Archive for 'Traveling Geeks'
Le Web: Q & A with Twitter, Square creator Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter who just launched a new payments startup called Square, is on-stage at the Le Web conference in Paris today. I’m live-blogging as we go:
Loic Le Meur: How did you get the idea for Twitter?
Jack Dorsey: It took a long, long time. When I turned 15 years old, I became fascinated by how cities work. I became obsessed with maps. I taught myself to program to put a map on the screen. I taught myself how to put a map on the screen, and put dots on the map. But they had no meaning whatsoever.
So I found taxis and public databases to provide meaning for the dots. But more importantly, I had this very important picture of what was happening in Manhattan from St. Louis. But what was missing were the citizens.
So I built something in 2000, but no one was using it. And in 2006, I was working at Odeo — it was a Podcasting company with Ev and Biz. We were looking at SMS and how to fit podcasting in group communication. The idea for Twitter came up again, and we had two weeks to build it. So we did. (more…)
Le Web: Jack Dorsey says he’ll give away Square devices for free
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Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter and co-founder of a new payments startup called Square, said the company will give away its credit card-swiping devices for free at the Le Web conference in Paris today. (See a Q&A with Dorsey here.) It’s a move that should help overcome the biggest hurdle for the startup, and probably help make its money back if it can take a small share of all payments it manages. (more…)
Google’s real-time search now live in the U.K.
Google’s newly announced real-time search is now not just limited to the Trends page. It’s now live across searches on Google.co.uk. (I just tried it with “Ethan Beard”, who is director of the Facebook Developer Network and is speaking on stage at Le Web right now.) The search giant announced the new feature on Monday — it pulls in public data from Twitter, MySpace and Facebook and uses it to surface content that’s been recently published and shared. (more…)
Le Web: Facebook Connect now reaches 60 million people on 80,000 sites
Facebook just updated stats on Connect — its effort to bring social functionality to sites and apps across the web. Facebook Connect now reaches 60 million users and 80,000 sites (that’s up from the 15,000 announced earlier this fall.)
“We don’t aspire to be only a web site,” said Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network. “We aspire to be a technology that allows people to connect people with the things they care about.”
Beard gave a few prominent examples of how Connect has helped drive traffic to partners. Huffington Post, which launched Social News earlier this year, got a 500 percent increase in referrals and 50 percent boost to comments and doubled its user base.
Beard also pointed to Facebook’s rapid growth overseas — two years ago, 70 percent of Facebook’s users came from within the U.S. Now 70 percent come from abroad.
Le Web: MySpace opens up its real-time stream of data to developers
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MySpace launched a real-time stream application programming interface, letting other developers mine its public status updates and shared links for trends and viral content.
That means when MySpace users share links or music videos, that data can show up in other places like on search engine OneRiot, which is a launch partner. Because of MySpace’s focus on music, its data could probably be used to find emerging artists or new music videos. MySpace COO Mike Jones says the site handles about 46 million updates every day. Some obvious applications could be ultra-refined ‘Top 40′ charts for very specific genres of music or for bands in specific cities. (more…)
Le Web: Twitter releases data firehose to everyone, now has 50,000 apps
Twitter said it’s opening up its data stream of tweets to all developers, not just Bing and Google. Ryan Sarver, who is on the platform team at Twitter, said details will be hashed out later next year.
Sarver said Twitter’s business model will be to drive and split revenue with the ecosystem of developers that have built applications around it. (more…)
Le Web: Q&A with Google VP Marissa Mayer on the future of search
Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search and user experience is on-stage at the Le Web conference in Paris. I’m live-blogging as we go:
Michael Arrington asks about the search announcements earlier this week (namely Google Goggles, local search and real-time search). (more…)
Le Web day 1: End of day show report
Here’s my end of day show report for Le Web, the Web 2.0 conference in Paris. I’ve been in Paris for the week reporting with the Traveling Geeks (watch video of us on a train). Watch the video for a quick summary of the companies I saw, plus a quick story at the end about an outbreak Robert Scoble had at the expense of the French entrepreneurs.
[youtube 8SiaiECloR0]
Companies and links mentioned in the video: (more…)
Niklas Zennström at LeWeb
By Karsten Lemm at LeWeb 2009 – “If you want to be successful, swim against the stream, follow your own path.” That was Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs at the LeWeb conference in Paris. The serial entrepreneur, who initially gained fame and fortune with file-sharing service Kazaa, pointed out that none of the potential investors that he and co-founder Janus Friis approached wanted to put money into Skype. “The VCs in Europe felt that Skype was way too risky” and had little future, Zennström said. The Internet phone service became a big success, of course, and was sold to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion.
Dating tech service Wuiper offers a fun way for people to meet
Unless you’re incredibly suave, it can be difficult to impossible to meet someone you want to date. Just walking up to a stranger in a public place and thinking of a way to strike up a conversation and make a connection is not easy. That’s why we have a market for dating technologies, such as online dating sites and devices. All dating technologies have one simple goal: finding a simple, fun, and non-threatening way for people to meet.
Wuiper (pronounced “Whipper”) is a social networking site where people are introduced through physical numbered tags that you can stick on someone’s bag. Geared towards high school students, I can see this being a fun way to leave “secret admirer” messages. Messages can be sent and retrieved via an SMS or via the Wuiper site. All these tags have a code that you use to send a message to initiate a conversation. And then you can continue the conversation through the Wuiper site or take it online or offline.
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