It is always fascinating to see start ups working hard for their launches. The team behind Realmee.com is no exception and they are focusing hard to meet their dealines...

A fantastic afternoon at the Staatscircus with Oleg Popov in The Hague with the kids, the full set here, and if you want to see a great circus, you can go until early January.

Roderick got the inspiration for conducting from famous Israeli conductor Itay Talgam at Mastermundo. Now with WII music, there are no limits to free flowing classical music...

It is always great to visit our stations such as KinkFM. Yesterday we had new staff joining us and that is always a good moment to share what we are doing and meeting up with some of the DJ's....

LeWeb08 is over... I am back in Amsterdam… Having had some time to reflect during the journey home, I thought back at LesBlogs were it all started. A fascinating small get-together with 200 people from all over the world…. No distinction between rock-stars and others, all digital pioneers willing to share, meet each other, work on ideas and full of entrepreneurship.

In this years edition Loïc and Geraldine and their team have done a fantastic job again. A programme with speakers that are industry changers, 1500 people to create a vibe second to none, themes that will be on the agenda for the next years to come, easy access to everybody at anytime. What more would you like to have?

Reflecting it appears that the foundation is still there that started at LesBlogs and Loïc has created a scalable format that brings together a lot of good things. In all fast growing environments the pace will bring some side effects, but I believe it is better to enjoy what is being achieved over focussing on small side issues. If the team keeps going at it at this pace, LeWeb will become the institution it deserves to be.

Finally it was wonderful to see Loïc and Geraldine enjoying themselves so much!

The pictures are here.

Great and interesting Leweb08 just behind me. Pictures will follow soon, so watch this space... Some Dutch digital pioneers already added. Want to know what Anina is doing here? Follow Dutch cowboys...

Piet Hoffman, the driving force behind Veronica Story (the digital history of Veronica) had a terrible accident a few weeks ago. We are very happy he is recovering again fast and we hope to have him back as soon as possible. Today we gave him a special Sinterklaas gift, still secret for the rest of the world and only 100 will be issued, each with a signed certificate...

Massive open source project... the result will not be published soon as I gather...

Tonight I moderated a panel at IPAN with the full range of venture funding available to Dutch start ups and fast growers. From seed and startup capital (DCIF and Identity ) to growth capital (Solid Ventures, Prime Technology Ventures en Endeit) finishing off with transaction services (Fortis corporate finance).

The outlook for 2009 is not good, the markets will be down for a time to come, but the right companies will be able to get money...