I promised to update on my niche experiment Android Magazine as soon as Android would become available in the Netherlands. Well, yesterday they announced the Dutch launch date and prices of the G1 mobile telephone with Android in Hamburg. And I was invited. Another perk I got thanks to my niche experiment.

The trip
We (4 journalists, 2 T-Mobile employees and me) flew from Amsterdam (Schiphol) to Hamburg Monday morning. At the airport we were picked up with a van and we were brought to our 5 star hotel. We had lunch and at 3 o’ clock the big press conference would start. A few minutes before it all would start we got a press map. The press map had all the information we needed, like the date the G1 would be available in Holland and the price plans rendering the press conference useless. I didn’t really get that but I posted up the information as soon as I could on Android Magazine via Twitter. After the press conference we went to a casual get together in Raven. The next morning we flew back with a KLM city hopper.

My experiment
As for my website, visitors count has increased but earnings are still about the same. They are slowly rising which is a good sign but it has to increase a lot more to become a steady income.

YouTube, Digg and Twitter. Three great websites with a massive following. But these websites all have one big problem: They don’t know how to make money. 2009 will be the year of the business model. These three services will have to to find a way to convert all their visitors and exposure into money. Because if they can’t make money than they are useless from a commercial point of view.

YouTube
Google, owner of Youtube, will have to cut it’s losses when YouTube keeps burning cash. So Google is likely to push the adwords idea through on YouTube. A sponsored video is likely to pop up on YouTube search results any time soon. We’re already seeing advertising in the actual video’s.

Digg
Digg is becoming a bottomless well. Digg has 22.6 million unique monthly visitors but last year they lost 2.6 million dollar. I’m very interreseted in the way Digg will try to earn money this year. They have a very though demographic (18-35 year old males) who are not really sensitive for banner advertising.

Twitter
Twitter has been booming the last year. It’s becoming mainstream and has a hard time keeping the service up and running because their servers can’t handle the load. And the infrastructure costs money. Lots of money. But don’t worry the godfather of Twitter, Evan Williams, said they have found a way to make money but he is keeping it a secret for now. Exciting. My guess is that they will start selling data. All those people are twittering about products and services, data which could be very useful for big corporations. It’s also an ideal way to find out what’s hot. If a lot of people start twittering about the same subject it’s bound to get hot.

As I said, 2009 has to be the year of the businnes model and making money, Else we might see some little bubbles burst again.

Six month ago I started a website called Android Magazine. I wanted to test how fast I could build a website concentrated on a niche. I picked ‘Android’, the mobile operating system by Google, as my niche. Because there were already a lot of English websites concerning this subject I decided to make a Dutch website. I was the first Dutch website solely focused on Android.

The Experiment
With my Dutch website about Android I would take posts and news from English websites and translate them to Dutch. Being the first website offering unique Dutch content about Android. Becoming a Dutch community about Android was not a priority as I know it takes a lot of time and work to build a good solid community. Android Magazine however does have a forum and provides the ability to post comments on articles.

The Result
After six months I got the following results:

• Constantly in the top 3 of the Dutch Google search results when somebody searches for ‘Android’.
• I have been on a nationwide Radio show as an Android expert.
• I have been invited to the Press Conference of the G1 (First Android phone) in Holland. And they gave me a test product to play with.

And here are some statistics which could be better but are not particularly bad:

• About 50 to 100 visitors a day.
• About $1 earnings a day from online advertising.

The relatively low amount of visitors could be because Android is still not available in Holland. When it becomes available to the public (probably February) I aspect an increase in visitors. This increase in visitors most probably will also increase my earnings.

I’m quite happy with above results. The fact that you can become an expert on a subject so easily is astounding. I would like to see more visitors and ad income but I suspect it’s just a matter of time before they start to increase. Maybe switching around the ads might also help.

I will update about this niche experiment in a couple of months when the G1 with Android has launched in the Netherlands.

Here’s a small list of artists (and albums) I’ve discovered and been listening to in 2008.

Artist: Phoenix
Albums: Alphabetical & It’s never been like that.
Description: A French indie band with a mellow sound.

Artist: Fleet Foxes
Album: Fleet Foxes
Description: Hailed as one of the best albums of 2008.

Artist: Bon Iver
Album: For Emma, Forever Ago
Description: A very lo-fi album he made all by himself in a cabin. An inspiring idea.

Artist: Beulah
Albums: Yoko & The Coast is Never Clear
Description: The band split up in 2004. Too bad because the music they made is great.

I just finished the book ‘My Start Up Life – What a (very) young CEO learned on his journey through Sillicon Valley’ by Ben Casnocha.  Casnocha tells his life story about how he, as a 14 year old boy, started his own company. He takes you on a journey and tells about the things he encountered being a CEO of a ‘Start-up’. The story is inspiring and interesting. In between the story he advises aspiring CEO’s with lessons he has learned.

It’s a nice read with about 200 pages. The advise is obvious, but very important. These are the lessons that stuck most for me:

• Dare to take a risk.
• Don’t try to be a perfectionist. ‘Good’ is good enough.
• Profile yourself. (Work on your physical appearance, network and online identity.)
• Really listen to your clients and try to solve their problem and address their problems in presentations and communication.

All in all a good book with some inspiring advise.

Just came accross Ubiquity.  It’s a plugin for Firefox which enables text driven commands. We’re stuck in an interface paradigm where point and click rules but some things can be easier done using language. Ubiquity enables users to use text driven commands to perform tasks such as:

• A wikipedia search,
• a google search,
• updating twitter,
• adding something to Google Calendar, and much more.

Check the demo below:

I’ve been using it for about an hour and I’m already loving it.