Everything is getting ready... and my geekiness

My New York adventure is going as planned. I've got everything set up: flight, housing, visa (the most boring 3 hours of my life) and bidding for courses. This bidding thing is funny and we don't use it at LBS. We use a priority rating method which, ultimately, should give very similar results. But the fun part in bidding is very related to the auctions stuff we learned in Microeconomy (hail to the great Marco Ottavianni!). How willing are you to pay for a particular course? Hmmm... Well, I chose two apparently popular courses (Managerial Negotiations and Strategic Management of Media) and the other are not so popular (at least last year there was free places for those courses). This allowed me to bid a lot for the popular ones and very little for the others (1 point is enough to be accepted if the course doesn't reach capacity).

I have also chosen the LBS courses for the 2nd year. Although I am still waiting for the results for both the CBS bidding and LBS allocation, here is how my next year should look like:

Fall Term - the marketing & media term
1) Strategic Management of Media
2) Marketing & the Internet (1/2 credit)
3) Media & Entertainment (1/2 credit)
4) Advertising & Integrated Communications
5) Managerial Negotiations (yeah, I know... not media related)
6) The Business of Film

Spring Term - the finance term :-)) (I guess I was drunk when I chose these)
1) Venture Finance & Private Equity
2) Financing the Entrepreneurial Business
3) Finance 2
4) Brand Management (yeah, I know... not finance... but it's a block week and I've heard the professor, Mark Ritson, is too good to let this one go)

Summer Term - the 'open your mind' term
1) Creative & Personal Mastery

and that's it. Wow, this Summer Term will be very busy! ;-)

But in fact my plan was to be done with the MBA by the end of the spring term. However, I really wanted to do this CPM course and it is only available in Autumn (when I'm in NY) or Summer. So, once again, I just couldn't let this one go. And I can still try to do some work or freelance projects to earn some much needed cash!! I am very curious about this course. If you haven't already read about it, then just pay a visit to my dear friends Miss N and Future Guru.

And now, for something completely different!

I hereby assume that I am addicted to World of Warcraft. Yes, the game. The f***king game! Of course, I can always say that this is part of my internship research on online video games... or else I guess this is just a manifestation of my inner geekiness. But hey! Here's my mage casting a mighty spell!! (omg... I am a geek)

The world is digital

As I wrote before, my internship is about new media. Searching and analysing interesting opportunites for my employer to get into (or acquire...). My second week is almost over and it has been great!! I am looking at stuff like online video gaming, social networks, music, user-generated content and advertising. I mean, this is the kind of job that I'd do for free because this is what I read on my free time! But since someone decided to pay me to do that, then even better... ;-)

I decided to share with you some of my findings. You might already know some of the stuff below (as I did) but I think it shows how cool, funny, useful or just 'different' the web can be.

Subservient Chicken: Burger King's attempt at viral marketing. Just tell the chicken what to do! Try 'dance' :-))

Blog Maverick: Marc Cuban's blog. He's the owner of Dallas Mavericks NBA team and founder of HDNet. Very interesting reading! (on a side note, this guy apparently has made the largest e-transactio ever: $40 million for a brand new Gulfstream V Jet. And here I am.... wondering if I should buy a new digital camera or not...)

Netvibes: build your own homepage. Provides a clean, organized and quick access to you RSS feeds, search engine, email account, bookmarks, tasks, photos, etc, etc, etc... Cool stuff!

Digg: you all know this one, right? Submit and rank your news stories.

Wetpaint: wiki meets blogs meets forums meets social networking meets building websites

Watson: tired of typing 'google.com' in your address bar? Then this is for you. Make searches on the fly. This piece of software analyses whatever your doing on your pc and automatically finds and delivers the information you need. Oh! And it also searches in sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Forrester, Gartner, etc!

Second Life: MySpace in a 3D virtual world with a twist. Cool! These guys are making SERIOUS money! Check out the BBC Newsnight broadcast made from inside Second Life. It's an excelent report.

42 Entertainment: Fantastic immersive marketing company! Involve your audience in a story is one of the best viral marketing tactics. Does anyone remember Halo's ilovebees.com??

Dogster.com: MySpace for dogs!
Catster.com: MySpace for cats!!!
Hamsterster.com: MySpace for hamsters!!!!!
Petster.com: MySpace for pets!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boompa: MySpace for cars!!!!!
Lawbby.com: MySpace for LAWYERS!!!!!!!!!!
AAAARRGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!! STOP IT!!!!!
:-)

Musicubes: this is my favourite! Just build your music DNA, post it on your blog, MySpace, etc... and at the same time advertise for the BBC radio stations shown. Now, isn't this creative advertising?! Much more interesting and efficient than simple old boring banners (and shall I add Addsense?). Here's my musicube!

PS: Some sad news have come out recently...
i) Rocketboom is over (at least for Amanda Congdon)
ii) Syd Barrett (pictured above), the soul and genious behind Pink Floyd, has died
iii) my EMI strategy contact has left the company! Damn! Who am I going to ask for a job, now??

The dream is over

Again from a penalty kick, again Zidane, again unfair. Portugal played better than France, had their best performance in the World Cup, but one unforgivable error will make them play on Saturday for the 3rd place... while the French, who spent most of their time defending, are going through to Berlin.

Congratulations to France... and a big thank you to the Portuguese players. You're the best!

World Cup! Go Portugal!!

After a fantastic week in Portugal, I came back to London just in time to watch this beauuutiful thing! Portugal is in the World Cup semi finals!!!

Who comes next? Brazil or France?