Yes dudes, I know. It's sad and I am the saddest of all. Especially because I feel like I let you down. You won't see me again on that blog, won't laugh of my bad jokes and foolish humor. You won't get some strange news or thoughts about facebook/myspace/youtube/google.... You won't read that bad English filled with French formulations and grammatical mistakes. You will miss all that.. (or not).

But, on the other hand, that's a great news. Because, it mean I finally can retire once and for all. Last week, my government changed its mind about my retirement pension and finally decided I was eligible for it. So I can start a new life doing nothing and be paid for it.

I can't really explain why they suddenly change sides. My lawyer could but it will let me penniless to bring him in this blog so you can have a clue about what happened. The administration of my country is so illogical sometimes, I feel like a hero of a novel of Kafka. But illogical I am too, to spit in the hand that will feed me.

I guess I had too much resentment about what happened and the long years of battle to have they acknowledge my rights have deprived me with of the usual thankfulness people get educated for.

Oh, I am lucky boy now. I won't earn much but I am used to it. I will have real spare time, I would be glad to use on that new passion of mine : Internet. Since I am a geek now, I could spend all my time till I die, exploring the virtual world. Great program isn't it ? Much more cool than starting playing bridge or knitting nightcaps for the grandchildren I don't have.

Before leaving you forever, readers and passersby, I would like to thanks Delconsulting for the opportunity it gave me to become a freelancer blogger for a while. It opened so much my perspectives about technology, Internet and all that stuffs (most of them stupid and useless in my opinion yet so much fun) that hang out on the web.

I have been recruited by Delconsulting, thanks to my daughter's commitment to support her poor father and thanks to some director's mis-seeing my daughters' charms. During a little bit more than 2 years, they gave me the chance to discover a new universe that really changed my world.

I deeply immersed myself in the web and in the job of being a freelancer. I found out so many websites and amusing stuffs, and moreover I had the pleasure to entertain you buddies with my discovering.

I am leaving the net now.

Hoping to see you in the life 2.0 (if there is one)

And waow ! The figures are just amazing. For example, Google is earning 691 dollars every second. Facebook - I am still puzzling about its fundamental interest for mankind - is making a poor - in comparison to Google - 9,51 $ every second. But it's still 300 Millions bucks a year. The same amount as Youtube.

Of course, you find in the list, all the stars of the internet such as ebay, Yahoo, Amazon, Myspace or Paypal.

But what stupefies me the most in this list, is not the money these websites earn .. it's the following points :

- I don't know a good third of these websites. (That's strange and great in the same time. Strange because an old-wannabe-geek like me should know everything on such a topic. Great because I have some great hours of exploration and discovering in front of me to get to know these unknown websites.) For a foreigner, the big websites are not so "big" as they are supposed to.

- There is not a single French website in the batch. Some are global but a lot only operate on US territory. Globalization of Internet as a unique market is not yet here, pals.

- Twitter is NOT on the list. Whereas it should as it's as useful as Facebook, and now growing at a faster rate. Well, too young a service to earn billions I guess.

- Some companies are in a situation of quasi-monopole (who's really competing with Google or Paypal for example ? What service rivals Skype ?). That should explain such huge incomes.

- The revenues of these websites are impressive but are not still reaching those of the good old "mortar businesses". Microsoft's announces $51.12 billion revenues in 2007. That's more than twice what Google is making. And there are few chances that it changes in the years to come.

The list arises also a few questions :

- How much of these websites are profitable ?

- How much money have been spend to found the services ?

- As all websites don't have the same age, which are the ones that had been growing faster ?

- What are similar websites in other countries earning ?

- What position the founders or owners occupies in Forbes billionaires list ?

Well, to conclude, I would like to ask you if 10 or 15 years before, you could have imagined that Internet based companies could make so much money is so little time ?

"The Internet? We are not interested in it" -- Bill Gates, 1993

source : Myxi

As I stare at my co-mates sharing my office, as I observe them practicing as freelancers, I know - as a neutral observer - what is working and what isn't. What let them pass for perfect consultants for their clients and what makes them stand as morons.

I can now set up a list of the best attitudes and behaviors that will transform you into the perfect consultant. Here is the main "good habits" I observed.

1. Never position yourself as a consultant

Your clients do want a consultant to do the dirty job they can't do themselves, but in fact they hate consultants. They don't want someone snobbish or proud as they think consultants are. Consultants usually have a bad reputation in firms that hire them because almost everyone find that they behave like "the guys with the truth".

If you sell yourself as a normal freelancer and not a consultant, and tell people about what you do - and not what you know - you will gain respect instead of hatred.

2. Be clear with your fees

Another mistake many consultants plunge into is to be unclear concerning their fees. As they charge the time passed, they usually send a bill that is not in many cases do not concorde with what was sold in the beginning of the mission. Especially because no-one ever managed to follow a planning.

Selling all your services during your mission as a package with a fixed rate is a good way to make no surprise in the end. You will stand out of the crowd of consultants. Yet you won't earn a lot with your first mission, but you will soon get a second at an honest and lucrative rate.

3. Never try to be a leader within the organization

Usually consultants try to get the leadership within the companies that hire them. They want to be the center of attention while they think they make things changing, they revolutionize the whole stuff.

It's completely wrong. They just move air around the fan. The real change always come from the ones who sign the checks.

So be a good consultant, pay attention to your masters.

4. Don't make diagrams, speak

You don't need diagrams and patterns on powerpoint to express your opinion. Your clients think that your compulsive attachment to diagrams is a way to charge more time and help you stand for an high level intellectual, which means in the end useless and expensive to them.

If you have an idea, a thought you need to share, just share it with your main client. You don't have to write down a document every time you find something. Documents spend time, and are truly never read by the people who count.

5. Don't dress yourself as an undertaker

Even if you are here to bury the firm.

You don't have to frighten people, it's counterproductive.

Don't make them laugh neither. But remember your are not here to win a fashion contest at the French Riviera.

6. Produce results

Mostly consultants are criticized for producing a lot of bla-bla and a lot of theories, ideas and recommendations and very few results. So force yourself to leave a concrete track that could be measured.

Do something, share the everyday life of the employees of the firm for which you are doing consulting. It pays more for everybody than putting white gloves to shake hands with the workers in the factory.

With all these attitudes, you may not become the perfect consultant, but you will surely stand out of the crowd. Whereas all your concurrents usually leave a bad image of the profession, with their "morgue" and non-acting but advising habits, you would be the good boy that people like and want to see again.

And that should be your main objective.

Even crazier, some people are now selling themselves on the web. Internet is changing the nature of mankind, human beings now see themselves as goods and don't hesitate to communicate about it and even undertake their own selling.

Two examples that you need to think about :

1) A 26-year-old girl named Chen Xiao from Beijing is selling her time on the internet

On her website, this young Chinese girl is trading her time against money. She would do anything (unless it's illegal, immoral, violent or pornographic) to please customers.

She usually charges 3$ an hour and already made around 500 $ net income with more than 100 clients. She took pictures of every assignment she had. Some were quite weird : a mother buyer wanted Chen Xiao to call in on her young daughter disguised as a panda, and encourage her to study harder.

She has had quite a lot of success since she opened up this service, so that she is now compelled to sell her time on auction.

More here

2) A young bachelor in France named Yannick Miel sold himself on ebay

Yannick, a 23-year-old bachelor in Economics Intelligence was desperately looking for a job. He had the idea of selling himself on ebay in order to find a decent job. He wrote down an humorous ad on the famous auction website and managed to had a few buyers, but yet no real job indeed. He mostly had a good press coverage.

Then, capitalizing on the success he had on the French media, he decided to go hand out some resumes at a place called La Defense, a famous business center in Paris.

He was finally bought by Martin Hirsch, a member of the French government, for quite a good bargain.

These are recent examples but not the firsts of people willing to sell themselves.

Don't you remember those :

A British lord already put's himself for sale

A Cambridge university student also did the same in 2007.

Or that guy who wanted to sell his body in year 2000 ?

So what's new under the sun ? Nothing much. People are mad and are selling themselves on the web. Assuming their status of modern happy slaves, and getting publicity or ego satisfaction through it.

I wonder when we will be able to buy a complete family, a whole group of friends or an entire village on the net ? That would be great, if you have some cash, to own that sort of stuff. That's is surely more trendy than a Hummer or a diamond ring.

I wonder if I should, desperate freelancer for ever, sell myself for the purposes of investigation. I am just afraid not to get any buyer.

My last discovery : interactive videos.

They are videos where you decide what's going to happen next. The choice you make (generally binary : go left or right, say yes or no) leads you to another video and another choice. It's kind of a game. In the end, your choices determine your progression through the game and your success or failure to reach a good ending.

You don't get it ?

Just play this one then :

You understand now ? Revolutionary isn't ?

It's a new phenomenon, that has been spreading quite fast and you can now some nice good stuffs in many different directions.

Let me give some examples of what can be done with that new principle.

You can play streetfighter :

For those who like racing cars :

You can even flirt with a girl :

Well, it's still the beginning as you can see, and it remains quite basic in the end, but it's already quite a good way to lose one's time.

I am sure in a few months, you will find thousands of this kind of videos on the net. And, as well as companies are all making their "lipdub" nowadays, they will all release an interactive video to do some viral marketing.

Another great asset for Youtube monetization strategy I guess. Yerk.

I recently discovered on Youtube official Blog, that you can now download videos on your PC. Yep.

I have been thinking to this new feature all the week end and I just couldn't see what is the real benefit of it.

What the point in having downloaded youtube video on your PC ? I have a few suggestions but none of them seem very convincing to me :

- you can watch videos during your holidays when you have no easy access to Internet. It's so great to rewatch the human tetris for the hundredth time while drinking a mojito on some beach of Mexico.

- you may want to watch videos in your office, where the guy in charge of computers has a set a damned proxy blocking the access to Youtube. You would have of course downloaded videos at home before.

- you can download videos you like to store them for the future. When Youtube will sunk because of his ever-growing charges and still insignificant profits. A kind of "In case of.." strategy.

Moreover, for some videos available for download, you will have to pay. Some publishers will in fact be allowed to post videos for sale.

I guess it's a try towards a new monetization strategy that Youtube is setting up these days. An open door to pay per view of videos, or movies in streaming or something in the same approach.

Once again I don't see the point.

Will you really pay for ...

- home made videos, yet fun and all, but of generally poor interest in the long run ?

- low quality videos, some with a sound so bad that you could hardly hear ?

- videos you can already download for free, using hacks or softwares that anybody can find on the net ?

I am afraid very little people will.

Unless Youtube quickly improve their content, it will be hard for them to fight against major platforms of pay-per-view.

I don't think that User Generated Content could really create a credible revenue stream for Youtube. Maybe a few stars will help make a few bucks. But not enough to equilibrate the cost of all the remaining stuffs.

Youtube will have to deal with Majors of Movie and Music Industry to get valuable content. It also means that they would have to implement DRM on contents. Well, if they go this way, they could as well, rename their service Youtune ou Itube and everything will be alright in the perfect world of web 2.0.

Everyone is really understanding now why Chad and Steve were so hilarious on this video, where they announced their selling of Youtube to Google.

I was not here in 1929, and I was still a kid the years of reconstruction, after the war ended. But I had faced a lot of economic and financial troubles in my personal life and I know a bit about how to stand up while everything around is crumbling like houses of cards.

Most of you who are reading this blog are freelancers or something like that. So, I would like to especially focus on the solutions for freelancers to cope with crisis. All the more so the crisis should be harder for freelancers, as it's well known that the more flexible staff get ejected first.

Here are my 2 cents of advice :

1. Jump on every opportunity

In these troubled times, you can't afford to miss any new business. So get up early, brush your smile so white nobody can't refuse you anything and try no to be picky. Even the worst clients could be a relief if you can't get enough income with your standard clients.

You should also try to transform every contact, every question into a business proposal. Your usual babysitter needs more parents to have their children taken care of ? Suggest her to get a website, you will design of course.. Your accountant is thinking to get freelance to grab some more revenue ? Offer him some coaching to help him get started.

2. Lick your clients' foot

When clients get rarer, you should literally worship the ones you have. Don't save up efforts on flattery about your clients' projects. They are so great and it's so terrific to participate in such great innovations that would change the world.

3. Don't cut off your fees

With the crisis will be intensifying, you would be tempted to reduce your prices in order to sound more attractive to more demanding clients. That would be an error to me, because you would contribute to destroy the market even more. The pressure on prices will lead to no more business for you in the end, (because all your competitors will do just the same and cut prices as well as you do). You will just get less money for the work you do.

If you want to emerge, you'd rather try to give more, offer a best service for the same price. This is something your competitors won't and can't always do, and you would get noticed and recommended by your former clients.

4. Reduce your expenses

I know it could be hard when you are a freelancer to reduce expenses. Freelancers generally have few expenses. But you still can find something.

Fire your accountant and do your books alone. Don't delegate small tasks as you used to do in the euphoric period. Stop buying new gadgets for geeks, just to show off with girls when you are at a party.

5. Learn a new trade

Happy guy, the one who have different trades, know-hows or jobs. He could diversify his revenue streams. That's the kind of solution you need during a crisis period : not to be stuck to only one skill.

Having different skills will help you land clients. It will enable you to get bigger contracts that otherwise your clients would have divided into 2 or more freelancers.

6. Enlarge your network

Another thing you could to to enable your business to cope with the crisis, is to join a network of freelancers. You would share contacts and opportunities with each others, and as a team, you would feel stronger while everyone else is collapsing all around, suffering from the lack of business.

7. Buy your clients ' stocks

While theirs stocks are reaching the basement, it's time to shop and make good deals. Once you become a shareholder you would show your concern and support to your clients (helping them not to sink by defending their stocks). This way, you would be able to have more grip on them, influencing them to keep you on the list of good freelancers to work with.

Since a few years, I am suffering from losses of memory. It took me time to realize it and even more time to get the full perspective of how it could change my everyday life.

For a glimpse of this disaster, I could give you a few examples during my last week :

Monday :

I forgot where I parked my car. I search for it for half an hour with no success. I was forced to go to my little office on foot.

As I also forgot the way to go, I get lost. It took me the afternoon to go back home. Result : I didn't go to work at all and I entirely spoiled my left shoe.

Tuesday :

I forgot that I forgot my car. So I had no surprise to find it just in front my house. It means I surely forgot not where my car was on monday, but what my car looks like. Even worse, I'm afraid.

So I had my car. But I forgot where were my keys..

So I decided to forget to go to work.

Wednesday :

I had my keys. My car didn't move during the night. I had the way to the office in mind. The sun was shiny and the day was full of promises.

I just forgot to get dressed. And I worked all the day wearing pyjamas. Nobody made any comment in the office.

I implies it could not be the first time I come in my sleeping clothes.

Thursday :

In the morning, everything seemed ok : car, keys, proper clothes, good way to the office. I forgot my password to connect to my computer, but I managed to remember that I had a post-it in my drawer with that password written on it.

I remembered well all what I planned to do during the day. And I even reminded all the tasks I had to postpone the previous days. Everything was scheduled during my workday, and in the end, was done.

At 10 PM, I realized that I forgot to go back home. I get clamped down by the security guard, in charge of watching the building, that thought I was a thief or something similar.

As I forgot my security code for this kind of case, I had to deal with the police officers the security guard called.

Fortunately, I had my ID somewhere in my car. And I was quite confident, until I realized that I forgot where I parked my car..

again.

Friday :

I decided to write a list of everything I should not forget during the day.

I was doing great to compensate my handicap.

But at some moment, I forgot I had that list in my pocket.

Saturday :

I forgot I was on week-end. So I went to work.

A kind of compensation for the the beginning of the week, I guess.

Sunday :

I found myself calling people to have some company for this day, with the idea of having some lunch with friends.

So I picked up my agenda, and start making phone calls. Unfortunately, speaking with most of them, after a few minutes I couldn't remember what kind of relationship I had with all these dudes. They were almost all strangers to me.

I finally manage to organize a small informal lunch with a few pals, I could have a hint who they were. It was supposed to take place in a chinese restaurant next to my flat.

And I forgot to go.

Brilliant isn't it ?

As you see, life can be treacherous with elder persons like me.

It sounds to me, as if with my aging my system was not operating as well as it used to be. My hard disk seems full of obsolete data I can't clean, my memory chip looks overloaded, my operating system is running slower and slower every year.

I fear there is no way I could get recycled.

Analysis and conjectures about the impact of his departure, whether be it temporary or definitive, are flourishing on the net like mushrooms in September. What will Apple become without its charismatic leader ? Can it survive ?

I am not myself a good analyst nor forecaster of what could a company turn into. I am not at all in the business stuff, and I am not an Apple or Jobs specialist. I am just a consumer, an old geek, that sometimes buy the Cupertino firm's products.

But I would like to bring a few points to the debate, with that "wisdom" of mine, pragmatic and uncompromising experience of an old man, full of idiotic certitudes and blurred knowledge.

1. Apple's junkies fear to lose their hero

Many geeks are identifying with Jobs. He is the rebel that dared to fight against the "evil" Microsoft, the creative that invented so much great products they couldn't stop worshiping, the charismatic leader who can be as seductive as he can be vindicative. Jobs is the perfect incarnation of the personality the normal geek wants to be.

Jobs is a hero to many. Would he retire from the scene definitively, they would lose their icon.

If it wasn't Steve Jobs at the head of Apple, it wouldn't have been such a mess about its departure. No other CEO of any other firm is so tightly associated with its company. I believe all the media firestorm would be a soft breeze in comparison if H Lee Scott, the boss of Walmart, was suddenly kidnapped by people from Alpha Centauri.

Would these geeks that are fond of Apple products will stop buying ? I guess not. A little less, but what else can they spend money in nowadays ?

Ok, they can buy a Wii and doom their elbow.

2. The financial market has shown little concern in the end

As you can see on the chart above, the announcement of Job's medical leave had no real impact on Apple's shares in the end. Yet, the 14th of January and the next days, you can observe a wide fall (about 10%) but the share quickly recovered, as financial dudes and investors regain trust seeing that everything was finally under control.

As my banker says : "when the shares are ok, everything is ok".

So, why worry.. if the most "easy-to-worry" people in the world, ie the shareholders, aren't afraid, why should we fear for the future of Apple Inc ?

3. Tim Cook is "as bad as" Steve Jobs

Jobs is not as good a CEO as many people say he is. He is, for example, well known to be harsh to his teams, and he is even cited as an example of supposed asshole, in the No asshole rule book.

He is said to be coleric and sometimes despotic. Many apple employees have complained about his style of management.

Tim Cook, who took the interim, seems to be built in the same vein. Fortune has published an interesting portrait of the actual COO of Apple, describying him as no more human as Steve Jobs. He is said to be cold, hard working and very demanding.

So, if the success of Apple can be explained by the tough character of its founder, I guess another "tyrannic" leader could be the good option for the firm.

For the moment, let him try to imitate the original :

4. Many companies have survived theirs founders

Yet many haven't. But in most cases, when it comes to companies of that size, they frequently survive.. and thrive.

In most cases, big companies are founded by visionary, nonconformist, charismatic, genius leaders. Then they get off the boat for some reason, and are later replaced by normal executives, that haven't generally the same aura as their founder, but make pretty good money too.

It's the way things works since the beginning of Capitalism and I guess it's not going to change before a while.

5. Barack Obama has a blackberry

Obama, the new US president, is also a charismatic and visionary character; Yet he doesn't have an Iphone.

Is it a sign ? Can we forecast from it something about Apple's destiny ?

Let's speculate a bit, would you...

Awesome. I felt rejuvenated for a short time.

Until I saw the result of my search request : a pack of old, desperate, eager bigots, all in their late sixties, which ugly hair styles and awful aprons.

I felt in the doldrums again.

Yet, of course, there were also on this website a bunch of pretty juvenile and refreshing beauties, but I instantaneously knew that all odds will be again me. So I resigned myself to dig deep into my "selection" to find the pearl among the garbage.

And so I did.

Her name was Rosalie.

Let me introduce her to you, fellow readers :

- She has only ten teeth left.

- She has her left hip replaced by a prosthesis in plastic.

- Her bladder is not so well either.

- She has been married 3 times, and buried all husbands in the same graveyard (more convenient for the yearly visit, she said)

- She snores at night, and burp after a hearty meal.

- She sometimes forgot who you are and who she is talking with. That could lead to surrealistic conversations (and even to have a police officer jumping in to intervene)

- She can hit you in the back with her umbrella if you happen to say something inappropriate (I still have some scrapes that would testify for me)

Believe or not, but we did chat on the website for at least 3 hours. Like kids of the new generation, we told each other every secret we have. We flirted like teenagers, I asked for a date and then we met in an old tea room.

Tea room, where we ruined any reputation we had left, by drinking 4 bottles of wine till they were obliged to force us out.

what a great thing !

Dudes, I'm in Love.