Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 11th December 2008
0 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Maurice Lévy is a successful and extremely well-connected French marketing mogul. He’s the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s four leading communications organizations. When Lévy reached the top, he transformed the company into a global powerhouse of top creative advertising and marketing agencies and is today a pioneer in digital and online communications.
Due to some negative experiences, e.g. with Didier Lombard, Chairman and CEO of Orange, I learned to block out middle aged men with a French accent during Le Web ‘08. Yet somehow the interesting words spilled through.
Loic le Meur interviewed him on stage about the same themes as he interviewed others: advice for young entrepreneurs, Europe versus the US, and – of course – the recession.
Don’t rush, build a solid base
Let’s focus on the advice for young lads. Lévy said he’s impressed by young people starting their own operation with very little backup and just the belief that they’re idea is important. The first thing a starting entrepreneur should keep in mind, Lévy noted, is that he should build a solid base. “Don’t rush. Do one thing, do it well, and own it. Then go to the next level.”
Americans are privileged
Lévy: “Be a recognized leader. Don’t try to do many things and go to many countries to soon. Build a solid base first, then move on.” According to him, launching a product in the US market compares to launching a product in all European markets – minus the language and tax problems. Entrepreneurs who are born in the US are thus privileged, hence the fact that most web heavyweights are American.
“We should not be afraid of those giants”, Lévy assured the audience. “It’s great that they’re here, because they build the way for us by creating relationships with advertisers. They make the path easier so we shouldn’t be afraid to work or compete with them.”
Great talent in Europe
The possibilities are more scarce in Europe, but they do exist. When Lévy started with the online activities of Publicis Groupe in France it was a rather small operation. Yet in a few years Publicis Groupe turned it into a billion dollar division. “It wouldn’t have made a huge difference if we had done it in Germany, the UK or Poland. We have great talent in Europe that can develop good software.”
Lévy turned out to be surprisingly web savvy, combined with his incredible resume, I found his twenty minutes on stage really inspiring.
Written on 10th December 2008
26 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
As you walk around during a conference a lot of people you talk to ask the same question: “How do you like it so far?”. It is a good conversation starter. You can agree on what was good and complain about whatever went wrong. At Le Web ‘08 there was a lot to complain about and a lot to like. The speakers were very good. It is clear that Loic has an incredible international network. He has access to tech people as well as scientists, writers and politicians.
Speakers, of course, are the most important components of any conference. If you have good speakers you should have a great conference. Le Web had great speakers. But was it a great conference?
Love & Hate
The official subject of this Le Web Edition was ‘Love”. In retrospect it might have been better to call this one “Love & Hate”. People loved the speakers but hated the location, the lack of food, the low temperature of the room and the bad internet connection. Oh, and I’m sure the speakers hated the lousy help they got from the technicians. Laptops didn’t seem to work with beamers projectors, movies wouldn’t play or would be played without sound and speakers had to use hand-held microphones which meant they were either holding the microphones too close or too far away from their mouths.
A pissed off Michael Arrington
So how legitimate is it to complain about these details? We were these as bloggers, regular participants, competing conference organizers and fellow entrepreneurs so it all depends on our perspective when it comes to these issues. Fact is we were certainly not the most critical participants by far. Someone told us that Michael Arrington was so pissed of at having no connectivity he went back to his hotel the first day after lunch and didn’t come back. He even told people he wasn’t planning on coming back the next day!
He did, of course, and interviewed Marissa Meyer on stage. But instead of diving right into the interview Michael took the opportunity to humiliate Loic a bit before he could rush off stage. Arrington left Marissa waiting while he asked Loic “Will there be enough food for everyone today?”. Loic, visibly stunned, said that he thought or hoped there would be. Loic was about to leave when Arrington addressed the audience “Who has an internet connection here” when about 30 hands went up he simply said “Well, that is about three times more than yesterday”. Loic kept smiling but was clearly not at ease with the situation.
And who could blame him? The cold made everyone very hungry, speakers took more time so we arrived at lunch later and the food was so delicious that we just had to eat everything. Shit happens. Wifi is notoriously unreliable and most conference have bad connectivity. So why were some people so annoyed by all this?
Expect everything to be perfect
I think it all has to do with expectations. When you pay more than €1000 for a conference and see that the best speakers in the world will be there at an event that is being held for the 5th time you expect everything to be perfect.
Loic repeated several times that they were spending more than €100.000 on the connectivity. That is one of the reasons people pay what they have to pay. So when you hear that you pay €1000 so Loic can invest €100.000 and then you find out the internet connection doesn’t work, you get irritated.
A little information please
Managing expectations is hard. At the end of the second day someone told me the largest heater in the conference hall broke down the evening before the conference. They installed a new one at night while we were out partying and the second day was slightly warmer. I didn’t know this until the end of the conference and simply thought they were simply not aware of everybody freezing. A little more information on that would have helped manage expectations.
No statue
All in all I had a great time at Le Web and saw a lot of great speakers. The sessions were inspiring and the parties were great fun. I’m sure Loic and Geraldine worked really hard and were just as disappointed at the stuff that went wrong as we were. A lot of people, including me, expressed criticism at what went wrong and we all might have a point.
The thing is, Loic did bring together a large group of extremely interesting and inspiring people and we should be happy he did. So, here is my one and only tip for Loic.
“Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic.”
– Jean Sibelius
Written on 10th December 2008
1 COMMENT
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Marissa Mayer is the second Google big shot who gives acte de presence at Le Web. After Nikesh Arora
SVP, Google and President, EMEA Operations it’s up to the Google Vice President Search Products and User Experience. She’ll be interviewed by a man who has already seated the comfortable white couches when he interviewed the MySpace COO.
Mayer has an impressive track record. She joined Google in 1999 as Google’s first female engineer (and employee number 1 she explained during the Q&A) and led the user interface and web server teams at that time. Her efforts have included designing and developing Google’s search interface, internationalizing the site to more than 100 languages, defining Google News, Gmail, and Orkut, and launching more than 100 features and products on Google.com. Not to mention the several Artificial Intelligence patents she has filed.
Arrington’s first question was at Loic: “Will there be enough food for people today”
His second question: “Who has internet connectivity today?”
Ouch.
Then the interview takes off. Marissa has news today. Googles Zeitgeist will be launched with a more global focus showing global trends which can be viewed per country too.
The second product (unannounced until now) are more themes for iGoogle. Euh, okay. Themes. very exciting.
Then the conversation shifts to Chrome. Marissa gives an update on their goals: stability, more operating systems, etc. No word on what market size they have now.
On Betas: software can be in beta but has to move out of beta soon. Web services are different and might stay in beta for years. For chrome it is very important to get out of beta soon.
On Google Search Wiki: Arrington goes into a rant on how awful it is. Marissa explains the concept and highlights the benefits. Arrington talks about the spam comments. They see it as a more personal way to search. They are now able to enhance results because you vote up or down existing results. Why not let people opt out, arrington asks. Marissa thinks that option will appear. Arrington wants to know when that option will go live. Beginning of next year Marissa promises. They might one day use aggregated votes to influence results. But not too soon.
On Market share: Arrington says “Search is horrible now”. So how is Google going to improve? What is next? What is the next level of share? What is the future of search? Marissa answer that competition is good and she likes it. There are lots of ways to improve search: they seem to focus on different ways of accessing search input. Via voice, from you car, from your phone, stuff like that. They also want to offer more than just the 10 best results but actually answer the question the user has. Moving away from keyword searches and improving on understanding what people want seem to be key there.
On visual recognition: Arrington asks: Is there a secret search engine that does everything (better search, recognition etc) which Google is holding back? Marissa just smiles. :-)
On personalization: they get best results by tracking what you clicked and combining that with your location. The scoial aspect is another important point. Everything you might ask during a conference in another country are social questions (where to eat, drink sleep) and using your social network for that will greatly increase quality of results.
On local search: Arrington: there is no local search that works. She answers that local search is a big thing for Google. Ecommerce is great but buying local is better for everything. Better for local economies, the environment and your connection to your local communities. They want to expand into that and see a huge opportunity in local search.
After that we had a few questions (using iPhone search with different accents, how do you grow Google with so many people there, ) from the audience which were very interesting but not interesting enough for me to repeat here.
My general perception of the interview is that Marissa was more open about Google than we have seen her in other interviews. Also less aggressive in protecting Google’s ideas and more open to criticism. Marissa even talked, although vaguely, about future products and services something which she always seemed to stay away from. She even told a personal story about what she felt the first time she walked into a cyber cafe and noticed someone using ‘her’ search engine. Great stuff!
Written on 10th December 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When covering an extraordinary gifted person or a brilliant invention, we often include a video presentation from an influential annual conference that attracts great minds who have “ideas worth spreading”. For many, the; TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference, is the highlight of the year.
The private not-for-profit foundation of Chris Anderson – born in Pakistan, Oxford-graduate and magazines magnate – adopted the conference in 2002 and Anderson became curator.
At Le Web, he shared his motivation for the free online videos of TED presentations. Anderson: “People like Swedish professor Hans Rosling are brilliant. If you sat down with them, you’d learn a lot. Thanks to the free videos, everybody can hear them speak. And you know what? People online responded the same way as people off line. That means the best teachers can become global rock stars”.
These rock stars might start a revolution, considering the fact that everybody whose connected to the web will be able to learn from the most inspiring people of the world. This also goes for kids in developing countries. Anderson showed a picture of a couple kids in Pakistan. He notes that the parents of these kids – who are as old as he is – didn’t had the opportunity to learn. But the people who were born the last couple of years, will have a cell phone that’s “more powerful than the computer you’re looking at right now”.
Anderson: “Will they look at games, violence, and pornography? Or will they look at information that might take them out of poverty? If you’re working on such a service, I salute you. What you’re doing is a gift of love to these children.”
Written on 10th December 2008
3 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
We are back at Le Web now. Unfortunately Wifi still isn’t working. Without Wifi we can’t blog. If we can’t blog we have no reason for being. Our lives become useless. All that we can do now is actually watch the keynotes, talk to people, network a little and enjoy the conference. AND THAT IS NOT WHAT I CAME HERE FOR!
(posted via WordPress app over 3G)
Written on 9th December 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
An Internet legend is about to hit a stage in Paris. Luckily it’s the one of Le Web and I can cover it for you. He was the original investor in ICQ, you might have heard about it, and went on an investing spree afterwards. Every now and then, tech blogs cover another project by his hand.
I’m talking about Yossi Vardi. He’s an impressive man with a great sense of humor. When he talks, geeky Paris listens. Tech blogger Kara Swisher from BoomTown will interview him. Here we go.
“He’s like the Forrest Gump of the Internet”, Swisher opens. Like every year, Vardi presents a new idea. Normally out of the box – like Local Warming -, but this one is really in the box since it concerns an Internet services for corpses. Interviewer Swisher seems to be having a hard time understanding the slightly absurd humor. So it’s about time to get serious.
Users! Users! Users!
Like any other recent tech conference, Le Web is dominated by discussions about the recession. Monetization, cutting costs, pessimism, etc, etc, etc. I can’t hear it anymore. Although I do like the people who go against the flow and say something different than the utterly pessimistic majority. People like Vardi.
So when everybody says you’ll have to monetize your start-up right away, Vardi says that getting users is the most important thing. “The difference in the price of real estate in NYC and South-Dakota is the amount of traffic passing by. After you’ve grown an audience you can monetize it. You can’t monetize your service from day one.”
Good news for Twitter and Facebook…
Written on 9th December 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
A year ago, exciting news about publishing 2.0 reached the blogosphere. Thriller writer Paulo Coelho had started to tell people how he was using filesharing networks as a way to promote his books.
Coelho thinks that giving people the possibility to swap his books for free, actually has a positive effect on sales. In a keynote speech at the Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich he gave some strikingly good examples. When he uploaded the Russian translation of “The Alchemist”, sales in Russia went from around a 1.000 books per year to 100.000 and then to a million and more (Watch the video here).
That was back in January, let’s see what Coelho has to say about tolerated piracy and publishing almost a year later.
What about publishers?
Coelho gives the same Russian example. Apparently, interviewer Kathy Brooks hadn’t heard of this sales boost before and she reacted very surprised. “What about your publisher?”, she asked in amazement. “They come to me and shout: this is not legal”, Coelho said. He then replies he’s just linking and that it’s not his fault. His American publisher wasn’t too pleased though. After a rather imitating call from CEO Jane Friedman, Coelho chose a middle way and made the book viewable – but not downloadable. The torrent links are still up there though. Why? Coelho: “You’ll have to share in order to get some revenue”.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t hurt your sales. People download the book but don’t read it They wait for the hard copy anyway”, Coelho continued. “Don’t be fooled by the publishers who say that piracy costs authors money.”
How the information overload influences writing
Co-host Loic Le Meur asked how the well-known information overload influences Coelho’s writing. The writer replied that he always had a dream of going to a lodge in the mountains and write the book of his life. So Coelho went to the Pyrenees and wrote his book. The result? The most boring piece of writing he had ever produced.
Coelho: “From now on I live a normal life when I write a book, since I’ve to stay connected to reality”. The Brazilian author builds up creative tension throughout a busy day. After having breakfast, reading newspapers, checking email, lunch and meeting with friends – Coelho finally frees 30 minutes to write: “Then I always wind up writing for five hours. My texts need to be touched by life.”
Written on 9th December 2008
24 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
We just had lunch and it was horrid. Thousands of little delicious French high cuisine snacks spread on long tables guarded by the gnarliest security guys Paris had to offer. Hundreds of people stormed these tables to get their hands on the delicious, but tiny, little works of food-art. I recognized a small fish in one of them but most of the ‘pieces’ were tasty but undefinable bits of food.
Most people seemed to have missed breakfast (us included) and were desperate for something, anything, to eat. Unfortunately the guards had strict orders not to release any food to anyone, no matter what and by all means necessary. Armed with small fire arms I personally witnessed three Finish entrepreneur getting shot down while trying to steal a small loaf of bread 1.4 minutes before the buffet officially opened. Then, when they opened the gates and the guards stepped aside all hell broke loose. People were ripping out each others hair trying to get to the tables. Clothing got torn, nails were broken. There was blood everywhere. (See the photo that Ernst-Jan managed to take. I’m on the right with my shirt tucked over my head)
The long-winded last speaker, combined with no breakfast, limited Wi-Fi and the extreme cold had beaten all the humanity out of the attendees. Luckily I was able to pry some food out of the hands of a petite French women. She wouldn’t let go at first so I had to kick her a few times. I feel much better now.
Tomorrow we are bringing our own food. And baseball bats.
Written on 9th December 2008
1 COMMENT
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Alright, it’s we’re heading towards Le Web (probably great) lunch while things on the stage are still going strong. Check out our previous coverage of the Parisian festivities here after you’ve enjoyed some quotes from an on-stage interview with Linda Avey.
She’s the co-founder of 23AndMe, a start-up that checks your DNA and presents the results in an accessible way. Avey has used her 20 years of sales and business development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and partnered up with Anne Wojcicki – Sergey Brin’s wife. Their final goal? Making the human genome searchable.
23AndMe – named after your 23 paired chromosomes – is a rather spectacular, controversial, and revolutionary project. It’s now up to Resident Geek and tech blogger Cedric Ingrand to find out more about the Mountain View-based company.
Linda first explains how the whole process works. You sign up at their website, get a tube delivered to your house, you spit in it (a lot!) and within 4 tot 6 weeks you get an email with your account data and you will be able to browse through, well, yourself! All your genes, chromosomes and whatever listed conveniently on a page on the web.
Don’t worry though, everything is secure. 23 and me uses international banking standards for securing your data so they are pretty sure nobody will be able to access your data. After all, nobody ever successfully robbed a bank either. No worries there.
So once you have your genetical profile online you can play around with it. Linda does warn you that it is not her fault if you find out that your parents might not be who you think they are. How about that!
Besides genealogy you can also research your own health which might be very useful. Even more useful is that you can find out if you like Brussels sprout. Apparently the taste for Brussels sprout is genetically spread through your genes. You either like it or you don’t.
You could also connect to other people based on similar genes. As far as I can remember we are actually more attracted to people who have completely different genes. But I could be wrong there.
Recently 23 and me has lowered the price of their DNA kit to $399 from $999 for a complete genetics check. They want to become THE interface between you and your genetics. So go ahead, spit in that tube and lets connect!
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
