LeWeb 2009

Posted on December 9, 2009 
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Finally, at LeWeb.

I’m not in a great mood, being awake way to early for me, but I expect things to improve during the day. I am not sure yet where to be in the following hours…

And Loic Le Meur just came on stage following 30 seconds of David Guetta and Akon – Sexy Bitch

First guest, after the introduction, Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter. Real-time web all the way :)

Square is tool to pay using credit cards via a smartphone (demoed on iPhone)

Putting it on hold, follow @bobbyvoicu on Twitter


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Back

Posted on November 10, 2009 
Filed Under Ramblings | 2 Comments

So I pulled this blog from the gutter. Not sure yet why, but it’s a big possibility I’ll pretty soon find out :)


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Black Sea

Posted on April 12, 2008 
Filed Under Ramblings | 1 Comment

I always loved the Black Sea. I like the mountains, but I love the sea. I almost drowned at least once until I was 5 and that is the most vivid memory I remember from my early childhood. Me falling in a water basin and people looking from the top. And I don’t remember any fear, just curiosity.

At 6 I learned how to swim and since then, the sea has become my friend. I almost drowned several times since, never in the sea, though. It didn’t stop me from loving it.

Every time I go to the Black Sea for the first time in a year (around June, usually), the water is cold and I stay out for 5 minutes at least before going in…. but after that, the feeling is… I don’t think I can describe it, but feeling the water around your body, feeling like you belong to it, there is nothing in the world that can compare to it. Not seeing the beautiful mountains of Switzerland mirrored in the waters of Geneva Lake, not feeling the beauty of Istanbul by night, from the plane, when it looks like being alive, nothing. Just the first time you enter the sea and swim, after a long long time.

For me, the sea has become a friend. Sounds crazy, right? It may be. But it is a friend that doesn’t judge, that doesn’t offer advice, that doesn’t try to interpret. The sea just listens. It was there when I lost money and business, it was there when I fell in love, it was there when I wasn’t sure my decisions were correct. It was there when I just needed to not speak. It was there when I was walking up and down trying to find my steps.

Yesterday I went to the sea. As always when I need to just speak out loud. It may sound crazy, but this is the way I get balance in my life. Did you ever watch the sea during the storm and thought the turmoil of the waves is exactly what you feel? Nothing makes me calmer. Yesterday, the Black Sea was calm in the morning. Different colors for different feelings, but calm.

Sometime ago I started to dream on the shores of another sea. The sea told me: “The dream is over”. So I woke up. Things change. Times change. Decisions change. London, here I come.

I will die on the shores of the sea.

Foto credits: 1, 2


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A helping hand

Posted on March 28, 2008 
Filed Under Frame of mind | 1 Comment

When a friend asks, you help, right? :)


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Testing some software

Posted on March 28, 2008 
Filed Under 1. My profile on | Leave a Comment

I am in Turkey, waiting for somethings to happen and I said to myself I should test some software while here. I will keep you posted on the software, but please don’t get too mad for all the “Testing” posts you will see in the next week :)


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Danube Delta

Posted on March 22, 2008 
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It’s in Romania and I’ve never been there. This year I will get there :)

Danube Delta Fishing Boat

See pictures here.


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Heads up: Salon Auto at Geneva

Posted on March 3, 2008 
Filed Under Geneva, Switzerland | 1 Comment

I didn’t write here in a long time. I had some hectic days (actually crossed the continent in about 5 days, by car, from Istanbul to Geneva).

I am at the Salon Auto in Geneva, writing for my autoblog, AutoUnleashed. In about a week, when I will get some rest, I will write about my days in Turkey, about the trip to Geneva and back and so on. So, stay tuned :)

In the meanwhile, read what we write about Salon Auto at Geneva, look at the gallery of unique photos we have taken and enjoy. We sure do!


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Istanbul by night

Posted on February 25, 2008 
Filed Under Around the World, Istanbul, Turkey | Leave a Comment

Here is what we see from our room’s window:

click to see bigger

Just got to Istanbul, got a hotel room, tomorrow we go to Topkapi Palace. More to come.


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Fast forward

Posted on February 23, 2008 
Filed Under Ankara, Around the World, JCI, Turkey | Leave a Comment

Yeah, work and not only got in the way of posting. It’s not something to be happy about but, while my blog is very important, my life is more important than that :)

So, what I did in the last almost 2 weeks, fast forward:

1. I visited Ankara (especially Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’ Mausoleum – Anit Kabir). Take a Turkish person with you to tell you about everything you see. It is interesting to see in their eyes what they feel for Ataturk. We don’t have the same kind of historic figure in Romania and I think that some of the patriotic feelings the Turks have are there especially because it is so much easier to feel closeness to a person in history than to a undefined concept like a country.

2. I visited almost every shopping mall in Ankara. These people, here, are crazy about malls: they eat there, they spend their time there, they shop there… What the hell is wrong? :)

3. I was the trainer in a sort of “Blogoree Workshop” ( :P ) I had for people here, a more basic one than the ones I have in Romania (the audience was different), but it was a great workshop for me (I hope it was the same for the attendees). The title of the workshop? “Basic Use of the Internet”. I talked about Firefox (best browser), about search engine operators, about feeds (what they are, where to find them and how to use them). Quite basic, right? Well, not so when you really get to it.

Other than that, some business opportunities came my way and, who knows, I might visit Turkey earlier than I expected (business not being the only reason).

I will get in details later on, because I have lots of photos and, more, I have to tell you about traffic here and their suicidal pedestrians. I thought traffic in Bucharest was bad… trust me, that is nothing compared to Ankara and, from what they are saying, Istanbul is worse (though I will be there from Monday to Wednesday).


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Interview with Chitika’s Ryan Travis

Posted on February 13, 2008 
Filed Under Interviews, Monetization | Leave a Comment

Interviu cu Ryan Travis de la ChitikaWe break out from our regular traveling posts (one to come shortly) and give you an interview with one person that a lot of money making bloggers should now: Ryan Travis, Senior Account Manager at Chitika. The interview was a joint work of me and my cousin, so if you don’t like something, take it on him:

1. Ryan, first of all, what is Chitika?
Founded in 2003, Chitika is a full service online advertising network specializing in the blogospshere and the social web. Today, it engages buyers, brands and bloggers by serving interactive, user-controllable ads directly within relevant posts. For all publishers, Chitika is an easy-to-use platform for earning daily ad revenue. For advertisers and media buyers, Chitika is a proven channel for targeting online consumers and qualified buyers – as they are actively considering a purchase – and engaging them in relevant, brand-specific or product-specific conversations. Chitika now serves more than 1.5 billion ads per month and counting.

2. And who is Ryan Travis? People have nothing but good opinions about you, why is that? :)
That is because of my amazing dance moves :) – heh – but seriously, I’m sure there are some “not-so-good” opinions out there as well. From my end, I am 100% committed that all of our users have a fantastic experience with our company, so I try to go the extra mile to ensure that this happens.

3. How is the click value calculated? Why is it lower in the last week (last week of January)?
Click values vary from advertiser to advertiser. Since we have thousands of merchants offering millions of different products, you will always see variations in the CPC’s. For January specifically, we saw an expected seasonal dip here. Every year after the busy holiday shopping season, our advertisers “pull back” on their spending, and we traditionally see lower CPC’s during this time of year. On our end, we are aggressively working on some cool deals to combat this – for example, take a look at our brand new CPM units.

4. What is Chitika’s audit? Why does it differ so much (from 10% up to 50-60%)?
The audits are done to discount illegitimate clicks (from spam clicks, robots, accidental clicks, etc.). I have no idea what the metrics are to calculate this, but it happens on our end and then again on our advertisers’ ends. It shouldn’t vary too much, but again – if some bots spam your page on a certain month, then you will see a much larger audit.

5. Which ad units are the best money earners (eMiniMalls, Linx, RPU and so on..), in your experience and overall blogs in the network?
That’s a great question – and actually there is no single answer here – it really depends on the site! One thing I will say is that I am completely surprised at how well Linx is actually performing across the network – it is definitely a very strong product for us.

6. Do you have any tips for bloggers on how to increase their earnings with Chitika?
Experiment with different placements and ad-types (eMiniMalls, RPU, Linx, etc.) – and pay attention to your reports!!! It is very hard to tell what is working and what is not if you do not spend some time looking at your reports. The best practice here is to create separate channels for each ad-unit that you are experimenting with – this way you can see exactly how that specific ad is performing. Here’s the best part – we just released a brand new reporting system – take it for a spin! ;)

7. Do you have ads that are geo-targeted? (not appearing in Romania, for example)
Well all of our ads are actually geo-targeted. For example – if a user from Germany comes to your site, they will see ads from German merchants appearing in your Chitika ads. This goes for any of the countries that we accept clicks from (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, UK, US).


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