Fernando Madeira, Co-Founder & CEO, Terra Latin America The Latin American population online is redefining the use of the Internet and next Twitter or Google will likely be born in Latin America. The stats speak for themselves: 30 million people have escaped from poverty in the last seven years, and 15 million more by 2014. [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Fernando Madeira, Co-Founder, Terra’.
Daniel Ek, Co-Founder & CEO, Spotify and Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb Daniel started his first company when he was 14. Sweden was known for piracy, because of Kazaa and Pirate Bay. Because everyone had broadband and it was super fast, consumption existed before services did, so pirate sites had lots of users. Spotify was [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Daniel Ek of Spotify’.
Ben Parr Three trends to watch: Local social networking. This is about groups and about communities. It’s the local meetup club. It’s the local library users. The social enterprise is also about local networking. Convergence of entertainment and digital. The convergence of Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Things like TV integrating the web more into their shows. The [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Ben Parr’.
Kiran Bellubbi, Founder & CEO, 955 Dreams The price of an iPhone app is about the same as a really good quality French pastry or even baguette. However, mediocre apps spoil the environment for all developers. Mediocrity is the enemy. It kills great ideas. One mediocre ideas leads to another, which leads to another, and [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Kiran Bellubbi, Founder 955 Dreams’.
Niklas Zennstrom, Founding Partner & CEO, Atomico and Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb Niklas runs a $200 million fund which has invested in 50 companies. They don’t look for any particular subsectors. They look at opportunities in all kinds of sectors. When Google entered search, all the existing search engines pivoted into portals because that’s [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Niklas Zennstrom of Skype and Atomico’.
Hosain Rahman, Founder & CEO, Jawbone and Yves Behar, Founder, Fuseproject Moderated by Om Malik, Founder, GigaOM Yves Behar is perhaps best know for his work with OLPC and with the Jawbone. Good design accelerates the adoption of ideas. Essentially, a startup is an idea. Startup ideas need design thinking. You need to develop moments [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Om Malik interviews Yves Behar of Fuseproject’.
Live blog post from LeWeb 2011: Deb Roy, Co-Founder & CEO, Bluefin Labs There are four principles to Deb Roy’s concept of predicting learning: Record everything and store this data Develop machine learning algorithms to understand the data Visualize those patterns to create understanding Leverage those understandings to better certain areas of society Language is the defining [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Deb Roy, Co-Founder &CEO, Bluefin Labs’.
Live post from LeWeb: Marissa Mayer, VP, Product Management, Google and MG Siegler, General Partner, CrunchFund, inteviewed by MG Siegler of TechCrunch This is Marissa Mayer’s fourth consecutive year speaking at LeWeb. MG Siegler interviews her in a less confrontational manner than Mike Arrington last year, but alas neither he nor Mike got any stunning new [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Marissa Mayer, VP at Google’.
Carmine Gallo, Author, 7 Principles of Innovation based on the “Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs.” Jobs and Wozniak started Apple in the spare bedroom of Steve’s parent’s house, before getting too big and moving the business down to the garage. What the world needs is more jobs … Steve Jobs. It’s fair to ask ourselves, [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Carmine Gallo, Author, Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs’.
Live post from LeWeb 2011: Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote and Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb Orange announces that all their customers will receive a premium subscription to Evernote as part of their service, starting in Spring 2012. Phil talks about building Evernote as a “100 year” company. They were just named as Inc. [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Phil Libin, CEO Evernote’.
Live blogging from LeWeb 2011 Bill Gross, Founder & CEO, Idealab “Learning From Failure: 20 Years of Entrepreneurial Lessons in 20 Minutes” Bill Gross has raised over $1B over the years. In a very fast-paced presentation, he shared 12 lessons of being an entrepreneur, of which I captured 9 … 1. Market Power Rules — Try to [...] Read more – ‘LeWeb11: Bill Gross, CEO Idealab’.
In many ways, Paris is home to me even though I am not French. I happened to be born in Paris and although I didn’t live here in my youth, I studied in French Lycées in various countries as my father fulfilled his career. Much later on, I lived just south of Paris in Fontainebleau, [...] Read more – ‘In Paris for LeWeb11’.
We’ve got a busy four months tech-wise in South Florida, with plenty of startup, entrepreneurial, and tech events in additional to regular club meetups. Here’s a roundup of the ones that caught my eye. October 25 Social Media Club South Florida: “Social Media and the Law” As millions publish their personal and professional experiences online, social media [...] Read more – ‘Roundup of great startup and tech events in South Florida, Fall 2011 and Spring 2012’.
A milestone is a stepping stone Unbeknownst to me at the time, a new chapter opened up in my life years ago. More than a chapter, really — a whole new volume was started back then. For the more I learned, the more I cast off what I had previously learned. And looking back, some stepping-stones [...] Read more – ‘Securing the Clicks: Network Security in the Age of Social Media’.
Over the past three months, I've shed 4 stones by following a water fast. This is a personal account of my journey to a fitter body and better health, achieved in a surprisingly short time. Read more – ‘System reboot, a personal account’.
tl;dr Compared to other industries, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies have historically been slow to market online, partly because of strict advertising regulations (FDA) and patient-privacy (HIPAA) laws. However, as new market realities push pharma companies online, these firms will find that social media supports the more agile business model some will pursue. By 2016, the [...] Read more – ‘Social Media Through The Product Lifecycle’.
I’m honored to be hosting today’s hashtag #socialmedia #sm104 chat on Twitter, from 12pm — 1pm ET. The topic will be “Re-Shaping the Purchasing Process: The Rise of Social Retailing” Of course, social retailing has always existed at the local level, through people-based businesses like the market and mom-and-pop convenience stores. Even larger retailers like Nordstrom’s [...] Read more – ‘Hosting Hashtag Social Media on Social Commerce’.
Over the past few years, David Blumenstein, Founder and Managing Director of The Hatchery in New York, and I maintained an ongoing dialogue about our respective communities. Then, in mid-2010, Seth Elliott and I formed a new organization, The Startup Forum, to foster the development of vibrant regional startup communities. We were privileged to have [...] Read more – ‘The Startup Forum partners with the Hatchery to create the Hatchery Miami’.
“Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things — with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.” –Corazon Aquino Ang araw bago sumikat nakikita muna’y banaag. (Early dawn precedes sunrise.) For the past year, I have been collaborating with [...] Read more – ‘Early dawn precedes sunrise: traveling to the Philippines’.
Crisis Camp Haiti in Miami, originally uploaded by alexdecarvalho. Whenever I take a step back to reflect on the past two years, I realize with a great sense of accomplishment how far I’ve come, and with a great sense of humility how little any of it had to do with me. These 24 months have [...] Read more – ‘Moments give reason to the season’.
A nicely recursive pattern in the walled garden at the Brownsover hotel near Rugby, England. In our age of the ever-expanding Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIns of this world, companies, associations, nonprofits, and other types of organizations are also thinking about developing their own communities, to create more relevant and focused places to network: The biggest [...] Read more – ‘Want to create a vertical social network? Answer these 10 questions first’.
Last Wednesday marked the end of the Fall semester for my course at the University of Miami. Together with 19 students and invited lecturers, we explored the workings of social media from multiple perspectives, including identity, community, branding, PR, and journalism. The class developed on three levels, covering the practice of publishing and sharing; online [...] Read more – ‘Social Media Course Syllabus, Fall 2010’.
Shai Agassi of Better Place delivers a TED moment at LeWeb 2010 I’m just back from an inspiring LeWeb conference last week. Loic and Geraldine Le Meur outdid themselves. They and their team of organizers clearly benefit from five years of experience running this event and from their collective experience in attending TED, Davos, LIFT, SXSW, [...] Read more – ‘Inspired by LeWeb 2010’.
LWeb Startup Competition Hosted by Loic Le Meur and David Hornik, General Partner, August Capital The panel of judges includes: Jean-David Blanc, Entrepreneur/Business Angel (Founder of AlloCine) Brent Hoberman, Founder & Executive Chairman, mydeco Xavier Niel, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors & Chief Strategy Officer, Iliad Jacques-Antoine Granjon, Founder & CEO, Ventes-Privee Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Startup Competition Finals’.
A forward looking view by industry analyst Jeremiah Owyang, partner at Altimeter Group based off recent research on how large global brands are organizing, and spending on social media: Keynote: Social Business Forecast: 2011 The Year of Integration View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang. jowyang, jeremiah owyang, leweb, leweb10, social media Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group’.
The same week as they announce a $25 million round of financing, Waze presents their project at LeWeb 2010 Startup Competition. The questions at the end are well answered: waze, startup, entrepreneur, leweb, leweb10 Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Waze presents at Startup Competition’.
Loic Le Meur interviews Shai Agassi, Founder & CEO, Better Place Better Place has about 700 engineers working on their solution. They raised $700 million, with no government money — just private investors. You cannot replace oil without a full solution for the way we drive cars. For cars to be successful today, you need providers [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Shai Agassi of Better Place interviewed by Loic Le Meur’.
MG Siegler of TechCrunch interviews David Ko, SVP of Mobile, Zynga. Some highlights of the talk: Zynga acquired NewToy, a company that have developed “one of the best social game experiences on the web, creators of “Words With Friends” and “Chess With Friends.” Users use these games for about an hour each day. Zynga will keep [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: David Ko of Zynga interviewed by MG Siegler’.
Mel Young, Co-Founder of the Homeless World Cup, presents this great project that has impacted the lives of so many homeless. This 14 minute video is well worth watching: mel young, homeless world cup, leweb, leweb10 Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Mel Young of Homeless World Cup’.
Robert Scoble interviews Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of Mozilla Foundation Mozilla is a non-profit organization to their core. This makes it harder, so you have to do your best to remain competitive. We have embraced HTML5 because it can compete with proprietary technologies and it integrates well with the web. There is a learning curve, but [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Mitchell Baker of Mozilla Foundation interviewed by Robert Scoble’.
Loic Le Meur interviews Joe Green, Co-Founder & President of Causes: Charity is inherently social, it’s part of who we are as people, in some cases it’s even a part of our identity, and Causes wants to help make charity a part of our everyday lives. Facebook and having people’s real identity will help us [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Joe Green of Causes interviewed by Loic Le Meur’.
Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch interviews Matt Mullenweg, Founder of WordPress and Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic What are the challenges of building a viable business off something that is open source? Actually, the challenge was creating a business that would not kill the open source project. Just how big is WordPress? There are about 30 [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Matt Mullenweg of Automattic interviewed by Alexia Tsotsis’.
Loic Le Meur interviews a refreshingly modest Dennis Crowley, Co-Founder of foursquare. Here are some highlights: A year ago, foursquare counted 4 people. Today, they’re still only 40, despite their strong growth (over 4 million users). We brought DodgeBall to Google and ended up working on some other stuff. So after Dennis left Google, he resurrected [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Dennis Crowley of foursquare interviewed by Loic Le Meur’.
Quite an excellent presentation by Fabrice Marchisio, Cotty Vivant Marchisio & Lauzeral, on “The Boiling Frog Phenomenon and The Importance of “weak signals.” Here’s a summary highlighting the rationale: If you put a frog in boiling water, the frog will jump out and save its life. But if you put a frog in cold water [...] Read more – ‘Live Blogging LeWeb: Ignite Sessions, Fabrice Marchisio on “The Importance of Weak Signals”’.
“From social network to social entertainment product“Robert Scoble interviews Mike Jones, CEO, MySpace. Highlights include: MySpace is focusing primarily on the under-35 crowd. The new MySpace product is about social entertainment, around TV and movies. You create a personalized stream of entertainment around you by connecting to your favorite movies, TV shows, and celebrities. MySpace [...] Read more – ‘Live blogging LeWeb: Mike Jones of MySpace interviewed by Robert Scoble’.
TechCrunch writer MG Siegler interviews Jason Goldman, VP Product Design, Twitter. The biggest highlight is that Jason Goldman announced he’s moving on from Twitter, pursuant to a conversation about how the product needs to change — seemed like a good time for a transition. Jason was employee number 9 and has seen the company grow to [...] Read more – ‘Live blogging LeWeb: Jason Goldman of Twitter interviewed by MG Siegler’.
I first attended Le Web, a conference produced by Loic and Geraldine LeMeur, in 2005 when it was known as Les Blogs. The conference grew out of a series of smallish meetups in 2004, for example, “Blogs & Journalism,” “Blogs & Politics,” and so on, with selected panelists and a few dozen attendees. These evolved [...] Read more – ‘In Paris for LeWeb 2010’.
How time flies … my last post was months ago, way back in June … What happened in between? Well, among other things, - A book deal with McGraw-Hill, co-authored by Gary Bahadur and Jason Inasi – Lots of travel abroad and a great cross-country trip (thanks to Scott Monty and Gwen Peake at Ford) – [...] Read more – ‘Clearing the cobwebs’.
It turns out someone has been sending out employment offers around the world promising a job at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum in the UK. The letters are signed “Alex de Carvalho”. For the record, I am not the Alex de Carvalho in question. I do not work for the Holiday Inn, I do not [...] Read more – ‘419 fraud from Alex de Carvalho, UK Holiday Inn Hotels, Kensington Forum’.
tl;dr: So you’ve been tasked with “tackling” social media for your organization: now what? At the EyeForPharma eMarketing Summit 2010 in Berlin, I presented “5 Keys to Implementing Social Media,” a framework to help you define your organization’s social media activity. This post summarizes the first key, monitoring your brand online. As a disclaimer, I [...] Read more – ‘Implementing social media: brand monitoring’.
