The Magento team (which is behind the pretty popular e-commerce software MagentoCommerce) is excited to start the New Year with a European tour with stops in the Netherlands, France, and Germany. This is a great opportunity for them to engage with the innovative and enthusiastic members of their European community.
They look forward to hearing from you and learning about how Magento can become a part of your toolbox and online eCommerce operations.
MagentoCommerce is an open-source e-commerce software developed by Varien (Varien is located in Los Angeles, USA and was established in 2001).
It’s a PHP/MySQL solution with a new approach to online e-commerce (you have try it to see it – especially the administration section).
So far, the software was downloaded more than 600,000 times and it was declared the Best New Project by the community at SourceForget.net 2008 Community Choice Awards.
MagentoCommerce’s direct competitors includes Zencart, Cubecart, osCommerce and other open-source e-commerce software.
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
David Weinberger is a regular guest at Le Web and my personal favorite. He is the kind of speaker that makes me put down my laptop and iPhone and just pay attention. His stories are entertaining, funny and inspirational. I remember a few LeWeb’s ago that we struggled through a few panel discussion that just couldn’t grab my attention. Then Weinberger came on stage and started talking. His passion and devotion to his work was both funny and memorable. I wrote down several lines from his speech which made me miss at least three sentences. One thing I remember and have used several times since then is “Hyperlinks are little acts of generosity”. When Weinberger speaks, I listen.
So today I sat there, all ready, waiting for David.
Weinberger’s presentation was titled “leadership at the end of the age of information” and was a joy to listen to, as expected. The point he tried to make was that in the past leadership knew everything and leads by keeping information limited to their followers. In the past information naturally flowed up to the leaders, at the top. Now information is everywhere and available for everyone. This means that the unnatural position of one man, knowing everything, at the top of the pyramid will come to and end.
The most clear example of this taking place, Weinberger argues, is the difference between Jack Welsch and Jimmy Wales. At WikiPedia Jimmy Wales only has to make decisions when the community can’t. He doesn’t lead by example. He doesn’t ‘lead’ at all. He is the man at the top of the pyramid but instead of steering the large group below him he actually follows them from the back and picks up any problems that stay behind.
In the future leadership needs to be abundant and shared. There are not enough Steve Jobs’ to manage and dictate all the great companies the world needs. We already have an abundance of good stuff (and crap) on the web and that is quickly changing everything on and offline. With an abundance of distributed leadership we will be able to innovate even more, be more successful and grow faster. Well, according to Weinberger, of course.
Although I loved listening to his presentation the basic idea of why WikiPedia works was slightly disappointing to me. What do you think? Is Weinberger right?
Nikesh Arora, responsible for all EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) Operations at Google, just took the stage at LeWeb in Paris. Conference organizer Loic Le Meur will interview him about the European start-up scene.
In 1989, Nikesh graduated from the Institute of Technology in Varanasi, India with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. After that he worked at Deutsche Telekom and with two investment companies in Boston. Now he is at Google where is specializes in squeezing more Euros, Dhirams, Dinars, Shekels and Rands out of us. Or as Google puts it “responsible for creating and expanding strategic partnerships in these regions for the benefit of Google’s growing number of users and advertisers.”
And he has one major fear…
The Google big shot confessed to Le Meur that he’s pretty afraid of the “two guys in a garage. “The next Google will come from a garage”, he assured the audience. “So people will have to step up and take the risk”. Arora regrets the fact that Europeans generally have a lower appetite for risk. Unlike Americans, we don’t see failure as an opportunity. “That’s the structural reason why the US has more start-up activity.”
Don’t target your own market
Another mistake we Europeans make is focusing on our own market – the one we know best. “There are 1.4 billion people connected to the web, that’s more than … million people from Austria. So why would you focus on the national market? That’s a fatal flaw. 1 percent of a billion is much larger than 1 percent of 1 million.” Instead, do it like Twitter and Skype and start creating something that a billion people find useful”.
Focus already!
And while you’re at it. Focus! Companies like Apple and Google were both created in times of economic downturn, because they focused. the climate does not dictate whether you’re successful or not. Redefine your product.” Arora said. “I want to congratulate all the entrepreneurs in the room”, he conclude. “These are the times, if you can survive for 12 to 18 months in Europe, you’ll come out with great business”.
Dan’l Lewin is the Corporate Vice President for Strategic and Emerging Business Development at Microsoft and he talks about Microsoft’s Web Strategy today at Le Web 3 which just kicked off about 2 hours ago which a sponsored lunch that offered just enough delicious food to cure our modest hangovers.
Lewin is being interviewed by Steve Gillmor (Founder, The Gillmor Gang) and the two seem to get along just fine. With Ray Ozzie taking the lead at Microsoft and pushing for a clearer and more ambitious web strategy we were anxious to find out what Lewin had to say.
Listening to Lewin makes it clear that Microsoft is working hard on it’s public image. Words like “open standards”, “openID” and a sentence like “choosing your operating system is a personal choice and you should choose what you are comfortable with” sound very, well, un-Microsoft. In fact Gillmor at one point asked Lewin if Microsoft was getting al “warm and cuddly”. Lewin smiled, looked at his feet and almost whispered “Maybe a little”.
Wow.
The conversation went from innovation at Microsoft to Mesh services to Data. That last subject was kind of surprising to me. When I think about Microsoft I think about software, not data. But there were several mentions of data. Dan’l made it clear that Microsoft’s focus is shifting from Software to Data and how to store it, work with and and own it. He mentioned that one of the things they are looking at and are worried about is data online. Lewin said: “Who stores it, who owns it and who has access to it”. Right now the answer to that seems to be ‘Google’ and it is clear that this is something that Lewin, and Ozzie, plan to change in the future.
If you want to see the man speak check out this earlier video at the Plug and Play Acceleration & Collaboration Track (PACT) 2008
Arjen, Ernst-Jan and me are on our way to Paris today to attend Le Web. It starts on Tuesday morning and ends on Wednesday evening. This evening we are having dinner with a large group of Dutch people but look forward to meeting a lot of local people too. Let us know if you are in town too!
Oh, since a large part of our team is in this car with only iPhones for connectivity (at €2 per MB) don’t expect too many posts today. We expect to make up for it tomorrow with live reports from LeWeb.
(Published after 6 attempts over 0.5G at €2 per MB)
Having big problems at home where the stock is still plummeting Yahoo, finally, sells Kelkoo, the Paris-based shopping comparison search engine, according to Techcrunch.
Kelkoo was bought by Yahoo in 2004 for 475 million euros. Sadly enough, Yahoo couldn’t make it more profitable and known among other international shopping comparison search engines and thus Kelkoo usage has fallen down the hill (see the general trend record on Google Trends – the trends might vary for different Kelkoo domains).
Nothing new here, some of the acquisitions Yahoo made had the same fate…falling down to the competition.
The new acquirer of Kelkoo is Jamplant, a UK-based private equity firm (some details about this company here) and the amount they have paid is around 100 million euros.
Kelkoo will still continue to power Y! Shopping, Cars and Travel.
You can read the announcement from the former Kelkoo CEO Pierre Chappaz here (in French) and here is the internal email Glen Drury, Kelkoo’s managing director for the UK, sent to the employees.
Written on 19th November 2008
3 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
**see end of post for an update**
I know where i’ll be staying next time i’m in Paris, Philippe Starck’s latest hotel, the geek chic Mama Shelter.
The hotel, located in the Saint Blaise quartier (which is the 20th arrondissement and on the edge of Paris), has 174 “digital” guest rooms all fitted with an iMac and a high spec multimedia center which includes; a HDTV, music, radio, CD, films and of course, the Internet.
Through a partnership with French tech provider DirectStreams, Mama Shelter offers a little something different called “iBooth”, giving guests the opportunity to take photos of themselves and have them become part of the hotel – arranged in the lobby and hotel rooms. I quote:
This is a solution (also using the iMac) that allows visitors to take “instant” pictures and see them distributed in the lobby and rooms. Conceived and realized for Mama Shelter by DirectStreams in collaboration with Jeremie Trigano, iBooth is simple and fun and offers everyone the opportunity to become part of the history of the place and its decor by leaving a sign of their stay at the hotel. In the middle of the [restaurant] tables, columns display screens where you can put up announcements to swap, meet, discover or just to dream.
You may be concerned that you’ll have to sell your home for a night at Mama Shelter’s, but fret not, at prices starting at 79Euro’s per night—Paris could be much more expensive.
In our eagerness to share the greatness of Paris hotels, Apple gadgets and of course “stuff you should be hearing about”… we posted the same story twice. I hope you enjoyed both and had a laugh at our expense. :)
Sometimes your blogger misses news throughout the week. Fortunately, there’s always the weekends to catch up. How about this one: “Microsoft steps up Web search R&D in Europe” on Reuters.com. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer traveled all the way to Paris to announce that his company is about to open three research centers in Europe. Why? Well, to catch up with Google on the field of Internet searching. The offices, or “hubs”, will be based in Paris, London, and Munich.
Quite a challenge, and an interesting new approach after Microsoft failed to acquire Yahoo, which now lures with Google. The current Microsoft budget for R&D in Europe is around $600 million a year, but this will increase dramatically. Since Ballmer said that “over the next few years we expect to employ several hundred people, software developers, in these centers in Europe.”
Ballmer told the press that he believes search is still in its “infancy” and thus there’s enough room for innovation. He called Microsoft the “challenger in search”. “For companies like Microsoft search is the key for unlocking huge new opportunities in advertising,” he said.
According to Web research firm ComScore, Microsoft has about 2 percent of the European online search market, compared with Google’s 79 percent.
Just received an email from Loic Le Meur with the Le Web 08 program. This Paris-based two day conference still one of Europe’s hottest web gatherings. Our dear web celebs from Silicon Valley feel the same way, as Michael Arrington, Steve Gillmor, Dan Farber (Editor-in-Chief, CNET News), Om Malik (GigaOm), Robert Scoble, and Kara Swisher cross the ocean for this gig. The theme of the fifth edition is love, oui, l’amour:
For 2008 technology will still play a central role in the proceedings, but we will expand our talks by bringing an even more unique topic to the stage – love. And that is love in all permutations from romantic love (of course) to love of innovation, entrepreneurship, to the way in which our now truly connected “global village” can be a platform for championing critical social issues.
The full program is after the click. See you in Paris on December the 9th and 10th! (more…)
Written on 20th January 2009
5 COMMENTS 
The Magento team (which is behind the pretty popular e-commerce software MagentoCommerce) is excited to start the New Year with a European tour with stops in the Netherlands, France, and Germany. This is a great opportunity for them to engage with the innovative and enthusiastic members of their European community.
Written on 10th December 2008
David Weinberger is a regular guest at Le Web and my personal favorite. He is the kind of speaker that makes me put down my laptop and iPhone and just pay attention. His stories are entertaining, funny and inspirational. I remember a few LeWeb’s ago that we struggled through a few panel discussion that just couldn’t grab my attention. Then Weinberger came on stage and started talking. His passion and devotion to his work was both funny and memorable. I wrote down several lines from his speech which made me miss at least three sentences. One thing I remember and have used several times since then is “Hyperlinks are little acts of generosity”. When Weinberger speaks, I listen.
Written on 9th December 2008
Having big problems at home where the stock is still plummeting Yahoo, finally, sells 
Written on 19th November 2008
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 
