Traveling Geeks

Leweb 2009 – Startups

This is my late and last post covering Leweb 2009. Like every other year (2006, 2007,2008), I will make a roundup of the presenting startups in the conference.

This year, startups didn’t have to pay to present, like in previous years. As a result, the competition seemed opened to more early stage companies and it did show. Only two had already got some VC funding and less than half had significant business angel back-up. There were fewer startups presenting: 16 instead of 30 last year. (more…)

Leweb 2009 – Sponsor speakers

There were many sponsor speakers at Leweb. Although they seemed to be everywhere in the agenda, there were hopefully more non-sponsor speakers!

Twitter was a preeminent company at Leweb since it was not only a sponsor but it had its CEO and founder Jack Dorsey talking. And it made a lot of sense since Twitter is a huge part of the real time web phenomenon. Jack spent also significant time in Paris, going to the City Hall for the “.paris” reception, meeting with Queen Rania, talking to @nk_m, etc. (more…)

Leweb 2009 – Gurus and illustrious speakers

Let’s talk a bit about these “TED moments” from Leweb, when speakers really shake the audience and create a strong emotional connection. In most cases, it was with substance. There were at least 4 to 5 such occasions at this year’s Leweb.

It’s always amazing to watch the differences of communication styles between speakers. Corporate speakers tend to care about every word they say, keep a stable voice, and they avoid to hurt anybody as if their legal department was hiding behind the black stage curtain. Some were even reading their speeches, huh oh. On the contrary, good speakers move, shake hands, speak loud, use common sense, and they make a hit. Could you have both? I wish Corporation could. In the long run, they’ll have to. Otherwise, fireside chats with Loic were fine.

So, let’s look at the main session speakers in a decreasing impact order: (more…)

Leweb 2009 – Weird stuff

Since 2006, I’m playing the photoreporter role at Leweb, on top of blogging and networking.

This year, I took with me my two Canon reflex cameras (DSLR) with a wide angle lense and a zoom lense. Every year, I learn the way to improve my shootings. This year, I got very nice results with using a mix of high ISO sensors (5D II), wide apperture lenses (2.8), fast speed (1/400s) and with caring about good focusing. My pictures are not retouched at all beyond basic RAW files processing using Adobe Lightroom, with some color balance and lighting adjustments. Despite the gear, I’m NOT a professional photographer. It’s just a hobby!

You’ll find all my pictures from this year’s Leweb here and there. (more…)

Paris Diary: LeWeb Roundup – Vacuous Social Media Messages; LeWeb A Pay-To- Present Platform; and YouTube Millionaires…

(LeWeb conference floor – photo by David Spark.)

The beauty of the blogging approach to news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If someone has written up a great story, you can simply point to it instead of trying to recreate it.

At LeWeb I was part of the Traveling Geeks group, and the group was producing a lot of great content. Here is a selection: (more…)

With the Traveling Geeks @ Orange

This is the last part of my report of the Traveling Geeks tour in Paris before Leweb.

We met with Orange to have a glimpse of all the solutions they provide to their consumer customers: IPTV, mobile solutions, web solutions, tablets, etc. It took place in the Orange Lab situated at Chatillon, in the southern Paris suburb.

(more…)

With the Traveling Geeks @ Pearltrees

The Traveling Geeks met with Patrice Lamothe from Pearltrees (@pearltrees) for nearly two hours at the beginning of the Traveling Geeks tour.

This guy is running the Internet startup buzz playbook like perfect, at least for a French startup: he did a tour in the Silicon Valley visiting local influencers and bloggers, sponsored the Traveling Geeks and Leweb, talking at Leweb in plenary session (twice…), creating plug-ins, buttons, that can be placed everywhere on social sites, his site is in English, and so on. As a result, he got heck of a good visibility. And we were very kindly welcomed in the company which looks like an US startup: lots of coffee and… US sized patisserie. (more…)

With the Traveling Geeks @ La Cantine

This second part of my report from the Traveling Geeks tour in Paris is focused on the companies we visited during the first two days, Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th of December 2009. With startups with short presentations, startups with long meetings, then larger companies (Orange, Parrot).

I’ll start here with the startups we met at La Cantine. I realize I’ll need more posts for the rest of this two days visits. (more…)

With the Traveling Geeks in Paris

Dear reader, this is my first post in English. The reason is I participated recently to the Traveling Geeks tour in Paris and the rule of the game is to publish content that can be shared by its participants and within the Traveling Geeks web site. So, no other solution than English. Time to get really international!

In this first post, I’ll quickly go through the agenda of this tour and then talk a little bit about my fellow international Traveling Geeks bloggers. We’ve spent four days together, two in a local tour and two at Leweb. That was a good opportunity to get to know high-profile bloggers from other countries, not just the USA, and to share some views on digital innovation as well as on Leweb itself. I enjoyed a lot this experience. (more…)

A Travelling Geeks personal retrospective

During Blog World Expo this year, Renee Blodgett asked if I would be free for the few days before Le Web, as she would be planning “a little something” with her Travelling Geeks project. In essence it was asking if I would like to meet with some of the newer French start-ups in the city in a more intimate environment than Geraldine’s 2,300 attendee strong conference.

It sounded like fun to me, so I agreed.

(more…)