Saluting the people formerly known as "consumers"

After getting bored with LeWeb3's own version of Buzzword bingo during a couple of the sessions this morning, I was very much drawn into what Gerd Leonhard had to say about the future of media.

Not that his session wansn't peppered with some of the terms of BS Bingo, but unlike some of the others presenters, he actually used these to add to the conversation something more than fluff.
Some of the highlights:

• You don’t make money with protection. You make money with engagement.
  In other words. We’re all pirates.
• Control – the most crucial subject for the future of media. The distribution channels are changing. [Remember Porter's Five Forces?]
• Radio was illegal for 15 yrs in Europe and 20 yrs in the US. The solution? Change the law. This was catalyzed by none other than the people... that is, the people formerly known as consumers
• User generated content...is really, user generated context
  

Israeli startups win second and third place at LeWeb3 startup competition

Congratulations to G.ho.st and PLYmedia (with prize, below) for being the runners up at LeWeb3's startup competition this year. You make us all proud!

The other winners: SplitGames, Erepublik, and the first-place winner, Goojet.

My Buzzword (or Bull?) Bingo for LeWeb3

Note the prominence of the word storytelling: a concept I strongly believe in, but am disappointed in its lack of use during presentations by the speakers who promote the idea in the first place.

Finally, what's missing from the picture? "Bubble." Interestingly enough, I have not heard it mentioned thus far (26 hours into the conference).

The side feature bears a Company

Twitter's Evan Williams got top marks for an early-morning presentation today. Simple. Short. Fun. Memorable. Come to think of it, many of the same principles he applied to Twitter.

The essence is simple. Pull out features, leave only what you absolutely need. But, as the Scobleizer asked, how do you know when to stop taking out features?


"Don't know when," Evan Williams answered, "but carefully and slowly." When they felt they needed them, the users themselves returned more features (the Hash/tags, the @/link, Twitterific, etc).

The interesting part of the features is the idea that each one can be turned not only into a separate product, but into a separate company. Twitter started from the "status" line of instant message clients. Feedburner is another example - and now a $100 M company.

(photo: the main conference hall before it filled up this morning)

Chag Chanukah Sameach from LeWeb3

Thanks to Corey and Jeff and Amber and Sarah and the others who came together to light the eight candle at LeWeb3. Chag urim sameach from the City of Lights.

More on the the power of storytelling

An inspiring lecture by TED’s June Cohen focused on behavior, not technology. Only downside - she didn't tell it as a story, unfortunately. Still, some good points:

• We are living through a profound shift in the way people consume and provide media. But we're not really evolving. We're actually reverting to the natural media.
• A campfire: this is actual media. It's where people interacted. Passing on gossip. Passing on stories. Media has always been social, participatory.
• From that standpoint, the idea that media is created from up high and it’s dictated to you is depressing. Americans over the age of 50 watch an average of 40 hours a week. That’s isolating. That’s a full time job
• In the last 50 years, "Speech" has become boring. Not inclusive, not engaging as the 1960s media that Marshal McLuhan gave.
• But we're now re-discovering the participatory nature of media. It's personalized, not just broadcast from the high towers of the majority. And it's going on without media conglomerates. And with tremendous impact.

Go to the TED site to see June Cohen's presentation notes for this keynote.

P.S. My version of the personalization of technology: at the Nokia stand in LeWeb3, they give you a day's test drive of the new Nokia internet tablet (so what if it's also a phone) for free. First thing I loaded? My blog, with the pics of my kids.

Lessons on Innovation from Google - CCS

What does Google have to say about Innovation? Here's a Google product manager's view:

1. Culture: this is the most important one. According to Nelson Mattos, Google puts users first; profitability is "an afterthought." Also in the Google credo: create a global skills base, as only local engineers will be able to understand the nuances of their geographies (Orckut big in Brazil, blogging big in France but not Latin America, etc) Finally, maintain a non hierarchical structure
2. Collaboration: Some secrets are more valuable when shared
3. Speed: Fast is better than slow. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be fast beating slow. At Google we absolutely encourage people to move at high speed, build a prototype, launch immediately and get feedback directly from the users. And improve over that.
   

Beyond Red Wine/ White Wine geography - or storytelling in a tech world

Just finished a fascinating lecture by Hans Rosling (founder of Medicine Sans Frontiers, and now, Gapminder) on technology, culture, diversity and storytelling. Lots of thougths to ponder:

• "We thought we’d produce pages where people would lean forward and click.
  That does not work. You need to tell stories."
• "There are 10 thousand watchers for each clicker"
• "Every country that has gotten richer and healthier has done it at the expense of CO2 emissions. It’s you, the OECD that has destroyed the atmosphere. But we forgive you. Nobody knew what they were doing. But on the condition that we now count per capita. How can we make Chinese public perceive it as a problem when we are emitting so much more per capita?"
• But we need the storytellers on top of this. It’s the storytellers that work.
• "Start to look at the world as the place where all humans are equal – in choices, in opportunities
• "We don’t want everyone to eat camembert in this world, to eat big macs. Bloggers, consider how all these blogging communities may enforce the ethnic homogeneity of Western Europe, NA. Create contacts elsewhere."

Take Hans' neighbor. He knows all about wine: temperature, food that goes with it, regions, taste. But he also only knows two only types of countries: “western” and “third world”

Now take Hans. He knows two types of wine: red and white. But he knows over 200 countries.

The main problem, says Hans, is that too many people that know wine, and too few people that know the world. Come study the world.

Instant Culture

What does one do on a cold, rainy Monday afternoon in Paris? After the compulsory Eifel Tower 5 min Kodak moment from Trocadero (and souveniers for the kids), it is de-rigeur to hop onto Line 1 of the Metro, straight to the Louvre.

Don't care that they're closing in 60 minutes. Doesn't matter that they won't rent me a guide at this hour, or that I can't waste time to drop 3 extra layers of clothing in the cloakroom. I'm in Paris and I'm entitled to pay my 9 euros and get my guaranteed dose of instant refinement.

So yes, I managed to catch a couple of Raphael and Delacroix and even a sneak peek at the Crown Jewels as I whisked through the halls of the Denon Gallery following the hordes. And when I finally reached my destination, I felt a sense of accomplishment.

The Mona Lisa. Right across the room, peeking at me from amongst the sea of tourists snapping from every angle.

Now, my turn... Click! I have a "real" snapshot of the Gioconda, flash reflection and all. This proves it, I'm uber chic now. Effect should last a full 72 hours.

To "Hal" With Privacy

Scott McNealy's utterings caused a stir back in the late 90s when he declared that privacy is dead. Almost a decade later, we hold this truth to be self-evident...

At one of the sessions at the Online Information conference in London today, Invisible Web author Chris Sherman shared the association of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Google's privacy "control" button.
One is green. One is red. Both watch and learn all the time. But we hope that the former, unlike its movie-like counterpart, does not end up killing anybody.

For the record, Chris is one of the least paranoid among the search gurus. He believes that the benefits gained from personalization (which can be as mundane as typical Amazon recommendations) far outweight the threats. Or continuing McNealy's reported quote, "get over it."

The thrill of the chase

One byte from Marydee Ojala's talk yesterday at the Online Information 2007 conference in London:

Information professionals get a kick out of the scavanger hunt. They enjoy the thrill of the chase, the process of finding the structure in the unstructured.

There is a lot of training that goes into this - taxonomies, search techniques, specialized search engines, tons of commands, and of course, interviewing skills. But the basic quality is there: loving the process that leads to the aha moment.

Well, apparently the conference organizers at the Olympia have taken this a little bit too seriously when they planned the maze of corridors and elevators that lead between the conference session rooms and the exhibit floor :-) But other than the lack of proper wireless internet connection (basically, forget it), a pretty enjoyable experience. More coming soon.

Social Graces 2.0

Dear A.bb.y,

I need your help. I don’t think I’m doing things right. The more time I spend online, the more confused I get about social norms 2.0.

For example,

- Am I expected automatically connect in LinkedIn or ning if somebody responds to a post on a professional mailing list? Or should I save those only for facebook or myspace?
- And will people be offended if I add them to my “limited profile” list? Or don’t allow them to see my LinkedIn connections?
- Maybe that explains why I don’t have enough friends. My facebook stats say over 70, but hey, my (20-year old) sister has 632 friends, and counting. Is my social life over at 31?
- Maybe I should be a better friend. Am I the only one not throwing back friendship balls, traveling bears or playing Texas Hold’em?
- I got “accepted” to Pownce the other day! But then I didn’t find any friends there. Does that mean I don’t have cool friends?
- And a web 1.0 question that still puzzles me… When in doubt, should I break the chain? My friend Esther Solomon published a nice op-ed piece in Haaretz today against automatic chain mail forwarding (“England wants to ban Holocaust studies!”) But what if I’m responsible for not helping find a lost child’s parents or passing on a warning about cancer and deodorants?

Thank in advance,

A very confused Vivi

P.S. Just occurred to me… wanna be my friend on Pownce?