Blinkist, App Für Smalltalker

Der 28-Jährige öffnet die App auf seinem iPhone, das bislang noch das einzige Smartphone ist, auf dem blinkist läuft. In sieben Kategorien unterteilt der Dienst die rund 70 überwiegend deutschen Sachbücher, die bisher in der digitalen Bibliothek stehen: Produktivität und Ratgeber, Business und Karriere, Gesundheit und Glück und zum Beispiel Politik und Geschichte. Letztere läuft erwartungsgemäß am schwerfälligsten, sagt Seim.

Als erstes Start-up überhaupt wurde blinkist von dem neuen Telekom-Finanzierungsprogramm hub:raum mit einer Summe zwischen 150.000 und 300.000 Euro gefördert. Mittlerweile elf festangestellte Grafikdesigner und Programmierer arbeiten für die Firma. Erst im Januar dieses Jahres ging der Dienst online – er könnte den Buchmarkt umkrempeln.

Den Kulturpessimisten, die in der App den Untergang der humboldtschen Bildungsideale befürchten, antworten die Macher, dass sie dem strauchelnden Buchmarkt nicht die Grundlage nehmen, sondern ihn ergänzen wollen. "Wir verstehen uns unter anderem auch als eine Heranführung an den Buchkauf", sagt der Mitgründer Seim, der BWL studiert hat.

Berliner Morgenpost weiß mehr

Example:

There’s much more to corruption in football than the recent news has covered.

The ugly spectre of scandal has risen over football once again. This time, it’s Bayern Munich and their president Uli Hoeness who are in the spotlight. So great has the shock been around Germany regarding Hoeness’ personal finances, that it has threatened to take attention away from Bayern Munich’s biggest game of the season so far: tonight’s Champion’s League semi-final fixture against Barcelona. 

But the link between football, scandal and Zurich does not end there. No, the recent issue with Hoeness is made to look paltry in comparison to the depth of problems at FIFA. In his book ‘FIFA Mafia’, Thomas Kistner investigates the decades of corruption that have taken place behind the scenes at the world’s sole football governing body. 

Kistner covers a lot of ground, bringing to light the shocking complicity between FIFA and Adidas to organise dirty election campaigns, alleged bribery from Russia and Qatar to host the World Cup, and of course, Sepp Blatter’s brutal management of the organisation. In this part of the book, Kistner excels in painting a portrait of an autocrat: Blatter makes sure he has no rival- phones are bugged, dissenting voices are fired and he amasses an enormous amount of wealth in the process.

Delving deeper into some of the more pressing socio-economic problems, Kistner explains how FIFA benefits from being based in Switzerland, and how in exchange for hosting the World Cup, host nations usually give over enormous amounts of power to FIFA. Thus for example, the organisation was able to shoulder out thousands of local South African businesses during the 2010 World Cup in place of FIFA approved global businesses, hardly benefitting local South Africans, but making something near to 3.8 billion for FIFA. 

This is definitely the book to read if you’re interested in the way football is managed and mismanaged. To see how far the corruption goes, you can download the blink today.

 

There are many more shocking things to discover about corruption in Football. You can read Thomas Kistner's 'FIFA Mafia' in blinkshere.