Feeback and trends from LeWeb 3, Dec.2007 edition

LeWeb3 event succeded for 2 days to make Paris the wordwide capital of the Web 2.0 trends.
Orange sponsored the event, and it has been a great opportunity to demonstrate the Next.com services (Pikeo, Soundtribes, BubbleTop, Whose Game as well as the Orange Island in Second Life) through a nicely set booth. In addition, i participated to the Start-Up Contest jury. Beyond the winners (Goojet #1, PlyMedia #2, G.ho.st #3, Erepublik and SplitGames both as #4), i noticed the following trends.
Definitely convergence again between Web and Mobile. Through Goojet of course which allows easy and fast creation of widget application on the web and transfer to the mobile. I still prefer though the 'mob-it' approach from NPTV we are supporting in the 'Orange Start-Up Program (OSUP)' since it enables web contents to be sent to a much broader existing handset base thanks to a Java based application approach. Also a convergence going from mobile to web with Zyb allowing you to transfer your phone contacts, your 'real' friends meaning your friends in real life, back to the web to start developing a social network dynamics on top of your real friends and not the opposite way i.e. trying to end up becoming real friends with virtual ones collected over time from your different web communities and social network services .
Still the confirmation of video as the emerging 2.0 format. In addition to the presence of Seesmic, Loic Lemeur's new start-up, interesting to note that PlyMedia was given the #2 position for its platform allowing publishers to add multi-function layers on top of a video content such as text, or ads or even interactivity through IM or Chats elements. I was also pleased to meet again Netineo (not part of the competition) who developed a great Live TV platform. Not mentioning the presence of Vpod.tv among the sponsors and exhibitors.
The virtual words and 3D platforms were also very much present. Both Erepublik and SpiltGames came in the top 5 of the contest thus enhancing the importance of games as a key market place. On our side WhoseGame got some good feedback on the booth. I am also looking forward to follow in 2008 what SongSong, member of the OSUP, and its new team, headed by Nicolas Gaume as CEO, will launch in the area of community based virtual universes. Finally with a different approach to Second Life (go and visit our Orange Island), the start-up Yoowalk presented a great way to 'Walk around the Web' in a 3D city where I, my avatar, walks along or inside the YouTube or Myspace buildings and therefore meet also people (visitors of the site at this moment) and then goes back home to further personalize its house with different contents appearing on the walls such as videos for instance.
Overall it was still quite striking that a majority of the 30 start-ups pitches were poorly presented. Presentation skills are still an issue and most of the jury members recognized that the entrepreneurs are not preparing this exercice well enough. It is probably not yet obvious to the young CEOs to choose between the Demo and sales driven approach or the 10 questions flow requested by the jury in an exhaustive and well ordered manner. The presenter has to face a different set of audiences with different expectations, the other visitors at the conference, its pairs and sometimes competitors, the VCs, the possible corporate and business partners and the jury, often made of a mix of the formers. There is definitely room for improvement in this area.
Regarding feedback, we were quite pleased to see that BubbleTop is more and more mentioned versus Netvibes by some bloggers who analyzed and compared the evolution of both products.
On the conference side I was very impressed by the presentation from JP Rangaswami, CIO Global Services at BT which describes the challenges and opportunities for existing corporations and their current organizations to welcome and embrace the next generation of workers who will be super 'trained' with these news ways of communicating, collaborating and sharing. Definitely to me one of the key dimension of what Web 3.0 might mean i.e. how this Web 2.0 wave will impact the Enterprise and which companies will create competitive advantage out of it while others will suffer from it ?

And the LeWeb3 2007 start-up competition WINNERS ARE...???

The companies selected as winners for this year's LEWEB3 start-up competition are:

1st place - Goojet
2nd place - PLYMedia
3rd place - G.ho.st

The honorable mention companies are: erepublik and Splitgames.

In addition to the main competition, there was a special jury prize awarded by competition sponsor, TF1. The winner of this prize, Holistis, will be granted a consulting session with senior leaders from TF1's Internet and Innovation team to help provide guidance on messaging and presentation skills.

Participating to Le Web 3 in Paris, december 11 & 12, 2007

Again this year Orange is one of the Le Web 3 event sponsors.
I am particularly glad to work with my friend Cathy Brooks and be for the second time one of the judges of the Start Up Competition. The results will be given on Day 2, december 12 at 10am.
See you there...

Soundtribes goes live on Second Life !

When the band Clint, Soundtribes member, goes live on Orange Island /Second Life, it sounds rock ! Clint goes Live on Second Life
Visit Orange-Island on Second-Life :
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Orange%201/191/134/30

Delivering A Successful Mobile Advertising Ecosystem

Participating to the Value Chain Panel Discussion: Overcoming The Challenges Of Delivering A Successful Mobile Advertising Ecosystem

Speaker at the Mobile Advertising Conference, November 27, Budapest

14.20 Determining How To Generate Usage And Mobile Advertising Revenue From Mobile Communities And User Generated Content

Partnerships between start-ups and big corporations

Please contribute to the Poll to better understand how innovation and partnerships are managed (or not) in most major corporations

The ultimate multimedia and real-time resume

I am talking about my Facebook profile.

The following struck me recently when i got head hunted for a job by a search consulting firm. Within the standard approach of such a consulting firm, after a first contact by phone or mail, they usually request you to send them the good old form including your education and experience fitted in an A4 page. It is then up to you to add or not a 'hot or not' nice corporate picture of your face if you have one and if you decide to enrich this conservative format: probably a black and white picture would actually be better if you think positive and bet many paper photo-copies of this great candidate profile will be made. In addition you can always try to show your wild side by writing some of your fun hobbies in the 'Interests' section with a series of boring and generic key words such as Music, Cinema or some exotic sports.

Of course this standard format is part of a traditional and efficient process where HR consultants have to look at tons of resumes and most of the time only spend a few seconds with their sharply trained eyes to analyze your potential out of these one or two pages.
Nevertheless, when i look at the amount of real time and multimedia information i put on my Facebook profile, the gap strikes me.
The same level as in their standard A4 i.e.
- my personal info: may be not my year of birth but up to the current status of my relationship. The 'it is complicated' status might not help by the way.
- my education and current job info.

But the 'pic' section is when it gets a bit richer with the tons of pictures i can put. And not only pictures of me but sometimes of my family and friends.

And it gets full multimedia when my interests are described with my favorite music the 'Hunter' can listen to and hopefully enjoy (now he or she can even discover music while working thanks to the search for candidates) and the UGC video of my favorite sports.

But it gets much more powerful when looking at my network of friends and contacts (the 'entourage' application would not look so good in the A4 form i guess) and the threads i either posted myself or commented, luckily when they are business related.

And all this content is updated in real time . I admit that posts made during office hours might be an issue...
My profile is therefore complete, multimedia, social network enabled, and real time. It's all there now.
With this is mind i do believe a whole new area of opportunities should appear for start-up companies, beyond Linkedin, either in the technical side or the service side to narrow the gap between the already available, self-structured and not yet analysed to its fullest potential data on each candidate and the traditional HR organisations and processes which have not yet changed to capture the new values generated by the 2.0 trends.

Orange in Second Life...

Orange in Second Life...

Speaker at Telco 2.0 in London on Oct.18

Agenda
Creating Propositions for High Value Segments of the Digital Youth market?
18th October, The Guoman Tower Hotel, London

New Opportunities and How to Address Them:
Social Networking, Mobile Internet, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Music, User-Generated Content: Understanding the End-User and Creating User Experiences that Sell
> Stimulus Speakers and Panelists:
- The Opportunity from Social Networking - Martin Duval, Director of Social Media & OSUP, Orange/FT Group
- Understanding End-User Attitudes, Lessons from the ‘Worldwide Lab’ - Liza Noonan, European Strategic Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent
- How are Students/Young Adults using ICT equipment today, How will they in the future? - Dawn Nafus, Research Anthropologist, Intel Labs