Is the Nabaztag Rabbit dead?

There's a rumour going around that Violet, the Company that produces the Nabaztag (Armenian for rabbit - or did I just dream that?) has filed for bankruptcy.
Does that mean the product and (somewhat dodgy) support and development will die too? There are various forums full of Nabaztag owners bemoaning the poor service (such as Nabaztalk and others)but, probably, some very delighted customer too.
If the story is true, it's a pity as the internet enabled devices market could be really exciting - the convergence of media is inevitable, but clearly the road will be rocky. We're getting used to home wifi and TV. This is/was a cute product (Violet had a couple of others) that could have done very well introducing us to the benefits of accessing real time information from the web in very different ways.
There are, incidentally, clear issues with the widespread use of RFID - which Violet were also exploring - when treated as if it is a secure technology. It isn't, so therefore its use in passports and credit cards creates problems, but the applications Violet was working on were largely free of security issues since a) they were within a domestic or office setting and b) they were, broadly, for entertainment i.e. they didn't really matter. Crucially, they were also fun.
Now, who will lead the way? If anyone has any news, let me know.
Updates ...
Here - translation of another report
and an interesting development here. Want to own the company??

Put a few things in perspective

Thought I should just post this and see what happens. Probably none of it surprising, but at this time of year, when we've bee settling marks for students term papers and exams the bit about jobs that don't yet exist makes you think about the skills they're acquiring.
I'm so glad I didn't do a vocational degree!

Web Wise Women presentation

As promised; here's the presentation which I realise makes little sense without my explanation...

...if you want me to explain, just invite me!

I'm pleased to have been invited to speak at the Web.Wise.Women event at the Kings Place in London. Although it's unclear how I fit the bill since I'm not wise or a woman...
Organised by the Camden Women's Forum the event focuses on social media - essentially where web 2.0 is now - but it will inevitably have to deal with what small enterprises should do in a recession.
That's where I think I come in.
I'll be trying to dispel a few myths about the web and about marketing and trying to show how SMEs can invest in marketing right now - despite the 'crunch'.
No doubt I'll post my presentation up (expect a link to slideshare) and I'll be setting up a PWOTG forum for 'Virtually Free' so that anyone who buys the book can contribute or ask questions.
If you are interested in attending just go to http://webwisewomen.eventbrite.com and register - it's free, of course.

What a find!

Getting found online - via your blog, twitter feed, facebook profile etc is all about being connected.

In the short time I've been blogging I've been looking at others with all kinds of buttons and gizmos allowing readers to bookmark or otherwise promote the post or the whole blog and I've searched and searched for how to do it.

Now, I understand, for some of you this might seem like 'Social Networking 101' but you know, not all of us want to get into the intricacies of the code that lies behind all these useable tools (including Blogger of course).

Some posts and sites I've found give a solution for one particular site - so for example somewhere on Facebook, you'll find a help article that refers only to the Facebook button. Likewise for Digg and so on. Maybe I'm just too inept to extrapolate the instructions to all other social bookmarking/networking sites?

But, I have to say - glory alleluiah!!

Get yourself over to AddThis.com - you can click on their logo here - and within minutes you can have yourself a neat drop down button thingy (you can see it below) that does pretty much everything, tidies up your pages and offers you stats on its usage. What more can you ask?

I'm ridiculously excited and pathetically grateful. I just had to blog it and they're going in the book!

Happy, happy, happy.