Richard Kastelein
Richard Kastelein, a Dutch Canadian dual citizen, is the publisher, editor and founder of Atlantic Free Press along with a number of other online progressive, activist websites. Currently based in Groningen, The Netherlands, and London, England. Kastelein is a Speaker around the topic of future Television and has spoken at a number of conferences in the UK and Brazil. Such as the UK's 2nd Annual Digital Convergence Summit, Apps World in London, the Future of TV Advertising and the Brazilian International TV Conference in Rio de Janeiro.
He's also the publisher And Co-founder of Appmarket.tv, the first online portal, community, events and industry directory for the emerging industry around TV applications and widgets, Social TV, Transmedia and more - which is expected to be over a billion Euro market by 2013.
Kastelein has guest lectured at the Hanze University Groningen, Netherlands on futurism in technology and marketing - particularly around social media and Social tv. In 2010 he was Deloitte Netherlands Tech Visionary for his predictions and futurist views on New media and Social tv.
Publishing
Under Expathos, Kastelein has published a number of books using Print on demand technology including A Quest For Hope: Searching For Ways Out Of Postmodern Nihilism Into New Reality (Volume 1) by Jan Chr. Vaessen Ph.D.,, The Chronicles Of Nefaria by William A. Cook Ph.D.,, The [...] Of Palestine: Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied by William A. Cook Ph.D.,, Oceania by Andre Vltchek, and Empire Burlesque by Chris Floyd
Technology
As one of The Developers of the Cross Media Social Platform with UK-based Sparkling Media, Kastelein is an early social tv evangelist and convergent media analyst. In 2007, he was part of the technology team who bridged telephony 2.0, real-time 3D, the web and broadcast television with Twinners - a format developed around new technology which broadcast on SuperRTL in Germany, RTL in Belgium and TV Copenhagen in Denmark. He now writes and speaks on convergent media, social TV and the integration of the web and TV. ..
Activism
Kastelein first started publishing dissident and progressive online websites when he teamed up with Chris Floyd in 2005, and launched Empire Burlesque together with the former Moscow Times columnist. He then moved on to launch Atlantic Free Press in 2006, followed shortly by Pacific Free Press and Gorilla Radio (both edited by Chris Cook in Victoria, B.C., Canada). His one-off activist site at Thank You Qwest - set up to thank the company for taking on the US Administration on privacy issues was covered by a number of mainstream media including the CNN Situation Room, USA Today, New York Times, Denver Post and The Salt Lake Tribune
Unassociated Press, another activist site built by Kastelein was set up to petition against the Associated Press and also for bloggers to boycott referencing or linking to Associated Press articles after they issued at take-down order against community news site the Drudge Retort. Unassociated Press was covered by Journalism.co.uk, Editor's Weblog and Zdnet
He hosts a number of controversial writers on his servers, such as Craig Murray, the former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was shut down by his hosting company after Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov silenced Murray with lawyers. Usmanov went on to suffer from the Streisand effect despite hiring a legal firm to silence Murray - which backfired when it became a cause célèbre, and the material was made viral throughout the Political blogosphere. Kastelein also hosts Canadian environmental activist Ingmar Lee, and Nick Chesterfield - an Australian grassroots security analyst and activist who stands up for the rights of Indigenous Peoples across the Asia-Pacific Region.
One work from his political photoshopping art collection, called Richard Kastelein's Guantanamo was used by the University of California Davis, for the Center For the Study of Human Rights in the Americas.
Sailing
Kastelein first started sailing on small cruising sailboats in 1987 on a transatlantic trip with a Norwegian crew and spent the following decade sailing in and out of ports around the world, compiling over offshore. He went on to write a series called, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Seas, which was published in a number of travel and boating publications in the UK and Canada. He worked on The Orchid House, a UK Channel Four film set in Dominica in 1991 as a 24-year-old captain of wooden schooner Tironga, then the oldest floating boat in the world, built in 1869 in Thuro, Denmark. He lived aboard several vessels while working in the media in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles. He has also worked as a charterboat captain, sailing instructor and sailboat delivery skipper for Sunsail Caribbean. His 'hitchhiking' sailing lifestyle was covered by Avantoure Magazine in 2009. Kastelein built a 1.2 million dollar catamaran with Avante Yachts in Brazil in 2004.
Journalism
Richard Kastelein's journalism career started in the Northern Press in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada, under the tutelage of Slave River Journal Publisher Don Jaque and editor Liz Crompton. He then continued in the Caribbean as English editor at St. Martin's Week in French Saint Martin, Features editor at Today Newspaper in Dutch Sint Maarten, and was managing editor of What's ON magazine in the Netherlands Antilles. He's a member of Wired Journalists and Editor at Large for Travolon Online - a trilingual B2B travel publication based in Brussels, Belgium
Social Media
Kastelein first got a taste of social media was while building an early internet portal for the Caribbean in 1997 at suchislife.com. He added on a free Bravenet forum to the site and watched while thousands of tourists started to comment on their trips to the islands. In 2003, he launched Expat Forums Online for English speakers in Europe with American expatriate Jason Goecke - and they voluntarily managed the community for three years further - which went on to over 350,000 comments and posts over the years. He has been consulting on and speaking in the social media space since 2005. Kastelein's Social Media Dictionary compiled at Expathos was used by author Joel Postman in his award winning book SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate