Video presentation. ish.

The recipe

You can easily contribute to e-culture, in you own way. Here's a short list of the "requirements" :

- a computer, or something that would allow you to use internet (like a brand new phone). If you have no idea what to purchase, go for a laptop and not for a desktop, as they're cheaper and more practical than ever.
- some additionnal equipments : a webcam, a headphone / microphone. Speakers might also be useful.
- an internet connection (obviously)
- softwares : Firefox. And that's it.
- a bunch of sites to start gettin the relevant information. Then gather the information on tools like bloglines, google reader or netvibes.
- then get yourself a personnal blog or wiki or anything else to start contributing to e-culture.

You rock.

On the go

Thinking about computers a few years back meant using a computer at home, or at the office. When I started learning how to use computers (ie using word and excel), I never thought I would be able to check my emails while waiting for the bus (never thought I would need to do so, actually). Yeah, being quite independant is great. By independant, I mean not being stuck in an office or in a room. Wireless is one of the major hardware innovations : facebook, mail and twitter right in your pocket. I know that's useless but it can be useful. I do like geek and wireless stuff, that's why I got myself a pdaphone, just like this one :


(ooh, nice)

About the hardware, the right equation is : things that fit in your pocket + things that can connect. I'm not interested that much in the software thing, but I keep an eye on the two major innovations on softwares for mobile devices : Apple OS on the iPhone (didn't want to talk about it but I have to say it's quite impressive) and the Google strike-back : android... meanwhile I'm thinking about upgrading to WIndows Mobile 6 (yeah).

Youtube is the new TV.

I think that internet is some kind of shortcut to celebrity. To become famous on the tv, that's a long way , a really really long way. It is way easier to put a video on youtube than being on tv. With a computer, a webcam and a youtube channel, the world is yours. Or almost. But don't forget, talent, idea and content is still the most important. Except if you want to be ridiculous on purpose. This is another kind of 'being famous'. This is how we've discovered our french rising hiphop star : le rappeur du 92.


There are lots and lots of famous "internet people". Here are some that you might not have heard of :

Mia Rose, a teenager from the UK. She sings covers (but some songs are written by herself) that she put on youtube. And then, BOOM, Ryan Leslie (a very famous Hiphop/R'n'B producer) signed her on his label NextSelection. How better can it have been for her ? It can be hard to believe but this cute 19-year-old girl has the second most subscribed youtube channel of all time (over 80,000). Not bad when you've started in you living room with a camera from bestbuy. When she started being famous, I happend to read in some blogs "In your face, Cowell !", and I liked it.



But let's be honest : this girl can sing. There's another girl who did quite the same thing : Esmee Denters. She did so well that she ended up singing with Justin Timberlake himself (me a little bit jealous) and signing in his label.



Plus, tv channels start picking things up on the internet to show it on tv. Which means being seen on internet = might be seen on tv. For example, on iTele, (a french news channel), I've seen a 5 minutes programme called iWeb, where a random man presents videos found on youtube or dailymotion (probably the ones with the most views), and just adds two or three words to the video, saying 'ha , see how funny is it'. I feel so sorry for him. On the other hand, medias and producers have also used internet in a more creative way : check out the lonelygirl15 story if you haven't heard about it yet...

Internet brought a new scale for fame and celebrity : are you famous enough to have your own wikipedia page ? Got your own youtube channel with millions of susbcribers ? Googleads on your blog make you richer than ever ?

You know what ? Internet just made it much faster and easier. In getting famous as well as in getting back as nobody. The thing is that unless you're talented, it won't work. The Warhol's "15 minutes of fame" has never been that true.

Fussbook ?

I wish I were this geek who thought about it first, I'd be so rich. Two major news about this social networking site these last days : Microsoft invested a few bucks in the company. $240 million. But we should be careful with the figures : Facebook isn't valued $15 billion, the two companies just extended their partnership (which was already up and running) 'til 2011 (read it here). They've also launched their own advertising business (here), opening a door to a 55 million users market. Sounds interesting.

Facts :
- 55 million is only 1/4 of myspace users. Even if they made it really fast (average 250,000 new users per day), it might not grow this fast forever.
- 7000 applications : how many relevant applications ? (I mean, really useful)
- friends : thought it would be different from myspace. But it just turns exactly the same way (going to the same school or reading someone's blog makes him a friend. There might be something here in the difference between the meaning of "friend" through the cultures, continental europe vs. USA).
- advertising business : this might be the "no-return" point for Facebook. Nobody (on the users side) wanted advertising business in here. Soon you'll get indirect spam from your own friends telling you that they prefer this brand and not this other one. They call it social ads, I call it ads.

I don't care about the big amounts of money here. I think about the fact that it is just impossible to get something really advertising-free (or business-free or whatever you call it) when it comes to specific audiences and large groups of people. This was one of the web 2.0 promises. This is sad.

Thought it would be the next big thing, but but I don't really believe in Facebook now :(

"No money no problems" is so wrong.

Having no money is a real problem, just ask around you. Prosper.com is a site where "people come to borrow and lend money". The kind of "generostiy & sharing" sites that will save the world, if you really believe in it : people who have money lend money to people who need money, and that's it.

I don't like thinking that everyhing is going to be easier on the internet. Why would I be ready to lend $10,000 to someone called banana22 who just says "consolidation of debt" when the same person knocking at my door asking for the same thing would just get a punch in the face ? We're dealing with big amounts of money here.

This site is a living proof that people truely believe that Internet makes things more transparent and more reliable. There's been a lots of scams on the internet since its beginning. As a regular customer on online shops, I can't help but think about all these fake e-mails of people promising you'll be millionaires just by lending $5000 to some son of some rich politician somewhere in Africa. Plus some other ebay frauds. Just ask google.

To sum it up, I think that Internet is probably the best marketplace in the world (I found so many stuff to buy on eBay Hong Kong). For goods, DVDs, computers, information or creation... but not for money. Even with a third party.

What if I gave you my paypal adress and told that I need $5 for a poker game (or for lunch) ?

Reading. Correction.

I am currently working in a company that has 65 employees. It is located in Paris, in the 15^th district, on Maubert street. It aims at selling software for children. It benefits from governement subsidies to hire interns. This is how I got this job as a salesman. At the beginning, I was in charge of the marketing, but I switched

We sell a range of products under the brand Youngsoft. We have many marketing expenses. Our displays in the subway is one of the most expensive. Our RP department also has a very large budget. We produce our own ads with our copywriting staff, and we also publish our user handbooks.

Our quarterly results for this year have been largely profitable. The market we're in is very interesting right now, and that is why we make profit.

We would like to sell our products in Tahiti because we think overseas customers would be interested in buying it.

To sum it up, our future looks good because of our positive ehtics and interesting market niche.

Blogging it good

What makes a blog a good blog ? Actually, I have no idea. I think there are no strict rules to make a blog succesful. I read very different types of blogs (from cookin recipes to photography), so here's a short list of what I like in these blogs...

- I like blogs where the author is not trying to seduce his readers. It's a little bit complicated to explain, so I'm not going to try to explain this.
- I prefer small blogs to 10,000-readers blogs, maybe because they manage to keep something genuine. Or maybe because they're not looking for fame. Actually I don't know why.
- I like blogs which really provide contents, and by really, I mean not just copy and paste something found on a news site or on another blog, but bringing an extra-something to the information.
- I like unserious blogs (even if I do read serious blogs, sometimes).
- I wish that more of the people I know were blogging (yeah, you). Cause some of you told me that they had read my entire blog before meeting me for the first time, and I was so scared (really).

Look at what these people are doing right now…

Twitter is a free social networking micro-blogging tool. It doesn't look like any other blog system, as all of your posts can't be longer than 140 characters. Just enough to tell people what you are doing. I've already tried to write something about Twitter on my personnal blog ; it was a few months ago, and at this time, I was just hatin' it. Since then, I'm using it quite often...

At the beginning, I thought it was just another useless web 2.0 tool, but it is actually a good tool to keep in touch with busy friends or people. Just dropping a line is ok when you don't have time to write a full e-mail, or to give a quick call. It is also ok for small announcments : hey all, party tonight 9pm, bring sthg to drink. Works well. It's a good thing to have aside a real blog, where you can write longer and more developped notes.

I think that the most interesting use of Twitter is the "on-the-go", from mobile devices (laptop, phone...). And the fresh new announcement made by Twitter this morning (on their blog) makes it more interesting, especially for professionnals. You can now track keywords and get the twitts related to these keywords on your mobile. A company could be interested in knowing if their new product or feature is discussed in the Twitter community...

Why Facebook might be the one

#1 More than a lot of social networking sites, Facebook is about real people. You're supposed to use your real first and last names, which is kind of new on the internet, where people were used to use nicknames everywhere. On Facebook you are just... you, and not just a guy with a funny (or stupid) nickname + a number aside (e.g. banana22). You're not supposed to be someone different when you're online. And your friends in Facebook are most of the time people you've already met once in your real life. Which is somehow important.

#2 People registered in Facebook are on the whole serious (even though I don't really like this term). Reading messages on walls is most of the time okay, and you don't find lots of spam or ads for companies (or gigs as on myspace) yet. As it was first designed for students, it's now starting to work as an online cv, as people can easily find about your education and your experience. It means that you won't find too young people, which means that you won't find a lol or mistakes every two words. Which is pleasant.

#3 Facebook brings a new definition of the personnal page, as all the things that composes your online id can be retrieved on your Facebook page : your blog's posts, your twitter, your all-time favourites about everything... all these things about you that you want people to know can be centralized here. Lots of new features are created everyday. On the other hand, there are way too many useless applications (wtf is this vampire application stuff ? and poke pro ?). Which makes you spend way too much time while you should be working, or doing searches for your school project. Which is evil.

#4 You'll find a lot of groups. Lots and lots. Of all kinds. These groups are more about funny stuff than serious causes. Even if most of these groups are dealing with unserious causes, it always nice to see that you're not the only one to think that myspace really sucks, that men shouldn't wear slim jeans, that reading is sexy, or that otters are cuter than kittens. Which is pretty cool.

#5 My Facebook page. Just in case.