Wannahaves, the popular ‘Mentertainment’ brand - presenting the latest and greatest in gadgets, games and entertainment - had an item on eBuddy for iPhone yesterday in the Dutch version of the program.

Even if you don’t speak Dutch, it shows some of the use of our iPhone app (which you can download here).
Another app, Layar, is presented in the second part of the item. They are doing some pretty cool stuff in the field of Augmented Reality, which you can see while taking a walk around pretty (and eBuddy hometown) Amsterdam. (more…)

Hi Everyone, 

We know how much you love eBuddy and so do a lot of other people – including those in the business and communications world. 

eBuddy has been nominated for Accenture’s 2008 Innovation Award and has been selected as one of the Top 50 finalists!

We need your help to win! There is a Public’s Prize or People’s Choice award voted on by the public…YOU!  

Please visit http://www.innovation-awards.nl/ to make your voice heard and your vote count. The site is in Dutch, however there’s a tab in the upper right hand corner to easily translate the page to English. Scroll down the page and select the link, “Vote here for your favorite concept”. Scroll down the next page, tick the eBuddy box, enter your name and email address and click on the “Verzenden” box. All done! 

Tell your friends…and vote for eBuddy!

The awards will be handed out on October 23, 2008 during Accenture’s Media and Communication Innovation event.  

We look forward to telling you we won so get out there and vote! 

Thanks!

Mindy
Communications Officer
eBuddy

Last friday, Dutch students rallied against a new law enforcing a minimum of 1040 hours of study each year.

Interestingly enough, they used Instant Messaging to start the rally. The call to strike spread over the internet like wildfire, winning out over media such as mobile phones and email.

The second eBuddy Mobile User Day is a fact. Last week, we welcomed a group of enthusiastic Dutch eBuddy Mobile users to our HQ in Amsterdam.

The reason why we organize our User Days on such a regular basis is because we believe that a product needs to be shaped at your needs and not the other way around…

Our recently released Mobile Messenger and our Mobile Internet version therefore became subject to some very critical testing. I can not give you specific details about the findings, but some interesting improvements and ideas for both versions have risen and can be expected in a matter of time

After an intense afternoon of testing, we took our test-crew for a cruise around the famous Canals of Amsterdam. Luckily, the weather was great for the first time in a while and the American style pizza’s and traditional Dutch Heineken beers were well deserved!

The next user day will take place on Thursday the 2nd of August at our HQ so if you are around and would like to join please leave us a note here.

If you want to see all the pictures taken that day, visit our Flickr account here.

Yesterday we invited a group of eBuddy users to our headquarters in Amsterdam for a User Day. We organize days like these to find out more about what YOU think of our products and what features you find cool to add. The users who were there took our new Mobile Messenger for a spin and gave us some good feedback and new ideas!

We ended the afternoon with a boat trip through the Amsterdam canals. With some pizza& drinks on a boat in the sun, quite a nice ending of the day See all pics here.

More User Days will follow, so if you would like to join, please drop us an email on feedback[at]ebuddy.com!

Now that Arjen mentioned lunch at ebuddy.com office, what’s wrong with the Dutch and those eating habits? Who in his/her total sense eats broodje kaas, broodje this, broodje that and milk or yogurt every single day?

I might even run the risk of being called anti-social but I rather leave the office and eat something outside. Since we have the office right in the center of Amsterdam, the options are infinite. I rather go for a nice warm meal for lunch like is normal in Latin/Southern European countries like Portugal where I was raised.
Usually the Me Gusta tapas restaurant is a good option, people are friendly and some are Portuguese and it’s just in front of the office, but anything else is good. A nice soup, a salad, anything between a pizza and a burger I can eat but not those sandwiches every day!

Another thing I can’t get used to in this country is the weather (sometimes I forget the color of the Sun), the language (and the weird noises people make while they speak it) plus the same old sandwiches it might make you wonder what am I still doing here in Amsterdam, right?
Well, I guess that it’s because all the things that are good about Amsterdam compensate for what I mentioned above and from all those things, ebuddy is one of the the main reason why I’m still stuck here. It would be hard to leave the wonderful (growing) team we have here @ ebuddy.com, a team that I admire so much and am proud of, that helped ebuddy.com achieve a lot and will help to achieve even more in the future!

Go Team!