Bel Small + Corporate Blogging = ?

As promised I’ve also taken a closer look at the Bel Small companies the last 2 days. After researching the Bel Mid companies I had become sceptical about the results that I would find here [note: I used the same search method]. But in the end I’ve managed to find at least some companies that blog actively. That pleased me a lot! I’ll show the results in alphabetical order once more:

Global Graphics:
- Company Blog – http://blog.globalgraphics.com

Kinepolis:
- Topic blog for students – http://nl.netlog.com/kinepolis/blog
The disadvantage is however that only registered users can participate in this blog.

RealDolmen:
- Company Blog - http://realdolmen.wordpress.com/

Recticel:
- Topic blog about passive buildings – http://www.massiefpassief.be/blog.html
The blog in question is made in coorporation with WienerBerger Belgium

Roularta:
Roularta is a Media group that I’ll have to investigate further to make my final conclusions. It seems however that at least 3 of it’s entities employ blogs actively:
- Knack – http://knack.rnews.be/knack/blog/
- Le Vif/ L’express – http://levif.rnews.be/blog/
- Trends -  http://trends.rnews.be/nl/economie/opinie/blogs
these 3 entities let their employees blog on a blogging part of the website.

These 5 companies seem to have a blog of their own. So in the Bel Small, existing of 43 companies, about 11,5% of the companies are actively blogging. This is quite a better result than that of the Bel Mid. But even here, there is no real reason to celebrate the results. A complete summary of all results will follow soon but it seems clear that only a few of Belgians best companies have found their way to the blogosphere. And yet many advantages could await them if they do it right.

But also in the Bel Small index there were some companies that did not have a blog of their own but were at least somehow connected to a blog. Here is what I found:

Duvel:
I really thought I would find a blog about this great bear producer. And I was right. But the blog is from a fan and not from the company itself. – http://duvel-terere.skynetblogs.be/

Lotus Bakeries:
This company offers a widget that one can post on his/her blog. – http://www.lotusbakeries.be/recipes/webwidget

Sioen:
At first I found a blog about a Belgian artist with the same name. But I also found this blog post of the CEO of Sioen on another blog: – http://www.blogjump.eu/?p=903

To conclude my equation hase become:
Bell Small + Corporate Blogging = Global Graphics + Kinepolis + RealDolmen + Recticel + Roularta

Bel Mid + Corporate Blogging = ?

I’ve just finished my little research about the Bel Mid companies. And it seems that they are not blogging… or at least not actively. I couldn’t find any corporate blog from a Bel Mid company on Google or Bing. Also there were no links to be found on the main website. But what did I find then?

RTL Group:
- RTL France has blogs from employees: http://blog.rtl.fr/

RTL Group consists of a lot of companies but I could only find the blogs from the link above. Perhaps there is more?

EVS Broadcasting:
- Active but non official blog: http://evsinfo.bloguez.com/

Nyrstar:
- Blog from the labor union ACV: http://www.bloggen.be/acvnyrstar/
- Blog from the labor union ABVV: http://abvvmetaalnyrstarbalen.blogspot.com/

So I discovered only 1 company out of all 34 Bel Mid companies that blogs. And even the blogs of RTL Group are no ‘corporate blogs’ but blogs by employees of one of the many entities that the RTL Group consists of. So even if we count RTL Group as an active company in the blogosphere, that would still only make 3% of the Bel Mid companies active in it. That is a quite disappointing percentage.

I have to admit that my search method is not perfect. I only look at the first page of Google and Bing after having entered the search termes ‘company name’ + ‘blog’  or ‘trademark’ + ‘blog’. But then again, I also checked the official websites of all these companies but none appeared to link to any related blog. So if I can’t find their blogs by doing this much effort… not many people will ever find their blog. Most of the companies made news available on their website (html or pdf’s) but no interaction with the readers was made possible. So it appears that Belgian Mid companies still have a long way to go. So once more it appears that corporate blogging is not yet succesfull in Belgium at all.

To conclude my equation has become:
Bel Mid + Corporate Blogging = RTL Group

Corporate Blogging in Belgium? We’re not there yet.

I’m researching the corporate blogging activities in Belgium for my theses. I started with the Bel 20. Results about the Bel-Mid and Bel-Small will follow soon.

So which companies of the Bel 20 are blogging?

Telenet:
- Corporate Blog: http://blog.telenet.be/
- Topic blog about digital TV: http://digitaltvblog.telenet.be/

Belgacom:
- Topic Blog about ICT: http://www.onemagazine.be/nl/
- Corporate blog aimed at customers: http://www.bizztime.be/home
- Topic blog about IT aimed at small companies: http://bizzict-nl.skynetblogs.be/

GDF SUEZ:
- Topic blog  (not about GDF SUEZ itself): http://courseducoeur.gdfsuez.com/

The other companies in the Bel 20 didn’t show any results when using Google or Bing to find a blog from or related to the company. So with 3 out 20 (15%) it seems that even the largest Belgian companies didn’t find their way to the blogosphere yet. Or at least, they do not have an active web 2.0 page of their own except their official website.

Both companies with a real corporate blog are telecom companies so that makes sense. But still I was suprised that enormous companies like AB Inbev don’t have any blog of their own. Conclusion? It seems that at least some Belgian companies start to realise that the blogosphere is an important part of their communication with the outside world. But the fact that both corporate blogs come from the telecom sector also seems to indicate that the sector of the company is of paramount importance. It has been shown in the past that internet companies blog more… and yes, that is only logical of course.

More about the subject will follow as soon as I have the results about the Bel-Mid and the Bel-Small.

Again a new MJ song!

But this time… Sony is NOT pleased with the ‘leaking’ of this single (featuring Lenny Kravitz). I like this one! The song is not finished however so you should take that in account while listening to it. But hear MJ’s voice … he still IS the king!

Now tell me, are there aliens out there?

Once more a project to discover alien lifeforms. We should not ask ourselves if they exist but where they exist in the universe. Hopefully they will be friendly once we’ve found them

Anyway underneath you can see a video of a Nasa Spacecraft, WISE, will scan the skies for new galaxies. In short it is better then the Spacecrafts that have been used in the past so we can now look further and in more detail. Perhaps they can bring Elvis & Michael back! Just kidding

Something is wrong with embedding the video, you can watch it here for now.

Source: CNN

Writers Block

Now I know what it is…

Automated Parking Solutions Anyone?

Working on a paper about Automated Parking solutions. It’s a quite new technolgy that will change the way we park our cars. You just drive your car to the entrance of the parking garage and the rest happens automatically, or robotically as you like. I won’t bore you with technical details but if you would like to see how it is done you can check this video.

Herman Van Rompuy becomes European President

One of the most reliable Belgian sources, www.deredactie.be, has confirmed that Herman Van Rompuy will be announced today as the first European President. This incredible news for a man who, altough he is it now, didn’t want to become the Belgian prime minister at all. He accepted the job to provide Belgium with political stability. After 2 years of political show and with no breaktroughs he managed to lead Belgium out of it’s misery. Perhaps for Belgium as a nation this could have severe consequences.

A few months ago it became clear that Europe was searching for men of great power to take on the job as first European President. Tony Blair was the top favourite candidate for a long time and then, suddenly, the prime ministers of the Benelux countries came into the picture. Why? Because the Benelux is a strong union between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg that formed the basis of the European Union. You can call them the founders of the European Union we know today, as you like. Jan Peter Balkenende from the Netherlands and Jean-Claude Juncke from Luxemburg were in the running too but they didn’t make it against Herman Van Rompuy.

Why Herman Van Rompuy? Probably because he can lead Belgium. A country with 3 official languages, a complex political landscape and many conflicts between it’s citizens. That’s probably why lot’s of people say that “If you can lead Belgium, then leading Europe is not that difficult at all”. Herman Van Rompuy is known for his ability to solve conflicts, something that will be needed when 27 countries must get along. And a second reason why he probably got the job is, perhaps surprising, that he tries to stay on the background as much as he can. Oh, and the fact that both France and Germany like him helped too, of course. Wanna hear the first speech of a European President ever? Click here.

Bel 2000 presents: modern Belgian masterpieces

As you might know I live in Belgium, a small country in the centre of Western Europe. For artists in the music industry this means you’ll probably won’t make it as easily as bands from bigger countries. But still, we have some great bands in Belgium altough not many of them are known outside of Belgium. That’s why Stubru, a belgian radio channel, presented the 50 best songs (voted by the public) made in Belgium in the last 10 years. And this is the top 11 from their Bel 2000:

1. Absynthe Minded – My heroics part one
2. Daan – Housewife
3. dEUS – Nothing really ends
4. dEUS – The architect
5. Daan – Swedish designer drugs
6. Hooverphonic – Mad about you
7. The Blackbox Revelation – Never alone, always together
8. Admiral Freebee – Rags ‘n run
9. Millionaire – Champagne
10. Admiral Freebee – Oh darkness
11. A Brand – Hammerhead

Why not a top 10 but a top 11 on my blog? Because Hammerhead is my personal  favourite Belgian song of the last 10 years (or at least I strongly believe so). You can see the whole list here. I recommend you to search some of these songs on the internet because all of them are really worth the try! I’ve put the video of our number 1 underneath so you don’t have to search it for yourselve. Enjoy it

So what do you think about Belgian music? Do we have what it takes or not?

Paranormal Activity Review

“Oh my God”… those words are enough to describe Paranormal Activity in just 3 words. The movie is filmed just like The Blair Witch Project in an amateuristic and “real” looking way. Paranormal Activity looks a lot like it’s predecessor because both are presented as material that has been found accidentally. Everything seems to be filmed by an amateur and it looks like the film has not  been edited at all. This, of course, is not true. Both films are about some people being haunted or chased by some “thing” they don’t quite understand. Oh and by the way, Paranormal Activity has been a great investment for the 2 main characters of the film because they won’t have to work anymore… never again. They made the film with just 15.000 dollars and up to date the films revenues are allready over 100 million dollars. And if I told you that The Blair Witch Project did about the same thing (cost price: 35.000 $, revenues: 250 million $) that wouldn’t suprise you anymore right?

So Paranormal Activity is just another Blair Witch Project rip-off? In my opinion… no. The setting (gladly) is quite different. No bewitched forest in Paranormal Activity but instead a haunted person called Katie. Katie lives together with her friend Micah who bought a camera at the start of the movie (otherwise no movie of course!). With this camera Micah starts videotaping him and his wife while they are sleeping. Why? Because Katie thinks she is being haunted by some ghost or something and that thing is most active during the night. It all started when she was still very young with some strange thing standing next to her while she was in bed. She and her sister both saw the ghost lots of times and were really terrified about it. But it seemed that Katie’s sister wasn’t of interest to the ghost, but she unfortunately was. When she was 8 years old her house burned down and she had to move. The ghost however followed her right to where she lives when the film started. Micah who doesn’t really believe the stories of Katie at first soon videotapes the things no one thinks possible, that’s right… paranormal activities!

Anyway, the movie might be cheap but everything looks and feels very realistic. This is quite a scary film (if you at least give it an honest chance) that scared the hell out of me, my girlfriend and a good friend of mine. The scenes at night get more and more scary when the end of the movie gets near. Paranormal Activity shows that you don’t have to implement overwhelming special effects to create a creepy movie. I wonder if we’ll all sleep well tonight…

For me this film gets an 8,5 / 10 and that’s quite a lot for a horror movie. I will defenitely watch this one again soon. And last but not least you can watch the trailer. But believe me, even after watching it, you aint seen nothing yet!