There were many excellent interviews and panel discussion around the future of mobile, localization, social media but these are a some of the meatier discussions.

Web Semantics and Web 2.0

Peter Crosby (Viadeo) , Andraz Tori (invZemanta) and François-Yves Vuillemin (Imaginatio). Solid discussion around what we can anticipate with the innovation of sites becoming more intuitive based on our preferences.

Product Localization

Our panel discusses localization with Frederic Bascuñana (Webcastory), Roxanne Varza (TechCrunch France), Frederic Lardinois (Readwriteweb US), Joakim Nilsson (Mangas Gaming) and Olivier Desmoulin (Super Marmite). One of the themes throughout the discussion is whether or not startups should appeal to the International audience by marketing & offering translations of their site to the global market or should they lessen their risk by appealing to their local markets first & then expand?

SMC Lounge – Localization and MeeToo

Uploaded by techtoctv. – Explore more science and tech videos.

Where large brands are going next

Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter shares with us his predictions on what we may expect in web trends through 2011, including large brands integrating Facebook connect API into their corporate sites.

Interview Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter)

Uploaded by techtoctv. – Explore more science and tech videos

Online Activism and Government Regulation

Our panel hosts Curt Hopkins (Readwriteweb US), Lucie Morillon (RSF), Stephane Distinguin (fondateur de Faber Novel).

Their conversation brings up some valid points on how governments which never before sought to control censorship online are now approaching with different attitudes when bloggers, twitter users criticize their decisions.

Most notably, Lucie points out the power that bloggers being able to leverage their global followership to bring awareness to their campaigns and how effective it has been to release people wrongly accused/convicted in foreign countries.

SMC Lounge – Online activism perspective

Uploaded by techtoctv. – Technology reviews and science news videos.

2011 Tech Trends

Fabrice Epelboin of Read Write Web France moderated and lead panel discussions in Studio Two with Amina Belghit (Paypal), Ben Parr (Mashable), Paul Papadimitriou (Constellation Research) and Ida Rose Sylvester (Silicon Valley Link). Each panelist highlights what we may expect in 2011 within the mobile industry, including companies exploring ways to monetizing their mobile data, and carriers expanding mobile payment options through simply scanning mobile devices at point-of-sale locations

SMC Lounge – 2011 trends lll

Uploaded by techtoctv. – Technology reviews and science news videos.

Based on these excellent discussions, we’re already excited for Le Web 2011!

At this point, unless you speak French (or have a really good translator) unfortunately you’re out of luck as this year-old site and newsletter still only shares its secrets in French. If you can, however, it’s worth dipping into the site’s content because you’ll discover the hottest boutiques, restaurants and places to go.

What’s that you say? This sounds like Daily Candy? It may well be, but where Daily Candy always has felt to me targeted towards a distinctly younger crowd, Briller en Ville feels like it’s for grown-ups.

While at LeWeb 2008 I had the pleasure of meeting Briller en Ville’s founder, Juliette Dumas. She had only just started the site (focused mostly on the email newsletter), and had great aspirations for its growth. As the Social Media Club House posse began ruminating on plans for our days in Paris before LeWeb 2009, I immediately thought of Juliette and reached out to see if she’d be willing to give us a little carbon-based world experience of her digital domain.

She graciously agreed. The details of our walking tour come after the video … but first take a listen to Juliette’s overview of her business and how social media helps make places like Paris more accessible.

Meeting us at the Social Media Club House, Juliette had arranged a walking tour of our neighborhood, which was the 6th arrondissement.

Our first stop was Frederic Malle, a high end parfumerie where the top “noses” create custom scents for French society. Floor-to-ceiling glass cylinders stood in each corner of the room. These “smelling chambers” gave patrons an opportunity to experience various scents. We tried to take photos, but apparently the diffusing mechanism in the column is proprietary so they asked that we refrain. A pity because the sight of curious geeks peering into these tubes was quite amusing.

Next it was off to an aromatic experience of an entirely different ilk … or perhaps I should say milk. Barthelemy ranks consistently among the top cheese shops in all of Paris … and it was merely 3 blocks from our apartment. If sweet is your taste rather than savory, our next stop would appeal. La Patisserie des Reves takes the idea of a Parisian patisserie to an art form; and it’s no wonder. The pastry chef behind these truly beautiful creations is Philippe Conticini.

From there we wandered along rue de Bac, passing myriad design stores and an array of children’s stores. The one Juliette pointed out in particular, Bonton, is among the places to go for the well-dressed tykes in Paris. (If you’ve not already clicked the link for the store’s site, you’ll be glad to know that you can shop there online … and in English!)

We drooled on many a store window and proffered a cascading chorus of oohs & ahhs at amazing architecture and stunningly fashionable Parisians.

Then we got hungry.

So off to Cuisine de Bar - a tasty eatery attached to the famed Poilane Bakery.

Of course the first thing you want to see after eating lunch is clothing, especially bathing suits, and so we wandered by Eres Swimwear and Lingerie.

Very sexy stuff … if not a bit depressing … and what’s better for that, than chocolate. Thankfully we were around the corner from Maison du Chocolat where we saw this remarkable confection in the window:

At that point I had to scoot back to the Club House to get ready for Social Media Hour, and left my compatriots in Juliette’s capable hands for a quick wander through La Bon Marche.

My only complaint of the day … not enough time.

This article has been republished from the original source which can be found here Commentary

This week’s show has an extra dash of uncertainty because when you’re joined by the likes of feisty Ewan Spence – blogger and entrepreneur as well as one of the Traveling Geeks who just returned from Paris; Kevin Marks of BT (with whom there was plenty of frolic in Paris) and Chris Heuer, you never know what will happen.

I do know the topics include: recap of LeWeb (especially BT’s ROCKING Internet, the Social Media Club House and Kevin’s talk), discussion about Ewan’s new toy and holidays.

The Show:
Ah the joys of technology – started out great, then my phone rang, which for some reason killed the Internet connection … so brave a few minutes of dead air (just a few, really, not nearly as bad as the 10 minutes of dead air thanks to Scoble’s kicking the mic cable out last week in Paris!) and enjoy a fun freestyle show!

The Guests:

Ewan Spence is a blogger, author and writer based out of Edinburgh, Scotland. In addition to his own blog, he has contributed and contributes to BBC News, BBC Magazine (online), The Stage (UK Arts and Entertainment Newspaper), Computing (VNU), iProng Magazine, IT Pro, O’Reilly’s Make Magazine, Palmtop Magazine, Podcast User Magazine, UK Tech and UK Mobile Blognation, PDA Essentials, Mobile Messaging 2.0 and All About Symbian. He wrote the book Rapid Mobile Enterprise Development for Symbian OS and has audio program commissions for BBC Radio 5 Live – Through the Night and Pods and Blogs, Computer Outlook Talk Radio Show and Talk 107. He also regularly speaks at and moderates panels at high profile technology conferences around the world.

Kevin Marks works at BT as VP of Web Services. From 2007 to 2009, he worked at Google on OpenSocial. From 2003 to 2007 he was Principal Engineer at Technorati responsible for the spiders that make sense of the web and track millions of blogs daily. He has been inventing and innovating for over 17 years in emerging technologies where people, media and computers meet. Before joining Technorati, Kevin spent 5 years in the Quicktime Engineering team at Apple, building video capture and live streaming into OS X. He was a founder of The Multimedia Corporation in the UK, where he served as Production Manager and Executive Producer, shipping million-selling products and winning International awards. He has a Masters degree in Physics from Cambridge University and is a BBC-qualified Video Engineer.One of the driving forces behind microformats.org he regularly speaks at Conferences and Symposia on emergent net technologies and their cultural impact.

Chris Heuer has over 15 years experience as a digital visionary, creative media technologist and holistic marketing strategist, allowing him to provide an invaluable perspective that frames the modern day challenges of organizations grappling with technology driven change in an approachable way. Over the last 3 years his leadership has built Social Media Club into the world’s leading organization for Social Media Professionals. In the process, Chris has become a world-class speaker and facilitator, hosting round tables and speaking to Social Media Professionals around the world. Chris can speak to any issue or challenge related to Social Media, and also is able to speak to a variety of issues concerning social change, modern management, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, organizational transformation, innovation, co-creation, holistic business strategy, web site development, user experience, and the knowledge economy.

This article has been republished from the original source which can be found here Audio

Photo Credit: Chris Heuer

On Thursday morning, Chris Heuer, Fabrice Epelboin and I sat down to interview Skyrock founder Pierre Bellanger. Born out of the free radio movement, Bellanger’s pirate radio station has become the 3rd largest European social networking site behind MySpace and Facebook.

Says Bellanger, “We were trying to create revolution. My political act is to create a system of self-expression.”

And here’s one telltale difference between the Americans and the French. As an American, terms like “revolution” and “self-expression” used together make me think of the First Amendment and my ability to exercise freedom of speech. But in Bellanger’s sense of the word he’s talking about everyday unscripted stories shedding light on the issues. In short, he’s talking about life streaming, reality-based radio/blogging or social MEdia.

It’s easy to forget in this world of constant Twitter, Facebook and crowd sourced reviews that the mass distribution of amateur opinions can in some cases be a political act.

While we’re far from a true meritocracy, the barrier to entry for social media are lower than they are with any other major form of communication. As we cast a wider net and harness the power of the real-time web, we increase our ability to create meaningful dialogue. From dialogue comes action, and from action comes change.

In other words, we are more than just physical points in the Foursquare of the universe.

I’m at the point where I need to act, but I’m not sure where to turn. Joining Chris and Kristie’s Social Media Club House has been a great first step. In meeting international innovators and change-makers, I’m beginning to understand the difference between talk and action. The best compliment I could give anyone is that they “walk the walk.” Bellanger, Heuer and Epelboin walk the walk, and I hope to follow their lead and produce something great on my own.

This article has been republished from the original source which can be found here Villagers with Pitchforks

We found ourselves, as so many nights before – walking past the Mayor’s office, the Hôtel de Ville – and checked in on Foursquare* to mark our progress of places we visited while on this trip. Chris had remembered to check in every time we walked past this building and was proud to note, Foursquare had deemed him Mayor of Hôtel de Ville (based on how many times you check into any given destination and the frequency of those check ins).

So we had to get a photo of Chris, the Foursquare mayor – in front of the real mayor’s office. I know, sometimes we are too geeky for our own good.

And then I checked in. Seems I, too, had remembered to ‘check in’ everytime we were here and much to my surprise, I ‘stole’ the mayorship from Chris.

And yes, I was pleased with myself.

We had a little laugh, then walked down the street and shared an amazing bottle of red wine, all the while discussing the whole ‘check in’ and ‘mayorship’ piece of Foursquare. It struck me that this service became a value add to my trip to Paris as I have a horrible memory, and the ease of this mobile app allowed me to mark the places I had been, who I was there with and allows me to go back in time and gather it all for posts such as this. This is just the tip of the iceberg in the geolocation potential, but I am excited about its potential.

* From their website: Foursquare is a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users “check in” to a place when they’re there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they’ve been and who they’ve been there with.

In my haste to post on the LeWeb conference for ReadWriteWeb I forgot to check to see if my articles were going up properly during the event. Zut alors! – They were not. Below are some highlights of the conference proceedings and a quick look at some of the people we got to meet.

Some Coverage of the LeWeb Conference:

• Queen of Jordan Calls on Blogger Friends
• Leverage the Web’s Most Disturbing Content, says danah boyd
• ReadWriteFrance and the Power of Real-Time Political Commentary
• Netvibes Launches Ultimate News and Lifestyle Dashboard
• MySpace Opens Floodgates: Developers Get API for Real-Time Stream
• PayPal Partnering with Philips for NewTV Monetization

Related posts:

1. Passport in my pocket, Rosetta Stone in my bag, Paris here I come! To say I a
2. The tourist in me lives. I mean, co
3. When local markets, wanna be top chefs and good friends meet… When discu

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This article has been republished from the original source which can be found here Kiki’s Korner

Reflections in an Airport –
I’m amazed by the graciousness of the European entrepreneurs who’ve welcomed us into their lives. It takes a rare and patient breed to answer a rapid fire of sometimes arrogant tech questions, give directions and offer free language lessons. Ah Paris, you’ve given me all and I’ve given you noise.

The Social Media Club House members will keep posting their thoughts and praise throughout the weekend.

This article has been republished from the original source which can be found here Villagers with Pitchforks

Live notes from LeWeb’09. They could be inaccurate, although I do my best. You might want to read other posts by official bloggers, in various languages!

Presentation about building following. Building a global phenomenon with less than 10K$.

There is a heavy price to pay for achieving consensus. The initial title of 4HWW was “drug dealing for fun and profit”. Walmart told him the title was vetoed (rejected all over the place). Used Google Ads, bidding on search terms related to the content of the book. Used a dozen of prospective titles and subtitles in the ads, and saw which got the best clicks.

Objective end 2006: 20′000 earlyvangelists for his book in 2 weeks. If you have 10K sales in a week, you have a high probability of hitting a list, but you can easily be knocked off the list, so he wanted 2 weeks.

3 Tipping points: indirect, direct, meta.

1. 43folders. Podcast with Brian Oberkirch at SXSW, by chance. First indirect exposure that triggered more similar coverage. Rather than target the high-traffic blogs, but target the thought leaders who are read by the high-traffic ones.
2. Scobleizer. Had a huge impact: “I’m going on a trip and taking this book with me.”
3. Micro Persuasion. The launch and the books popularity became newsworthy.

Pitching feature articles? Probably not going to happen.

Another principle: sell around the product (phenomenize, polarize, and communitize).

A few findings: blog post on the shortness of life (intro to Seneca). People are addicted to new. Current hits rather than all-time. “Copy” is the most underestimated element you can test, e.g. Topics rather than Categories.

Twitter, Slinkset, Evernote. Collects stuff on Evernote, then sends it to Twitter via Slinkset.

Video is interesting because it takes less time to produce. There is a value in adding text. Value in what you don’t say or show.

steph-note: all this talk about micro-improving to make things more efficient is not really my cup of tea — I mean, I know it’s important, but that’s not my way of functioning. Apologies if my notes are a bit flakey.

Gyminee. Too many clickable elements above the fold.

Posterous. Another example, they weren’t really answering the question “how will I use it”.

How not to pitch, a book by Tucker Max.

Plan big, test assumptions, and start small.Similar Posts:

• In Love With Evernote
• LeWeb’09: Bloggers, Social Media Club House, Boat Party
• How I Get Organized
• LeWeb’09: danah boyd
• Google Forms: Multiple Choice, List, Checkbox

This article has been republished from the original source which can be found here Climb to the Stars