I was really looking forward to hitting up 10 countries next week on my MIDMoves tour but alas, roaming 3G data costs have killed the idea. With daily roaming ‘offers’ at 15 Euro for 50MB and per MB costs coming in at between 2 Euro and 4 Euro it won’t be possible to do this while I’m Internet connected. Wifi hotspots won’t be enough to fill in the gaps either so rather than go off on a jolly where no-one can see me, I’ve sent back the inter-rail ticket and re-arranged my tour. Here’s the new itinerary.
Day 1 – 20th Jan remains as planned. Its a 5 country dash in my car with live location feedback and media along the way. I will take a couple of 3G SIM cards with me and should be able to keep the data down to under 100MB for the day. Weather permitting, I’ll drive from Bonn. Germany to Trier taking in the Rhine and Mosel then cross over into Luxemborg. Drive north into France and find a nice route up towards Belgium and then a quick dash through the southern-most city of Holland (Maastricht) where I will eat lots of gouda cheese, smoke a joint (joke!) and then drive home where I’ll review the experience.
Day 2 – 21st Jan is GPS-art day. I’m going to attempt to draw something over Cologne. You’ll be able to track me live, watch my microblogs and blog posts, see a stream of images and watch the map mashup as I create the image. I should be able to stay online all day and will probably be using an XP-based mobile device for this which will make it easy to integrate all the software I need to do it. If you’re in Cologne and fancy a meet-up, get in touch with me and we can drink a nice stein of beer together at the end.
Day 3 – Connecting with Nicole and MBC attendees. I’ll be travelling up to Hamburg on the 22nd of Jan to meet with Nicole where we’re going to get together for MIDMoves podcasts and try to arrange a meet-up with attendees from Europe’s first microblogging conference, MBC09. Nicole is arranging it for late afternoon so if you’re interested in meeting in Hamburg to see all the devices we have and to talk in detail about how the devices can be used, keep an eye on MIDMoves where we’ll publish the details. Obviously, there’s be a big stream of information coming out on MIDMoves.com
Day 4 and 5. Getting involved with MBC. In my eyes, microblogging is not just about 140 characters. It’s about quick and easy updates with any type of media. Microblogging can easily include location, image, video and audio data and can be as valuable as a fully edited blog post. During the two days of MBC I’ll be trying to get a feel for how the microblogging sector is moving by talking to some key people and feeding back as much information as I can in a well-formatted and media-rich way. I’ll also be available to give demonstrations on the Intel hardware that we’re taking. Hopefully there’s going to be some live streaming too. If you’re going to MBC09 and want to check out the new Intel hardware, please comment below.
Following the tour I’ll be doing some update posts and writing in more detail about the devices. It’s also possible that we’ll be getting more Intel-based devices in for testing and sending out some of our devices for hands-on with other bloggers so stay tuned!
