Jun 05

LeWeb London: Comments on Google Glass

Boys and their Toys – The Google Glass Phenomenon
Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb
Robert Scoble, American blogger, technical evangelist, and author Rackspace
Ben Metcalfe, Co-host, LeWeb’13 London Co-Founder, WP Engine
Loic will be joined by Robert Scoble and Ben Metcalfe for this sure to be entertaining session.   Hear from these ultra early adopters their thoughts about Glass.  What’s it’s full potential? What are the cons? And everything in between!

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 afternoon
Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

This was more a conversation, with little planning….so just some comments and points.

  • The assistive technology is what is most interesting. How it can help with your life. Maps, and plane gates etc. Show sports scores and weather. Meetings, the traffic between me and meeting,   Glass is not owner specific 🙂 ie you can get another persons to do something!
  • There are a lot of senses that are not using. Eg eyesensors. There are going to be features that are going to be unlocked.  Has a ear vibrator to transmit sound to ear (rather than speaker)
  • It’s less distracting than a smartphone, is in the way of where you are looking, not down at phone
  • It is very google centric, pictures go to G+ (in private). I can comment etc via that. I can see tweets
  • One nice things..if you shoot a series, it will turn them into an animated gif, sticking them together, do changes. It makes things easy
  • You can select which Twitter users you see stuff from. keep a select group that comes direct to eye/ Plus emails that can be selectively shown
  • It’s too big to wear easily, the social aspect is interesting, Loic takes it off. But Scoble keeps the Glass on most of the time
  • Other interesting things – games. Functional information support, eg surgeons with xrays.
  • There is a fashion cost to it. with one eye only. But they are lightweight, and last.
  • Scoble have shown it to more than 600 people..they are getting feedback from more than just the small of testers. (eg SV white people)
  • Google has said it will be 18 months before this is in the hands of the consumers. They are slowly rolling it out wider.   They need people to think about building apps

Jun 05

LeWeb London: Snapsation

Chris Chabot, Founder & CEO, Snapsation
Chris has been a driving force of the social web for as long as it’s been been around. As a lead engineer on OpenSocial, Developer Advocate for Google on open web standards, and a founding member of the Google+ team, he’s always worked on creating new connections between people through technology. With Snapsation Chris has combined his experience with social, the fascination with the new sharing economy and his love of photography to create new opportunities for the countless talented artists, and people who need high quality imagery.

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 afternoon
Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

Excited about this as get to solve a real problem. It’s only when you solve a real problem, will you make a change. So Snapsation is where photographers find people and people find photographers. Is photography dead? (or is it just cameras!) The problem was that few people had devices..and fewer knew how to use them. But now photography is really living – but the devices is the phone. And it’s everyone, not just the few.

As a society, there is so much information and we have a poverty of attention – photos are quick to digest.  Images are an effective way of communicating. people who use photography are visual story telling. Visual,, rather than texting. Much richer communication. The society is becoming more visual. If you have a business, a restaurant, you need great photos on your website. The impact is incredible.

There is no common language between photographers and people. They don’t do visual sites, they don’t do prices. Everything about finding a professional is difficult. The amount of friction to get to the incredible hard. And there are lots of great photogs who want to find customers.  But may not have the full business knowledge to find customers.

So this is what snapsation is. The market place for photographers.  (note, there’s nothing in the UK at the moment)  (he gave a demo of the market place site). You can define service requirements, and what you are wanting to do and do the payment.  It helps you to market yourself, gives you ideas, how to prepare your portfolio.

Jun 05

LeWeb London: Julien Smith and Breather

Julien Smith, CEO, Breather
With a dynamic team such as Julien & Alex, their new venture is sure to be disruptive. Julien, a New York Times bestselling author, who’s work focuses on adaptation and change, but not the “think out of the box” clichés that most companies embrace. Instead, his work draws from a deep study of the adaptive ability of the human body, as well as evolution, biomimicry, and an observation of nature. Alex built the API for one of the world’s biggest web services, Twitter. He was one of the first people there, in 2007, and helped Twitter become what it is today. These two are a powerful combination, come hear the inside scoop on Breather!

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 morning
Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

The city is the centre of what we do. It will grow bigger. Last year, in NYC, I ordered a meal from my phone, it was all paid for. I can order a cab anywhere via myphone. You can get coffee and pay via the phone. City have everything that is needed and few downsides.

But the big downside is what makes the city. It’s the people, a lot of people.   We like people, but not all the time. The growth exert and incredible pressure on the city. City evolves, and the question is what is it that a city will become, what will it have to become in order to support all this stuff. What the city has to do is solve the problem of people The greater the density, the more opps there are, but it then lacks private space.  And that is one of the key things we’ll need more of. In the coutnry, there’s lots of space, but none of city advantages.  Private space is broken.

When I’m a tourist, my options for private space is limited. Hotel? Starbucks? What space, what power?  If local, then have home, office, shops again. When you need space, there are few good solutions. If you need a phonecall and need to be quiet, there are few options.   So what can be invented?  It has to fit with existing structures to solve the problem   We need something better.  When we need privacy, we want it very badly.   What do we invent? It has to be small. It is to fit inside society.  It has to be easy. So why can I not get private space using my phone?

So this new company is a network of private spaces that you can unlock with your phone.  It’s a subscription model.  This is about being able to get private space on demand. It is what cities needs.  Cities will become broken without the option of private space on demand, You can unlock the space with the phone booking. No need for keys.

Jun 05

LeWeb London: Collaborative Economy

Jeremiah Owyang, Partner, Altimeter Group
The Collaborative Economy:  How People, Startups, and Corporations build a new Market
Industry Analyst Jeremiah Owyang, will share findings from a recent research on the Sharing Economy.  He’ll highlight the trends in the startup space, including verticals served, funding, and forecast what types of startups that will make it –and who won’t.  The speech will outline how startups can work with corporations to serve this greater movement of sharing

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 morning
Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

Shows us Frederick VII, King of Denmark.  He was watching the EU revolutions spreading and had options. Fight or collaborate.
We have heard about orgs that are looking at sharing and collaborate. So what role do corps have if people don’t want or need them., We look at how ownership AND Access is shared. The interesting thing is that corps have to let go in order to gain more. It is the only way.

Sharing is not new but it’s happening faster. If we go on a business trip, rather than using a taxi company, we use a neighbourhood person. We avoid hotels, stay in someone’s home. As the company grows, you don’t grow to bank, you can get peer lending. Grow more, use crowd resources.  Use excess office space that is brokered. There is a disruption happening.   The average car, that is properly shared reduces need for 9 cars. That’s a $270k opportunity loss. Don’t forget insurance, gas etc. One properly shared car could have $1m impact.  This is absolutely a disruption for business

We looked at if this was a passing fad? is it a long term trend. There are many different instances/factors. There are silo, economy and techfactors

Silo Factors: 75% of people polled expect to see an increase in sharing objects and spaces. It’s not just the youth, or closer living etc. We are amplifying with scalable velocity the need to share

Economic Factors: The population continues to rise but resources stay the same. People want to do more with the products they buy. They want to re-use

Technology Factors: 87 phones per 100 people.  Startups use social channels. THis revolution is on top of the disruptor – the internet

Looking at startups in this space. They are being funded. 200 startups have received $2b. This movement is not going away and it will increase in speed

So what do you do if you are being disrupted?  What happened with Frederick?  Frederick collaborated. He helped with the government, a new constitution. He helped, on his own terms. So there are lessons to be learnt.  We call it the Collaborative Economy Value Chain

We take products and turn into services. We take services and turn into marketplaces. You activate your marketplaces to create your products

Company as a Service. You let products be rented, or subscribed to or gift them.  Look at BMS in SF. You can rent cars off the lot. Subscription is not new, can we do this ti durable goods and services. Build a long term relationship.   BMW see that cars will be saturated in cities in 2050, so they know the renting model will matter

Motivate the Market Place. You can encourage only, as they are already doing this. When buyers and sellers. The opportunity is to connect them. Rg Marriott can certify my guest hose/room and bring them trusted guests. You get trusted folks from loyalty programme and then gets a cut of the revenue.   Any type of company can do this. Can a software provider do this service?  It does not exist yet

Provide a Platform: your market places build products. Customers can build the next generation of products. Co-ideate. Co-fund. Co-build. Co-market. Co- etc etc etc. There is software but it is not connected to corps etc. Provide a platform that the crowd becomes the company. there are a few small examples. Eg Nike design shoes.

Why would you connect the players in this? how would you provide the services? why would you try the models?  You can tap into the crowd. You can be in a deep relationship and get them to help. You can add value between customers and extract some value. No-one is doing this yet. This is an open market.  THe opportunity?  is 20%  Looking at the startups that is the average cut in these transactions.  There is a revenue growth opp

Frederick was a hero. He stopped the bloodshed. They remained as a monarch. He let go of his throne to gain the kingdom. IF corps want to be part of the collaborative economy to gain the market/ What side of history will you be on?

Jun 05

LeWeb London: Movement of the Sharing Economy

 Douglas Atkin, Head of Community & E-staff Member, Airbnb

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 morning
Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

Wants to talk about a movement for the sharing economy. To grow the community. Grow the collective power. To stand up against the entrenched interests that stands in their way. Why?  There is an opportunity. There is enthusiasm. The players are looking at collaboration. How can the players share customers? Is  there ways to encourage people to cross-verticals (and take trust?).

And there are the challenges. The industries won’t stand idly by. The laws work against it. Should citizens band together to push for the sharing economy. A new kind of union for a new kind of economy. Looking for your support for this. Help your users, fund the movement, show your support.

We send on the brink of a new time that delivers social as well as economic benefits. Most people are not experiencing economic independence that mass production and consumerism promises. Production and control is centralised. The sharing economy is distributed.  You can’t do sharing without community, without creating individual experiences. Life is built in. (in regards to work/life balance).  The other rewards are important -not just the cash
The movement is independent, global. social. It uses peerpower and collective action to grow the sharing ecomony and overcome the challenges. It has the possibility of making the world better.

Jun 05

LeWeb London: AirBnB

Joe Gebbia, Co-Founder, Airbnb & Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 morning
Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

Joe talked about how he set up, the idea behind it.
It was triggered by a huge conference, filling up the hotels and decided to see if there was a way to connect people to the space in his living room.   They had the concept – Airbed and Breakfast.  We wanted to make it more than a place to sleep, we wanted to cook them breakfast etc.

What advice is there to make yourself available to find ideas?
It’s about connecting new dots in a new and different way.. You need to marry the problem..find something that means something to you. We had to look at ways to pay rent to save apartment. You need to be close enough to connect the dots.

What happened next?
We had the concept. Then we built the website. We showed the apartment. We showed the neighbourhood and provided a guide. The end of the second day, we had the site live. But how did we get the word out?  We emailed the conference. And they sent out to the team and we had it in thw world. We got people emailing. People sent them resumes to convince them to allow them to stay with them. By Day 6, we had people there to share a living room with them.

On Day 7 and then what:
It was a great social experiment. They entered as strangers and left as friends. ANd we made money for the rent. But the social experience was greater.  And then we thought about how we can grow this and give other people this experience.  We found a tech partner. We went off to create the next version  For SXSW, 2008. But it was a failure. The hard cash exchange seemed to put people off. So we started again – so you could pay with card via the service. We got big press – but system failed, we built up the servers. But we weren’t growing, the market and the solution were not connecting. We went to the investors. They did not believe the founding team were right – 2 designers and a coder. They also thought it was risky. We did not get initial investment

Now?
THe business tipped last year. We were doing more internationally last year. We could see the growth and started to connect with the local community. We have teams on the ground.  We think you can’t localise without the local. Tech itself does not work. We run meetups, we connect with the community team to share tips, how to be a great host. People start to help each other out.

In some places it is not legal?
The car was once litigated against. We think it’s time to change. It’s a temp problem and will change

When will you go public?
It’s a misuse of our time now to think about that. We have to grow the community. No, we won’t tell you the revenue. Yes we employ a few hundred people

Are you a threat to the hotels?
Not directly. We are taking the pie and making it bigger. Last year in London, we helped expand the room supply. Let more people come to the city.   Our use cases are also different. Hotels are great for business, we;re not really business travel -only 10%. Also AirBnB often longer stays – eg a month.

What’s next? are you moving to other sectors? What do you think of the sharing economy? Where else will it become big?
When i think about it, it is those that have connect with those that want. It’s about connecting with resources. I imagine it between 2 people, not companies. Think about any resource? It will help unlock resources, there will always be something that people will want to ‘share’.   When you look at the internet. Act 1 was about companies, Act 2, we have a critical mass of people and it’s about connecting them. Act 3 is about the critical mass of people..who trust…and how to you get them offline and connecting that way.  The next big challenge is to design the online and offline transition. THat’s what we are thinking about. How can we simplify the key exchange. How can we reduce friction across the whole trip?

What are some key tips for entrepreneurs?
Marry the problem, empathise with the people. Meet people.

Jun 05

LeWeb London: Tech City

Joanna Shields, Chief Executive, Tech City Investment Organisation & Matt Cowan, Writer & Broadcaster
An interview with Joanna, again all about London and the start up scene – the role of TechCity. (There was little actual information/evidence – just a general talk)

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 morning
Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

Some points:

  • They have changed the investment rules, to make it easier to get equity
  • They are looking for top 50 companies to provide some direct help, who want to list and will get support and mentorship
  • The gov believes that entrepreneurship is a way of growing, it is a change agent. The Tech sector is growing at 11% pa.
  • TechCity is a group of neighbourhoods in East London. It is about community rather than gov initiative. Recognise that it is happening and providing support. It is happening across the country -there are 22 clusters.
  • There is a dramatic shift in employment – growth businesses are changing. There is no job for life. So we are encouraging looking at entrepreneur as a valid career path.
  • UK is very self-deprecating, we don’t shout out about success. Unlike the US. What is happening here…Financial, fashion, 3d printing, You start to see strength from the traditional areas.
  • Changing priorities: we support all the way from ideas through to launching on the stock exchange. We cna support on the journey. We are going to be focusing on the skill side. About how to be great product managers, define specs, to understand consumer and market requirements.
  • Learning: looking at pulling together the programmes and make people more aware of them,
  • Silicon Roundabout: we are consulting with community, to understand what the changes and upgrades should be
  • Other places: we are working with 22 clusters across the country. We can represent them to gov etc
Jun 05

LeWeb London: The London Startup scene

Welcome to London!
Moderated by Ben Metcalfe, Co-host, LeWeb’13 London Co-Founder, WP Engine
Brent Hoberman, Co-Founder, PROfounders Capital, Chairman, made.com & Founder & Chairman, mydeco.com
Eric Van der Kleij, Head of Level39
Eze Vidra, Head of Campus, Google

Leweb London 2013 - Day1 morning;
Photo by “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”

BM: what changes have been happening in London?
BH: there are more startups. There are more investors. We have more US funds investing here. It’s claimed it is the most regulatory friendly environment. It leads the rhetoric! With politicians calling for people to come and start here. The talent pool is great, the buzz is better, but challenges on the route to IPO.
EV: the density of network has increased. Not until recently has it grown enough. It is becoming more normative to become an entrepreneur.

BM: how are you fostering entrepreneurs?
EK: yes, the density increasing. At Level 39, they are specialising in Financial, retail and smartcity tech. That’s what we are focusing on. London does that well, has areas that are specialising.
BH: the corporates are seeing the digital change and looking at how to get into it. One of the best ways is to work with start-ups and develop new things. We connect big corporates with the startups to bring them together. Provide a conduit.

BM: in SF, it seems to be anti-corporate. So this is different. Why would a start-up want to be involved in a corporate.
BH: for credibility, for scale. Advises startups to look for things that give them credibility. If you are in retail tech and get in with Tesco, that opens the door for everyone else.
EV: Campus is a not-for-profit option, we support all sort. Campus is a little experiment. It’s an ecosystem, it’s a support foundation. Google will benefit form a healthy system of startups and so will the city. This is an investment. We have resources and talent committed. We provide mentors. We bring thought leaders to inspire and educate startups.

BM: in an ecosystem for startups, how do you fuel the system, add investment. Felt that there are lots of money, but are they really investing.
EK: it is improving, wasn’t great previously. We are moving the needle in London, we are lucky that we have access to talent, to the whole of EU who can come here to start their businesses without visa issues. On investments, we have seen a higher number of US. True Ventures have done 5 deals in the UK. We have also improved the policy environment to encourage investment. That has unlocked a little more opportunity. We need to encourage smarter investments so Angels do not make mistakes.
EV: we’re also one of the world leaders in equity crowdsourcing. Completely legal to invest down to £10. It’s easy to start something. There are lots of company creation happenings,
EK: we should also try and take a look at the corporates. US acquire for strategic purposes, in the EU, it’s often for revenue. So how can we encourage corporates to strategically acquire, for talent, for growth, for investment, for new ideas.
BH: tech companies are good at this – the others need to take a look at what they are doing?

BM: so what next?
EV: more ambition, more aspirations. More giving back to the community, those who are making a success
EK: continue to sustain relationship with EU. So investors see us as a big market. To be seen as a single, addressable markets. So better collaboration
BH: I would echo the EU point. It needs a renegotiation of a single EU digital market. Also, change the attitudes to success and failure.

Jun 05

LeWeb London: An Intro

For the next few days, I’m at Le Web London which is all about the sharing economy. There’ll be lots of liveblogging!

Loic Le Meur introduced the 2 day programme, welcoming everyone and opening the sessions with his definition of the sharing economy.

A quick summary of his Slide Share talk:

There is a new consumer mindset, simplicity, community, participation and collaboration. There are new values. Sustainability, authenticity. Creating together. Greed is bad, but money is OK. They want to live with less. You are not what you own. New products, are they are designed to last. It’s about use availability, rather than ownership. Why own a DVD or CD, just do subscription. Access, not ownership.

Dec 06

LeWeb 12: Matt Mullenweg and Word Press

Liveblogged – so mistakes

Matt Mullenweg, Founder, Automattic & Om Malik, Founder & Senior Writer, GigaOM

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

WordPress powers 17% of top million sites. it’s fun but also a responsibility, wanted to create open source publishing but also wanted to create sustainable business. So Automattic – those are the services that pay. Growing it to be large, sustainable and independent. Some of the things that are going on with the platforms are ‘troubling’. Instagram has been a user focused company; with twitter and facebook, the primary users are advertisers. The person is just the product. You then have a conflict. And that leads to lack of user focus. Matt has always tried to set up business model that is aligned with the person, the end user, not advertisers. Does not approve of what happens with Instagram and Twitter. WordPress is kind of Swiss – works with all of the various platforms. That’s what users want, you can comment with any of the accounts. You can always come home to your blog. have used everything. But you always need that digital home, No matter what, I come back. So for my blog to incorporate some of the third party, then that’s fine. A lot of people use it to post to and then push to Twitter etc. Social networks provide distribution channels for blogs and blogs explode in popularity.

WP is open, so people can start to connect things to the blog. make their own plugins. (Om: what i see is these platforms trying to sell us ‘their’ web. But it will get to the point (again) when it is our web again. There is going to be a fight back)

Matt thinks that WP is interesting on its own, but what is more interesting is the connection between them. looking for them to help shape habits and behaviours. When there are multiple digital inputs, what intelligence can be brought into WP…it’s probably not going to be something that Matt will come up with. There are 20k plugins. They solve problems

Mobile is becoming more important for Om, so he’s asking what mobile does for Matt. Mobile makes them re-evaluate WordPress from ground up. The WP dashboard allows you to do a lot of things, but for new people,it can be intimidating. For mobile, you reduce, you get it down to key elements, and it can be beautiful. Automattic has more people on mobile apps that the core wordpress. Get about 80m uniques on mobile, and tend to generate more page views (eg with ipads), Expect a slow growth for mobile to be the main interface.

Om asks if WP wants to get into the devices (eg cameras etc). Matt is start seeing the first round of smart cameras. The Nikon one, you can run WP on it. You can get devices that autopost, but not into that. The ration between creation and consumption needs to be right.

Dec 06

LeWeb 12: Brian Solis and changing behaviours

liveblogged – with mistakes

Brian Solis, Principal, Altimeter Group

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

Two years ago, discussed the Human API, where you body is open to connections. The internet of things is not just devices and data. I like the concept of superheroes and experiences. You have an opportunity to define what we are going to do as consumers. Give an app to do something better than you did before or give great experiences. I want to talk to you about opportunities around the IoT. Data and devices are everywhere. How many of us are doing things because you can. But I want to challenge you to not just do something there is a problem..but how can you change my behaviour. That is the real opp, because otherwise it’s just data and tech

We are building an incredible human network, where people, info and experiences are coming together. People talk and worry about big data, but what are we doing with it that counts, to make something that matters. We are not even seizing the opps that we have today. Altimeter refer to this as the sentient world..it’s all coming together. But what about what we don’t see. The IoT connects devices and people…but what else. It is getting better…but it’s going to be generic. Labels that don’t mean a thing, that don’t inspire you.

What are we going to do with all of this in a way that matters. When thinking back to conversations about human API, we have the opp to make tech do something, to change things. But there has to be something more. We have devices that allow us to do things – open a door, change the temp. They are utilities. But what else can the do. It’s not just controlling things, it’s about surroundings and experiences. If the medium is the message, how can the medium influence how the message is perceived. It is the interpretation of the data that allows us to do something different. here,. we have the opp to find what that it is. Some of you will develop amazing utilities. But can you deliver amazing experiences.

THe Human ALgorithm – people are at the centre – are you making things easier, to do something, to have something. I want you to give me something that I didn’t know I want. I want you to know where I’m going when in the car…to advise and communicate. That idea and dreams are what I want you to do. It is that vision that takes you beyond the idea. It is about making the idea better in the first place. We have not tapped that human algorithm enough, it is you and me and the possible.

Jobs wanted to create an experience. He could take ideas and make them better. believe that he had cracked the code for the Human algorithm, He thought differently. The idea is to deliver experiences that ties together all of this information. All of the digital breadcrumbs we lay out are powerful, how do we connect them. So how about a fridge that knows when you are running out, to get things into your cart and have it done automatically. That is a utility, that is cool. But is that good enough? YOu have tech that is tracking you, connecting with doctors etc. But it’s still just the beginning. Fitbit helps you think about living a healthier lifestyle. But it connects you with other people to encourage you. So thinking about the experience about how it brings you closer to friends and family., You are designing an experience with the sole job of making you a better human being.

These life hacks are now just becoming part of life. As designers and investors we should look for more opps to change lives. We are getting re-wired with all this tech but who is the architect.Who thinks through the experiences. We should not be surprised when people do different things with products. It is about designing an experience to change behaviour -0 ie how babies interact with ipads and then magazines.

Experience architecture is brand new, it is something that we all get to decide. How do you make it better and change things. If you make a new experience, a life hack, that helps me become something I wanted to be or do something I could not before, then that is good. Experiences that trigger the changes…because of your designs. To change behaviour, to force new trends, to make people want to follow you.

To design the future of IoT, we need to think about filtering out the noise, There is not enough innovation and vision. How you can add social hooks that get people together, to get people to talk about it. To buy a lifestyle not a product. How we predict who people will react. Anticipate needs and inspirations.

It comes down to this. Life is about creating and living experiences that are worth sharing. It is about how people interact with the IoT. It comes down to you, as the EA. You are going to help me change my behaviour and have new experiences. You are not just developing products, services and solutions, you can be a Experience Architect to help me change the way I live my life.

Dec 06

LeWeb 12: Ramon WOW

Liveblogged – may be mistakes

Ramon de Leon, Social Media Marketing, Dominos Pizza

Markets for 6 Dominos stores in Pizza. Uses social media to drive sales! Told us his tips. Be prepared to create and share content. THat’s what people do – create and share content. He is prepared to capture all the time – has about 6 gadgets in pockets. People are in the mobile device – he organised a pizza last night via Twitter. He’s on all the time. His goal is to make people smile wherever it is. His goal today, is to inspire us. He looks for ways to make people feel good!

When Facebook hit his area in 2005, at the college. They went out and took photos at all the events, labelled them with brand and encouraged the students to post on the (then student only) Facebook. They still work hard with students. They worry about how they can help students – to keep them in business (and buying pizza). It’s about trusting your instincts – and believe in what you are doing, Be your own caffeine!!! Don’t be lazy…..Don’t be boring. If you are operating a brand and you are boring, then you need to increase your budget for advertising – advertising is the cost for being boring. Partner with the right people – go to battle with a wingman.
When he started with the tools, they defined it. They planned everything. They knew that social media fire can only be put out with social media water.

He REMEMBERS. he goes back and interacts with people who have had a problem. He still sorts out people they had a problem with 3 years ago. He goes out of his way to make experiences. The question is always ‘how does it make you feel’
Social media is all about people – not tech. Give up control, let customers speak. Throughout, you need to make sure your message is clear. Don’t get lost in the clutter, but don’t overdo it. And although content is clear, you have to get out and talk to people. You have to show the face.

RC comment: a passionate and committed marketer who loves what he does, loves engaging with his customers and giving them a brilliant time. Some great tips and brilliant examples of why he is successful

Dec 05

LeWeb 12: Mid-conference report

So half way through the conference and what are my impressions?

The internet of things is complicated. Is it just on your phone? Is it the quantified self? Is it toys? Is it switches and buttons that you put round your house? is it embedded processors in cars and coffee machines. One thing that is missing is some discussion of what do we mean. At Futures of Entertainment in MIT last month, there was time to discuss meanings and semantics and common language. Here, with the focus on show me something new now, we can be left foundering in meanings and definitions without clarity.

Just because you have a new product announcement that may have a finger in the real world does not mean that you can talk with authority about the internet of things. There are lost of short speeches, of talks from the big companies that have nothing concrete and credible to say about the theme but have something small to announce. Just because of the scale and the PR around this conference they need to be seen and need to be seen to say something. But my challenge is not to tell me about something new – as in a product – but get me to think something new. Challenge my preconceptions about the world

The internet of things is not a new topic – as Adam Tinworth says, other conferences look to the future, Le Web looks at the now and what is happening. And what we are seeing is commercialisation and the start of commoditisation. The barriers are coming down. I don’t need to be an expert in circuits and soldering to connect my cupboard to the web. I just need to buy the right part. It’s not yet open to all, but the toys and tools are getting there so that people are interacting now without considering it the internet of things, this new thing, it’s just life and how things happen. Being able to turn my lights on as I turn into my street or turn the car heating on remotely as I drink my coffee in the morning. Everything is becoming connected and the connections are becoming invisible.

So that’s it after a day and a half. Time to dig in and get typing for the rest of the sessions

Dec 05

LeWeb 12: Amber Case and Cyborg interfaces

Liveblogged – may be mistakes

Amber Case, Director of Esri R&D Center Portland, Cyborg Anthropologist & Former CEO, Geoloqi, Inc.

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

We have devices that need to be looked after, fed and comforted. With our phones, we are all cyborgs. It is a symbiotic interaction between you and a machine. It is about having devices that allow you to adapt you to environments. We have had physical extensions to self, like the hammer or the knife. Devices that look like the do something. Modern devices don’t look like they are supposed to do, the buttons are liquid. The devices are small. And they impact people in different ways.

The devices make things that were invisible visible. So what can you do if your phone knew where you were. This is an invisible button, when you go into a space then something happens. In the 70’s that was called ‘calm technology’. Tech that gets out of the way, it reacts as you go through your life, with no direct action. It has ambient imput. location, time, speed etc. Phones become a remote control for reality, your location has power. Ideas like geonotes – notes and info from people are where you are. Location based controllers. Lights on and off when go in and out of house. More invisible buttons.

One main area is about quantified self. About tracking moods and activity etc. But we have frictionless data gathering, but not interpretation. There’s lots of data but on different devices. We need a way of connecting it all, of interoperability, That is holding back the internet of things. A way of connecting and correlating things. Without needing to code. Making it easy./ When we correlate, that is when we get real meaning. That will drive insights.

Looking forward to the future of maps and location. We have all this data, how can we use this in new ways. Intelligent routing. What is the safest cycling route. What is the least windy route through a city. The best technology is invisible, ambient and gets out of the way. And that it is easy to connect with and understand the data.

Dec 05

LeWeb 12: the Data of Things

liveblogged – there will be mistakes

Dr. DJ Patil, Data Scientist in Residence, Greylock Partners

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

It’s about the data of things, rather the internet of things. The power of the things is that they produce data. The phone, the tablet, the PC. But there’s more. The fitbit, the jawbone. Things that measure sleep or activity – things that have a goal of measuing you. You can measure blood pressure and heart rate with the phone (and add-ons). We are becoming the internet of things.

Insights come from the blend of data and sensors. It starts to be about everything around you. The car, the planes. Plane engines are connected. Trains are connected. Internet of things is not just the things, it is also the processes associated with them.

Sensors are getting smaller and faster. Data we have loads, lots of information. But on Insights and Action, we score low. We are not drawing the conclusions and acting on them. We are not taking the next steps. We need to have 3 steps to make process.

We need to follow the best practice for design and interaction. So what do you want people to take away, what do you want them to do and how do you want them to feel . Stuff needs to lead us to the next step.

We need to make superpowers. We need to provide data and apps that make people feel good, that makes them feel in control. And if it goes away, it makes people feel powerless. Our internet of things needs to act like superpowers. They empower you to interact in a new way. to see the world differently. This thinking drives you to new products, a different ways of interacting with world. This is about augmentation, not just replacement. How do the devices augment you, make a superpower for us

Have to start thinking this as a new set of skills. A different way of analysing the data. Which needs a different type of Data Scientist. Who understand the things underneath the data. And how to put the human back into the data. How the human works in the lifecycle.

Dec 05

LeWeb 12: Nokia and Design

Liveblogged – there will be mistakes

Marko Ahtisaari, Executive Vice President, Design, Nokia – an Internet of Small Things

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

THe internet is everywhere around us, on a multitude of devices. With a bunch of sensors connecting them to the world. We move from multiple screens to more and more things that are on. in around us that are all connected. So what is the world we want to design and how do we interact with them. Look at the mobile – the screens are immersive, they take all our focus. We are looking at designing experiences that gets people’s heads up again. So this is tech to allow us to connect remotely but does not get in the way of us engaging with the environment.

The other is a return to the significance of place. We used to only call a place by phone. Then you moved to call a person. Every single person would have a phone. This is a critical change. But now the devices know where they are. And all of the things we will hav eon us, in us will be located in a place. So can we use location as a lens for the interactions. SO you need a model of place. And that is what we are building. We started 30 years ago, the path to build a real-time digital extraction of the world – Nokia HERE. It is a map that is calculated to you personally. It is a lot of work. Industrial, with cars mapping, with partner data from UPS etc. Need more and more data sources to build the model. And then we need the user data. How people are using it, what are they adding. We use that to enhance and improve the quality of the industrial data. Community is needed to get data for maps outside of populated areas.

For HERE to grow and improve, it needs to go horizontal, across multiple platforms and that is now happening. And we provide ways for people to build on it too. The main experience is on the phone, but we it is growing. Thinking as location as the lens, it changes what is built etc.

The goal is to make experiences that are connected to the world around us. That are personalised. Make them more heads up, more relevant to the environment. But that’s not all. So a deeper dive into what we make. We are a product of Northern EU, even though team is international. And that reflects in how we think. And one way is to refine what people do every day, making them better.

It shows in a commitment to purity. To making a product PURE. You take away everything that is not necessary. The other goal is to make products that are BUILT BETTER. Solid, well engineered. Deep collaboration between engineering and design. Then our products are HUMAN, never cold. It’s about how they feel in the hand. They are then always ADVANCED. The right technology.

(he then went on to launch the Nokia Lumia 620. looks a nice phone)

Dec 05

Le Web 12: Tuesday Notes

The first afternoon of the conference was characterised by lots of small talks – product announcements and quick snippets instead of any indepth look at a subject.

In general, my takeout from the first day of the internet of things is around household objects and toys – those are the main areas of focus. The costs are coming down and the components are started to be commercialised if not well on the path to commoditised. In the same way that web tools became easier and easier, not requiring any technical knowledge, then the connecting parts between the web and world become click and play.

Below, I highlight any interesting points from the various sessions on the Tuesday afternoon. (generally liveblogged)

Misha Lyalin, Chairman & CEO, ZeptoLab
The company have had 250m downloads; 50m+ MAU. 25% of US smartphones. It is the largest DAU in China. Tablets less than smartphones, <7% smartphnes in BRIC. Android is growing fast. They do multiple platform - web as well as phones. They take it to real world. They do merchandise - plush toys. They take the toys onto the phone (feed the toy). Do animations. Have new game. Going to do a live production (signed with Sony Pictures). Most ideas from internal process. Everyone in company can submit ideas. They prototype and test. Doing pretty well as a company. They are profitable. Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote
Have 10 countries with more than a million USA.Japan, China, UK, South Korea, Canada, Germany, Spain, Russia, Brazil. They grow organically, do little/no paid marketing. Their marketers focus on getting the audience wanting to use the the product through WOM. 66% use at work. for knowledge collection. 85% have brought it in themselves. Now they are launching Evernote business. In Phil’s opinion, business stuff is crappy. This is being launched to allow companies to discover the knowledge they have. Evernote business They are bringing in contextual searches, as you add info, then it brings out and highlights the related info in the system – hopefully to create knowledge. It’s not just storage – it’s an emergent search tool.

Tech Spotlight: Adam Wilson, Founder & Chief Software Architect, Orbotix
Uses a robot controlled by phone2 way wifi, 6 axis IMU, API and SDK, plus apps. It’s a robotic gaming system. This are games that are between physical and virtual. THer eis a whole continuum available to build games in this space., THis is mixed reality. .Nice demo!

Tech Spotlight: Carly Gloge, Co-Founder & CEO, Ubooly
Creative and educational creature. Uses iphones to control Listen and tell stories. VOice recognition. Games etc. To react with children
They get lots of data back about what the children do, so can amend the content and adapt to what is being used. They are building new content – eg travel packs, plus social elements. Building on ways for Ubooly to feed back to the parents about childs behaviour

Fred Potter, Founder & CEO, Netamo
Some things matter and some don’t. For his kid, his Teddy is important. For adults, the smartphone is important. If it’s not important, then it’s on your smartphone. Now more and more of your life goes onto your smartphone. The weather matters. Indoor matters – we spend 80% of time indoors. Air quality indoors is important. Netamo have created a weather station. For outdoors and indoors. Monitor C)2, pressure, humidity, noise, temperature. We send data to cloud and phone. Product announcement. Buildin gnetwork to help enhance wellness and help understand environment. If you don’t start by measuring things, you can’t change them

Tech Spotlight: Phil Bosoa, CEO, LIFX
LIFX is a lightbulb controlled with your smartphone. raised money through kickstarter. $1.3 in 6 days. It’s about different lights in your life. Sync lights with music. Wants to be disruptive in the lightbulb market

Tech Spotlight: Gil Blander, Founder, President & CSO, InsideTracker
So how is taking care of your body like taking care of your car..you have checkups. If you miss a oil change, it affects your car. You need to take care of the body. Body needs the same as a car – diagnostics. Building a way of monitoring your performance and whether if in your optimal zone. Then ideas to get you back to it if not there. Eg if low VIt D, then ideas to improve it. Will also give some total solutions, optimise the diet

Dec 05

Le Web 12: Google, Twitter and Facebook

Liveblogged – so mistakes

On Tuesday afternoon, representatives from Google, Twitter and Facebook were on stage. The Google talk was an interesting insight into how search works and the ways Google are thinking about ‘things’ – objects they can build search results around, where there is context. (couldn’t capture all of this due to some work stuff). Twitter and Facebook were both there to do minor product announcements. Twitter about extension of trend results to more cities and Facebook to launch Messenger for all – even those without a FB account (OK, that was not so minor)

Ben Gomes, Vice President & Google Fellow, Google – Moving from Strings to Things.

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

Google starting to understand context, synonyms, spelling etc. They have to move to understanding what is being talked about, the object. They need to start to treat key words as references to things. To start to understand this, have to create a mapping from keywords to a large number of things. Have 560m data set of people, data and things, with 18n connections. This allows you to give meaning. It is a graph that is created from things on the web etc. How do you bring them together coherently? Now when you type in something, you start to get a knowledge panel about it. If you look for a person, you get the data about the person, but also projects, the people involved and connected with them etc.

A big challenge is internationalising it. So look at US and UK. Football is different. ‘Chiefs’ means different teams in different countries. Plus languages. Launching in French, Japan, Germany, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese. A lot of it comes from free sources on the web, plus own databases. There are humans cirating underlying datasets, but algorithms bring it together. They stay objective as far as possible. Loic asks about quality, if Google are using Wikipedia. Google know there are problems – and allows you to report a problem.

Have been focusing on making search a lot richer. Eg Verbal search improving. We are working on translations etc. Building up options for natural language processing. This will help with internet of things. Eg ‘find me my keys’

Q: what is search in 5 years? The path we are on, the dream is the Star Trek computer. THat is the fantasy. But we have made steps. Speech recognition; natural language interpretation. As search gets better, then people start pushing it harder. Search will get smarter in ways that you won’t recognise as it’s happening.

Q: now trying the future? It goes from search with a query, but search where the question is implicit. We can guess with time and save you a lot of effort. You can see there is a lot of space, about predictive search. Translation can bring more information to more people….eg Hindi speakers have very little web content

Katie Stanton, Vice President of International Market Development, Twitter

Role is to grow the audience of Twitter outside of the US. So increasing discovery; working with partners around events. Build the team on the ground. Been working with media companies in France – TV companies here are ahead of many places. Being great to be working here, inspiring creativity. Available in 33 languages, accessible on many devices. In about 33 markets, you can see trends per country, and in some places cities. This is being expanded to more markets and cities.

Q: How do you guide your partners in being in the rules? There is a lot of creativity, so don’t bound this. We show best practices, what to do and not to do. The biggest lesson is to be genuine with themselves. We also share real-time analytics with partners.

Q: What diferences in cultures in how people using? Everyone comes to connect. Japanese use as SMS replacement. to communicate directly. We see Latin markets, being open and expressive and creating lots. About 60% create, 40% just consume. Latin markets over index on creation.

Q: We’ve seen lost sof things. What are you favourite examples? Like the everyday things, the human touch. Like that it humanises institutions.

Q: Does it mean that orgs\celebrities are becoming more savvy about comms? Yes, celebrities see that they need to be on these platforms.

Peter Deng, Director of Product Management, Facebook

Q: How is the shift to mobile? Big. Our product teams are now focused on a mobile first company. The teams now all take care of their mobile products now. We learn from mobile now and then bring it to web

Q: So everything is mobile first? Not going to say never (turn up on web first) but that’s the aim. That shift is as big as launching platform. We have taken the platforms..they have different affordances. The phone is different. They are always on and always with you and always logged in as you. They are interuptive. They can buzz you. That is different to what a PC can do. So as a result we are focusing on the messaging (and mobile) Affordances are about what the engineered object naturally does.

Q: Would you say the internet industry have viewed mobile as smaller desktop..but now FB is thinking different. Yes, Tradiitonally, it’s a scaled down version with less functionality., But now at FB, it is about the experiences, the mobile experiences. We’ve been investing in mobilke messaginf over the last 18 months. We have built FB Messenger etc..we see that people want more than the SMS. Up until today, we assumed that you had to be FB user to user Messenger and that it was just for your friends. Now we change it today. You can just have a Messenger account and you can use it with just a phone number (for free)

Q: So why does FB care about this? We want people to care about connecting with people, Messenging has always be care. We need to give people more than the type of messaging they are used to on the phone.

Q: So there are 2 ways this can help – it’s a pathway to Facebook. And to increase usage of existing members, to give them more people to communicate it? For dev world, a lot of times it’s just messaging and we are allowing this. This could lead to them being able to do more.

Q: now you need an email address to sign up?
yes, 6% of teen use email daily., 66% of them use SMS daily. So a different shift in comms habit. People have been known to get an email address just to sign up for Facebook

Q: Should the carriers be worried? We have worked closely with carriers. A lot of people use Facebook already – paying for the data. We work with 2 carriers to provide a reduce rate of data plan for those who just want to use Messenger.

Dec 04

Le Web 12: Muse, Soundcloud and SmartThings

Some notes from the shorter sessions on Morning 1 of Le Web

Ariel Garten, CEO, Interaxon

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

This is Ariel’s 3rd appearance. Now they finally have a product to announce. They do thought controlled devices. Shared with us about thought controlled technology 2 years ago. Last year, showed you how the tech connected you with your inner world. This year, it’s coming to everyone.
Presenting Muse – a headband, that reads your thoughtwaves and connects with your cellphone. It comes with an app and an SDK. First area is about control – goals, parameters etc. Then self discovery, about knowing more about your self. Thirdly, it’s about context. you can add emotions to your writing – it changes the font of the email (showed demonstration) . It’s available to buy now, delivering next spring. You can develop.

Tech Spotlight: Jeff Hagins, Founder & CTO, SmartThings

SmartThings – about making it easy for hardware connectivity. To make the physical world progammable. So showed how phone can be used to connect with multiple devices. (demo’d turning on Christmas tree lights from Paris). Can take same devices and use them for multiple ways. Eg contacts stuff, when things are opened. Can send text messages, or turn other things on etc. It commercialises web connectivity and makes it simple. Have IDE, app modules, arduino shield.


Alexander Ljung, Founder & CEO, SoundCloud

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

Every minute, 10 hours of sound uploaded. They reach over 180m people across the multiple platforms that their stuff is used. That’s 8% of internet population. Has grown a lot. Lots of different users. The White House (Obama) uses Soundcloud. Cousin uses it to capture the noises of his new born baby. They are hard at work on the next version They are getting +30% increased engagement. It is switching today.

First is about discovery, finding new stuff. Now has an EXPLORE section. Categories etc. Uses a lot of real time info. They have improved SEARCH. Rebuilt everything from ground up. Called it DISCORANK. Fast, relevant and personalised. They have RELATED sounds. Secondly is about how sounds bring people closer. New onboarding experience. Connects with other platforms to bring likes across etc.

Also launching section for creators, both existing and to encourage people to start creating. They are improving ways of sharing. Reposting etc. You can create sets of sounds. Finally, updating their mobile apps on Thursday.

Dec 04

Le Web 12: Scott Harrison and Charity:Water

Liveblogged – possible mistakes

Scott Harrison, Founder & CEO, charity:water

Le Web Paris Dec 2012

Will be talking about how he got into Charity:Water. The Water Crisis etc.
A little about him. Started as a nightclub promoter. Got paid to ‘promote’ things like vodka and beer – get photographed. Looked good – no heart to life. Decided to make a change. He was miserable. Had to move on, to make a difference. Decided to go help the poor – but denied by everyone he applied for. He had no skills that would be useful. He found someone who he could pay $500 a month and help them (mercyships.org). He became their photographer. Went to Liberia. Saw real poverty and issues. (lots more about what he saw). Signed up for another year. Started to learn what was making people sick – it was dirty water. Started looking at where people are drinking from – ponds, streams, dirty water. Worked with a guy who taught people how to tap into ground water. The team was doing the surgeries, the water guy was affecting 1000s people for a fraction of the money. Came back to NY..and knew needed to make up for last time. Had seen lots of problems..but kept coming back to the water. And charity:water was born

800m people don’t have access to clean, safe, drinking water. Up to 80% of diseases by bad water and lack of toilets. 40 billion hours are wasted fetching water in Africa every year. Imagine what can people do with the time. But this is a solvable problem. There are solutions. Wells, filter water, harvest rain etc. There are ways to get this fixed. If you can bring water to community, it can change everything. Healthier, more time. Chance for better life. To learn. to start businesses. UN says every dollar invested in clear water and sanitation, gives $12 back to economy.

The challenge set was to end the water crisis, to give help. But also to re-invent charity. Friends were not giving, they distrusted charities. They gave money and it went into a charity blackhole. So had to change that. Decided that ALL the public money goes to the charity, not the operational costs. Two accounts – raised money to run charity separately to the money to effect the charity. They made sure they had proof – made everything public, so all spend can be tracked. Thirdly, wanted to build a brand. There were no aspirational charity brands he wanted to be involved in. So decided to change this.

First, ran party, Then took all the money to village in Uganda, built wells. Sent the evidence back. Did product collaborations. Challenged the marketing. Did partnerships. Pushed social media. did galas differently. Everything was creative ways to get story out there. Then they stumbled on the big idea to drive support. This was ‘give up your birthday’. Donate to charity instead of presents. etc So turned birthday into a giving moment, an unselfish day THere are many, many stories about this. One such is that of Rachel https://www.charitywater.org/blog/rachels-gift/ What started out as ‘our story’ turned into ‘Their Story’. So continued to make everything transparent. Showed where all the money goes, exactly what the money that you raise builds Now we are moving on remote sensors – to connect with the things they are building. THe project is now completely funded. Have received grant. To develop and put the sensors out in the field, so you can see what is happening.

They have raised $77m. Have been growing every year. do not think of themselves as traditional charity – but as a start up. Last year, gave 725k people clean water. Want to talk about this problem being solved – go after 100m people in next 3 years. Need to raise $3billion. PLus $300m to run the projects. Are you willing to help, to make it your story? Can you get your company involved? Can you give up your birthday?