And if you are still thinking about if all this social media stuff like Facebook and Twitter is worth it, read this amazing story of Keith how Twitter let him connect with people he didn’t know in Guatemala and how they became friends.

So, my recommendation for 2010: Get you a Twitter account and follow Keith Ferrazzi @keithferrazzi

Have a great 2010!

We spent a great time chatting, eating & drinking, with David’s photo booth and Jeanine’s Xmas cookies :-) Thanks for the help to make this lil’ GTG a success! It was definitely not the last WCS event. Stay tuned!

In the picture: Beat Mumenthaler, Steffi Greter, Daniel Zihlmann, Jeanine Linder, Richard Overtoom, Philippe Wiget, Andreas Feusi, Katja, Nadia, Daniel Knecht, David Dolder, Adrian Giger and Peter Sturn

I live in Switzerland and was always fascinated by the mountains. And paragliding seemed to be the best way to fly, the ultimate combination. You’re in the mountains, sitting in a flowery meadow, breathing fresh air. The sky is blue, the sun is shining and you hear the bells of the cows (yes, the cows have bells in Switzerland). And when you enjoyed it enough, you take your little airplane from your rucksack and fly down, silently, just the birds and the wind accompanies you. Wow.

With the paraglider you don’t jump from the mountains. You take off. Like a plane. Base jumpers, they jump. And they are very common near the place where I live. The Lauterbrunnen Wall in the Bernese Oberland is world-famous. Not only because it inspired Tolkien when he wrote “The Lord of the Rings”. Because the mountains are so steep in this U-shaped valley it is the perfect place for base jumping. Every year several base jumpers from other countries die in an accident. The authorities are discussing if they should forbid base jumping in the valley, but as they know they would do it anyway they decided not to do it.

I have seen many base jumps but nothing like this. This is really sick!

Readers of my blog noticed that it was quite calm here lately. The reason is that I started using Facebook and Twitter and was more active on these social networking platforms than on my blog. As I found out they were good tools for networking and sharing with photographers, clients and friends. If you didn’t want to be a member of several different social networking platforms, I thought it was best to just join Facebook. It’s free, so everybody is there and it’s not just business or not just private like other platforms. Facebook gave me a good mixture between business and private life.

Now if you are my friend on Facebook you might have wondered that I am not in your friend’s list anymore. Do I hate you? Did I cancel our friendship?

No, not at all. I just left Facebook. That’s it.

The reason: Recently it was in the news that Facebook doesn’t make enough money and that they were thinking about selling the personal data of its users.

Wait. Whaaat?

That was some time ago. Now it got worse. Facebook already did change their Terms of Service (TOS) at the beginning of February this year. Without telling their users. What if you don’t agree with the new TOS? Don’t worry. You don’t have an option. And it’s already too late anyway.

As a professional photographer you just can’t agree to Facebook’s new Terms of Service. As a photographer you always did care about your copyright. You have to protect your work, that’s what you live of. And of course you want to protect your personal data. But from now on everything belongs to Facebook. Right. Everything. All your personal data. All your pictures, images, videos. Everything. And the best: FOREVER!

If you were a facebook member and didn’t leave before February you’re lost. You belong to Facebook. Even if you decide to quit now and delete your profile, Facebook won’t delete your profile and your personal data. With the new Terms of Service they keep the right to sell everything now and in the future.

Actually I am not that much affected by the new Terms of Service than others. I’m used to read the fineprint and I am always aware of what it means to share personal data on the internet. So I didn’t have much on Facebook that was not public on my blog or website anyway.

More on the subject on today’s news program “10 vor 10″ on the Swiss National Television:

The good point about the Facebook desaster: My blog is going to get a revival. Instead of investing a lot of time into Facebook I will post more regularly on my own platforms, my blog and my website. Everything is under my control, on my servers. And for connecting with my friends, I just call them more often. Good times to come :-)

[UPDATE] After all the worldwide protests Facebook returned to their old Terms of Service. Now they will take a bit more time to carefully develop new terms and also include member feedback in the process. Read more about it in these two blog posts by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg:

On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information

Update on Terms

I think that’s the right way to do it and I am confident about the outcome. Lesson learned.

Wedding season is mostly over here in Switzerland and we wedding photographers settle down. We spend more time in the office editing weddings at the computer than being on the road and shooting. So it’s a good time to meet friends, eat, drink, chat and exchange unbelievable stories of these awesome weddings we shot during the last months :-)

This year I was traveling a lot, met incredible people and made great new friends. Now it’s time to reconnect, time for “Share Your Power – Reloaded”!

I think it’s important to meet people from time to time in person and let them connect with each other too. Best to be done while having dinner or a drink. If you are a fellow photographer and want to share some thoughts, ideas or the vision of our business in the future, join us! If you’re not a photographer but are interested in networking and making new friends you are very welcome too!

Please fire me an e-mail if you’re interested to join us and I will send you the details. I look forward to meeting you! See you on Thursday, November 6, 2008 in Berne.

[UPDATE]

Save the date! “Share Your Power – Xmas Edition” on Thursday, December 18, 2008 in Berne!

The iPhone has become a very important tool for my business in the last few months that I use it. With every firmware it’s getting better and it’s running quite smooth and stable now. Still discussed are the lack of some features (like copy-paste, MMS etc.) and the performance of the built in rechargeable battery. I’m OK with the limitations that the new iPhone 3G still has. For me the advantages are way bigger than the limitations.

Even if it is said that the battery performance of the iPhone is comparable or even better than of other smartphones, it is better to be prepared. If you charge your iPhone every night, the battery should last long enough for normal use. But in heavy use or on a very long day (shooting a wedding, anybody?) it might run out of battery.

Some time ago I bought an USB charger from Philips with a built-in rechargeable battery. So if there’s no power outlet around out in the field, you still can charge your iPhone. Great idea! It’s called: ‘Philips Power4Life SCM7880 USB Charger/Back up battery‘ and just received one of the ‘iF product design awards 2008′. It works very well. Fully charged it stores enough energy to charge the iPhone up to about 75%. Enough to survive.

Recently I found something maybe even better on USBfever.com It’s called ‘USB AAA Battery Charger with Torch‘ (I opened the battery cover in the picture above to show the 4 AAA batteries). It’s smaller, cheaper, weighs less and has a built-in LED torch. But mainly it uses replaceable AAA batteries instead of a non-removeable reachargeable battery like the Philips. You can buy AAA batteries everywhere or carry some spare batteries with you for multiple charges of your iPhone. And the USB charger has USB power IN and OUT. Means that you can either charge the 4 AAA batteries in the device by using an USB cable (power IN) or you can charge an USB device like the iPhone from the 4 AAA batteries through an USB cable (power OUT). Really sweet!

Of course I had to see the Niagara Falls too, it’s just a short trip from Toronto. The day was beautiful and sunny. Maybe a bit too hot, I even got sunburned! The falls were much less impressive than I expected, though.

Actually it was this “little piece of plastic” (patent pending) that brought me into wedding photography. Some years ago I wanted to improve my flash photography and surfed the web for some research. Quite fast Gary Fong’s name popped up and I started to read his blog. It turned out that he was in the wedding photography business for a lifetime and his name was very well known in the industry. Or to say he was famous.

So I bought my first Lightsphere directly from Gary in Canada through his e-store. I followed his blog that led me to other well known wedding photographers in the US and worldwide. With the time all pieces came together like in a puzzle. I was addicted to wedding photography and decided to specialize in photographing happy people. As Gary explained once why he loves to be into wedding photography.

Thanks Gary, to show me the way and welcome to Switzerland!

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Posted via iPhone