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Cranky on AOL and ICQ – who’s still on it?
December 21st, 2009
This week I joined John C. Dvorak, Sebastian Rupley, and David Coursey for another roundtable tech bash-a-thon better known as Cranky Geeks. All of us are old hats having covered the tech industry each for at least twelve years. On the show I asked the question, “Who still uses ICQ?” I honestly don’t know one person who does. One commenter to the show said there are still tons of ICQ users in Europe and it’s worth $200 million. I didn’t think it was worth more than $20. Are you still using it? With Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and tons of other communications tools with lots more users, why? Watch the 30 minute show here.
Filed under: Bloggers, Computing, San Francisco, Tech debate, Video | Comments
The cool and not-so-cool of LeWeb
December 10th, 2009
This week I traveled to Paris with a consortium of fellow bloggers, the Traveling Geeks. We’ve been meeting with tech companies and French entrepreneurs all week. The tour ended with attendance at LeWeb, a two day tech conference produced by tech entrepreneur and Seesmic founder, Loic Le Meur. Here’s my summary of the best and the worst of the event, plus I included some other stuff experienced from the Traveling Geeks tour and Paris in general. For a summary, make sure you watch my end of day show reports from LeWeb (day 1, day 2) and my other end of day report from the Traveling Geeks tour.
Cool – Accordions, Accordions, Accordions – There are plenty of street performers in Paris. Most of them are carrying accordions. On my first day I saw four sets of performers hop onto a train car, play a few tunes, and jump off. On one train a duo jumped on with an accordion and a stand up bass. My favorite was the karaoke accordionist that would also take a mic for a solo himself to sing “Just a Gigolo”.
Not-so-cool – The first day, the conference wasn’t about real-time web – The theme of LeWeb was heavily advertised as being about real-time web. That didn’t seem to be the case with most of the companies demoing, and except for a presence of Twitter and Facebook, and some mentions, there was no major discussion about real-time web on the main stage. After day one we all started asking ourselves, “Where’s the discussion about the real-time web?”
Cool – On the second day, finally the real-time web – If you were interested in the real-time web you could have completely skipped the first day of LeWeb and just come on the second day. Obviously everyone was eager for the real-time discussion because the deep discussion room in the back of the hall was packed for the event’s eventual real-time web agenda. I was very eager to learn more since I just published an analyst report this week on the subject (“Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web” 20-page PDF). The presentations and conversations on real-time were truly excellent, beginning with some great actionable advice from Jeremiah Owyang. On the main stage, Queen Rania of Jordan, who has become an Internet celebrity, spoke about the real-time web, specifically making a call out to the audience to use the real-time web as activism to change the world.
Cool/Not-so-cool – Moderators not agreeing with the topic – Andrew Keen, Author of Cult of the Amateur, led the panel entitled “Content vs. Conversation: The Debate over Real-Time Search.” His attitude towards his panelists from TweetMeme, Netvibes, Collecta, and OneRiot was pretty much “Why the hell do we need real-time search?” While I think it’s a good idea for a moderator to create some controversy (see article: “More Schmooze, Less Snooze: How to Deliver the Most Talked About Conference Session” 6-page PDF), Keen didn’t seem to be too savvy on the real-time search market and he didn’t let go on his opinion. There is a ton of value of real-time search (see business models section in my real-time search report), and until the end of the discussion he kept saying “Why would someone want real-time search?” He was constantly putting the panelists on the defensive.
C0ol – Double-sided name badges – One of the most irritating conference annoyances is name badge flip. Wear a lanyard with a name badge and inevitably it will twist around hiding your name. I must be a master because I think it’s more often than not for me. LeWeb is the first conference I’ve been to where they smartly printed your name on both sides of the badge. Brilliant.
Cool – Our former President is wrong. The French are unbelievably nice – This entire week has been fantastic and the Traveling Geeks have been treated unbelievably well. Everyone. From the people who invited us to any random Parisian I ran into, I’m very impressed with how nice and welcoming everyone has been. Thanks.
Cool – The French speak English – It’s been a while since I’ve been to France and I was amazed at how many people speak English. LeWeb is a conference in Paris, but it’s completely in English. The all-English conference is an obvious incentive to draw people from 40+ countries, most notably the U.S., to the conference.
Not-so-cool – I don’t speak French – I’m a pathetic single language learner. Most people in Europe know at least two languages. And most of them have learned English for lazy clowns like me that haven’t bothered to learn another language.
Cool? – Non-stop photo and video recording of the Traveling Geeks – I think this is cool, or just unbelievably dorky so it’s become cool again. For the Traveling Geeks’ first dinner in Paris everyone was taking pictures the moment we sat down at the table. There were probably 500 photos published from that dinner. And that’s continued throughout the trip. Guilty myself, here’s a video I shot of all the geeks on the Metro with all their digital image recording equipment. For more, here are all the photos taken by the Traveling Geeks crew (full screen).
Not-so-cool – LeWeb is overhyped – Back in San Francisco, I had heard so much about how fantastic and wonderful LeWeb is. I had a lot of hope for this conference, and was overall disappointed mostly because of the hype. The number of demo stations of new companies was anemic and didn’t represent real-time web as I had hoped. While there were heavy hitters on the main stage, they weren’t revealing. But that’s always the case. The bigger your presenters at your show, the bigger the hype. But the bigger they are, the less they’ll talk openly. Often that has to do with working at a public company. But I think the issue is millionaires stay millionaires by not telling their secrets to a group of more than a thousand strangers. There were a few exceptions.
Cool – Credit card scanning on your mobile device – Jack Dorsey of Twitter demoed his new project, Square, a small box that connects to your mobile device’s audio out port and allows you to scan your credit card allowing for quick and easy credit card transactions via mobile devices. While cool, and can work on a huge number of devices, is it really practical? Are people really going to carry around this little black box wherever they go? I think the next step will be to embed this credit card reader in new mobile devices.
Cool - Tim Ferriss on “How to Create a Following for $10K or Less” – One of my major complaints about most of the main stage presentations was the lack of actionable advice or telling the audience something we didn’t already know. I’ve seen Tim Ferriss present before and read his blog and he always delivers on great actionable advice. This was an updated presentation of one I had seen at WordCamp in San Francisco. One tip is to simply focus on the blogosphere and key people in the blogosphere and look for the long haul. Begin by reading Kevin Kelly’s article “1,000 True Fans.”, said Ferriss.
Not-so-cool – Who didn’t pay to go on the main stage? – It appears about half of everyone who appeared on the main stage (panelists possibly excluded) paid in some manner to be there. It could be more. It’s obvious because so many sponsors were on the main stage. None of these seemingly paid appearances were disclosed. I’ve been to plenty of conferences where there were paid presentations. Many disclose that information in the printed programs with the note, “Sponsored presentation.” For a community that keeps talking about the need for “authenticity” online, I think it would be nice if there was some authentic disclosure as to who did and didn’t pay to be on stage.
UPDATE: Loic Le Meur responded and emphatically denied this claim. Saying that none of the people on stage paid to be there. See comments below for more.
Not-so-cool – LeWeb is an old boys’ network – I was thinking this and then I heard it repeated by a few of my colleagues. Loic gets many of the same people to present, interview, and moderate, such as Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington. Since they’re friendly off stage, their on stage presentation has this sense of being an old boys’ network. It’s not the most welcoming feeling for the people in the audience. People were definitely unnerved by it.
Not-so-cool – Chris Pirillo is the Rush Limbaugh of the Web 2.0 community – Rush Limbaugh, a conservative syndicated radio host, became popular because he’s a credible voice that confirms people’s existing beliefs. This is exactly how I felt about Chris Pirillo’s presentation about community. Better known as preaching to the choir, my sentiment was evidenced by the number of tweets that echoed “I agree with him” rather than “I learned something.” Here’s an edited sample of tweets to prove my point: My favourite quote of the day :-), Brilliant!!, i love it!!, Chris Pirillo is right, I’m loving Chris Pirillo’s presentation, The Reverend Chris Pirillo is wrapping up. He actually made be blurt out jesus christ, and Halle-freakin-lujah. One other tweeter saw what I was seeing: Chris Pirillo is Great speecher but only brought self-evident ideas.
I had a conversation with Chris about this last night and I simply said to him that I think he could do better. He has done better. He knows how to educate an audience as a former host of TechTV’s “Call for Help” and in previous presentations. I noted his vision six years ago that RSS would be the Holy Grail. He was right. That’s what I wanted to see at LeWeb and he didn’t deliver. He told us what we already knew which was we need to stop focusing on the tools and think about the importance of community. He didn’t think the audience knew that. The general populace yes, but the LeWeb audience? They know. Pirillo just led a revival to confirm their beliefs.
Cool - A scannable and identifiable model of Paris – Forget Google Streets, through a project called Terra Numerica by a research group called CiTu, they’ve completely scanned and identified elements all around the city of Paris. This information is now in a database that’s been used by developers to create fly-throughs, simulate a flood’s effect on the city, and test security cameras around the city. Watch a video of the fly-through and my interview with Maurice Benayoun, Artistic Director of CiTu. This was during our Traveling Geeks tour, not LeWeb.
Not-so-cool – Europeans’ fear of failure – While we were visiting the startup incubators I heard multiple times that there’s a European culture of fear of failure. This is quite unlike in the U.S. where failing is a learning experience. In the U.S. we’ve actually got a conference entitled FailCon where we learn from each others’ failures. For some, failure is a badge of honor. I remember talking to one entrepreneur who proudly told me about his seven failed startups.
Not-so-cool – Robert Scoble’s outburst at the French entrepreneurs – Well known blogger Robert Scoble joined the Traveling Geeks briefly for one event prior to LeWeb. At this series of presentations by French entrepreneurs, Scoble sat down and immediately wanted to know everyone’s Twitter address. They didn’t have any and instead of just accepting that fact and listening to their presentations, he started yelling and swearing at them telling them they must get on Twitter. He argued that it’s the only way he can promote them to his 100K+ followers. Ubergizmo blogger, Eliane Fiolet, asked Robert, “Could you say that a little nicer?” Scoble responded, “No.” His childish and rude response created a pall over the room and the rest of the Traveling Geeks were very unnerved by his behavior, as it spoke badly for our group. I should note that Robert is a really nice guy and it’s not normal for him to behave like this.
Extremely cool – The Traveling Geeks – I only knew a few of the Traveling Geeks before I went on the trip and I was really impressed by the entire group. Everyone was incredibly friendly, nice, and welcoming. I want to say an enormous thanks though to the lead organizer of the event, Renee Blodgett, and also to Sky Schuyler, and Eliane Fiolet for all their work. I look forward to being on another trip with them in the future. Here’s a silly animated video of us, plus a video of Geeks on a Train, and make sure you check out the thousands of photos (full screen) taken on the trip.
Some of my other coverage of the event.
- Dating tech service Wuiper offers a fun way for people to meet
- Touchable movable video
- How Dell handles customer service and sales through social media
- Parrot’s new Wi-Fi Picture Frame and Wireless Speakers
- Dick Tracy Watch from LG/Orange
- Pearltrees: Bookmarking Program for Organization Lovers
Creative Commons photo attributions Olivier Ezratty, Robert Scoble, Chris Heuer, Matthew Buckland, Rodrigo Sepulveda, and Blogowski.
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Dating tech service Wuiper offers a fun way for people to meet
December 9th, 2009
Unless you’re incredibly suave, it can be difficult to impossible to meet someone you want to date. Just walking up to a stranger in a public place and thinking of a way to strike up a conversation and make a connection is not easy. That’s why we have a market for dating technologies, such as online dating sites and devices. All dating technologies have one simple goal: finding a simple, fun, and non-threatening way for people to meet.
Wuiper (pronounced “Whipper”) is a social networking site where people are introduced through physical numbered tags that you can stick on someone’s bag. Geared towards high school students, I can see this being a fun way to leave “secret admirer” messages. Messages can be sent and retrieved via an SMS or via the Wuiper site. All these tags have a code that you use to send a message to initiate a conversation. And then you can continue the conversation through the Wuiper site or take it online or offline.
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Touchable movable video
December 9th, 2009
While at LeWeb in Paris, I caught a quick video demo of a cool application by Eeple, a French web development company Eeple. Built in Silverlight, it’s touchable movable video.
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Accordionist and Bassist on the Paris Metro
December 9th, 2009
I have seen so many accordions in Paris, especially on street cars on the Paris Metro. I’m still waiting for one of them to play “Lady of Spain.” This was the first time thought I saw a stand up bass on a train. And I complain about having to drag luggage. I must say the music makes Metro travel a lot more pleasant. Thanks Paris.
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Traveling Geeks in Paris: Day 1 video report
December 8th, 2009
Here’s my day one report for the Traveling Geeks trip in Paris, a week long tech tour that culminates with two days at the Web 2.0 conference Le Web. The whole group was fighting jet lag and minimal sleep, but we got to see lots of great new French tech and to listen to many entrepreneurs at the early stages of their products. Watch the report. Links to items mentioned can be seen below.
- Pearltrees bookmarking organization and sharing program.
- Photos so far from Traveling Geeks tour (full screen), including the hundreds from our first dinner. Check out the Traveling Geeks photos .
- Photo of the crappy Traveling Geeks pens.
- psiXpda, small computing device.
- Video interview with Artistic Director of CiTu on Terra Numerica.
- Feedbooks - Standard distribution of eBooks.
- .MXP4 – Interactive audio format.
- Orange’s video search 2424actu, geoblocked outside of France, but will be available sometime in January 2010.
- Video of Dick Tracy watch from LG/Orange.
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What can you do with a scannable and identifiable model of Paris?
December 8th, 2009
At Silicon Sentier, a startup collective in Paris, I interviewed Maurice Benayoun, Artistic Director of CiTu a research lab for artistic projects. One such project, Terra Numerica, is an easily digestible and programmable scan and index of the city of Paris for which others can use the data to develop applications. City planning and management examples include:
- Walk through Paris virtually like you would in the real world.
- Paris had a flood in 1910 and it’s feared that it’s going to happen again within the next ten years. Simulate the flood and see what the effects of such a disaster would have on the city.
- Virtually raise and lower buildings. See what views would be like.
- Since the database knows where all the cameras are all over the city, you can play a game where you run through the city avoiding security cameras. I asked Benayoun, “Couldn’t this tool be used by criminals?” Watch the video for his response.
I was very interested in Benayoun’s presentation because the city of San Francisco has been doing things similarly with DataSF, which is a series of open city information databases that developers can utilize to create useful applications. Examples include San Francisco Crimespotting and EveryBlock for monitoring city services block by block.
Terra Numerica is a more unified project of one giant powerful database with easily identifiable and programmable information. The database was created through three scan levels: video drive throughs (Microsoft Bing maps), laser scans, and flyover scans. Through all this scanning they can draw a 3D map of the city but more importantly they can also identifying objects (e.g. doors and security cameras) that become part of a very usable database. Check out this very cool video demo.
Benayoun said the goal is to create commercial ventures from all of CiTu’s projects, including Terra Numerica. Their next in line project is Terra Dynamica where they plan to identify and track everything that moves within a city (e.g buses, cars, and people).
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Free report “Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web”
December 7th, 2009
Call it good or bad timing, but I just happen to finish a report on real-time search on the day that Google announced its rollout of its integrated real-time search results within its general search results. While I had to do some last minute edits, the report is done and I’m making it available to everyone for free. It’s entitled “Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web.” You can download the PDF, or view it right now on Scribd.
I’m giving the report away for free. All I ask in return is some feedback. Positive, negative, but whatever it is, please make it constructive. I’m eagerly learning as much as I can about this subject. This is an area that I think is going to grow like crazy, and we’re only looking at a thumbnail’s worth of what is yet to come.
Here are some highlights from the report.
- Real-time search could steal away as much as $40 billion from traditional search. Google and Microsoft’s announcement to incorporate real-time search results is a good first step to prevent losses.
- The definition of real-time search is far more varied than the definition of traditional search. You’ll see more variations in what is considered a real-time search engine.
- All real-time search engines are far from equal. The major reason is they don’t index the same content.
- Real-time search engines that only index Twitter are missing up to 90 percent of the real-time web.
- One exciting new aspect of real-time search is the creation of real-time programming that will be complimentary and competitive with traditional programming (e.g. TV, radio, print, and online).
Enjoy and let me know what you think. David
December 10th, 2009 CORRECTION: The article mentioned that real-time search engine Wowd required a plugin for its use. That is not true. Current report is updated to reflect that it’s not required.
Real-time Search and Discovery of the Social Web
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Parisian accordionist sings “Just a Gigolo”
December 7th, 2009
Here’s another video from the karaoke accordionist I saw in Paris on my free day before the beginning of the Traveling Geeks French tech junket. While the accordionist handed the mike to others to sing while he accompanied, he took over to sing “Just a Gigolo” (history of song) all in English.
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Karaoke accordionist in Paris
December 7th, 2009
The Parisians know how to have a good time. With a free day just before I met up with the other Traveling Geeks, for our junket through some of the latest in Paris tech and Le Web conference, I took a day to wander around Paris. At a weekly Sunday Parisian street fair, I stumbled across a karaoke accordionist. He had a slew of song sheets out for people to pick a tune. Even though it was raining, a small tent was pitched and the locals were dancing along getting into the tunes. Make sure to watch the other video, Parisian accordionist sings “Just a Gigolo.”
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