For today, no boring blog post about my life or my love for gadgets, twitter or whatever but about my master thesis. I’m nearing the end of my studies at Tilburg University, so now it’s time to start it. I’m going to focus my master thesis topic on international business, specifically marketing. The topic I went with was grey markets and parallel imports. The definition, according to wikipedia.org is

A parallel import is a non-counterfeit product imported from another country without the permission of the intellectual property owner. Parallel imports are often referred to as grey product, and are implicated in issues of international trade, HIV/AIDS management, and intellectual property.

With all the sales today via Internet, ebay, online stores and various other methods of getting your goods overseas or boundaries, it very easy for grey markets to exist. Take for example Apple’s iPhone, you can buy it here Holland via ebay.nl or markplaats.nl Several telecom webshops even offer the iPhone with dutch gsm plans for free, even though the iPhone is not officially released here yet. Even when they do, with the current dollar to euro exchange rate, it will probably still be cheaper to import the iPhone from the United states than to buy it. The iPhone grey market in Holland is doing very well, and Apple is really isn’t doing anything to stop it.

Now I don’t necessarily want to write my thesis about the iPhone’s grey market in the Netherlands, but it an idea.  My first proposal, which i will attach as an pdf to this blog post was even broader. I wanted to look at various consumer goods, see if there are grey markets for that good exist. Once I’ve done that, I will do a survey under the general public to see if they prefer grey goods to normal goods if they have the same waranty terms. I had to present this to my thesis coordinator, and it’s just way to broad to do all once and it would take much more time than i will have available to complete my master thesis. His advice was, go search for a company which competes with grey markets or has parallel import issues. The other option I would have is to go a marketing research bureau, like GfK or Nielssen and see If I can get access to there databases so that I can do research based on that data. When I need to collect the data myself, i need to use survey and use anova and regression analysis to analyze that data. So, in a nutshell it would very beneficial for me find company to do my thesis at, and I’m hoping they will respond to my letters, and or blog post.

Companies

• Apple - iPhone related grey market in the Netherlands
• GfK - research company with access to several interesting databases
• Philips / Sony / Other consumer brands - online sales much cheaper than brick / mortar prices
• Pharmaceutical companies such as Astrazeneca

Grey markets exist pretty much everywhere, but i think it most interesting to look at grey market sales that occur because of the Internet.  A lot of research has already been done looking at parallel imports in the Pharmaceutical industry, but not much to day regarding consumer electronics and grey market sales via the Internet. That why I’m hoping that Apple or Philips will allow me today thesis at one of those companies in a way that I can combine my research about grey markets with there problems so that research will constructed in such a way that it is beneficial to both parties.

If you have or own a company in the Netherlands or elsewhere that is struggle with parallel imports and you want to have research done into this issue and how to solve it, please drop me a line at sebastiaanvda [at] hotmail dot com.Thank you in advance.

If you have any tips or comments, please reply to my post. Anything can help.

Watch It, Cheerz Sebas

I have gotten pretty fond of twitter lately, and I am one of those poeple who like get twitter, at least, thats what I think. My problem with it, is that I’m having a hard time getting my friends to join twitter. The geekish, they understand and love it. I also do, that way I can follow a few of my favorite tech hosts, like Leo Laporte, Cali Lewis, Kevin Rose and so on. I hardly have any dutch friends on twitter, besides for one, who I actually found by accident via Twitter search within you area search egine, or something like that. So where is everyboy and why aren’t you on twitter. Its like Instant messaging, only better. It’s not as much a pain in the ass bloggin, because it easy to use. Its not as annoying as IM, since you don’t need to respond to every message you recieve. And the more friends, and followers, the more fun it gets.

Twitter can even be usefull, some people use it for research. I think I will do same for my Master Thesis, see how other poeple view my topic. Anyway, I blogged enough for one day. My twitter account is @ http://www.twitter.com/Sebdude follow me.

Well, I have done a pretty bad job at keep my blog update. Not that my health has changed alot in the last month. In the beginning of April, I went to see my doctor specialized in hips, and he said I had to continue walking with two crutches for another 4 weeks. In the end of April, I went back again to the doctor, and he told me that I had continue walking with two crutches for another six weeks. I really did not expect, in the end I might end up walking with two crutches for another two months. This isn’t all negative, on my most recent x-ray of my hip compared to the one made in the beginning of April, the hip has stayed in place. And it’s slowly, very slowly growing back together again. But it still sucks, especially with nice weather, i want to Rollerblade, i want go for a long walk, go to the beach or go for a bike ride in the dunes, not just stay home like an old fart. I’m 25 for gods sake.

Last week me and my parental units went to Keukenhof, which is a flower exposition which is held in the Netherlands every spring in the Netherlands. its one of those extremely touristy hot spots where are al tourist visit when go to Holland. I had never been there before, and it was truly beautiful. I didn’t know there were so many different types of tulips, and other flowers. Keukenhof is pretty large, so i had to pushed around in wheel chair which was fairly humiliating for me. Still, I’m glad at the end of the ride I could get out of the wheel chair unlike some very unlucky people who will never get out the wheelchair again.

Its easy to rant, its easy to blame someone else, but accidents happen. The truth of the matter is that life goes on, and that given some time, the hip fracture will heal, and if does not, I will just get hip replacement. Eventually, I will walk again, the question only is, how long will it take for my hip heal to level were i can function easily without too much problems. Lately, I have been ranting  a bit on twitter as well, but I guess its not bad as at home. That’s about it for now. Cheerz, Sebas

The she lies down

Originally uploaded by Sebdude

Hey, just wanted to share this picture with you guys. Our cat Coco loves lying in the sun or under her personal heat lamp. lately, she noticed that our Apple TV is also warm and toasty, so tried lying on it. I couldn’t help myself, so I pulled the Apple TV from under our tv so that she could complete lie down on the thing. So, we are not the only one in our house who enjoy the Apple TV anymore!!!!

Cheerz,

Sebas

You know, actually I really don’t want spend anytime on this whole debate going on in my country about our policitian Geert Wilders and his short Film Fitna, but I couldn’t  help it. Apperently there is some british comedian, and who has made several videos about who we Europeans are actually scared to death of our Arab friends.  Now I don’t agree with every single point he makes in these two videos, especially since he is comedian. He does make some good points about how we Europeans should stand for our rights as soveriegn countries and we should be bullied around. Now I really wonder if he has gotten any death threats yet by some obscure islamic terror cell???   Cheerz 

Yes, its true some smart ass Indonesian mofo hacked my paypal account. I figured out yesterday during they when I got an e-mail (which mail btw, put in my spam box), that my PayPal account had be suspended for suspicious transactions. I’m like, wtf and I got my ass over to the paypal website to see if something really happened.  The interesting thing was as well, that I got a response in from some ebay seller earlier that morning that shipping cost 20 bucks for an unlocked iphone. Early in the morning, that did not ring a bell, so I only made the link later that afternoon when I noticed some dude used my paypal account to pay some iPhone he bough on eBay. To make matters even worse, he changed my name on ebay to his, and even left the shipping address behind in ebay as wel as PayPal. He also added some visa card number, which he probably stole, put that on my paypal account using an old adres I left in there, under a bogus + name + my family name and charged to that card. Well, I was pretty damn pissed off to say the least!!!. I’m very careful when using creditcards, or paying for shit on the net, I never put my password or usernames in in e-mails or whatever. Apparently, anyone can be hacked, but no knows why me and how the mofo managed to hack it in the first place. Now, my password was very strong, did consist of two words, but put together in a way that makes no sense at all. Now I have stronger password, with non existing words and  letters, its still not uberstrong, but should keep the occasional Indonesian hacker out. So, I had to change most of my passwords as wel.. All in all, its pain the ass and lot of shit. But I documented everything, so if they ever give me any shit about this, I’m gonna sue paypal, American style!!! 

Well, the my broken hip bone is healing slowly, I hope.. I can move my leg more easily eveyday, but the its healing pretty slowly. What really sucks though, is the effect of my broken hip on my studies. I’m currently waiting for my results back from the Exam committee from the University of Tilburg. I had sent a letter to committee, because breaking your hip is not a good enough reason to allow me to retake the exams I missed because my hospital stay and inability to take the re-exams in the 2nd week of March.

I dunno who does, or does not know but had small accident with my Bike last on Februay 20th. I was heading home from a party on my bike and I managed to slip and hit the sidewalk. I was in some serious pain in my left leg at the moment, but it didn’t seem as if I broke anything. Probably sprained a muscle or so, so I didn’t call 911. So my friends helped me get home that night. They were coming from the same party. The next morning, the pain in my hip joint was still there, so that wasn’t good. When I tried going the bathroom, I mistepped and the pain got a lot worse than it already was. Now, when i put pressure on the left leg, it seemed as if my whole bone in leg would turn inside the leg. That was not right, not a natural thing to say the least. The pain at moment was so severe, I didn’t know how I was ever going get down the stairs and to our local md or hospital. So, the doctor came by and told me to visit the hospital to take a picture of my leg because there were signs of a broken hip joint, ouch.. No wonder it hurt so bad. At this point in time, the pain was so severe that we had to call an ambulance to get me down the of the stairs and to hospital. (My Mom came to the rescue just before the doctor did) To keep it short, once a the hospital they made some x-rays of the pelvis area and it was true, I did brake my hip joint bone, or what ever it is called. It broke right on top of the ball joint, which is a very nasty way to break it. This bone usually breaks when your sixty years or older, but I pulled it off anyway. So, they had operate on the bone, put some screws is it, so that it grows back together. YESSS.. fun fun fun. I HATE hospitals!!! They finally operated on my bone that evening at 11 p.m., the operation took about 1.5 hours. I stayed at the hospital till Sunday, and since that time I have been at home recovering from the operation / accident in The Hague, NL. I have to walk with crutches for 6 weeks to 3 months, relying on how well the bone grows back together again. I will not know now for sure if the operation was successful for at least 3 years because there is chance that the bone won’t grow back together. then, they will need to replace the whole hip.  If not, I’m still scheduled (not really, but they probably will have to remove the screws sometime in the future) for a 2nd operation in a couple years to remove the screws again from the bone. Shit happens, but I wanted to let you all know. I’ll try to be online a bit more on msn or facebook. I’m on twitter and pownce as well. 

If your alive, please leave message on the end of this blog post. you know who you are, btw