Innovative Strategies

The threat of censorship over the Internet

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:25:00 +0000

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) has been introduced in late 2011. Mid January, the FBI decided to shut down MegaUpload. You can read it on megaupload.com. They also arrested all founders. It's sad, because MegaUpload was widely used on the whole planet.

But it isn't over. Now Mega Upload is down, all websites know that the governments are a real threat. And there are some changes that occur:

French authorities made irc.lc shut down its iframe pointing to the Anonymous webchat.
Twitter recently announced that will censor tweets.

It's as if the government have now full power on publishers. Although I understand that content has to be controlled, I'm worried. I doubt that the methods used are fair. This censorship is definitely not the solution... I wonder how will thing evolve...

After MegaUpload had been shut down, the Anonymous (a strong online community) hacked a bunch of official sites and took them down. The Anonymous are well know for their fast reaction and are often feared. Even though they don't really help, their reaction underlines what the Internet is.

The Internet is all about sharing content in real time. If we're to add boundaries we're limiting the power of this incredible tool. The Internet changes the way things used to be. This fact has to be accepted by the authority in order to take the right decisions. The rules should adapt themselves to this new way of communicating.

Do we have to expect a massive attack on official sites to protest against censorship?

Free Mobile shakes French mobile industry

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:16:00 +0000

Xavier Niel, CEO of Iliad is well known in France. He already turned the ISP (Internet Service Provider) industry upside down several times with his offers.
This time, he targeted the mobile industry with two outstanding offers:

All included: 19.99€- $25.50 (or 15€99 for Free ADSL subscribers)

Unlimited calls (from France to more than 40 countries)
Unlimited texts
3 Go data
No commitment

Small package: 2€ - $2.50 (free for Free ADSL subscribers)

One hour out-going calls (unlimited received calls)
60 out-going texts (unlimited received texts)
No commitment

If we compare this all-included offer with existing French offers:

Orange: 92€ = $117.50
SFR: 95€ = $121.50
Bouygues : 79€ = $101

Now, in the US market, prices are quite comparable to these offers:

Verizon: $120 = 84 €
T-Mobile: $80 = 62.50 €
AT&T: $115 = 90 €

And these offers don't included calls to foreign countries. Plus the data roaming is often limited to 2 Go.

Free Mobile is three to four times cheaper than any other company! Do you realize how this offer could change the whole mobile industry. It makes smartphone planes affordable for almost everyone in France. And this might shift to other counties...

The revolution is on the go!

To become mainstream: integrate your product on existing tools

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:19:00 +0000

When designing a new service on the Internet, the goal of an entrepreneur is to become mainstream. That means they want their service to be used by everyone.
Now let's consider the new services that became mainstream after Facebook. The main names would be Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, Angry Birds... The common factor that made these service become so popular is the fact that they were really easy to use. Actually they didn't change our old habits. They integrated on existing platforms. Therefore the barrier to use it everyday wasn't huge.

The use of an API enables to have a product on different platforms

Therefore, when creating a product, startups have to make sure it can be used easily on existing communication tools. Nowadays, when it comes to online communication, people use:

Mails
Phones
Facebook
(Twitter?)

Therefore you have to make sure your product can be used via theses tools and not only via a web app. This is even more true, when you consider that in the future we'll have more and more connected objects.

When you think about it... Instagram, Twitter, Foursquare don't even require a web app to be used. That's a true asset. There are some simple services that are really great because they smoothly integrate in existing platforms (like Summify or AgoraApp).

On the other hand there have been some awesome product that failed because of that. Google Wave was great... but it wasn't compatible with any existing communication tool. That pretty much killed the project.

This said... there are counter-examples. Google and Facebook succeeded to be mass adopted by changing the way people used to communicate. They're really disruptive. It doesn't happen often, but now those two rule the Internet.

Uber redefines urban transportation in Paris

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:50:00 +0000

If you ever tried to travel by cab in Paris, you're probably aware that the French capital doesn't have enough taxis compared to the need. On the other hand, there are companies that let people hire a car with driver for a couple of days. These drivers usually have some spare time they would be happy to monetize.

Uber will efficiently connect people who need a ride with these drivers. The experience provided is just outstanding. They just launched their offer in Paris. I've tested it.

With Uber, it has never been that easy to go from one place to another.

1) Open Uber's application on your smartphone.

2) Request a ride (the application will automatically detect where you are and text you in how much time your driver will be here).

3) Wait 5 to 15 min (with a countdown on your mobile)

4) Enter the car and tell the driver your destination

5) Enjoy the comfort of your car

6) You're at destination

What about payment?

The application will take care of it. No need to have cash or to use your credit card in the car.

How the experience?

Well, I must say that I felt more like Bruce Wayne in his private limo than in a cab. The driver is genteel, the car is comfortable... It was really pleasant.

How expensive?

The ride cost me nothing because Uber had a special offer. But it would have cost 22€, which is pretty cheap. I think the same ride would have cost twice as much if i had use a cab... and the experience wouldn't have been the same!

Conclusion

As you might have understood, I like Uber a lot. The application solves a real issue. The execution is almost perfect and the experience is really smooth.

If you want to impress a girl after a party in a night club, offer her a ride home with Uber ;)

Social networks on war!

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:53:00 +0000

The social network market is very active these last days. Google recently decided to have their social network open to everyone. Facebook organized a developers summit last week, announcing a bunch of new neat features...

Now that Google Plus is live, there's a serious competitor to Facebook. Google Plus is great because I can use a single platform to share personal stuff with my friends and follow people of interest. However, the true value of Google Plus could be revealed as a social network for professionals. I'm not saying that Google Plus competes with LinkedIn... but it could be used with to connect with people who aren't really personal friends like coworker.

It doesn't seem to be the priority for Google as they decided to open a game platform before accepting to have people registering with Google Apps account. But I think it will soon come (>prediction). And when they do, they will probably be used in a lot of of companies...

How is Facebook reacting to this threat? Well, during the f8 summit Facebook announced a lot of great news. Some are direct reactions to Google Plus:

Lists management has been enhanced to make it easier to share to limited circle.
Users can now subscribe to follow anyone's public status...

But they were minor features compared to the rest:

Facebook began to connect people with object with their like button. Now Facebook is going further... you can connect to anything the way you want. You can decide not to 'like' a book, but to 'read' it. You can share music you 'listen' and the one you 'like'. This way Facebook includes in your graphs not only people, but also object and the way you're connected with them.
Timeline: Facebook will soon reveal a new way to show your personal information in a timeline from your birth to now. It looks quite promising!

Facebook is still way ahead of Google Plus. Today a direct competition with Facebook is to be excluded.

But there's another solution called Diaspora. It's still in alpha tests... but it looks promising. Diaspora is a federated social network. It means that you can use it for a limited circle (your school, your company...) and then your network can still be connected to another one.
The usage is very similar to Google Plus, but it's much safer for your privacy.

It's hard to see how things are going to evolve. I would say that Facebook will remain the king of personal social networks. Google Plus would be great to be used inside businesses. Diaspora would fit well with the way schools and universities are organized... Plus, there are more and more vertical social networks... these could have a great power in a few years...

Everything's possible, right?

Steve Jobs leaves his CEO position at Apple

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:51:00 +0000

Earthquake at Apple! Steve jobs left. It's always a nightmare for big companies when they see their charismatic CEO leave. The success of Apple was really connected with the image of their CEO.
You might know that Jobs already left Apple in 1984. As a results Apple's sales went down and they had to buy Jobs's new company (NeXT) in order to retrieve their CEO and therefore their success.

But this time, things are going to be different. As he mentioned on his resignation letter, Jobs is going to stay as chairman in Apple's board. I don't see Jobs resignation as a real threat to the company. I'm positive his leaving has been fully prepared and I suspect Apple will release a huge piece of news in order to prevent a drop of its shares.

There were an awful lot a rumors for the release of new devices before Jobs quit. The fifth generation of iPhones... the next generation of iPods...
My guess is that Apple needs a major announcement to make people forget about the charismatic former CEO. A product upgrade won't be enough: Apple will announce a real innovation in the next month.

So what could it be? I can see two problems to be tackled: the limited size of phones' screens and adding text on a touch device. Apple might release a touch screen with textures and reliefs in order to provide feedback to users or (let's be crazy) they could announce a bendable touch screen that connects with iPhones... I guess I'm more hoping than predicting...

Motorola acquired by Google for $12.5 billion

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:53:00 +0000

Google just bought Motorla (the American phone manufacturer) for $12.5 billion. It's by far the biggest acquisition for Google (Doubleclick cost $3.1 billion and Youtube $1.6 billion).

This is a game changing announcement, since Google will produce hardware for the first time. It's often said that the main reason for this acquisition was Motorola's 20,000+ patents. Why not... I just don't see Google having any trouble paying for the licences (or court trials).

What I see in this acquisition is that Google will start to actually build its own devices. The competition with Apple and Microsoft will reach a new level! Now Google will build its own phones and tablet (Motorola Xoom is the greatest iPad competitor).

With Motorola, Google is now one of the biggest android phone manufacturer. Nonetheless, Google clearly announced that its existing partnerships will remain the same. And it seems that Google's partners aren't pissed at all. Therefore we can imagine how it will affect the market.

Google will be able to build phone the way they want. Motorola phones will not have any additional skin as android phone manufacturer use to add. They will also have automatic update. Great news for android phone users, because the other brand (Samsung, HTC...) will have to keep up.

I think this partnership is really exciting!

Google wants to change the way we use computers with Chrome OS

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:33:00 +0000

Two years after telling the world about their projet, Google released its operating system (something like Windows). It's called Chrome OS. They chose the name according to their web browser because basically the only thing available on Chromebooks is the browser.

Today, you can do everything on your browser. You can edit texts and spreadsheets on Google Docs, you can store your pictures and videos on Picasa and Youtube, you can watch movies and series on Hulu and so on... If you need anything beside the web you can still install an application directly on your browser thanks to Chrome Web Store.

This is certainly the future of computers. With Chrome OS, I can easily login with my Google account on any computer and find all my applications and file directly. It's possible because everything is on the cloud.

It's great! But for a first hit, Google might have gone a little too far. Chrome OS is really disruptive and therefore not easy to use. For example, you can't easily open a file with these computers. Documents, videos... everything has to be on the Internet.

I don't think that these computers are going to be a hit since only a few tech-savvy would understand why it's designed this way. Plus, people would think that these computers have less features and therefore less value.

I wonder a long it will take for the world to change this way... Because it will!

Net Neutrality: why it matters.

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:21:00 +0000

You might have heard of net neutrality (on my blog, if you want a expression to be defined, just highlight it). This principle advocates that there should be no restriction on the Internet network. This means that an Internet provider should not reduce the access to some site.

Today, Net Neutrality is not applied... and it's completely unfair!

In France, many Internet providers reduce the debit to big streaming site like Youtube. Obviously videos on Youtube consume a lot of bandwidth. Therefore it costs money to Internet providers and a lot of them reduce their access to this site. Just run the test to see if yours does it as well.

But do you think it's fair that Orange shut down Youtube, knowing that they recently bought a competitor called Dailymotion. Worse, when Stéphane Richard (Orange CEO) was questioned about Net Neutrality during the e-G8 summit, he said: "Apple and Google don't do that... neither do we. Period."

So Orange can promote and monetize Dailymotion while being able to shut off Youtube for 45% of French web surfers. So goes for music. Orange bought Deezer (a Pandora-like) and obliges its mobile users to have a premium account. What about other music services like Spotify ?

Can we really let Orange use its position as Internet provider to promote its services? Website with content should always be independent from Internet provider. This way, the competition would always be fair. People would benefit from best services.

Here is a video that explains it. It's 5 year old, but still accurate.

Google+ a mix of Facebook and Twitter

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:29:00 +0000

As mentioned in a previous post, Google recently launched a social network called Google+. Let me explain the main differences between Google+ and Facebook (and Twitter).

Let’s focus on the regular usages (I’m not considering the lists on Facebook because they’re barely usable. Nor am I speaking about people who protect their Tweets on Twitter).

How updates are pushed on the social networks.

On the graph above, you are in blue. Green bubbles are people who can access your update, red bubbles are people who can't see you update. Orange bubbles are people who can access the update but probably won't.

On Facebook, in order to share information from one to another, both parties have to agree to become friends.

On Twitter, the information is public. However, you have to follow someone to receive update.(no confirmation required).

On Google+, things are much more complicated. You can create your circles and then push your update to any of them. You select who can access your information. But this doesn’t mean they will receive it. They will have an access, but they will probably only see it if you’re in one of their circle.

In other words, Google+ could replace both Facebook and Twitter. If I add a superstar in a circle I will be able to see all his public updates. It’s exactly the same as Twitter. But I can also have more personal updates if I’m in the circle of my friends.

With Google+, you can manage all your communities in the same place. It’s very convenient for tech savvy people. But it could also be a great pain to use. I don’t think that everybody will understand how it works. And Facebook greatest strength is that almost everybody is on Facebook…

Another attempt by Google to enter into the social world

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:00:00 +0000

After the failure of Orkut and Google Buzz, Google is still motivated to try to compete with Facebook. The company just released a new set of social mobile applications. Only happy few are able to test it, but the concept seems to be quite appealing. (Go on Google +)

Although I'm certain that Google can design an awesome platform, I doubt it could become mainstream. What makes the power of Facebook is that (almost) everybody is on Facebook. It will be hard to make them switch from on network to another. Even though many people are complaining about Facebook privacy issues... do you really thing that Google will be better?

In the main time, Google+ is focusing on mobile applications. That might help... but I don't believe it will be a huge success. Check out what people think on Beansight about Google+.

e-G8 Forum: Summary

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Tue, 24 May 2011 18:06:00 +0000

As you might know, Nicolas Sarkozy decided to set up a forum dedicated to the Internet just before the G8 summit. It's called the e-G8 forum.

As a young entrepreneur, I had the chance to be invited. Maurice Levy who was in charge of setting up the event did a great job in the organisation: attendees were offered food from LeNotre and there was no major problem which is rare in the kind of big events.

In his introducing speech, Nicolas Sarkozy war clear: the Internet is a great strength for our economy and its global approach changes the way things used to be (in a good way). But this revolution has to framed by the states and the governments in order to make sure that it stays fair and moral. As he doesn't want to slow down the evolution, he wants the main actors of the Internet to take part to the political discussion.

That's the theory. Because in the end the discussion panels were more focusing on how to defend or promote their own services than elaborating a real discussion on what role the governments should have.
Finally it was a way to clearly shows that our leaders feel concerned about the Internet. It's a very visible event, but there won't be any effective decision concluded.

Obviously people from the Internet industry took the opportunity to network and meet some interesting people. We even had on open Mike Butcher session to introduce "real" startup. It was basically startupers shouting what they were doing to who ever wanted to listen....

Nokia and Microsoft signed a partnership... for the best or worst!

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

It's now official, Nokia and Microsoft signed their agreement. This implies that Nokia will implement Windows Phone OS in their smartphones.

This isn't so surprising as Microsoft saw its market share shrink. Nokia totally missed the smartphone trend as their OS (Symbian) wan't competitive. Therefore, this partnership was mandatory for both player in order to get into the market. But will it work?

Microsoft has a hard task to achieve. Blackberry, Apple and Google already took great positions in the market. I doubt there's room for a fourth competitor. When creating apps, developers have to have it ready for already 3 OSs... a 4th one would be a pain.Windows phone is left behind. No one really cares about it right now. It will be hard to turn things around.

Beside, Microsoft still has the image of buggy applications that wouldn't fit the their users' needs.

Nonetheless, Nokia has on a phone market been for a while. They have a strong relationship with network providers. This could help them to touch their customer more easily. But I don't think this will be enough.

I don't think Windows Phone will ever reach the market share of Android or Apple's iOS. WHat do you think? Agree? Disagree? Share your point of view.

Share you predictions on Beansight

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

It's been a while I haven't posted anything on my blog... I still haven't spoken about my own startup. What a shame! Now, let me correct that.

Beansight is a social network that enables its users to post and share predictions on the future. The community is invited to talk about prediction and give their point of view (will it happen?). When a prediction becomes true, credibility points are attributed to those who correctly forecasted it. A ranking allows you to track the best experts. You can also challenge your friends to see who's got skills.
If you like the idea, why not give it a try?

Beansight is born in May 2011 at the Startup Weekend Paris, an event which makes attendees launch their own startups in 54h. Then, the project evolved slowly till january 2011. At the point we entered the accelerator Le Camping. This means that we work in the prestigious Palais Brongniart in Paris. We also have access to a great panel of mentors.

Beansight is quite popular in the French Tech universe. The Startup has been featured on great blogs like TechCrunch and FrenchWeb (articles in French).

If you want to follow Beansight's news you can:

sign up on Beansight
follow Beansight Blog
like us on Facebook
follow us on Twitter

Future of advertising: give value to the audience

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:00:00 +0000

When a brand wants to increase its visibility, it buys print ads, TV spots and on-line ad banners. If you want to target women you'll chose magazines, TV shows and websites designed for women. This how the advertising world used to work. But this will change... at least on-line!

On the internet, there is data everywhere. You can measure how visible you are, what engagement you created with users. You can also measure who you served ads to.

Gender, age, revenue, degree, interest, belonging, purchase intent... so many things advertisers could know to measure the efficiency of their campaign.

But now these metrics can be used to optimize each ad sold, individually. If you want to target men, you'll probably try to advertise on sports sites or car sites. But there are also women on these sites! If you target men, ads served to women are a waste!

Let's take an example. John is visiting Yahoo.com. As the home page loads, Yahoo sends an ad request to its server:

"Hey, I've already seen that user. He's a male and he's probably interested in sports because last time he went to Yahoo! he checked the NBA results."

Then all advertisers automatically bids. Some of them will have more information on John. Finally, a car manufacturer wins the bid because it knew John was considering buying a new car.

Ads should show to John what he needs.

In the end the website on which John was doesn't really matter really. What really matters is John's interests. This is the future of advertising.

Now think about it... everybody can win from this switch:

Users are only served ads that fit best with them.
Publishers can increase there prices because the value of each ad is greater.
Advertisers have a better impact on their target and increase their return on investments.

The evolution of ad services (source: Exchangewire.com)

The ad ecosystem evolved. DSP, SSP, Ad exchanges, data suppliers... all those platforms are designed to make advertisers buy on the audience instead of on the context.

Facebook e-mail: Facebook has now a complete set for communication with friends

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 07:37:00 +0000

I just got my Facebook inbox upgraded. It's now compatible with mail. This means that you can reach my Facebook inbox by sending an e-mail at XX@facebook.com. It's also compatible with attachement and you can use it via mobile text messaging.

That's a great tool, but watch out! It was great to have nearly always relevant messages on Facebook. Don't mess it up by giving away your Facebook e-mail adress.

Here is un over-view

The message sent with a profile picture is a message sent via Facebook. The messages sent with an envelope as a profile are sent via a regular e-mail adress. On the last message you can see an attachement. On the second message me signature is hidden. On the third message, there's a picture you can see if you click on expand.

Facebook raised $500 millions to become the king of display ads

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:16:00 +0000

Facebook just raised $500 millions. The social network is supposed to be worth $50 billions! Quite a lot, since their annual revenue is about $2 billions.

Facebook knows a lot about their users (almost 600 millions!). Facebook knows your gender, your age, your friends and your activities. Thanks to Facebook Connect, Facebook also knows most of sites you've visited.

If used smartly, Facebook can use this data to serve relevant ads and become the king of targeting. Even better than Google and with a much wider range than Criteo. This is the way ads will be sold in the future. Prices will be determined depending on the web surfers, not depending on the web site hosting the ad (see the article: "Give value to the audience").

The question is: why does Facebook need money? Because they want to build a wider ad network. Something similar to Google AdSense, but dedicated to display advertising. The money will be used to develop this network.

Google is very profitable today because they make money on a wide ad space with many publishers. Facebook could do just the same and differentiate from Google thanks to a great targeting tool using the ad network data (gender, age, likes...).

Facebook could earn an awful lot of money with an ad network.

That would be great because small publisher would have the choice between Google and Facebook to monetize their ad spaces. This would probably increase the selling price (which is incredibly low today).

I only fear that Facebook and Google will lower the market advertising prices. Their platforms would be very efficient thanks to the targeting. But they would sell it for a low price because they don't use sales people but an automatic bid platform. We can only hope that advertisers will have to bid higher in order to have a sufficient scale for their campaigns.

EDIT:

How AdExchanger sees the future of Facebook.

Google Instant: Enhancing user experience and monetization

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:05:00 +0000

You sure have noticed that Google enhanced its search engine with Google Instant. If not, you can see this article. This feature allows web surfers to have an faster and easier access to their information.

The question was: how would it impact the sponsored links? It seems obvious, that Google would generate more ad spaces, and that these spaces would have a lower CTR (Click through rate).

Now thanks to Marine Software, we have the data, to truly understand the benefit from Google Instant.

Google's ad space inventory has increased by 9.31% while the CTR decreased by 3.37%. Therefore Google achieve to generate 5.63% more clicks.

Because advertisers were quite afraid of this new method, the average advertising price was as high as it used to be (average CPC decreased by 3.47%).

On the whole, Google earned almost 2% more than before Instant. Huge success for Google!

iAD: Apple tries to give value to mobile advertising

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 17:40:00 +0000

Apple's mobile advertising platform, iAd is only at an early stage of its development. They recently release a video of their first customer case with Nissan.

The results are quite promising, since they succeed to gain a lot of attention to the brand. Click through rates are said to be 5 time higher on iAd than on a regular browser. The average interaction lasted about 90 seconds. Quite a good start!

But to achieve these results, the advertiser has to deal with Apple's standards. Sure the results are great as you'll see in the video, but it increases the delay to set up a campaign (up to 10 weeks!). Plus not every advertiser could stand it till the end.

Apple's prices to advertise on iAd are incredibly high! In addition to a $ 1 million entry fee, you have to pay both for each impression served (CPM $10) and for each interaction (CPC $2). This is the cost for Nissan's smooth and beautiful ad.

There's also a cheaper offer for standard banners (CPC $0.25). This offer is designed for developers who wants to promote their applications. But it seems that AdMob (Google's mobile advertising platform) is doing better for these kinds of campaigns (cheaper and better CTR).

So we might have two complementary platforms. One helps you to increase your traffic or online sales, the other makes people recall your name and drives off-line sales.

AdMob for direct response marketers and iAd for brand marketers.

Google Adwords: Fight for your brand

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:31:00 +0000

Since September 14th, Google has changed its brand protection policy in Europe. Now you can bid on a brand you don't own.

This could lead to insane behavior. If Pepsi want to steal customer away from Coca-Cola, they can just bid a high price on the words "Coke" or "Coca-Cola"... Of course you don't want your customers to receive deceiving results as they google your name. So you'll have to bid high prices too.

As a result prices for brands will probably increase. Great move from Google. Advertisers are upset but they have no other choice. They can try to go on court, but I doubt they'll win their case.

This move could change the way advertisers use Adwords. I guess smart and malicious Adwords users could definitely turn the game to their advantage.

Google Instant: Search before you type

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:01:00 +0000

Google's latest innovation is called Google instant. If you go on Google's home page and start typing your query, you'll find your results instantly.

Google is going faster and faster. It makes Internet a better place. Even if there's no disruption here, it could still allow Google to keep it domination in Search.

Impressive... Maybe it will make people get used to real time response (already used in Google docs and Google Wave).

Gmail priority inbox

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 06:01:00 +0000

After the failure of Google Wave, Google is still trying to find a way to improve on-line communication. They understood that emails are too used to be replaced. Therefore they have to focus on their great tool Gmail in order to be successful.

Gmail is already a great tool for emails. Its core advantage is to enable the user to follow their emails by threads. This means that if there are answers to a mail, you can easily read the whole conversation.

Yet it still very easy to get overwhelmed by an increasing number of received emails. That's why Google has decided to organize them in two categories according to their importance.

Let watch Google's presentation video:

That's a really smart move from Google. The idea is very simple and I am confident that Google will succeed in making this filter efficient for all of us. It will help users to run their inbox faster.

My only concern is how people will deal with their "less important" mails. Emails coming from a new contact will obviously appear in the second inbox and might not be noticed by the user. Therefore we will still have to check the secondary inbox and we won't save that much time.

Once again, the success of this feature relies on the effective use of it. Will people find an interest in it if it either doesn't let them save time (but prioritizes their attention to the most important) or could mislead them and make them miss important mails? Are Gmail users able to use this priority inbox so that it will be efficient?
Wait and see...

Google Wave: the project is over...

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:03:00 +0000

Google recently decided to drop its Wave project. It was announced in Google official blog on August 4th. It's sort of sad, because our old e-mails system really needs some fresh air.

Despite of many innovations, Wave wasn't able to gain enough users. Even if I didn't use, I feel a little nostalgic...

In the beginning the whole blogosphere was very enthusiastic about it (so was I). But it steadily slowed down. I didn't really use it, because my circle doesn't use it. It's really hard to move people's habits. My guess is that it really should have had an e-mail integration so that people could use even if the correspondants didn't. I

I hope that some of the technological features of Wave could be reused later (in context spell-checking, media sharing and so on). Like I said: e-mails are an out-dated way to communicate. It needs something new... something disruptive enough to make it more user friendly but not to different so that everybody would still be able to use it.

So Waver... You still have till the end of the year wave peacefully... after that, the site might be down.

The Times' loss by switching to a paid model

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:21:00 +0000

The Times recently adopted a paid model to monetize their content. I always wondered if it would be more valuable to make the user pay instead of put ads on a web site.

Now that the english changed its model and thanks to figures provided by the Guardian, we can try to guess what is best.

My conclusion is that the Times decreased its revenues by approximately 50%. But they also might have decreased their costs because they don't need any sales person now.

According to the Gardian, there are around 60,000 people that are willing to pay (45,000 already pay and 15,000 have a free suscription but would eventually pay) to read articles from the Times. This makes a total revenue of £120,000 per week (£2 per user per week).

There are still 195,000 users on The Times. With a 84% loss (according to the Gardian) it means that there used to be more than 1,200,000 visits before (I assumed that on average there one visit a week), when The Times was free.
I read on the Experian Hitwise that the average time spent per visit was around 5 minutes. Therefore there should be around 20 ads seen sold at a CPM of £15 (much higher than in France!). This is an expected revenue of £360,000 per week.

If The Times still display ads in their pai model they'll earn an additional £36,000 (20 ads per week per user at a £30 CPM).

In the end, it seems that The Times cut its revenues by two. There are quite some assumptions that have been made, but it seems that the paid model wasn't such a good idea in terms of revenues.

Twitter: the little bird is growing!

gw27@duke.edu (Guillaume Wolf) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:33:00 +0000

Twitter is definitely growing. In terms of users, it's really obvious. But Twitter has also learnt how to be profitable.

First, Twitter signed a partnership with Google and Bing. The search engines pay Twitter in order to index the tweets. This agreement enabled Twitter to be profitable. (see the article) But this is not the end.

Twitter offers now sponsored tweets. If you use Twitter's search engine, you might have noticed. The first sponsored tweet was bought by Starbuck.

Twitter has also announced they will provide official client. This means that all client that work today might be out-passed bu the future official client. Tweetdeck, Seesmic... all those companies that helped Twitter to grow are basically fooled.

It's a great move by Twitter. The company has learnt how to behave in a competitive market. Sure, it might be unfair for the old Twitter client. But they made a great mistake. They relied on a single company. Huge mistake. (cf a previous article)

Let's just hope that the user experience will not be damaged by Twitter's gold rush.