What would a true Mac computer geek do on a luxury cruise liner in the Caribbean? Well of course attend classes held by Apple employees and some hacker celebrities, what else?

That's exactly what the WSJ checked out and reported while joining such a themed marketing activity. Truth is also that these folks paid 1'650 USD for this Geek Cruise along the Gulf Coast of Florida - and only in their time off enjoyed what I would probably do all the time: the brilliant sun lighting up an azure sky, nicely warm waters and beautiful villages.

So if you are still looking for the ultimate event marketing activity for your key accounts, why not do such a cruise? I heard, for example, of cruises put on in Sweden and Finland by a distributor who invited execs from Ericsson, Nokia to listen to suppliers' presentations. The difference there was that they did it while anchoring in the harbours of Helsinki and Stockholm and not on cruise. The success was mediocre, at least for the one vendor who told me about it. As a final note: celebrities will certainly help to attract people: in the Caribbean tour they had Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on board to give a talk.

Read the full WSJ article below.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Sprint is to announce as early as next week that it will have a third supplier for its country-wide WiMAX network, namely Nokia. Nokia has not been on the WiMAX technology radar screen so far and might have worked behind closed doors to catch up with others. Nevertheless, they seem to have convinced Sprint to work with them in addition to Motorola and Samsung. As a reminder: total investment will be 3bln USD and more than 100 million subscribers will be reached in the US. Once built up it will be the world's largest WiMAX network, and it will be interesting to see how its real usable end-user data speed then compares with 3G networks. If indeed mobile high-speed data transfer is possible, this could mean a huge competitive advantage over other mobile operators, forcing them to admit that not all technology investments of the past were worth the billions of US dollars spent.

See the full WSJ article below.

Just a few days after Zurich announced it was to spend 400 million CHF over 6 years in order to have a state-owned utility build a fiber network offering highest-speed for very competitive pricing, another announcement came from Germany: a cable through Lake Constance, Germany's largest lake - which also borders Austria and Switzerland. Data transfer would be possible from Munich via Ulm-Friedrichshafen-Konstanz (route 2 below) to Zurich instead of a much-much longer route via Stuttgart-Frankfurt-Basel (route 1).

This is not the first time a Lake Constance cable link has made history - in 1906, the world's first so-called Pupin undersea cable, which made improved voice communications possible, was laid there. Michael Idvorsky Pupin (1858-1935) invented many patents "including a means of greatly extending the range of long-distance telephone communication by placing loading coils (of wire) at predetermined intervals along the transmitting wire (known as pupinization)." Its about time that Zurich and Munich moved closer together, I think. Now one might also hope that faster train connections will follow as well.

Francis reported below on the beta testing launch of The Venice Project. While we are still impressed by KaZaA and Skype founders' ability to make their ventures really work - and cash in, big time - I am a bit sceptical of this one. Have they taken on a challenge too far, this time?

My doubts come from some basic considerations. The whole thing is only going to take off IF they can attract big audiences, where advertisers will be motivated to spend money on targeted ads. But who are those end users? They said it is not the YouTube crowd since they won't be offering the video sharing that made YouTube so interesting to many people. (of course YouTube has not figured out yet how to make money with it). Now who currently watches TV channels on their PC? Nobody. How many watch IPTV right now on their TV set? Nearly nobody, and if so then over incumbents' or cable providers' networks, using their TV services and NOT over the public Internet. Ok, there are no HDTV broadcast TV sources available right now and that's why they have "near high-definition" in their news announcement, but that won't attract anybody either, I think. Also because in the next few years this is what we will get via terrestrial networks anyway, it will then become a commodity.

Again, if, and only if they attract millions of end users will anyone spend ad money, and will interesting content providers offer their TV channels. If not - and I cannot see where the users will come from - this remains a venture more likely to float elegantly around Venice itself than become an aggressive airborne broadcast TV market challenger.

What's missing here is someone - Apple, maybe? - to add at least one missing piece. The TV/Internet box cool enough, like iPod stuff, to attract the masses. The problem, of course, being that Apple will offer all that content (VoD, video clips, TV and radio channels, music etc.) themselves.

Google has acquired the Swiss mapping software specialist Endoxon AG. Officially this is to bolster their European support, but I think that what it really does is add top mapping technology know-how and products to Google's ambitious location-based services goals. This is another piece in the puzzle. After announcing - with HTC of Taiwan - a mobile GPS/WLAN end user device they are now adding more professional know-how and (maybe) look-and-feel to GoogleEarth and GoogleMap. Endoxon is certainly a top mapping company with excellent products, and will be able to fill this role easily.