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I’m working on eCampaigning related stuff since 2002. This was the time when - during the Federal Election in Germany - many people believed we would see the internet to be the revolutionary power of campaigning. At that time, this was nonsense, of course. And it still is, since european politicians in general are offliners - mainly because of their age.

There is not much good literature on eCampaigning in a political context in Europe. At least, I do not know it and I strongly believe to be quite good informed on that. We have to read books like »Blog Wars«, like »The Revolution will not be televised« and to compare it to our political system and the background patterns of a very specific political culture in every single european country. To get a general understanding of what’s going on in terms of politica science, I usually recommend Pippa Norris «A Virtuous Circle», a truely great book on the change of campaign mechanism. Even though it’s not covering the last years of evolution of internet based political campaigning, it’s worth reading.

..I’m still protesting this shit« is written on a sign of a protester against Iraq war.

What I can’t believe: it’s obviously meant to be citizen media. But it’s “All rights reserved”, so nobody is allowed to reuse it without special permission of the person who made this shot.

I think it should - at least - be published under this license. This would help it’s spreading around the globe a lot, I think.

..the reply is not going to be a no if you twitter things like this. (And here is the answer.)

I really don’t care whether it’s fake or not, but at least it points me once more to a paper I’d like to write about the concept of the evolving public privacy and the different types of using communication infrastructure in our days.

Maybe it’s a good idea to ask Google to add some safe bicycle routes to GoogleMaps. But why don’t just do it crowd-based on your own with available tools such as OpenStreetMap? I don’t get it, yet. (via Michael Gomez)

Yesterday I attended the web monday in Berlin. For more than two years now, it’s a place where new startups, ideas and projects can be presented to a web crowd, from programmers to journalists to users to investors to…. Well, everyone.

Yesterday, two new software projects and a short introduction to an upcoming conference, the Re:Publica’08 were shown.

The first of the two projects was keiala. It’s a twitter-interacting social calendar tool, making you tell people what your are going to do next based on your entries at you keaiala-calendar. Smart stuff, the presenting guy Alex Lang did a good job. He even provided some “user” interaction: the audience should vote on a new designs main color. Of course there was no way of finding an absolute majority for one out of seven choices given, but pink seems to be out of the race at least.

The second project was vizeo.net. Company representative Jascha Vogel faced some tough questions on a Revver.com based platform which aims to provide new and more functions and especially a focus on the german market. It turned out to be a little bit unfair when the speaker does not have real time access to Twitter while the audience is live deconstructing his business approach.

Well, 40-something people attended and I had a nice evening there. Web monday Berlin obviously is alive.

I’m a little surprised by the overboarding creativity of German entrepreneurs. For example, take a look at a typical german breakfast.

It’s called Frühstück (by word, it’s translation is “early piece”). After I wake up and some time is left, I visit the bakery and buy some scones (”Brötchen”) or cut some slices of bread, butter it and put some jam or chocolate hazelnut cream, some cold meat or cheese on it. I drink a hot chocolate, tea or coffee, which is the most popular choice for breakfast in Germany. Sometimes I really like to have some variation in my breakfast, so I boil an egg or make some Müsli.

Of all the things eatable in the paragraph above, there is one thing to start with: the latest. Müsli. Last year a German startup went online with a nice web shop: MyMuesli.com. You can mix your very own Müsli by choosing from a list of ingredients. The company delivers your preferred mixture by mail.

Then, a few days ago, another startup went online. It’s a service called Sonntagmorgen, means sunday morning. And it’s all about your favourite taste of coffee. You are a real expert in coffee beans, in espresso, cappuccino and coffee grinders? You can mix your very own Coffee by choosing from… Well, you already know.

Now there is another service: MyCornflakes.com. And I’m quite sure we are going to see MyEgg, MyHotChocolate, MyButter… sooner than later Oh well, and not to forget MyCopyCat.com. If I sound like a cynic, you are right. They don’t use APIs, so I can’t mix my very own breakfast in widgets. Need some coffee, now.

After reading this story on Gawker.com, I feel like living in paradise a bit. Here in Berlin, you are not welcome as a smoking guest in public transport. But I think that’s the only thing you are not allowed to, with the exception of not having a ticket. Even seen weed smoking and puking people on late night trains, not jailed for anything. A bus driver told me once: “you are allowed to bring in your beer and drink it - as long as you keep the bottle with you when leaving.”

Right now, the public transport in Berlin is on strike. For the first time since communists and nazis striked in a joint effort in 1932.

Commentaries on the german Social Democrats Party (SPD) are going nuts these days. Since losing the majority in the 2005 federal election, the oldest german party with more than 140 years of history is troubled. Most elections went down the drain, and the last one the SPD can claim to have won in the state of Hessen (Hesse) is leading into new trouble.

The former state party of the German Democratic Republic SED, later called PDS, has survived and can rely on some kind of trust especially of older people in the five eastern german states which formerly were the GDR. The SPD and the Green Party are more or less center-leftist parties, with a clear attitude towards the center of the system and partly even conservative. When some unionists and left wing politicians of the SPD left the party in 2005 to form a new party called WASG, the SPD was in deep trouble: the WASG was going to breed the ground in the western states of Germany. When former-communists of PDS and the still post-natal WASG joined forces and renamed to “The Left”, they clearly targeted at the west german parliaments: with 5%+ of the popular vote, you grab seats there

The voting in Hesse set up a new scenario for the SPD: before the election, they strictly denied the possibility of a coalition with the Leftists. After the vote turned out to be not very helping in setting up a ruling coalition, the party faced a public and internal discussion on how to deal with the Leftists. In eastern states, coalitions of both parties are nothing special. But the western states always were kind of taboo.

After some discussion, the leader of the Hesse SPD  Andrea Ypsilanti and the chairman of the federal party Kurt Beck agreed to some strange appearing model: the “Linke” should not be included in a coalition. But tolerating an SPD-led government built on a coalition with the Green party.

But despite all power games on highter party levels, some elected member of the parliament of Hesse is not willing to follow the party leaders choice, as turned out in the last days. Now Andrea Ypsilanti will not try to become elected in the beginning of April, the federal chairman of the SPD Kurt Beck is facing loads of criticism (he is said to have influenced the Hamburg elections in a very unprofessional way when announcing the then-expected Hesse deal).

So the oldest german party is in very troubled times now, behaving like a pile of chicken when facing a fox. Probably Kurt Beck will have to go, the foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is one of the speculated successors. But what’s already obvious now: bringing the SPD back on the right (or maybe left or centrist) track won’t be easy. And the former mighty working class partys influence will further decline.

Jeff Jarvis seems to be annoyed by all that horse race-talk about the primaries.

Well, Jeff. You really can’t imagine how crazy it is to see more or lesse exact copies of what’s reported in the US in Germany these days. It might be interesting stuff since I’d never say that the election of a new US president would not affect us here. But the details of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, the life, jive and drive of John Edwards and details of the life of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton and more or less nothing about their plans for the future, even little about their foreign policy (except positions on Iraq).

I think they only matter for one reason: it’s easy to cover for media around the world. Just copy and translate the US sources, mix it up and shake it once or twice. What you will get is a nice story of famous (well, not here) people fighting (well, not here, too) each other in “Highlander” mode: In the end, there can be only one.

That’s sensationalism, not journalism. It’s easy to cheer someone up when you already know he’ll come down again. And if you have about 10 people to write into the sky, you’ll be wrong just 8 times until primaries end.

I’m living here for several years now. Some intermezzo with Hamburg, just a flirt, nothing serious. And I really like this town, even though it’s dirty and full of remains by an armada of caninae.

I can’t describe what’s going on right now, but I think this city - which is continuously changing - it’s changing once more and maybe this time it’s a step I really don’t like.

Berlin Main Station in May 2005. // CC-BY-2.0-License / Ralf Schulze

Berlin is a decentralised complex, most of it’s public known life happens in the districts of Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Mitte. But the recent (during the past three years) developments are changing Berlin to a museum-like place. First the buildings at Potsdamer Platz, then the new Central Station and all those Idonknowtwhere-Arcaden shopping malls like at the Frankfurt Allee, they are some kind architeutonics. A lot of blue skinned glass, light grey concrete and some steel or wood is changing the face of the city. And not in a very good way.

I can already imagine how the buildings will suffer in 10 or 15 years, how they’ll look like some ruins, homes of the leftovers of a past without thinking of the future, a reminiscence of the post adolescence of the city of the young and the creatives, the once-place-to-be (if your primary goal is not to become rich but to become famous or inspired).