Resume/CV

Richard Kastelein

– Linkedin
– Wikipedia
– Twitter
– Facebook

Summary

Canadian Expatriate. Winner of 2010 Deloitte Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions for Entrepreneurs in the Netherlands for futurist views on Social TV and Media Convergence (Tech Visionary). Co-founder of appmarket.tv – TV Apps & Widgets.

Guest Lecturer @ Hanze University in Groningen, Netherlands. Recent approval (provisional on funding) to do part-time MBA at Hanze University – Sept 2010.

C-level strategist w/ start-ups – strong in Social Media and Social TV Architecture/Analysis – Community building using Open Source technology. New Media publishing and on-demand technologies. Open Source Evangelist. Technology Evangelist.

Adept team player – 20 years in development and operation of newspapers, magazines, web media and marketing of multinational, companies in international settings.

Well travelled yachtsman (24,000 nm offshore), outstanding problem solving skills.

Current

• Publisher/Founder – App Market TV, NL
• Managing Director – EU Ticket News, NL
• CEO – Agora Media Group, London, UK
• Advisory Board – Pixengo, London, UK
• eCommerce Consultant – Worldticketshop, NL
• Web Consultant – Moho Internet Concepts, NL

Past

• Venture Partner (Europe) Zephyr Technology Ventures, New York
• Consultant with Travolon Belgium in building news, opinion and multilingual social media portal for European Travel Industry.
• Built own company in NL – Expathos – focusing on Social media analysis and strategy, new media publishing, and open source technologies.
• Board member and shareholder of Sparkling Media UK, building Cross Media Social Platform (CMSP) merging telephony 2.0, web, TV, and Virtual (3D)
• Managed marketing departments of two Caribbean multinational marine companies.
• Editor and publisher of several Caribbean publications.
• Extensive media history with publications – Native Press in the Canadian Arctic, freelanced for a number of magazines in boating and travel.
• Skippered sailboats offshore over 15 years as professional yachtsman.

Specialties

Strategist/Innovator – experience leading successful growth activities within rapidly growing businesses in the technology sector. Demonstrable ability to achieve bottom-line results while balancing competing priorities. Flexible and self-reliant. Strong communication skills, both written and the ability to represent organizations and deliver presentations for diverse audiences. Experience in strategic planning and execution.

Life Snippets

Been known as a ‘grottie yottie’ while living barefoot onboard our sailing vessel GOLEM in the Caribbean for ten years.
Was covered by Avantoure Magazine for sailing lifestyle.
Built a 1.3 million dollar catamaran in Brazil in 2004.
Publisher and founder of http://www.atlanticfreepress.com – a group of online
publications that work with over 300 academics and media creatives who
focus on progressive politics and ideas.
Open Source CMS junkie having been in movement since phpnuke all the way to Joomla.
Viral web projects including thankyouqwest.org and unassociatedpress.net covered by NYT’s, USA Today, IHT, CNN and more…
Sailed across Med and Atlantic with wife in 1994 on small sailboat. Indian Ocean in 1990. Pacific in 1991.
Interviewed Canada’s first woman astronaut, Roberta Bondar, about
what the Northern Lights looked like from above… while looking at
them from below in the Canadian Arctic.
Did over 100 restaurant and bar reviews as Editor of What’s ON St. Martin and St. Martin’s Week.
Published on demand print book by Chris Floyd on Amazon.com called
‘Empire Burlesque‘ , and Oceania by Andre
Vltchek as well as theologist Jan Chr. Vaessen’s A Quest For Hope: Searching For Ways Out Of Postmodern Nihilism Into New Reality
Devised and innovated on new system to deliver a Quest 3D
environment from TV to the web using a wowza flash streamer, advanced streaming
capture solutions, and delivery on a linux server.
Broke international story and uncovered a human smuggling ring as an
investigative reporter in St. Maarten.
Wrote the Hitchhiker’s guide to the sea, the first travel guide on
crewing on sailboats in 1991 after sailing around the world hitching on
yachts.
Delivered sailboats for a year between the Virgin Islands and St. Maarten for Sunsail. Threw bottle with resume on the beaches of Richard Branson’s Necker Island while sailing by hoping to connect…
Fathered three lovely daughters all currently under eight. Married to a Groningense for a dozen years.

Write, photograph, design, code, dream, organize, structure, feed,
mould, shape, feel, warp, laugh, smile, elucidate, innovate,
invigorate, appreciate, empathize, sympathize, enterprise…

–

Tags: Curriculum Vitae, CV, Resume, Richard Kastelein

Future of Marketing on TV – Social TV, TV 2.0 – MARUG Conference 2010

Recently, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to do a lecture / presentation at the Annual MARUG (Marketing Associatie Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) Conference, the largest Dutch marketing event organised by students here in Groningen. There were over 400 students and business participants this year and the marketing theme for 2010 was Experience Marketing (I actually prefer the term Experiential Marketing). Some of my more recent writings and research have been around emerging television platforms and convergent media so I thought it might be interesting to blend it into the presentation and make it relevant for future marketeers. Because this space could very much play a part in their futures.

Also presenting was Andrei Westerink, the Chief Operations Officer and Rick Nijhuis, the Chief Marketing Officer of Worldticketshop – and they both brought some great, fundamental, and very practical situations and technologies from the ‘real’ world of online experiential marketing and high level management strategy.

MARUG Conference 2010 – Presentation – Richard Kastelein – Future of Marketing on TV – Social TV, TV 2.0

View more presentations from Richard Kastelein.

Tags: convergent, convergent media, experiential marketing, Groningen, lecture presentation, LinkedIN, management strategy, marketing event, Richard Kastelein, Social, Social TV, Television

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV or “HbbTV” – the European Industry Standard for Social TV? Or Will it go Global?

by Richard Kastelein (originally posted on Atlantic Free Press)

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the European Broadcasting Union demonstrated the potential of the HbbTV specification at IBC2009 in Amsterdam. But it won’t be long before Europeans start seeing the results – before Christmas according to some pundits. And once compatible devices are out in the market, they say the speed-to-market of applications developed for the platform will be incredibly short… as the industry looks to new models that embrace open API’s and SDK’s much like Apple has done with the iPhone and the Open Source movement online with enormous projects such as Sourceforge. With an HTML environment activated by a simple red button, in the same manner as a Web portal, the resulting content can be delivered over the IP stream.

How similar this will be to the UK’s Project Canvas initiative, announced in February 2009, remains to be seen – and it’s still not clear which platform will really rise to the top or if they will, in fact, reach compatibility at some point. But Project Canvas does bring together content from some of the UK’s biggest channels, including the BBC ITV, Channel 4 and Five. They are working on a more ambitious project to bring what is called catch-up TV and a variety of other programming and interactive services to television sets as soon as next year. But the move faces scrutiny as the BBC is a public broadcaster and particularly from Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV which is the leading player in the satellite TV in the UK. In a speech last month, Sky heir apparent, James Murdoch abolutely slammed the BBC as an”Orwellian” institution—a provider of “state-sponsored” news with “chilling ambitions”. There were whispers of an an even more hair-raising Microsoft and the Beeb hooking up at IBC, as the partnership was not ruled out the industry titans.

The great news is, for the web development community, HTML arriving on the TV scene will surely mean flocks of coders, designers and entreprenuers making a transition to the next stage in the evolution of TV 2.0 – which may very well provide the next tech bubble much needed in this recession.

And it looks to be levering as possibly not only an EU standard, but also a global one. Asian companies such as Korea’s Tru2way are already picking up on the new standard from the European ETSI and teaming up with global player Alticast. which offers HBBTV with PVR, a pluggable HTML Browser and Flash modules. And Korea’s Kaonmedia has hooked up with Founding member of the HBBTV initiative – ANT in their latest foray into the Asian Market. And Ant pitched a TV portal running a selection of HbbTV services based on the their Galio HbbTV Platform at IBC 2009.

During the IBC show in Amsterdam, Pleyo takes on Yahoo TV with its browser and widgets engine, which is compliant with W3C specifications and compatible with HbbTV (enabling access to interactive applications issued from broadcasting, Satellite or DTT, and broadband Internet networks), and a few other extensions for interactive TV based on the HbbTV standard. The Origyn Web Browser (OWB) is based on Apple’s Webkit and is more particularly designed for TV sets, TV decoders and other consumer electronic devices.

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV or “HbbTV”, is THE major new pan-European initiative aimed at creating one standard for the broadcast and broadband delivery of entertainment to the end consumer through connected TVs and set-top boxes providing terrestrial TV players a platform to keep up with IPTV development in terms of Web and TV convergence.

HbbTV

hbbtvS

Developed by industry leaders to effectively manage the rapidly increasing amount of available content targeted at today’s end consumer, Hybrid Broadband‐Broadcast Services is based on elements of existing standards and web technologies including OIPF (Open IPTV Forum), CEA, DVB and W3C.

The new technology is also called hybrid television because it uses over-the-air transmission as well as broadband connections and can do a lot. It’s terrestrial TV’s play at competing with rapidly emerging IPTV services which are more supple when it comes to Web/TV convergence.

What’s most brilliant about this technology, from the perspective of social media and other developers coming from the web is… it will open up possibilities of using open API’s and SDK’s which will allow independent developers to create customized applications. Imagine watching a sports program that ended with a page of links to similar, archived programs, or to the Web sites of online retailers selling tickets to the events.

HbbTV products and services provide the consumer with a seamless entertainment experience with the combined richness of broadcast and broadband. This entertainment experience will be delivered with the simplicity of one remote control, on one screen and with the ease of use of television that we are used to. Through the adoption of HbbTV, consumers will be able to access new services from entertainment providers such as broadcasters, online providers and CE manufactures – including catch-up TV, video on demand (VoD), interactive advertising, personalisation, voting, games and social networking as well as programme-related services such as digital text and EPGs.

So who else is tapping into HbbTV at the moment? (continue your reading )

Tags: Alticast, Design, Digital television, disruptive technology, entertainment, Entreprenuer, Europe, FiOS TV, future, Galio HbbTV Platform, hybrid applications, hybrid services, industry, institution, Intel, interactive digital television services, interactive TV, Internet television, Internet television services, Inverto Digital Labs, IPTV, LinkedIN, Media, networking, on-demand, Open, Richard Kastelein, Scena 6, social media innovators, Social TV, Sony Corp., web development community

A Marriage Made in Heaven – Social TV and the Hotel Industry?

by Richard Kastelein (originally published at Atlantic Free Press)

Social TV in Hotel Whilst the mainstream media players are quietly pushing their technology and innovation teams to the maximum across the world in a race to marry Social Media and TV, most of the public remains oblivious and left out of the loop, mainly due to offerings being in Proof of Concept (POC) stage or not even… and still on the chalkboard.

However, one sector, the Hotel and Hospitality is one of the earlier beneficiaries from the advances that have been made provision and delivery of TV and other services over Internet Protocol will likely be early corporate adopters of Social TV now that network technologies that include the provision of Ethernet networks in hotels is now a standard requirement. Add a wireless keyboard and an advanced TV remote, you can do pretty much anything.

And buzz is starting to generate in this sector as hotels are coming out of a slump and are looking for new ways to attract the web and media savvy 25-45 year old, Gen X and Y generations who are a lucrative target group in many of their marketing strategies. Social TV in a hotel would certainly be an historical PR victory for any marketing team.

IPTV distribution system in hotels is pretty straight forward… providing high quality, full screen digital TV over an Ethernet network using an existing IP network. Not only can digital satellite and terrestrial channels can be broadcast directly to TV’s anywhere in a hotel – but now there’s the opportunity to implement Social TV as well.

We live in a networked society, and our contact list, for most of us who will never see a cradle to grave job, is paramount. Imagine if you could not only sleep in a hotel, but also create a profile in the social TV network and then find others in similar business paths, or potential new partners right in the hotel… whom you could have lunch with or meet up in a pub. Or imagine you could organize short seminars, get people to sign up and do mini ‘unconferences’ or conferences with others whose businesses can converge with you own.

This is great, not only for the guests, but also for the hotel. They will not only be able to offer better service to their clients, but also be able to come to understand their own demographics more… with a Social TV Facebook social media scenario or clone, there’s plenty of data to be shared to everyone, including the hotel… giving them more opportunity to build better services.

Want to book a restaurant? Do it on the TV. Add it to your bill in the Hotel’s Property Management Software (PMS) program and don’t worry about pulling out a credit card. Feel like going to a concert or sporting event while you are in town? Click or type and buy.

Want to download an iPhone or mobile map application with directions from anywhere back to the hotel and listings of all the offerings of the city you are visiting? Plug your PDA or mobile phone into a USB port and suck it down. Need to book the conference room? Do it on the TV. Need to order some food? Pick up the TV remote and choose from room service or an array of restaurants that deliver in the area.

I could even see, in the foreseeable future, a Wii or Xbox network for gaming and sports in hotels. Why not? Feel like a bit of tennis but can’t book a court? Play your neighbor in room 602. Or shoot at the guys in rooms 562 and 788. (continue your reading )

Tags: adept team player, Agora, agora media, Agora Media Group LLC, API, blog, Broadband, broadband operators, Brussels, BUILT, can technology support, CEO, community, convergent, CTO, Design, digital satellite, Digital TV, Director, entertainment, Ethernet, Europe, European, Evangelist, Facebook, France, France Telecom, future, head, home media, hotel network, IDEO, industry, innovation, innovation agency, interactive services, Internet Protocol, IP, iPhone, IPTV, ISP, kastelein, LinkedIN, lucrative target group, magazine, mainstream media players, marketing, marketing director, Media, media session, media usage, network, network technologies, online open source leaders, Open, Open Source, Orca Interactive, Pay TV, photographer, PRESENCE, pretty straight forward, richard, Richard Kastelein, Sagem, Skype, Social, social media scenario, Social Media, Social TV, SoftAtHome, software, strategist, technology, tennis, Thomson, travel industry, USB port, Viaccess, Viaccess SA, Video on demand, VOIP, web developer, web media, web world, wireless keyboard, world, writer

Social Media strategist, New Media Publisher and Web Provocateur

G’day readers. It’s time to get a little more serious with my blog.

Please allow me to introduce myself….

I am a Canadian expatriate based in Groningen in the northern Netherlands where I ‘work’ – mainly remotely – with a number of startups and clients globally, utilizing social media and community to add Web 2.0 to their projects and businesses.

My background is in the print media and I have worked in far flung locales from the Arctic to the Caribbean as a reporter, editor and publisher of ‘old school’ paper products before making the jump to digital in 1997, when I formed my first community online in the Dutch West Indies.

Though I have worn a few different hats in my days…

I now operate a very small company and consultancy here in Holland with my wife and we do quite a few different things, many pro bono and personal and others for pay.

PRO BONO – We are active politically as progressives – and like to think we are part of facilitating change and disseminating new ideas with a group of sites at the Free Press Group – which has over 300 progressive and like-minded writers from around the world (20% hold PhD’s) who contribute in an Open Source Journalism format. We swap coverage on Google News (we are three of 4000 official Google News sources in English) for copy. They get fresh eyeballs and we get material – it’s a great barter. And I get the chance to write myself as well as create political Photoshops for the sites. We also host several of them at www.safehost.nl.

And despite losing money (hosting bills etc.) over the years, the connections I have made with many brilliant writers has brought an immense amount of satisfaction personally – as well as added professionally to my personal brand – at Linkedin for instance – where I have had several writers offer their recommendation.

More recently, I have been involved in a couple of web campaigns that rocked the boat for two corporate entities… (continue your reading )

Tags: Associated Press, Atlantic Free Press, BBC, Chris Floyd, citizen media, CNN, community, corporate pr, Denver Post, Dutch West Indies, editor and publisher, Europe, Google, Groningen, London, Moho Holding B.V.;, Netherlands, networking, online communities;, open source journalism, Pacific Free Press, paper products, print media, professional web development, progressives, Red Sea;, Richard Kastelein, sailing, Social Media, software evangelist, strategist, Tel Aviv, The Caribbean, The Netherlands, TNT Travel, United Kingdom, USA Today, V.O.F. Expathos, web development, Web Wizards, web campaigns, web provocateur, Web response, www.safehost.nl, www.thankyouqwest.org, www.unassociatedpress.net, Zephyr Financial Technologies

Social Media Links for Richard Kastelein

Feel free to hook up and network with me readers!
MY SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Tags: Facebook, LinkedIN, Links, Netvibes, network, PRESENCE, Reddit, Richard Kastelein, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Youtube

Techcrunch Pitch for Twinners

Here’s my pitch to try and get some media coverage for Sparkling Media at Techcrunch…

Got some tips via a lead.

It’s half a million views if we get in – huge coverage globally – doubt we will but it’s worth a shot.

Dear Techcrunch

It’s not just about Twinners – or what we are currently running on two European TV broadcast stations… it’s really about the technology.

Think Second Life making it’s way onto broadcast network television in Europe… on top of the Net.

It’s about what we can do in the future – aside from our tangible and innovative entertainment-based Cross Media Social Platforms (CMSP) - in the realms of education and direct democracy. Cable and IPTV-based classrooms and lectures with Virtual Students answering questions from virtual professors, it’s about the possibilities for the hearing challenged being able to type in keys that allow their virtual characters the ability to talk and sign and communicate with others… it’s about about communities participating in discussions about grassroots issues in their area using virtual characters in a round table with their community leaders…

It’s fairly simply on the outside – we using an advanced IVR and Business Logic Server to allow people to create and control avatars using a simple phone keypad and interact on their mobile and landline telephones in a realtime virtual world (limited to approx. 100 users) on their TV – or on the Net of they so choose. But it has taken us five years to really shake out the bugs and develop what we now have today. There are videos here that elucidate what we do more clearly.

On an entertainment level, we are implementing bars, like Twinners, but ideas such as gameshows… or even something like ‘Barbie World TV’ for a company like Mattel have been pulsing around in our team.

No one is doing anything remotely similar at this time and we are currently live in RTL in Belgium, TV Copenhagen with rollouts slated for Uno in Spain and SuperRTL this autumn.

By innovatively using technology that is already in place – telephony, television, 3D, and the web – Twinners – from Sparkling Media - has leaped over the potential competition and created a revenue-generating platform – largely based on Open Source Software – that simply creates an interactive, virtual world on both television and the Internet that envelops social networking, community, user generated content, competition, and entertainment.

In a nutshell… Twinners is – vocal social networking in a 3d world on television and the net -Think of a place where well known & successful concepts around communities are joining all together in harmony on the net, TV and mobile: Second Life meets, meetic, meets myspace, meets facebook, meets youtube… to create TV2.0. Think TV with user generated content coming from a web community – that can be accessed and interacted by mobiles, telephones, and the web. TV viewers use a phone to create a character that interacts in virtual worlds on TV and on the web. Web users create content that can been seen in a smaller streaming box viewable within the 3D environment on TV and the web while invited to vote, download, upload, participate, play, … in realtime.

We have produced a unique 3D multiparty live chat platform currently broadcasting a 3D environment on TV merged with interactive telephony and the web. Integration of telephony, TV, and 3D exists within this core video and audio community.

Simply, our goal is to entertain, stimulate interaction with content or with other people while feeling being part of a community.

We are confident there are various elements of our TV and web development that can bring added value to the broadcast industry and generate income on a revenue shared basis. Sparkling Media was a huge hit at MIPTV in Cannes early in 2008.

Please see videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/sparklingmedia and our company site at http://www.interactivechatsystems.com

When we exhibited at MIPTV in April 2008, broadcast executives were simply ‘blown away’ with our presentation which included 60 inch screens of the interactive Twinners product. We were being called, ‘the future of TV’ by more than one person. And we were probably the most innovative product at the show in my opinion. Richard Dickson of Mattel was agape and completely entranced by the product… Michael Costello of Polar Productions and Simon Nelson, head of BBC’s Multiparty Platform Strategy was as well… The broadcast execs were all over us and over 300 business cards collected.

Though we are releasing in Belgium, Germany and Spain, other opportunities that could be more lucrative or newly formed relationships that would allow us to financially move toward more R&D as well as diversify the product to more than just Twinners are not being explored as we are seeking Round A funding to take it to the next level.

Warm Regards

Richard Kastelein

Chief Networking Officer (CNO)

www.interactivechatsystems.com

Tags: BBC, Belgium, Cannes, competition, Copenhagen, coverage, entertainment, Europe, european tv, Germany, innovative entertainment, innovatively using technology;, Media, media coverage, MIPTV, networking, open source software, Richard Kastelein, social networking, Spain, Techcrunch, telephony, TV;, vocal social networking;, web development, web community, Web users, world, www.interactivechatsystems.com

Actually posted this resume at Associated Press’ Job site.

Now I wonder if the human resources jockey on the other end reading this will laugh? I Actually posted this resume at Associated Press’ Job site.

Objective

To see if AP would actually consider the idea of hiring a Social Media analyst that was such a pain in the ass to their PR department.

Summary

Founder of Unassociated Press dot Net – Richard Kastelein proved to be a thorn in the side of AP when he rallied bloggers online to protest an asinine decision by someone at AP management (a lawyer no doubt) who decided that taking on a small volunteer blogger over copyright laws was a ‘smart’ litmus test.

It created glowing headlines like:

The AP, Hot News and Hotheaded Blogs – New York Times
DMCA takedown tiff not a battle the AP should be fighting
Here’s Our New Policy On AP stories: They’re Banned – Washington Post
AP faces copyright row with bloggers – guardian.co.uk

and the inevitable…

AP Backs Down on Blog-Posting Crackdown

Aside from that… my career as a web provocateur – I am also the publisher of www.freepressgroup.eu and work with over 400 writers under an ‘open source journalism policy’ designed on the GNU. See www.expathos.com for more details on me.

Specific Skills Area:

Advising companies on how to handle social media – both internally and externally.

Work Experience

Managing Director – Founder
Position Type:directHire
Employer: Expathos
Groningen, Groningen

Tags: Associated Press, Hotheaded Blogs - New York Times;, Richard Kastelein, Social Media, Unassociated Press;, web provocateur, www.expathos.com;, www.freepressgroup.eu

About

Why should you hire us? Who are ‘we’?

At Agora Media, we are the builders of Appmarket.tv… we are curators of a fair chunk of market intelligence – we truly have a firm grasp on the emerging landscape. And this space will be an important one in the future. We know many key players and have a divergent network representing media from all sides of the convergence.

Read why here:

TV Applications and Widgets Market Worth over €1 Billion Euro by 2013
One Billion TV Apps Downloaded by 2015: GigaOM Analyst Michael Wolf

And we have built Social TV already – back in 2007, with the Twinners Platform which piloted on SuperRTL, RTL, SBS and TV Copenhagen in Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium. We are open source evangelists, and have built, designed, managed and led communities online as well as commissioning and been part of scores of applications and widget builds online. We have have concepted new formats around both augmented reality and social TV.

Who are we? A collective of like-minded folks – a strong network per se’ – who share the same passion for innovation, creativity and building cool things for TV, The Web and Mobile Devices.

Just as social networking reshaped the online landscape I feel the same will come for television. The convergence of TV, internet and social media is an awesome model and we are right in the middle of it.

Forty years ago, the brilliant Canadian media theorist Marshall Mcluhan, the “patron saint” of Wired magazine, (who brought us Electronic Interdependence, The Global Village and The Medium is the Massage) metaphorically considered the TV to be an ‘electronic’ hearth – a collective centralized event for the family on the cusp of it’s appearance in the home 50 years ago. By the end of the millenium, TV’s peppered houses and became a more individual experience. In the USA, the average house now has 2.24 TV’s and 66 per cent of households have three or more TV’s.

It’s clear that TV is about to become social again (says Forbes, The NYT, The BBC) and the Wall St. Journal) But who, what, when, where, why, how and how much? The questions have yet to be answered. Will the TV continue to evolve as an individual device in a new ‘TV Everywhere’ world? And just become part of a matrix of interactive devices available to each individual? We think it will and can do a lot of things.

Contact here.