch zu offensichtlich gewesen. Ob die beiden jungen englischen Touristen gecheckt haben, warum danach ein Plastikbecher mit der Bitte “einen Euro einzuwerfen” herumgereicht wurde? Neben uns bei der Grenze wurde ein Minibus zerlegt. In den Kisten waren Unmengen an Zigaretten - eine Packung kostet so um einen Euro herum. Sicherlich ein gutes Geschäft. Ach ja, Mini-Busse: “60 EUR Wien-Belgrad-Wien. Fahren die alte Landstraße und überholen mit 140 km/h. Dafür ist man in weniger als 6 Stunden am Ziel”, so ein Kroate während dem Abendessen in Ungarn.

Belgrad hat sich seit meinem letzten Besuch im April 2004 nicht sehr viel verändert. Äußerlich. Die Gebäude sehen gleich aus. Nur mehr geschmückt von “Raiffeisen Bank“, ”Hypo“, ”Die Erste“, “Wiener Städtische” und einigen anderen westlichen Marken. Ich mag ja Belgrad. Die Athmosphäre, die eigene Stimmung. Die Freundlichkeit und Bestimmtheit. Als ob die Zeit kurz stehen geblieben ist. Eines der wenigen Länder und Städte in “Europa”. Ich verstehe nur nicht, warum es von “Europa” so ignoriert wird.

Ich hab mich schon recht gefreut auf einen “Domaca Kava” in einem Cafe, in dem ich damals schon vor vier Jahren war. Also einem türkischen Kaffee. “Gibt es nicht mehr. Wir haben Nescafe.” Schade. Auch nicht im zweiten Cafe. In einem tollen Gasthaus am Land, außerhalb von Novi Sad - in der Vojvodina - hab ich dann einen “Domaca Kava” bekommen mit perfektem Frühstück, Mittagessen und Abendessen. Da sind wir von Mittag bis Abend gesessen. Es war wunderbar. Eigentlich perfekt. Genauso wie am Tag zuvor neben der Donau: Fisch und Meeresfrüchte und serbische Musik. Fantasticno.

Ach ja. Dann war da noch das EXIT-Festival in Novi Sad: Paul Weller, Let 3, Gogol Bordello, Manu Chao, Gentleman usw. Eine Stimmung, die ich bei Festivals und Veranstaltungen in Österreich nicht erlebt habe.

Danke Lidija und Milena. Super wars.

Stani pet minut - sad!

Mehr Bilder auf flickr

The bus to Belgrade left at 7 PM on Thursday and was completly full. I was sitting in the last row in the middle. A lot of space for my feet. I think, I was the only tourist.

Dragan was sitting next to me. He was lighting his red Marlboro every 30 minutes. He is working at a “Würstelstand” in Vienna and was spending a longer weekend with wife, sun and daughter in his home-town. It is not very easy as serbian in Vienna. He often gets bad reputation. We had a very good discussion. Although he finds the politics of the right-wing FPÖ and HC Strache not so bad. “He is right“, he said. I am often getting confrontated with this kind of strange phenomen.

“Soon you are getting a ‘Tschusch’“, said Dragan short before we were entering Serbia. His 8 year old sun answered to this: “Ususally we are this always in Vienna: Tschusch“.

Border. Crossing the border to Serbia lastet two hours. Two hours of waiting and controlling: Luggage, passports, people. EU-Border - we are “leaving Europe”. 10 years ago driver had to make a car-insurance at the border for 250 ATS (approx. 20 EUR)/person. No insurance-company from the west shared this risk.

Leaving Serbia was faster. The bus-driver payed the tollkeeper 40 EUR. Passing the border faster, without “circumstances“. He paid this money at the exchange office. It would have been to visible, paying him the money directly. I am not sure, if the two young english tourists checked, why there was going round a plastic-can, asking for 1 EUR from every passenger. Next to us at the border there was a mini-bus. Completly checked - and many cigarettes outside. One package is around 1 EUR. For sure a good business. Ah, apropos mini-bus: “60 EUR from Vienna to Belgrade and back. They are driving the old road, outrunning with 140 km/h. The distance takes less than 6 hrs.“, so a croatian guy during dinner in Hungary.

Belgrade has not changed since my last vist in April 2004. Buildings are looking the same. Covered with “Raiffeisen Bank“, “Hypo“, “Die Erste“, “Wiener Städtische” and other brands and logos from the west (or from Austria).

I love Belgrade. The athmosphere, the feeling. The kindness and powerness. As if time has stopped for a couple of moments. One of the few countries and cities in “Europe” - not understanding, why it is getting so ignored by “Europe”.

I was looking forward for “domaca kava” in a caffee I have been four years ago - a turkish coffee. “We do not have this anymore. We are serving Nescafe.” Hm, what a pitty. I also did not get it in the second coffee house. In a perfect restaurant outside of Novi Sad, in the Vojvodina, I got it - the “domaca kava”. Together with a perfect breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sitting from miday to early evening. It was wonderful. Nearly perfect. The same like the day before next to the danube: Fish and seafood and serbian music. Fantasticno.

Ah, then there was also the EXIT-Festival in Novi Sad we visited two nights: Paul Weller, Let 3, Gogol Bordello, Manu Chao, Gentleman, etc. Powerful event, have not seen yet in Austria such emotions.

Thanks Lidija and Milena. I love this Balkan. Will come back for sure.

Stani pet minut - sad!

More images on flickr

I am often starting online-tipp-games under my friends due to several events (f.e. www.sugarmelon.com/euro08/), if there are elections or there are sport-events. Usually I am having special created “HTML-pages” with input-fields, checking, and this whole HTML-Request-Resonse-Registration-Thing. I created Awareness usually with E-Mail, Skype or other messaging-systems. I wanted to find other possibilities.

I created www.sugarmelon.com/twittipp

Avoiding media-breaks and staying in one medium.
I asked myself “Why having a ‘media-break‘?” and “Why jumping from an e-mail or a messaging-tool to a webpage?” I was searching for the shortest way in delivering and getting information within the same “medium”.

The solution was twitter: Request and Response in one medium.
I implemented a small application, based on twitter. I sent out a twitter-message, that user should send their result to “Germany-Spain” and tag it with #euro08, #twittipp or directly to @twittipp. This test was fullfilled within a small target-group in Vienna.

Implementation and some special cases: Avoiding double and impossible votes.
I used PHP, twitter-functions and summize, for filtering the responses. I tried to catch special cases like

• avoiding double-votes,
• impossible votes, which are >10 goals on each side and
• giving an overview about the average results/tipps.
• filtering tipps and automatically recognition of winning-team (f.e. 4-2 for spain will be transformed into GER-ESP 2:4).

One of my targets was also getting in dialog and touch with the user and send him a twitter-message back.

Twitter overtook the registration-process, I had access to username, etc. Twitter also managed datahandling and datamining. Twitter is working as a powerful multi-dimensional entry-field.

Resume: The test worked wonderful.
The test worked perfectly, although, not a lot of people attended this game (10). The filter via summize worked, although there was a breakdown for more than three hours sunday morning.

Twitter-User josue from Spain was amazed, that his tipp was filtered to sugarmelon.com/twittipp by fortune and noticed this on his twitter-feed:

There have been some questions, why I do not have implemented such a thing before and only at the last game. The answer is clear: I was afraid about spending too much time with twittipp during the Euro. I know myself… I would have spent day and night with this application…

Next time again. Thanks for testing and participating!

I am very often in discussion about so-called “viral-campaign”-projects in my job with marketing-colleagues and agencies.

“Viral” has been a quite popular term for a long time in marketing - it’s not new, but everyone is fascinated by this “Viral Marketing”. Everyone wants to do it. But no one understands it.

Most of the time, when marketing and agencies are talking and discussing about Viral Marketing, they are talking about a website and a video: “Cool, lets make a video and bring it on youtube.com and other platforms. And of corse… our users will then share this automatically, send it around, and talk about this only online-driven thing, etc….”

Guys… I am sorry… this is not viral… This is simply an old-school-campaign. Let’s call it “Video Campaign” and this has also got nothing to do with 2.0. Bringing a video online, connecting it with a webpage has nothing to do with Viral Marketing. Although it is www.youtube.com, www.myvideo.at, www.flickr.com, www.facebook.com and so on…

Old linear thinking

I know, that agencies are having their “old” but good competencies in making TV-spots, in making nice folders, nice designs which all are having a “linear thinking and linear approach”, which means: Concepting -> Texting -> Designing -> (Shooting) -> Implementing -> Pushing Online -> Customer pays -> STOP, that’s it.

This is an old thinking… Nothing new… Sad… No innovation… Boring… Absolutly boring… No innovation…. No quality… Waste of time, money and ressources.

So it’s the easiest way creating a fancy a spot and bringing it on the web and calling it “Viral Campaign”.

Viral can be everything!

In my understanding, a viral campaign can be everything: A folder, a video, a podcast, a poster, a directmailing, a present, a person, a claim, a color, a view, a taste, a song, a melody… viral can be everything, as long as it’s innovative, bring user to a mindshift. Something, which has not been there before.

It’s simply a message, independent on their medium and platform, where people start talking and thinking about, Finally - in best case - making their own copies, creatives, pictures, videos and ideas out of it. Then it became viral. And online can be a catalysator for it. Where things can be discussed, shared and published. But viral is happening in the real-world. And only because it’s a video, there is no guarantee, that this is a cool “Viral Campaign”.

At the end, Viral is nothing else than a innovative, well planned, very creative and maybe very simple on- or offline-campaign, which simply surprises the clients and which is simply accepted by them.

Guys, lets play with the Web!

Online is not Offline and Online starts, where Offline ends: As soon as an online-project has started, the real work begins. Online does not end, when the bill is sent out to the customer. And especially not in case of a “planned Viral Campaign”. Analyzing the traffic. Pushing the user. Working with social forums and networks in a way of generating a dialogue. Offering widgets. Offering social applications. Working together: Offline AND Online. Finding the corresponding mix, as Online is only just-another-more-or-less-important-part-in-the-marketing-mix. Analyzing metrics and expecially playing with the web. Setting targets…

And tuning, tuning, tuning.

Playing, playing, playing.

Guys, we have never had so many cool possibilities and ideas. Online is the real playground and there are so many cool things, which can get viral, which can support sale, which can drive business. Let’s make something new and innovative out with it. Let’s find the best mix of all media. And lets make a Digital Mindshift.