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LeWeb: Liveblogging Day 1

Posted by peter bihr in LeWeb Paris 08, LiveBlogging on Dec 11th, 2008 | 1 Comment

The first day of LeWeb 08 in our liveblog, posted once more as one whole post so it’s even easier for you to read. Enjoy!

9:56 AM Peter Bihr - Good morning everyone from LeWeb Paris. We’ll be covering the first round of sessions here. There’s an allstar lineup right here: Opening Remarms bei Geraldine & Loic Le Meur, Then Dan’l Lewin is goin to be interviewed by Steve Gillmor. Nikesh Arora will talk to Loic, David Weinberger will give a talk. And that’s just the first hour.

9:57 AM Peter Bihr - Then Michael Arrington will speak with Amit Kapur and we’ll be ready for a first coffee break. By the way, there’ll be also livestream provided by ustream that you can find on www.lewebparis.com. Enjoy!
10:05 AM cbgreenwood - We’re all setup for some nice bubbling … Loic LeMeur asking the webcrowd to wait some more minutes, get a coffee and find a seat …
10:14 AM cbgreenwood - Loic compares falling in love with starting a business —- passion helps — true ;-)
10:17 AM Peter Bihr - Steve Gillmor is on stage to interview Dan’l Lewin of Microsoft.
10:18 AM Peter Bihr - Hint: There’s more liveblogging at Berlinblase
10:19 AM cbgreenwood - “Why is MS giving away stuff?” first question by Steve Gillmor, talking about
10:20 AM cbgreenwood - www.microsoft.com
10:21 AM Florian Krakau -
10:22 AM cbgreenwood - Claps for Google by Dan’l Lewin … “Google has done great things for the industry”
10:23 AM cbgreenwood - Superb stream quality we hear, tons of topnotch equipment around here …
10:25 AM cbgreenwood - “If you choose a framework, you chose a path and partnership” #azure Went looking for clouds yet? There’s a booth downstairs at #leweb
10:25 AM Florian Krakau -
10:26 AM cbgreenwood - www.microsoft.com Azure by Microsoft, cozy data clouds?
10:28 AM cbgreenwood - Dan’l Lewin thinks MS is ahead with Azure … after long times of being a “follower” ;-)
10:28 AM cbgreenwood - www.flickr.com
10:29 AM cbgreenwood - Buddy and Co-Bubbler dotdean shooting like hell with his new cam
10:30 AM cbgreenwood - ah, finally, first question about the financial crisis …
10:31 AM Florian Krakau -
10:32 AM cbgreenwood - “Markets collapse and get rebuild, they will reform, cloud centric architectures will prevail, … Silverlight is a critical path item” … Dan’l Lewin
10:34 AM cbgreenwood - www.microsoft.com Information for journalists … no statements to Yahoo ;-)
10:34 AM Florian Krakau - way cool mexican dudes playing music at the entry
10:34 AM Peter Bihr - “I have no statements to make”, said the MS dude. Hm.
10:36 AM cbgreenwood - Next up on stage: Nikesh Arora, Head of Google Europe with Loic
10:37 AM Florian Krakau -
10:38 AM cbgreenwood - Portraits of the Google execs this way:
10:38 AM cbgreenwood - It’s called “Fireside chat” … a little fire would indeed be nice, kinda freezing here, but buddy Peter is getting the next coffee
10:39 AM Florian Krakau -
10:40 AM cbgreenwood - “The US will come out of this before Europe does” — financial crisis —
10:41 AM Florian Krakau -
10:43 AM cbgreenwood - PDF Download of the #leweb programm on
10:43 AM Florian Krakau -
Le Scoble et le Arrington last night, btw ;)
10:43 AM cbgreenwood - Once again, “the next big thing is coming out of a garage”
10:45 AM cbgreenwood - Europeans need more “risk hunger” ;-) Advice by Nikesh Arora
10:45 AM Florian Krakau - and another great video by shel israel, the puppet king
10:46 AM cbgreenwood - Don’t just concentrate on the (own) market you know best … spread out, this goes to Europeans, btw, always have to mention this coming next vid when hearing this … thing global, act global ;-)
10:48 AM Peter Bihr - “you have to have a very good idea” to survive in this market. well, i guess that’s good advice at any time, no? ;)
10:48 AM cbgreenwood -
10:49 AM cbgreenwood - “Travel as much as you can, live in New York once but leave before it makes you hard, live in Northern California but leave before it makes you soft” love it ..
10:51 AM Peter Bihr - question from the audience: “i use your google products in my business, but why is there no to do list?” awesome.
10:51 AM Florian Krakau -
10:53 AM cbgreenwood - loic has spotted a VC ;-)
10:53 AM Peter Bihr - “there is a grand theme behind what can be perceived as chaos” (i.e. google’s activities)
10:54 AM Florian Krakau -
10:54 AM cbgreenwood - Why is it that always when the room is asked “Are there any VCs in the audience?”, … there are almost always NONE????
10:55 AM Peter Bihr - A trendscout from Germany sees a problem with the language barriers in all kinds of fields. Nikesh Arora points to live translating chat bots. He thinks we’re moving quickly towards more machine translation that’s powerful, sentence-to-sentence translation. Translating voice live is tougher, but it could change a lot in our business and life.
10:56 AM cbgreenwood - Adressing the language barrier problem … cloud power ahead according to Nikesh, also in voice recognition … this is one of the most important questions for Europeans I think
10:57 AM Peter Bihr - Audience question: What’s going to happen to Jaiku? Answer: It’s going to be integrated heavily into all kinds of services and products.
11:00 AM Peter Bihr - I prefer the “conversations” format for the main sponsors over keynotes. If it’s as interesting as this round, all the better. (Much better than “I have no statement to make” before ;)
11:00 AM Peter Bihr - David Weinberger is on!
11:00 AM cbgreenwood - one of my faves … David Weinberger up next! Read ALL his books, go!
11:00 AM Peter Bihr - “Leadership at the end of the age of information”
11:01 AM Peter Bihr - Completely off-topic: I never before noticed his funny & goofy red laptop.
11:01 AM Peter Bihr - His slides, by the way, look hand-drawn. I like.
11:04 AM jkleske -
11:05 AM cbgreenwood - Creative slide I must say … “hyperlinks are the opposite of information” …
11:05 AM Peter Bihr - “the results of these links is abundance of stuff, and also of crap”. we know how to handle the abundance of stuff.
11:06 AM Peter Bihr - but: “our institutions aren’t ready to deal with it.” media and society are overwhelmed.
11:06 AM Peter Bihr - “leadership has been based on scarcity”
11:06 AM Florian Krakau -
11:06 AM Florian Krakau - lars hinrichs spotting
11:07 AM jkleske -
11:07 AM cbgreenwood - great thinking once again by David Weinberger … but need to digest the slides and talk with more time again …
11:08 AM cbgreenwood - “good information leads to good leadership” but we live in GIGO times …j
11:08 AM cbgreenwood - garbage in -> garbage out … still valid, getting more crucial in computerized times … human input needed more than ever …
11:09 AM Peter Bihr - Is it lonely at the top? Yes, but…
11:10 AM cbgreenwood - one more scarcity of leadership: we all treat lonely leaders as heroes … isolation is terrible
11:10 AM Peter Bihr - this is “a terrible way of thinking about it”. It’s a structural flaw to paint a lot of weight on one person’s shoulder (the leader) as heroism. It’s a structural flaw to rely on one isolated, heroic figure.
11:11 AM Peter Bihr - No one person can do all the jobs well that we expect a leader to do. (be a great communicator, decided, visionary…)
11:11 AM cbgreenwood - we need leadership in the age of abundancy … meaning: MORE LEADERS! MORE GOOD COMMUNICATION, SHARE VISIONS … crowdsourcing is a first step to help leaders emerge
11:11 AM Peter Bihr - The solution: Crowdsourcing leadership.
11:11 AM cbgreenwood - aren’t we living in funky times me thinks …
11:11 AM Peter Bihr - Distribute the job of the leader across the network.
11:11 AM Peter Bihr - Slide: “Decision-making is a failure of leadership”
11:12 AM jkleske -
11:12 AM Peter Bihr - (Personal note: D. Weinberger is an awesome speaker. Funny, witty, extremely smart.)
11:12 AM cbgreenwood - Jack Welsh and Jimbo Wales as two types of leadership … well chosen poles …
11:13 AM Peter Bihr - “Strategies impose scarcity on the future”
11:13 AM Peter Bihr - he’s quiting a Linus Torvalds email. “I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu)”. right. not having a strategy can be the better strategy.
11:14 AM cbgreenwood - realism is overrated, not ambitious enough
11:14 AM cbgreenwood - “Realism would have never created Wikipedia, Linux …”
11:14 AM Peter Bihr - “Realism is overrated, Realism isn’t ambitious enough.” Realists would never have built Linux, Wikipedia, the web.
11:14 AM Florian Krakau -
11:14 AM Peter Bihr - “Leadership is a property of the network.” So what does that mean for governance?
11:16 AM Peter Bihr - D. Weinberger quotes change.gov as an example of good incremental governance. They take it step by step, more bottom-up than top-down.
11:17 AM Peter Bihr - Intimacy doesn’t scale. A leader can’t know everybody equally well.
11:17 AM cbgreenwood - David Weinberger on Wikipedia
11:18 AM Florian Krakau -
11:19 AM cbgreenwood - www.elektrischer-reporter.de David Weinberger Interview beim elektrischen Reporter, Deutsches Livebloggen mal wieder ;-)
11:20 AM Peter Bihr - so what will leadership be like? it’s impossible to say. to many possibilities.
11:21 AM Florian Krakau -
11:21 AM Peter Bihr - “we’re engaged in a political struggle”, all the time, “right now!”
11:21 AM Peter Bihr - emergent leadership is an issue that needs further research; even just software changes like how rating systems work (5 stars? thumb up/down?) can have huge repercussions
11:22 AM Peter Bihr - “we need abundant leadership!”
11:22 AM Florian Krakau -
11:22 AM clemens - would love to see ur content next to the live video, not on seperate tabs,
11:22 AM cbgreenwood - Peeps, this has to be spread … we’ll be checking feedback and will try to find the slides … Leadership in a new world … #2.0everything …
11:23 AM cbgreenwood - Very inspirational!!!
11:24 AM Peter Bihr - This was inspiring – sadly, it’s over. Next up: Michael Arrington will talk to Amit Kapur, COO MySpace
11:24 AM clemens - did he say: reputational democracy vs representational democracy ? quoted an author?
11:25 AM cbgreenwood - Clemens: will try to find …
11:25 AM cbgreenwood - OHA: Google is anncouncing a new product today on stage …
11:26 AM cbgreenwood - did I get that right?
11:27 AM clemens - @cbgreenwood: thx – great service guys
11:27 AM Florian Krakau -
11:28 AM cbgreenwood - Clemens: google for “simon willis reputational democracy” ;-)
11:29 AM Florian Krakau -
11:29 AM clemens - thx
11:30 AM clemens - who is google? ;-)
11:46 AM Florian Krakau -
12:01 PM Florian Krakau -
12:01 PM Florian Krakau - german microcelleb in the house =) warm welcome to @kcu
12:02 PM Florian Krakau -
12:02 PM Florian Krakau - king of the puppets
12:16 PM jkleske - break is over
12:17 PM jkleske - “love is in the air” from the speakers #music
12:19 PM cbgreenwood - We’ll continue lovebligging ;-) here … cover up blog posts later!
12:19 PM peate - Finaly leweb08 continues… now I have to struggle again to concentrate on work
12:20 PM cbgreenwood - Now with Italy Talgam, a worldknown Conductor …
12:20 PM Florian Krakau -
12:22 PM cbgreenwood - The Miki crew getting dressed ;-)
12:22 PM Florian Krakau -
12:28 PM Florian Krakau - join our new “frameset” to get video and livebloggin :)
12:30 PM jkleske -
12:31 PM cbgreenwood - Conducting = act of love … connecting audience, people, … great example by showing conducting video of opera Vienna
12:31 PM cbgreenwood - Carlos Kleiber was the first example …
12:35 PM Peter Bihr - Plenty of conducting videos. Kleiber is getting really emotional while conducting.
12:39 PM jkleske - is it me or are we talking once again about leadership but from a very different angle?
12:42 PM Peter Bihr - Loic is helping out trying to fix the picture. hands-on. why don’t you always get the boss on the hotline? ;)
12:45 PM Peter Bihr - One good thing here is: With only one major panel, you can’t really miss out on anything going on elsewhere, content-wise…
12:46 PM Florian Krakau - the guys from nextweb made a great job, check out their blog
12:47 PM Florian Krakau - “Make Love to get warmer! #leweb #theme” qoute @pickihh from germany
12:48 PM Peter Bihr - by the way, if you’re just tuning in, there’s a page with the live videosteam on one side and this liveblog on the other side:
12:51 PM Peter Bihr - Live singing: “We have a cathedral to fill here!”
12:52 PM Peter Bihr - And believe it or not: It’s kind of hesitating, but the song is actually picking up. This time, different voices divided by age and gender.
12:53 PM Florian Krakau -
12:54 PM Peter Bihr - Next up is Cedric Ingrand (LCI-TV) interviews Linda Avey, Co-Founder of 23AndMe
12:54 PM Peter Bihr - 23andme – where spitting in a tube meets web 2.0…
12:55 PM Peter Bihr - www.23andme.com
12:55 PM cbgreenwood - I liked the singing interaction and demonstration of leadership style from various conductors …
12:56 PM cbgreenwood - Mr. Scoble did two posts about this, check out Italy Talgam again here
12:56 PM Peter Bihr - How does 23andme work? you spit in a tube, set up an account, and you’re good to go. 23AndMe analyzes your DNA for you.
12:58 PM Peter Bihr - Linda Avey co-founded 23AndMe with Anne Wojcicki (who I believe is married to Google’s Sergej Brin).
12:59 PM Peter Bihr - 23AndMe is about analyzing risks and everything else that’s coded in your genes. Curious to see which applications she’ll propose.
12:59 PM Peter Bihr - Use case: Ancestry. Where are you from, genetically?
1:00 PM Peter Bihr - Possible downsides: you could find things out that you didn’t want to know.
1:01 PM Peter Bihr - so how do I access my data? You sign in online and can start looking at your stuff. (personal data and genetic data is stored separately.) the data and analysis is very dynamic, so you get more and more analysis the further research progresses.
1:02 PM cbgreenwood - 23AndMe : anybody now why 23?? Didn’t pay much attention in biology at school ;-)
1:02 PM cbgreenwood - 23 is for hackers right?
1:02 PM Peter Bihr - question: how do you keep my bank, insurance company etc off this data? answer: we just deny access, both through policies and security measures.
1:03 PM Peter Bihr - Cedric quotes someone saying “Google is now indexing your genes”. But there’s no direct connection to google.
1:04 PM Peter Bihr - By the way, 23AndMe just cut prices to $399. Why? There’s no competition? Answer: Lower prices give the power to analyzing their genes to many more people. (DNA analysis for the people, is it?)
1:05 PM Peter Bihr - Completely off-topic: the 23andme website reminds me of older macromedia websites. just sayin’ ;)
1:05 PM Peter Bihr - why “23andme?” All of us have 23 pairs of chromosomes.
1:06 PM Peter Bihr - on twitter, @nicprice pointed out 23AndMe is actually backed by Google. Here’s the info on investors:
1:08 PM Peter Bihr - so who’s using 23AndMe? Answer: We only have anecdotal information. Folks interested in ancestry, folks interested in genetic diseases. Very vague.
1:08 PM Peter Bihr - Oh, there’s family discounts.
1:08 PM Florian Krakau - johannes just setup his videowalk on leweb
1:08 PM cbgreenwood - for me, … boring … don’t like genes, prefer memes ;-)
1:09 PM cbgreenwood - And, did I mention I got my brandnew MacBookPro updated to a limited edition by fanboying David Weinberger? ;-)
1:10 PM Peter Bihr - “we won’t sell genetic data ever”, to external organizations, I assume. They’re about analysis and providing info to their clients.
1:12 PM cbgreenwood - yeah, a round of groupspitting now?
1:12 PM Peter Bihr - So that was 23AndMe. Interesting project, but applause stayed kinda low. I guess it was too detailed to really get excited about.
1:12 PM cbgreenwood - ;-) justa joke my name
1:12 PM Peter Bihr - Next up: Helen Fisher, Visiting Research Professor at Rutgers University. She’ll be talking about “Lust, Romance, Attachment: The Drive to Love”
1:13 PM Peter Bihr - Helen, according to Loic, inspired the conference motto LOVE.
1:15 PM Peter Bihr - Today, Helen will explain the results of her research, and a pretty good question: What makes us fall in love? This should be good!
1:15 PM Florian Krakau -
1:15 PM Peter Bihr - Her research focus is: why do you fall in love with one person rather than another?
1:17 PM Peter Bihr - First example: a historic Maya temple, built by a king/warrior for his beloved wife. That was some 1300 years ago. The temple was built so that temple shadow and grave still connect when the sun is up at the right angle, so that the lovers will touch, symbolically, forever. Pretty neat example, eh?
1:18 PM Peter Bihr - Fun fact: Men fall in love more easily than women, they’re more visually oriented.
1:19 PM cbgreenwood - just found the answer to an audience question this morning: to do lists by Google ;-)
1:19 PM Peter Bihr - sex drive=testosterone; romanitic love=dopamine, norepineephrine – serotonin, attachment = oxytocin, vasopressin. –> three types of “love”
1:20 PM cbgreenwood - Chemical background of love … way interesting!
1:21 PM jkleske - Helen Fisher @ TED
1:23 PM jkleske -
1:27 PM cbgreenwood - also koksen is (doing cocaine) is for losers, become a lover and all stays the same ;-)
1:27 PM Peter Bihr - Traits associated with romantic love: “special meaning”, energy, euphoria, mood swings. “sweaty palm syndrome”, emotional dependance, frustration.attraction, craving, obsessive thinking, motivation/goal oriented behavior: it’s pretty close to drug addiction syndromes.
1:27 PM cbgreenwood - Reason: brain activity found in exactly the same spots when using cocaine and being madly in love!
1:28 PM Peter Bihr - So it’s all about the chemicals, eh?
1:28 PM cbgreenwood - the just right chemicals indeed ;-)
1:29 PM cbgreenwood - this is some of the most important findings and people are just babbling on … (not bubbling, which is aok) … ;-)
1:29 PM Peter Bihr - Over on TheNextWeb, EJ is writing great posts about LeWeb 08 as well. Don’t miss out.
1:31 PM Peter Bihr - Lesson learned: Romantic love is completely involuntary.
1:32 PM cbgreenwood - Scanning for love … MRI for checking out brainlove …
1:33 PM Florian Krakau -
1:34 PM Peter Bihr - The Drive To Love is “much stronger than the sex drive”
1:35 PM Florian Krakau - rain outside, love inside
1:35 PM Peter Bihr - … and outside it’s snowing.
1:38 PM Florian Krakau -
1:39 PM Peter Bihr - So why do we get “so crazy when we get dumped”?
1:40 PM Peter Bihr - “Romantic love is an addiction. It’s a drug. One of the most powerful drugs on earth.” Think relapse.
1:42 PM Florian Krakau -
1:44 PM Florian Krakau -
1:49 PM cbgreenwood - discover even more about Helen Fisher’s experiments and … LOVE
1:59 PM cbgreenwood - have to listen to this, sorry for loveblogging outage, hope you enjoy the live stream!
2:00 PM cbgreenwood - Ah, now I know, why 23AndMe was before this … “Genetic compatibility in love” was the the message, Helen Fisher’s book “Why him? Why her?” coming out soon
2:03 PM cbgreenwood - www.amazon.com is the Amazon link, no affiliate, just sharing
2:03 PM cbgreenwood - slides will possibly be up ;-) WOW!
2:04 PM cbgreenwood - Can data be used for creating websites, adressing the right kind of people with the right kind of words? The right design? YES, Helen Fisher is highly interested in working on this field, too.
2:05 PM Florian Krakau -
2:05 PM Florian Krakau - ……. not ;)
2:07 PM Florian Krakau -
2:07 PM cbgreenwood - Sevenload’s Schmiegelow asking if these findings can be used for hiring? Choose the right people, build the right team …
2:08 PM cbgreenwood - I’m getting that book. period.
2:09 PM cbgreenwood - Helen says: “I’ve studied people for 30 years now. I think I finally know them.” #brainmapping is a lifelong work ;-)
2:13 PM jkleske - lunch break now until 2:30pm
2:44 PM cbgreenwood - no food. no good. no god. living of air and love.
2:47 PM cbgreenwood - web woodstock indeed.
3:37 PM Florian Krakau -
3:40 PM Florian Krakau - now startup competition with roberto bonazinga, pierre kosciusko-morizet, freddy mini and marc samwer
3:44 PM Peter Bihr - Paolo Coelho is getting on stage. With quite dramatic sounds, and oddly, also dancefloor music.
3:47 PM Florian Krakau -
3:49 PM Peter Bihr - Paolo pirates his own books – he actually encourages folks to download his books. He collects the links to scanned versions of his book on his website.
3:51 PM Peter Bihr - He realized that piracy actually helped spread his books.
3:51 PM Peter Bihr - “When I now look back I see that I’m selling more books than ever now.”
3:51 PM Peter Bihr - “You have to share in order to get some revenue from that.”
3:52 PM Peter Bihr - His publishers don’t really like it; they said “this is not good. It’s going to hurt the sales of your books.”
3:53 PM Peter Bihr - By the way, he also puts up free books that haven’t been published for sale yet:
3:55 PM Peter Bihr - These free books had more than a million downloads. “It doesn’t hurt your sales!”
3:56 PM Peter Bihr - Here’s his pirated book section, called “Pirate Coelho”.
4:00 PM Peter Bihr - “an author wants to be read” – this is the key lesson here, no?
4:00 PM Peter Bihr - he once gave a private party. the deal was simple: the first ten readers to write to a certain address would be invited to his party. he got ten emails immediately, one from japan, one from venezuela, two from spain, one from england…
4:01 PM Peter Bihr - he sent an explanation to clarify that he couldn’t pay for their tickets, it’s just a party. they understood, but wanted to come anyway…
4:02 PM Peter Bihr - Having such a direct connection with your readers is important.
4:03 PM Peter Bihr - Question: How does technology change the way you reach out to your fans?
4:03 PM Peter Bihr - How does it change the way you write?
4:03 PM Peter Bihr - Answer: “it all started out with my word processor…”
4:05 PM Peter Bihr - …says he felt there was a big change coming back then. With chat, blog and tools like those, everything changed.
4:05 PM Peter Bihr - Question by Loic: What about quality vs quantity? Emails and such?
4:07 PM Peter Bihr - Answer: The creation process is odd. He imagined this author sitting in a perfect countryside with mountains and a lake and all, writing the book of his life. And he did. But it was “the most boring book of my life”, because everything is too perfect. You need creative tension.
4:09 PM Peter Bihr - “Life is about content.”
4:09 PM Peter Bihr - “The only way to improve your life is by meeting people.”
4:15 PM Peter Bihr - Question by Loic: So if I can download your books and print them in awesome quality, how does one make money?
4:16 PM Peter Bihr - Paolo Coelho mentioned that pirates always won. So now he proposes to go back to why writers write: To be read, to share their ideas. You want to write, you write.
4:17 PM Peter Bihr - He tells artists that writers should share their stuff. (Movies can be different: expensive, hard to produce, involve lots of folks and money.) “Don’t trick yourself by the arguments of the book industry that they are defending the rights of the author. This is simply not true. As a writer I want to be read, and you get that by sharing.” People will understand and still buy your book.
4:18 PM Peter Bihr - by the way, when he said publishers don’t really fight for their authors, there was A LOT of applause.
4:29 PM Peter Bihr - Switch of speakers after Paolo Coelho’s great speech. Next up: Susan Wu.
4:29 PM Peter Bihr - Susan Wu is CEO of ohai
4:30 PM Peter Bihr - ohai.com
4:30 PM jkleske -
4:31 PM Peter Bihr - Susan talks about virtual goods. Misconception #1 about virtual goods: they have no value because they’re virtual. Misconception #2: It’s only for games. Both: Wrong!
4:31 PM jkleske -
4:34 PM Peter Bihr - Virtual goods are a way of capturing passionate behavior
4:35 PM Peter Bihr - Tipjoy let’S you see emergent behviors in virtual goods
4:37 PM Peter Bihr - So why virtual goods? For one, it’s a trade-off between time and money.
4:37 PM Peter Bihr - Also, entrepreneurship fosters sales.
4:38 PM Peter Bihr - another link she showed: IMVU
4:39 PM Peter Bihr - wow, that was quick. Susan Wu had to wrap up. Next up Thomas Crampton moderating a talk about branding by Georges-Edouard Dias, Stéphanie Hospital, Matthias Lüfkens.
4:42 PM Peter Bihr - Stephanie: learned that it’s no point being on every single platform. You have to see what works for you.
4:46 PM Peter Bihr - “You share, you lose control, but you gain community”
4:48 PM Peter Bihr - Switching to “Random Quote Mode”: “It’s all about listening, listening, listening!”
5:05 PM Peter Bihr - Looking forward to Yossi Vardi’s talk in a few minutes. Stay tuned.
5:18 PM Peter Bihr - Here’s Yossi. W00t!
5:19 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi Vardi is interviewed by Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of allthingsd.com
5:19 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi Vardi’s wikipedia entry.
5:19 PM Peter Bihr - We saw him talk at Web 2.0 Expo Berlin, and he’s awesome.
5:20 PM Florian Krakau -
5:20 PM Peter Bihr - He’d like to give a presentation, but can’t (it’s an interview). So here’s his idea of an internet service for the dead. (yes, that’s right.)
5:20 PM Peter Bihr - 1. it’s a growing community, and therefor: market
5:21 PM Peter Bihr - focus groups have shown that this kind of customer never complains ;)
5:21 PM cbgreenwood - also good in terms of customer service, low cost galore
5:21 PM cbgreenwood - also life time subscriptions work good on them
5:21 PM Peter Bihr - you can get a lifetime subscription ;)
5:22 PM Peter Bihr - youtube provides great ideas of how to die ;)
5:23 PM Peter Bihr - Kara: this is an interesting idea for the “econalypse, which we call it in the states, the combination of economy and apocalypse”. wow, that a lame pun.
5:23 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: well, no matter what, you need to get a lot of users. that’s the main thing.
5:24 PM Peter Bihr - search engine traffic isn’t loyal. good traffic creates value, you need to connect to your audience.
5:24 PM Peter Bihr - his comparison: real estate in new york (good, loyal traffic) and south dacota (search engine traffic)
5:25 PM Peter Bihr - …and once you have a lot of users you can monetize. users are key.
5:25 PM Peter Bihr - Facebook and Twitter are great properties even though they aren’t monetizing large scale (yet).
5:27 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: We’re now chartering into new unknown territories. Go for it, then figure out the business model. Google only started monetizing years after they had grown massive.
5:27 PM Peter Bihr - Kara: This is just one example. There was only one America to be discovered, the other seafarers died…?
5:28 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: Well, there’s one Google, one Amazon, one this-and-that. If you look right you can find all kinds of examples.
5:28 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: I don’t look at business plans. They are a genre of science fiction.
5:28 PM cbgreenwood - We heard that before, but always a good one …
5:29 PM Peter Bihr - I believe in entrepreneurs which eat their own dogfood, which are focused and dedicated.
5:29 PM Peter Bihr - …and they have to be NICE.
5:30 PM Peter Bihr - Kara: What’s over-hyped for you right now?
5:30 PM cbgreenwood - “There was only one Google, one Ebay, one Amazon .. in times of Twitter, Flickr, Facebook …” We’re wondering …
5:30 PM cbgreenwood - Facebook highly rated by Yossi.
5:30 PM Peter Bihr - She answers herself: Services that are just features, not companies… they won’t survive.
5:31 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi asks: In the last bubble (Feb 2000) we (Kara and Yossi) talked and you (Kara) said the internet is under-hyped?
5:32 PM Peter Bihr - Kara: it’s always underhyped, but individual services are much overhyped.
5:33 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: There will always a service that is terrific that I don’t value personally. But the internet isn’t a winner-takes-all market.
5:33 PM cbgreenwood - “on the internet the winner takes all” … good quote
5:33 PM cbgreenwood - !takes all ;-)
5:33 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: Take the iphone, the app store shows the development of the long tail, a lot of people code a lot of stuff.
5:34 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: Facebook now offers the option to publish your lifestream. The internet is both the product and the plan. Think mashups and APIs.
5:34 PM Peter Bihr - You can build new products upon old products.
5:37 PM Peter Bihr - Mobile will be a really intersting market. there’s plenty to do there.
5:37 PM Florian Krakau -
5:38 PM Peter Bihr - Yossi: “Everybody under 30 please raise your hands. Everybody over 30 please go away” ;)
5:39 PM Florian Krakau -
5:40 PM Peter Bihr - great as always. off the stage he goes.
5:43 PM Peter Bihr - Next session: Start-up competition update by the judges. i’ll collect valuable quotes.
5:43 PM Peter Bihr - one focus is on how to get value out of feeds of all kinds.
5:44 PM Peter Bihr - feedback on presentations and elevator pitches: the quality was exceptional.
5:46 PM Peter Bihr - this year’s presentations covered their business models as a reaction to the VC’s unwillingness to easily spend money. (that’s good.)
5:46 PM Peter Bihr - user-experience has been getting better. a lot. there’s god stuff coming up for the gaming industry in particular, especially with all the 3D stuff going on.
5:46 PM Peter Bihr - Some level of social network startups was interesting as well. are friends and 3D the future?
5:47 PM Peter Bihr - “mobile is the future”, but it’s also about interconnectivity
5:47 PM Peter Bihr - if too many services rely too much on other services bringing in the users and the functionality, then who’s aggregation the users and who’s going to be paid?
5:48 PM Peter Bihr - (that’s aiming at specialized widgets.)
5:48 PM Peter Bihr - startups need not only to have a great idea, you NEED a biz model.
5:52 PM Peter Bihr - Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK will now give us a tour of the European startup scene.
5:52 PM Peter Bihr - Mike has been traveling a lot lately.
5:53 PM Peter Bihr - “What the hell happened the last couple of years?”
5:53 PM Peter Bihr - 200 saw a surge of activity.
5:54 PM Peter Bihr - “2007 was the summer of love”
5:54 PM Peter Bihr - so last year was clearly a market peak
5:55 PM Peter Bihr - so what’s going to happen next?
5:56 PM Peter Bihr - big trends: networks to niche. advertising gets smarter. everything goes mobile. the return of professional content. media becomes immersive. shopping gets social. software in the sky.
5:57 PM Peter Bihr - but what about Europe?
5:57 PM Peter Bihr - There’s “amazing amounts of activity”
5:58 PM Peter Bihr - Silicon had a 50 year history of innovation and venture capital. In Europe we don’t have this history. Here, it’s about boot-strapping and getting your friends and family invest in your stuff.
5:58 PM Peter Bihr - But Europe’s been getting connected. TechCrunch events help.
5:59 PM Peter Bihr - Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Paris, Zurich, everywhere!
6:00 PM Peter Bihr - Europe is a net leader, right after Asia, before North America.
6:00 PM Peter Bihr - Weaknesses: Fear of failure, smaller local merkets, need more 2nd&3rd generation entrepreneurs.
6:02 PM Peter Bihr - positives: familiar with multi-language and diverse markets…
6:02 PM Peter Bihr - phew, that was quick, he quickly pointed to techcrunch50 and rushed off.
6:03 PM Peter Bihr - Morten Lund, Chief Ideologist of Lund XY Global Ventures is next on stage.
6:04 PM Peter Bihr - (“Chief ideologist? is that new for propaganda minister? ;)
6:04 PM Peter Bihr - “hi, i’m Morten, i have 4 kids and 88 startups”
6:05 PM Peter Bihr - “i like what the techcrunch guy said, but remember, he’s a journalist and shouldn’t tell entrepreneurs should do. it’s inspirational though.”
6:06 PM Peter Bihr - the next BIG thing: money latters less.
6:06 PM Peter Bihr - (pretty funky slides for someone who says he’s not into slides.)
6:06 PM Peter Bihr - the next BIG thing: people are everything.
6:06 PM Peter Bihr - next big thing: tech is key; network is key; timing is key.
6:07 PM Peter Bihr - Morten: “I love this dowturn. I lost all my money on a newspaper and it doesn’t feel that bad.”
6:08 PM Peter Bihr - “do you guys really want to be entrepreneurs, or just get rich and get a big car like your neighbor?”
6:08 PM Peter Bihr - “if you’re an entrepreneur you’re not scared” and you’ll enjoy these times.
6:09 PM Peter Bihr - “Look for good people”. and go for interests and hobbies.
6:09 PM Peter Bihr - good people can succeed with a bad idea.
6:09 PM Peter Bihr - Startips need help from smart people, but no takeover from smart asses.
6:10 PM Peter Bihr - (Morten is ranting quite a bit, but it’s kinda cool to watch.)
6:10 PM Peter Bihr - “Remember: We have no clue”
6:10 PM Peter Bihr - Nice last words for a presentation ;)
6:11 PM Peter Bihr - His speech is over, now they sit down for a brief interview.
6:11 PM Peter Bihr - He lost 30bn (million?) euros and was all in.
6:11 PM Peter Bihr - “Now they’re going to come and take his house.” ouch.
6:12 PM Peter Bihr - He was involved in a Copenhagen newspaper project. A free newspaper delivered to the home. He took it over.
6:13 PM Peter Bihr - But couldn’t make it work, lost everything.
6:13 PM Peter Bihr - Loic: It’s not culturally common in Europe to talk about failure.
6:13 PM Peter Bihr - Morten reacts pretty cool to the question. Culturally insensitive? Yeah, but i also have my hand on my zipper ;)
6:14 PM Peter Bihr - “i want my kids to be spoiled by love, not by bullshit”
6:15 PM Peter Bihr - but he still has 85 or so startups around the world.
6:15 PM Peter Bihr - Here’s his website
6:16 PM Peter Bihr - This is moving along quickly, next up Oierre Chappaz, Chairman of Wikio
6:17 PM Peter Bihr - His presentation’s motto: “We will survive!”
6:17 PM Peter Bihr - wikio website
6:19 PM Peter Bihr - So what’s his take on the future of start ups?
6:19 PM Peter Bihr - Wikio is: a pan-european news portal; launched in 05/06; team of 35 people
6:19 PM Peter Bihr - “can an information service be profitable”
6:22 PM Peter Bihr - well, there’s plenty of elements that could be interesting: news, blog discussions, videos, blog rankings, RSS readers, consumer opinions, personalization. the slide shows a swiss army knife.
6:22 PM Peter Bihr - wikio’s business model is “very pragmatic”: sponsoring, ads, adsense, merchant links.
6:24 PM Peter Bihr - i’ll have to wrap up; you take over! :)
6:25 PM jkleske - ok, I’m taking over. what i’m hearing: bla, bla, blabla, bla, bla *evilgrin*
6:27 PM jkleske - we’re talking money now
6:27 PM jkleske - with eric achambeau, jeff clavier, martin varsavsky and fred wilson
6:28 PM jkleske - “getting financed in a recession”
6:29 PM jkleske - fred wilson
6:30 PM jkleske - jeff clavier
6:30 PM Florian Krakau -
6:31 PM jkleske - martin vasavsky
6:31 PM jkleske - fred wilson closed a deal today
6:32 PM Florian Krakau -
6:33 PM jkleske - ah, it’s looking good. oh, again, not so much.
6:35 PM jkleske - martin was bankrupt for a month in 98
6:36 PM jkleske - he only got out of it because of an accident that kept him from signing the papers
6:36 PM jkleske - life is just crazy sometimes
6:37 PM jkleske - i don’t get this money-talk. anybody taking over?
6:45 PM jkleske - ok, breaking down our tent at the blogger school.
6:46 PM jkleske - liveblogging ends here from us for today
6:46 PM jkleske - we’ll be back tomorrow
6:46 PM jkleske - now, let’s get some decent food