leafar

Happy new year

2007 année de transition .... 2008 année de réalisation !

Thanks to all my reader and friends.... enjoy your life/work.

Je vais surement bouger mon blog pour feter cela ;-D

2007 : the year of the virtual identity ... what's next

More than a year and a half ago I started working on the virtual identity, we then created lounge (in U.[lik])  where you can add the badges for your other social networks services. The idea was to unable people to give link to other pieces of their virtual identity.

We've been the first site to do so with image (using inspiration from wordie). But It was merely reflecting my
bookmark toolbar :

Many websites are now endorsing this trend ... which is good.... We are the puzzle ;-D

2007 was and will stay as the identity year (no need to  proove it)

I don't believe in a one place for all (i.e facebook, despite the time i've spent on it), because i believe you need a dedicated application for very different activities... and i am not talking about apps. No social networks will be as good as flickr for my pictures. But facebook have shown the way for tomorrow identity to a large number of users (again a puzzle but this time of apps)... also made them more savier which is also very good.

So what is next for 2008 in the identity space:  ambient intimacy. (Small presentation here)
The definition is pretty good ... but despite an easy access, it's the most complicated concept i've approached over my last 3 years on the web. I've been experiencing it for a couple of months and we still have a lot to learn. I think it has a huge impact on photography (the medium totally changed over the last 3 years...and  Pierre Bourdieu is probably right) and a lot of new applications (twitter, tumblr, the is inside facebook...etc) are only starting to open the way to this new genetic of relations (.

2007 was a year of transition for U.[lik] and me .... vivement 2008 et de nouvelles aventures identitaires !!
The world is changing really fast ... here are two video to remind it :

Bonne année à tous.

More on pantheism

Last week a user of facebook contacted me because I was the only one (except himself) with the religion pantheism. It was quite funny and the discussion followed on twitter. Yesterday I was quietly reading Notes of a dirty old men by Charles Bukowski and I discovered this quote from the second piece of the book :

"[...] God beat Man always and continually, God being Whatever It Was - a cocksucker machinegun or the paiting of Klee, well, and now, thos nylon legs folding around another damn fool."

That's one of the best vulgar description of pantheism that I've found yet. A machingun against a klee is quite evocative. Maybe Confronting Soutine with Rothko would even work better.

Jason Calacanis on Intruders.TV

Intruders.Tv opens two new localisation with england and Boston (MA).

intruders.tv is a European video blog network covering the web2.0 ecosystem lead by Thierry Beziers. Our main objective is to take you to the major conferences and Web events, visit the technologists for demos, interview entrepreneurs and web workers, give you tours of cool startups and a first look at the hottest web apps.

I was not a huge fan of the first edition (les dessous du web) from Thierry Beziers but I have to say that I found the new version (international especially) of intruders.tv very interesting and very insightfull.

For example you should take 26 minutes  to listen to Jason Calacanis. His interview about mahalo and entrepreunorship in europe is avalibale on intruders.tv in the US and UK. I am a fan of Jason because this guy has made is way, because he is honest about what he likes or not in the web (as for wikipedia) and this video is again a proof of it.

I love the way is gonna build mahalo and I deeply agree with him. Build the best human services on the web takes time, it's not about view pages but about quality because at the end of the day that's what makes the difference in a world where everything is at one click. 

Bear Stearns has updated its report on the long tail

Last october Bear Stearns published a very good report on the dynamics of entertainement. They've just updated it and its mostly focus on monetizing the Video UGC. You can download the new report from Chris Anderson's blog (and should read his sum up of it). There incumbent analysis is very good.

Here is an extract from the cover:

“PARADOX OF CHOICE” SHIFTS VALUE TO MIDDLE OF SUPPLY CHAIN.
Increased video content supply could lead to lower user satisfaction, given
cognitive dissonance due to regret, confusion, etc. Therefore, we submit that new
aggregation vehicles will emerge to solve this conundrum, as search engines did
in the text-based Web, which is where the vast majority of value accrued.

CONTENT ISN’T KING, GREAT CONTENT IS. The problem with the “content is
king” axiom is that no one company has proven capable of consistently creating
only great content, as evidenced by fluctuations in TV ratings, box office per film,
etc. In addition, while entertainment firms are focused on “digital,” this revenue
stream will likely remain small relative to overall sales for the foreseeable future.
The risk is that, as with newspaper companies, strong digital revenues do not
offset decelerating growth in core revenue streams.

Free Perso TV

Free has launched TV Perso. You can upload / record video and broadcast them directly from your Free Box onthe channel 13. It can be set up to be private or public and even live ! More details on their website in french.

Dealer is the new Portal ...a Next Web Award for Joost !!

Joost won an award at thenextweb in Amsterdam, no one from the company was there to take the award, so I took charge of it. It has made a very pleasant trip in Amsterdam (take a look at the slideshow) and now he is back to its right proprietary (le joost propriétaire). In the hands of Eric Clemenceau (European Sales Director)

Joost is very impressive company, the pitch was perfect, the way they present their EPIC future is so brilliant. They will succed. Their vision of advertising is the new revolution. If you work in advertising you should apply (the european team is 3 people only at the moment). They are a real possible Google of video, they have the power, they have the car they will have the girl (as a car ads used to say //  [Bob] you should apply).

A lot of people from the media landscape at this great presentation (thanks HEC Media) and many of them are already scared by this new possible monster and they are able to say it at loud ;-)

To convince Media they have a pretty simple pitch. Our guys have done Kazaa ! That's what you can call weapon of mass dissuasion... pretty efficient.

I had a feeling of Steve Jobs ... the iDay is larger than we think. People are also queuing for joost (20k a day)

Dealer is the new Portal*

And since i am at it ... the next web is also Kevin Rose. Pownce is killer because it's exactly my core value for twitter (read the first comment).... Dispatching and pownce will bring it to the next level.  I'm in like with you is for Like minded people. I also need to mention Mahalo as well as Lijit (just raised) for the People Inside (joost has it too)!

The next web is here !! What I want from media / What I want from my friends. How i want to live ...

The iDay is ... a cleaner Dealer who knows what I want

--> Give me a shoot quick !!

* and U.[lik] is clearly gonna be part of it. A personnalized dealer* is always better ;-) Especially when you can deal everything you like !!

Pour les Français il faut lire ou relire dans la solitude des champs de coton immédiatement [lvanproosdij] i have one copy for you

Facebook vs Myspace ... A Class Division ??

A lots of post about facebook recently. Why it will faill, why they should pay API developpers ... I even done one two days ago. Danah Boyd has written a piece called viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace where she explained based on her observations that the gap between the two Social Networks could be a class division thing.

It's a must read because she points to something that could matter a lot. The post has drawned a huge amount of attention, a lot of criticism ... but a lot of folks (like me) do think she has put the finger on something real at the right moment. Bourdieu is quoted in the comments and there is a reason. Social Networks are about identity, identity is a social mirror. Social mirror is society and society is and always will be divided wether you form groups by political ideas, by respects of norms or even tastes. You can agree or not on Danah's terms (like subaltern) It doesn't change a thing. Enjoy the reading.

And let me dedramatize it with a joke about myspace and facebook from Casey Corbin:

What is social network ?

I think i've just catch a picture of it on fred destin blog.

It's simply priceless and surely does not need any comment !

Facebook and the independent George... Sarah strikes again.

Sarahcpr as a great post about facebook and the myth of one Social network to rule all our connexions.
She uses an analogy that I love : the Independant George. For those you love Seinfeld, it's one of the best moment. For those who don't know the video is below (and a transcript at the end). This is how she puts it :

"It’s the same with my co-workers here at Yahoo who have been using Facebook for several years, but now suddenly have to deal with friend requests from their bosses. With co-workers lurking around, the atmosphere has shifted. What was once a fun hangout is now a place where they just can’t be themselves anymore."

--> "A george divided against itself cannot stand."

I had an exchange with Nic yesterday on facebook, he was asking me what i tought about it. I answered him by talking about the "Facebook cleaning" that students do before they leave university or before they apply for a job. When worlds collide it's becoming quite complexe.  It reminds me of friendster beginning when the 3 worlds "bloggers, attendees of the Burning Man festival, and gay men mostly living in New York" first collided (Source danah).

Hopefully Sarah has worked on a solution so we could get naked (at least with whom we want) and rule the world. I don't know if this radical transparency is already a myth (See wired's cover just below) but I've shared some intimates thoughs on twitter and the result was quite funny (You are a hall of Fame dear).

As you can see, I am not sure what is the right solution. I've always see that probleme with a puzzled eye ;-) So maybe splitting it could be great ... anyway it's gonna be a huge identity management problem. But I am sure than facebook will not become an API for friends management. The reason they added Apps was to create these social objects so we deal with everything inside their closed walls. Going down sarah's road seems a very good solution even if i am not sure how we (the users) are going to handle it. There are still a lot of opaque value in the social web.

Transcript :
G.Costanza: You have no idea the magnitude of this thing if she is allowed to infiltrate this world then george costanza as you know him ceases to exist. You see, right now I have relationship george but there is also independent george, that's the george you know, the george you grew up with, coffee shop george, liar george, buddy george ...
J.Seinfeld: I love that george
G.Costanza: Mee too.And he is dying Jerry. If relationship george walk trough this door it will kill independent george. A george divided against itself cannot stand.