Copacetic

After an all nighter on Tuesday/Wednesday of Le Web 3 Tom Raftery slumps into his Chicken Korma,

But then recovers dramatically when beer is mentioned…

Good man Tom!

So instead of debating blogging and democracy, Le Web 3 was subverted by two french political presidential candidates into a party political pitch.

 Loic Le Meur (the organiser and avowed booster of Nicolas Sarkozy) invited Francois Bayroux this morning to an unadvertised meeting with no press where he did a short speech and took questions. This afternoon Nicolas Sarkozy turned up an did a party political broadcast and was then swept of the stage to talk to the press, so much for the power of blogging.

The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I realise that the second day had a section devoted to politics but it feels like the whole thing was subverted by Loic to serve his own political agenda. The lack of parity of esteem for the two candidates (no press or translation headsets for Bayroux, full press and headsets for Sarkozy) told the lie of this debate.

If politicians want to embrace the very active blogging community they are going to have to engage them as equals all of who have a more or less powerful ability to broadcast and interpret what they hear. We are no longer a voiceless TV constituency who must consume an endless stream of toothless platitudes.

We have a voice and we can use it to expose these soundbite set pieces which is what Sarkozy’s event at Le Web 3 turned out to be.

Blyk is building a pan European mobile network for young people, funded by advertising

Scale = Bigness, 2 Billion mobile subscribers now, 4bn by 2010

Mobile service is a social function

Service providers were able to subsidise the handsets

Shift from a familiar collective good (family phone, office phone) to a personal phone

Three things you carry, keys, phone, payment mechanism (wallet, money, card)

The watch is the only thing used more than the phone by mobile phone users

Reach, the next 2bn users

Sometimes off, need to support tuning out

Hackability, This was always something you could do, new finishes colours, screens (but an absolute nightmare to program, ed.)

Social primitives - the gift, photostream, signaling, read identity

Freedom - Other business models to pay for communication (e.g. advertising)

The second french presidential candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, is about to go on and speak in french. I have a headset. We’ll see how this works.

First thing to note, no press for Nicolas this morning, but huge presence this afternoon.

Internet is a strategic choice

Internet is a huge opportunity

The democratic debate is changed by the Internet

France is too far behind

3 million blogs

A cultural lag

A state lag

The state did not create the conditions to make France innovative

 Tariq and Loic are good examples

We did not build the tools to successfully create Internet

IP and related rights, fully involved to ensure that copyright was respected

Don’t expect that work could be despoiled  by theft

We could have devised mechanisms to fix these challenges

Internet is a priority along with life sciences

France is not investing enough on the net

Last but one, in terms of Internet contributing to growth

Use of e-government to encourage use

Invest massively in public and free sites to promote our cultural heritage

Improve broadband access

Support our new SMEs

Use the US  model, don’t copy, but draw benefit from what works

I want a country where everything becomes possible

Capitalising funding - restore investor confidence - transparency

legal safeguards

A environment that promotes growth

Pushing people to other countries to succeed is not acceptable

82% of bloggers are under 24

Universities should be tax exempt

Students should benefit from patent protection

We hope the Internet will break down the barriers of political freedom in China

The first conquest of Internet is to break down citadels that were well guarded

We must combat economic rents and monopolies

Liberty and freedom is not the permission for racism

I’m not afraid of Internet regulation

The Internet does not replace school

Let us make the Internet the content of new liberties not the destructor of old liberties

Lets transmit knowledge not lies

I believe in the technological revolution

This Internet must obey rules, values that we all uphold

Ethics do not narrow you freedom, they increase it

Respect diversity and minorities

You represent the economy of the future

Second Life is not a game - Nothing is pre-programmed, there is no structure (there are constraints though)

Three key elements - Avatars, User created content, marketplace

Eye contact and separation distance match those in real life

All the content in the game has been created by users except the user orientation Island

All the Intellectual properties for the user created content reside with the creators (DMCA applies)

The linden dollar (the currency in second life) is a tradable currency in the real world

About to cross over into 2m residents

10 million objects

900,000 unique items traded or sold in Oct 2006 alone

Half of the time in Second life is spent by females

Median age is 32

55% of the residents are international (non US nationals)

7m USD exchanged each month

7000 “businesses” in Second Life

25000 USD average gross for top 10 businesses (monthly)

Second Life demo:

First visit to The Shelter got swamped by bad network connectivity

Second visit to attempt was Trinity College Dublin, no juice there either

— Back to talking

Once people invest in Second Life they stay (100% retention, once you are bedded in)

Very simple tools for creating three-D objects

The four biggest economies in Second life are land, clubs and casinos and finally the fashion businesses

The highest concurrent login count is 18,000 users (audience provided number)

700,000 have logged in in the last 60 days

Design matters

There is no such thing as web service monogamy - We want to use a range of services

Prompts are a good thing - Make them think about blogging, encourages them to post (11% are prompted posts on VOX)

Its not just a woman thing - 53% female, 47% male

Pictures over words -  Easier to post a picture

Privacy is paramount - Need to be able to restrict who sees their content, about 20% of posts end up as private posts

Personal Blogging is good for all us - Well a personal blogging tool vendor would say that wouldn’t they?

Q: Can all the lady entrepreneurs stand up so we can count them? No count announced.

Great fast paced talk from Danah on the dynamics of MySpace. Precis below.

———————–

MySpace is a unique marketing space.

What changed is the visibility of what is going on in the teenage space.

Teenager is a manufactured marketing term (before the term, they were called young adults)

Once they are a demographic we start to advertise to them

For teenagers, it is critical to their teenage life to participate, no MySpace ID and you don’t exist

Lets start with friendster - launched 2002, self defined freaks, geeks and queers

Friendster didn’t like this, and the users rebelled

Friendster started to kill of ‘bad’ profiles

MySpace went after the guys that got kicked out, particularly targeting musicians

Music is cultural glue for young people

The 20+ age limit on clubs limits access to teenagers

15 year olds look up to 18 year olds, 18 year look up to olds to 20 year olds

MySpace dropped the age limit

Now MySpace became a way to engage with their friends

The made a ‘mistake’ and allowed people to post raw HTML in forms

Cut and paste drove adoption (arrggh, the blink tag)

Now you have demographics and dating profiles added to the site

You can articulate your friends list and they can comment on you

Friends are “attention trust” friends rather than real friends

The new top 8 (my top 8 MySpace friends)

Removing somebody from your top 8 is a classic passive aggressive powerplay

Upper left hand corner (my significant other)

A way to establish my status

Its socially awkward to establish status to face to face

What are the social norms online?

Four properties unique to mediated existence, persistence, searchability, replicability (cloning), invisible audiences

Teenagers want to create an environment based on an imagined social audience

They are engaging in a public life with two populations, those who want to have power over them (parents, teachers) and those who want to prey on them (marketers)

How to get people to add you to their friends network (so you can market to them)

Now you have 2000 messages from ‘fake’ friends

Mobile is the future

All our media will converge (phones, web, TV)

We assume net neutrality, that’s not the case on mobile (you can’t invite all your friends)

François Bayrou a french presidential candidate joins us. This conference Looks increasingly like a big ego trip for Loic. The guy won’t even speak in english!

So this is the balancing act for Loic inviting the candidate he does support in the afternoon.

Questions:

Q:You have proposed a great project, lets all come together and build a great world, who will take advantage of us, what kind of relationship you like to engage us with? What will the relationship be?

Bayrou: I don’t understand the question (in french).

Q: Repeat in french (my french doesn’t stretch that far).

Bayrou: Our French crisis is deeper than any crisis 50 years ago, this crisis needs a new answer, a new answer with some very precise reforms and a new majority for , eh, support, sustain the reforms. The old right wing is divided and weak, and the old left wing is divided and weak too. We have a very tough extreme right and a very tough extreme left. The support for reforms is too weak. I propose to build a large reform between democrats of both wings…controlled by citizens. Its very important that citizens can control and lead the power. But today we have the tools to control and lead, the Internet is one of these. Radio and TV are not tools to control and understand and teach. We need to be informed and understand the reality of the situation and its a kind of revolution (All in English by Bayrou).

Q: Why are the politicians so clear to talk about technology, but why is it so absent from education?

Bayrou: He was among the first to stress the importance of technology. But the technology may not be advanced enough for that sphere. He believes in the human one to one relationship. Technology will not replace that magical relationship.

Speakers : 5 out of 10 : Could try harder

Panels : 3 out of 10 : Too anodyne and buddy buddy

Venue: 7 out of 10 : Large arena, excellent audio visual support, easy to move from the auditorium to the networking area without disturbing the speakers

Networking: 8 out of 10: Good mix of people and some of the key european VCs are here (Advent, 3i)

Bonus points : The startup room was pretty good, each company gets 10 minutes to pitch or demo their product. The best get a main stage bit of PR this evening.

Total Downer: The wireless network is completely non-functioning, despite Loic bleating for us all to turn off skype and other peer-to-peer networking tools.

Web 2.0 page views are all social (networks)

How does Web 2.0 impact business?

Linkedin, 8.5  million users (White, English, North American)

Everyone is becoming a publisher (you’ll have a profile online)

Technology of resumes/CVs - a text document with a set of assertions (can be inaccurate and lack meta-data)

The next generation is an online document with properly linked meta-data

Search for sex on google - get sex

Search for Sex on linkedin - Get experts on gender in the workplace

If you are investing in consumer internet companies you are investing in one of the seven deadly sins