Story posted on: December 16, 2008
By Ravit Lichtenberg (blog)
[LeWeb 08, Paris] Marisa Mayer, Google Vice President of Search Product and User Experience, sat down with Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder and Loic Le Meur, LeWeb and Seesmic founder at LeWeb08. Some highlights from the conversation are below:
- The word LOVE is one of the most translated words on Google translator
- iGoogle and Causes—have been reaching out to artists and designers to develop themes for iGoogle
- Google has millions of Chrome users. The big priorities are getting out of beta bringing out Linux and Mac, making it even more the world class app it is.
- Google has two different types of betas: Client Software, which is under stringent definition of beta in the industry, focusing on getting bugs out and User Beta which are less defined and can be kept in this state as long as there are important advances still to be made.
- Google Search Wiki- Arrington has written about his dismay with the tool. He calls it “abomination that appeared” the “really ugly stuff and all the spam comments that fall underneath that.” Marisa promises the ability to turn off the Wiki will be added soon. “How soon?” Arrington wants to know.
- Local search will be a big focus for Google in 2009. Currently search and commerce do not provide a way to understand what services and buying option are available to consumers. Google wants to be the one to fill that gap.
- With regard to incorporating user feedback, Mayer says Google prides itself on innovating. “Some of the best ideas come from our users,” says Mayer.
Story posted on: December 16, 2008
By Ravit Lichtenberg (blog)
Cellity AG, a German startup we met at LeWeb, is opening its Beta to the public today. Cellity’s Addressbook 2.0 is an enhanced contact and communications management tool designed to reduce communication complexity brought about by the multiple sources of contact list sources. In addition to offering users with a sleek and seamless aggregation of contacts across platforms, Cellity’s offers smart add-ons and call capabilities that are bound to reduce the time to search, find, and initiate communication.
Starting today, users can download the Ceillity J2ME application to their smartphones or log on to ipohe.celity.com with iPhone’s safari browser. Native iPhone, Blackberry, and Android applications are scheduled to be released in the first quarter of ’09.
Cellity Addressbook 2.0 is the Swiss knife of all things communication. Users can access all their contacts from one place online or on their phone, make calls to anyone anywhere using VOIP capability, hold conference calls, and update status on social networking platforms (I just did on Facebook). To cut down on user workload, Addressbook 2.0 will show users which contacts they use most, history of communication, and automatically update information as contacts update theirs.
Continue Reading"Cellity Launches Public Beta"
Story posted on: December 10, 2008
By Ravit Lichtenberg (blog)
[LeWeb 08, Paris] On his way to meet President Nikolas Sarkozy, Mr. Eric Besson—France State Secretary for Prospective and Evaluation of Public Policies and Intent stopped by to informal discuss France’s strategy for supporting startups.
Infrastructure content are free in France and the French enjoy over 95% broadband coverage in France. The government is introducing fiber optic to make sure people have the highest internet speed. By November 2011, Besson says France will switch over to digital transition of television and invest in developing the mobile internet.
What is the French government doing to help startups?
- Creating infrastructure: High speed internet access makes the environment internet-friendly, and learning from Silicon Valley how to build upon that.
- Creating an environment where people are willing to take capital risks
- Sarkozy has allocated 20 Billion Euro to help small companies and 6 billion to re-launch the infrastructure.
- Doing benchmarking with Britain but, France of course will do better than Britain—already invested 3 billion Euro in Startups via a government fund.
Continue Reading"Eric Besson: France is Europe's Formula1"
Story posted on: December 9, 2008
By Ravit Lichtenberg (blog)
[LeWeb 08, Paris] Virtual goods are about connection with consumers but very few consumer services are tapping into the potential virtual goods hold, says Susan Wu, a former VC and the CEO of Ohai.
Why would people spend money on things that only exist in a database?
- Value: Like brands, spirituality, blessings, prayer—virtual goods too have value even though they are intangible.
- Context: The world’s largest seller of virtual goods is Tencent—china’s leading IM platform, boasting over $1Bil in revenue and 45% operating margin
- Purpose: People seek ways to enhance their communications. Virtual goods are used as decorative, functional, behavioral cues and add-ons. SuperPoke is a behavioral virtual good. IMVU features functional virtual goods in the form of user name.
Why people buy virtual goods :
- Capturing passion and interaction via gifting
- Create real value: game experience gets better
- Time vs money: moving interactions online
- Entrepreneurship opportunities in secondary markets
Virtual goods, concludes Wu, facilitate relationships, passion, and connection--and presents strong business model opportunities.
Story posted on: December 9, 2008
By Ravit Lichtenberg (blog)
[LeWeb 08, Paris] The afternoon panel comprised of VCs and angels who presented somewhat differing views about the current state of investing. While Wilson and Clavier presented a brighter picture, having funded a number of companies in the last month and expecting all calls to be met, the others presented a more grim picture. No matter of geography and size of investments, all agree it is both a difficult and a propitious time.
- Eric Archambeau – General Partner, Wellington Partners
- Jeff Clavier—Founder & Managing Partner, SoftTech VC
- Martin Varsavsky—Founder & CEO, FON
- Fred Wilson—Partner, Union Square Ventures
- Moderated by Ouriel Ohayon—General Manager, LgiLab, Editor, TechCrunch France
Continue Reading"Money Talks: Getting Financed in a Recession"
Story posted on: December 9, 2008
[LeWeb 08] It is more difficult now for start ups since the subprime crash and the fact that web 2.0 services are loosing money. But some companies are doing very well, examples: Photolia is doing very well and since Freddy Mini took over Netvibes, he has increased the revenue by four in three quarters.
Wikio, is a pan European portal launched 3 years ago with a team of 35 people and no offices, they work from home. Can an information service be profitable? Lightspeed Venture Partners and Gemini founded it. Wikio allows internet users to find the most relevant information across multiple sources on the internet, it aggregates blog ranking, rss readers, consumer opinions, news etc…The business model is supported both by advertising and shopping. The traffic is growing super-fast, with 4 millions users in France and revenues of 120k euros in Q108 to 540k euros in Q4. At 430 K Euros, wikio breaks even (November 08)
- 3 advices from Pierre Chapaz to succeed in a recession time:
- One: believe in what you do and fight,
- Two: manage expenses carefully,
- Three: Europe is our market
Story posted on: November 11, 2008
Thirty startups from all over the world have been selected to compete at LeWeb 08 in Paris, on December 9th/10th. See the list below(alphabetical order.
We will cover LeWeb 08, and as an online partner we have been able to get a 20% discount for our readers, click here to register with this special price.
More information about the Start Up competition here.
Story posted on: November 2, 2008
Ubergizmo is an online partner with LeWeb 08, the #1 Web conference in Europe with 1500 attendees from 40 countries. It will be held in Paris on December 9-10th, this year's theme is LOVE and 30 Startups will be in competition. During the 2 days of conference, the speakers panels will be moderated by bloggers and reporters directly imported from the Silicon Valley:
- Michael Arrington, Co-Founder & Editor, TechCrunch
- Dan Farber, Editor-in-Chief, CNET News
- Steve Gillmor, The Gillmor Gang
- Om Malik, Editor in Chief GigaOm
- Jennifer L. Schenker, Correspondent, BusinessWeek
- Robert Scoble, Video Blogger, Fast Company
- Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor, AllThingsD.com; Blogger, Boomtown; Co-Executive Producer, D: All Things Digital
Since Ubergizmo is a partner, our readers get a 20% discount on LeWeb 08 registration, click here if you are interested. For the ones who will not go, we will cover the conference. To get the discounted price you can also click on the banner in our side bar, it will be displayed until the first day of LeWeb 08.
