Traveling Geeks

Pearltrees CEO Patrice Lamothe meets us at the door of their offices on rue de charonne in a funky, artsy area of Paris that houses other early stage companies and ad agencies, not unlike San Francisco’s SOMA in many ways.

Coffee waiting? You betcha and hot chocolate too.

He’s not an unknown personality in Silicon Valley so some of us had heard of, tried, tested and demoed Pearltrees before. He knows this so he gets a little creative and we dig a little deeper into their service.

“Building an organization on the web touches on how you organize your stuff in the real world. If you like books, you will likely get a lot of pleasure organizing books into your own library on the web,” says Patrice.

Pause….a nearby church bell rings on the half hour. (Okay, so not quite like SOMA)……

Pearltrees allows you to get in touch with others who share mutual interests around the way you ‘organize yourself on the web.’ “Bookmarking and tagging alone doesn’t allow you to accomplish this,” says Patrice.

Visually it looks a bit like the brain……not unlike a mind map, but that’s not the point of the app, which is all done in flex btw. You can import files from delicious and export as RDF.

Coming out this week, any URL that you tweet will automatically turn into a pearl inside Pearltrees. Pearltrees in a sense becomes your ‘memory,’ allowing you to store useful data by category or by interest — all organized in your Pearl-Tree. (visually displayed the way you think and want to store and view data).

Who uses it? In France, a lot of art and political bloggers use it as a way to visually tell a story or drive people to the web around a particular topic or interest.

One third of their users are early adopter users who are social media savvy and one third are under thirty and mostly women from France and the U.S. 

You can embed your pearls on Twitter, email Facebook or directly inside your own blog.

To-date, they have raised roughly $3 million. As for their revenue model? “Either through premium services or advertising,” says Patrice. Their cost per user is very very low however.

Zorap, which creates digital-rich media collaboration and group video communication experience experiences on the web, has created a Virtual Geek Pad for the Traveling Geeks team in France this week for LeWeb.

It is the only technology that lets you view and listen to music, video and photos with groups of up to 50 people anywhere in the world, using real-time audio and video communications.

While other real-time web communications tools like Twitter and Facebook provide value for active web users interested in quick soundbites, Zorap is the only service available that allows engagement using all forms of media in real-time, not just text, links and photos.

Check out the Virtual Geek Pad they designed for the Traveling Geeks.

Zorap allows individuals and groups of individuals to travel to movie sites and watch trailers together, listen to new music with their friends, sports events with their buddies, see wedding photos where everyone is viewing and sharing in real-time, shop for travel destinations with classmates or family, participate in a lively auction where you can see other bidders in real-time and more.

A few visuals to get you in the ‘traveling geeks’ frame of mind. The Traveling Geeks are getting ready to roll………and move, non-stop for the next four days.

We had a ‘geek’ session to ensure we’ll stay connected and can create content, anytime, anywhere. Thanks Orange, Skype and MAXroam. Below, Amanda, Olivier, Sky and Robin get the scoop.

Amanda, Beth and Eliane — on the move. Off to explore the city and well, yeah eat. Night one.

Olivier Ezratty shows up with the Canon 85 mm 1.2 portrait lense. Ahhhhh, what a magnificent lense.

Beth Blecherman and Eliane Fiolet en route to the kickoff dinner in the Marais.

David Spark and Tom Foremski (yeah, well, we’re still in the Metro)

Ah yes, ambience. Get used to it, she says with a smile. You’re not in Kansas anymore. Silicon Valley either. Renee Blodgett, Jean-Xtophe and Eliane Fiolet in ambience-rich Les Bougresses.

MobileGlobe’s founder Yoann Valensi was our host so typical “traveling geek” style, we looked at toys and saw demos over dinner. Thanks Yoann, look forward to trying out your service. Rodrigo, what was your question again?

Thank god for SMS and some of the phones that did work (we’ve had issues with ’em – unlocked devices can have its complications)….Ewan Spence from Edinburgh made it with luggage in time to join us. A joyous Frederic Lardinois to his right.

And as for the food, what can I say? It’s Paris after all. We didn’t starve nor did we complain. Great job Les Bougresses (located in the Marais…..most definitely worth a try).

Mashcast, a very cool company that does video mashups and much much more created a very creative and humorous video of Traveling Geeks heading to Paris. (Oh yeah and potentially inheriting the earth).

Below is a teaser and here is the video. Be prepared to laugh. A lot.