Le Web Paris 09-a taste of le web to come

With the French flair and panache followers of Loic Le Meur are well used to, a preview of what is to come at Le Web Paris 09 has been released. Teaming up with co-organiser and wife Geraldine, Loic describes the exciting programme for this year's event.Click here to watch the video.

Some of the great themes that will be covered this year include:

-Mobility: get it now, immediately

-The Free culture

-Building the new business models

-Buying is one click away

-The Real-Time web through the eyes of “Generation Young”


If you are grappling with these fundamental issues already, don't miss out on the debate in Paris. Contact me to obtain a special 10% discount on the ticket price for being a reader of this blog!

Le Web 09 Paris-Get ready for Real-time web, European-style

PARIS- LeWeb09, the leading event in Europe for tech start-ups focussed on both web and (increasingly) mobile, is just round the corner, with Loic and Geraldine LeMeur preparing a packed agenda for the 2-day event.

Last year, Paulo Coelho, Dave Morin (Facebook) and Marissa Mayer (Google) presented their ideas about the future. This year, following the Twitter hype, founder Jack Dorsey will give a keynote, together with a power line-up of speakers including Niklas Zennstrom (Skype founder now at Atomico Ventures) and controversial figure Michael Arrington (of Techcrunch and protagonist of a heated debate at last year's event).

The event is expected to pull in over 1800 participants and be a complete sell-out, so don't miss out if you want the inside track not only of the European but also the global tech start-up scene.

I feel priviliged to have been selected as Official Blogger for the event, so will be bringing you news straight from the frontline..stay tuned for more...

LeWeb08-Google's Mayer tips Local Search as key opportunity for 2009

PARIS-Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Product & User Experience at Google, gave an insightful view on various challenges facing both Google and its competitors in terms of Search.

Marissa pointed out that there is still some way to go to improve search (harking back to a previous interview she had given where she had stated that 90% of the work on search has been completed but that the last 10% was the tricky part).

One area where Google is looking to improve its game is in personalised search, with the recent launch of the Google Search Wiki seeking to test the waters in this area.

Another area, is search through devices other than the PC, notably through a mobile phone and, linked to this,voice-activated search.

Loic le Meur asked Marissa whether she thought any improvements in video search were in the pipeline. She answered that improvements are imminent in detecting voice within video and searching on this. However, graphic recognition (e.g.of a face in a video) is still a few years away partly due to YouTube's success and the proliferation of video content on the web.

Finally, and critically for companies in the LBS space, Marissa stated that "local search is one of the big opportunities in 2009".

Startup 2.0 Finalists Announced

BARCELONA-After several weeks of online voting, startup 2.0, a European-wide competition of web 2.0 sites, has entered its final phase.The competition, organized by Alianzo Networks and La Caixa, has the objective to promote and reward European startups involved in 2.0 technologies.

Over 300 companies applied online for the contest, this now having been whittled down to 10 finalists who will be giving 5 minute elevator pitches in front of a prestigious panel of judges including Martin Varsavsky, Loic le Meur and Luca Conti.

The finalists are:

- iFoods
- UnLtdWorld
- Bubok
- Geospace
- AllRise
- Planetaki
- Talicious
- Learnit
- Zilok
- Wolpy

From a personal point of view, I'm particularly keen to find out more about Geospace, who offer a Location-based service via web and mobile...their website is in Hungarian, so it will be a case of discovering what services they have during their presentation.

The other startups have (mostly) websites in English, and are an eclectic mix of socially-minded enterprises to social travel networks and talent communities....I recommend you take a look and see what is boiling in the European startup pot for yourselves....

Focus on Davos

DAVOS -It's that time of the year again! The world's greatest and brightest get together in Switzerland to address some key questions facing today's world at the World Economic Forum.

This year, the WEF was especially keen to get young entrepreneurs to participate in the debate and also invited several bloggers to attend the event. YouTube has a channel where users can post a reply to the Davos question: "What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?"

Well, I think the technology sector has a key role to play in general, with the mobile/web eco-system having a great opportunity to take the lead.The buzzword for me in 2008 should be: 'openness'.Open access to open networks and platforms will allow the world to connect to each other and address future challenges jointly. As a cynic, you could also argue that openness within the financial community could have avoided the US-led global credit crunch and fear of a financial meltdown. (No-one is being 'open' about the exact size of the sub-prime mortgage write-down and where the responsibility lies for it!)

Have your say on the official Davos online journal : http://www.forumblog.org/.

You can also follow Loic Le Meur at the WEF via his blog and catch up on videocasts of his meetings with interesting personalities over there.

Seesmic -one to watch #2

Loic Le Meur is no stranger to web enterprise -San Francisco-based Seesmic is the fifth such start-up he has embarked upon. Only that this time, there is a special touch, in that in a one-of-a-kind initiative, he is keeping a daily video diary of how the whole adventure unfolds.

So what is Seesmic? Loic describes it a community-driven video social software. Others have billed it a video-based twitter. The basic idea is for it to become a very open online video service with a high degree of interaction by part of its users. The company has not actually officially launched (this is expected to happen in February 2008 -aha, the month of the Mobile World Congress!) so only testers can access the beta version.

However, development of the site has achieved a crescendo of activity and it promises to deliver integrated social networking by linking in to facebook, skype, twitter et al. Channels will be created according to specific themes, like technology, hobbies, sports etc.

But what is the business model, I hear you asking? A high degree of user partcipation and critical mass within the channels is intended to act as a strong pull for sponsors and advertisers. Seesmic members posting some of the more popular videos to these channels will in turn receive a percentage of revenues from them.

Loic has a large following in Europe and is somewhat of a web evangelist, allowing word to spread fast about the seesmic initiative.5,000 testers are already helping Loic make his vision a reality and giving a welcome 'open' flavour to the whole project -in today's community-bound web, a sure-fire key to success.Loic has strong support from Niklas Zennstrom of skype fame- "Seesmic rocks -it is Web 3.0".

I will ask Loic what his plans are for seesmic on the mobile web and keep readers updated.Meantime, take a look at Loic's seesmic video-diary -you'll find it to be dangerously addictive!