Squace blog

If you are traveling westwards, and more specific, to Silicon Valley, you will gain some new perspective such as people seams to line up in front of stores named Apple (Only in the bay area not in LA) and that European cash is worth a lot more.
If you also are working within the Mobile Web 2.0 (ouch, I’ll probably get sued if I’m not mention the strange fact that Mobile Web 2.0 is a registered trademark by Verizon – a total contradiction to me. Read some more about this FACT by Oliver Starr), as I am, you’ll find some other curious things in the most advanced high tech area in the world.

1. They don’t have 3G coverage at Stanford University! August 22 2008. I think the 3G network covered my university in Stockholm like seven years ago.

2. The carrier walls are higher than the Berlin Wall (dismantled 1989). Among other things, you can not automatically send SMS by “uncertified” Internet services. You have to get approved AND pay (about 500 USD a month).

3. You have to pay for receiving call and SMS – you get to pay even if your not answering the phone. Given this fact, why not allow more services to send SMS, se above, then you could really make some serious money.

Click on the grid below and watch how two friends share stuff using Squace

The summit itself? If you are fortuned to be invited to present your company it’s among the top events in the world. You’ll find that your LinkedIn profile will make a major quality jump – tones of interesting people there. And, if you have the right concept and are based in USA you can score some capital.

As for the actual content of the conference? Nothing new and really surprising other than the music panel at the end including MC Hammer and some other really cool rappers – a powerful finale!

Thanks Tony

Aage Reerslev, CEO, Squace AlwaysOn 2008 – filmed by my friend Phil Jeudy

Now we’re gonna talk to Fredrik, who is the spider around here. He work’s at “business” but has a technical background, althought we’ve heard him say “I will never get back to boring programming”

What are you working at, Fredrik?

- On a project that will compile content for Squace in new markets.

How will you accomplish that?

One part of the project is to gather people from different countries to sort out content in their own different languages.

-What markets do you feel are the most important?

There are lots of them. India is of course an important big country, and so is China. But also european countries such as Italy. An unexpected country where we have lots of users is Iran.

Iran?! Why would people in Iran be so intrested in Squace?

- I’m guessing that it’s sort of like in Italy. The Internet infrastructure isn’t that well built in comparison with the mobile market, which is huge! Iran is also one of the world biggest blogging countries, and Squace is a perfect blog reader.

Which countries has their own content right now?

A lot of countries already got content. What I mean is that we’re preparing full pre-selected content for these countries. We have four packages ready today, UK, Spain, Sweden and a international one.

Which site is the most popular one in the UK?

-That is a secret!

Which is your favourite site in Squace?

- I have a morning routine. While eating breakfast I check out Aftonbladet (Swedens biggest online newspaper) , dev.mobi and also a random blog, often mobile related. On the subway this morning I realised that Metro – the free news paper – are having a summer break, so I read Metro through Squace instead.

Which service would you like to have in Squace?

- A groups of sites I discovered today, map sites where you could pinpoint and grade different domestic services like the best Sushi, places with Wifi, and so on. But also a to-do-list, like remember the milk.

The summertime usually means less time in front of the computer. But not for us at the headquarters. In order to give you a brief on what’s happening right now, I will talk to some of the fine people working here. First up we have Pelle, our designer.

What are you up to today, Pelle?

- Well, right now we’re building to enhance the tool for creating blogs in Squace.

Please describe the tool!

- A blogger will only have to choose a background image, a short “about” text and a link to the feed. Which gives the blogger a customized promotion button and a landing page.

What is a landing page?

- A page where the blogs reader can see how the site will work in the phone.

Why do people need such a function?

- To get familiar with the service on the computer before downloading to the mobile.

Which is your favourite site in Squace?

- Trafiken.nu, a site with local traffic info, in which I can see the traffic cameras around the city on my way to work.

Which service would you like to have in Squace?

- I think I would like to improve a service that already exists; Wine ratings! We already have a site by a big wine supplier, but it would be great with an independent site like Winespectators.

Before the Internet, there were a lot more misconceptions about other countries far away that people hadn’t visited. One about Sweden, which I believed in when I moved here at the age of 8, was that escimoes lived here and that the climate was similar to the one on the north pole.

And even if it still can get pretty cold from time to time, global warming has done us good (stop ruin this Al Gore), and we just had the warmest winter in 250 years. So the sun is shining on us here at the Squace headquarters, located in the heart of beautiful Stockholm. No, I won’t turn this into a turist brochure, but I will show you some pictures from our new office, which belonged to Stardoll last year:

We’re currently working on some major improvements on the upcoming release thats is due in a couple of weeks, and also a new company blog. Meanwhile a couple of us will be blogging about Mobile Internet, Squace news and personal thoughts.

Now I’ll have to take Squace’s own polar bear out for a walk on the glacier…