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! 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…

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. Photo by: “Luca Sartoni – http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/”…

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…

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 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.…

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

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

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) 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.…

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 ; 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…

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…

Liveblogged – so mistakes Matt Mullenweg, Founder, Automattic & Om Malik, Founder & Senior Writer, GigaOM 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…

liveblogged – with mistakes Brian Solis, Principal, Altimeter Group 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…

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…

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…

Liveblogged – may be mistakes Amber Case, Director of Esri R&D Center Portland, Cyborg Anthropologist & Former CEO, Geoloqi, Inc. 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.…

liveblogged – there will be mistakes Dr. DJ Patil, Data Scientist in Residence, Greylock Partners 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…

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…

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…

Some notes from the shorter sessions on Morning 1 of Le Web Ariel Garten, CEO, Interaxon 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…

Liveblogged – possible mistakes Scott Harrison, Founder & CEO, charity:water 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…