Mathieu Thouvenin [EN]

Back to the roots

2011-04-16T18:08:25Z

I was 15 when I got my first Palm, a Palm V. I immediately became involved in the community, online and in a local club of Toulouse, my hometown, and even started to write an application for Palm OS. I was fascinated by the power of those little devices —called PDAs a the time— that you could carry anywhere with you, and do a lot of what my big HP desktop computer could do at the time. Time changed, and as the number of reviews I was writing for PDAfrance grew I was testing more smartphone than PDAs. Here we are in 2011 where a lot of us have a smartphone that replaces a PDA, a camera, a camcorder, and with devices that are as powerful as our PCs. I’m convinced that tablets are soon going to replace laptops and PCs for a lot of us, and this is why we live a super exciting time for people that love mobile like I do.

All of this to announce that I left Seesmic a few weeks ago to start a new job at the Palm business unit of HP. It’s a little bit of a “back to the roots” for me and I’m super excited to be there in such an interesting time in the history of mobile computing. I’m now working as a Product Manager on the webOS Application Catalog (the “App Store” available on all webOS devices.) I’d like to thank Loic Le Meur and all the Seesmic team for this incredible 1.5 years where I had the chance to develop all the mobile applications Seesmic currently has. I learned a ton of things, met some amazing people and this experience just made me realize even more how much I love what I do, and how I wanted to be part of something even bigger. I think this is the best time to join HP and the webOS team. I always loved webOS, its unique design and the great features it offers compared to the competition. HP has 3 great products coming up, including the first Tablet running on webOS and I couldn’t be more excited by it and HP’s vision. If you want to learn more, I suggest you to watch the interview of Jon Rubinstein (SVP and General Manager of the Palm Global Business Unit at HP) on the Engadget Show from a few weeks ago. The new HP marketing campaign “Everybody On” (one of the ad is attached to this post, the others are on Youtube) also represent exactly why I’m excited by mobile devices.

I’ll post more content about webOS in the next few weeks, in the mean time you can always reach me on this blog as well as on Twitter at @mathieu.

Japan

2010-12-31T16:20:23Z

I went to Japan for the first time a few weeks ago and it was fantastic. I liked it more than what I imagined. I enjoyed the people, the respect they have in things and in others, the pleasure and care they have in doing things. I loved the fact that most things, from objects to buildings, are kept simple and just do what they should do. There’s a lot of things to learn from Japan and the Japanese way of life. I can’t wait to go back to Japan and visit more countries in Asia.

During my trip, I visited Tokyo and then took the Shinkansen train to spend a couple days in Kyoto before going back to Tokyo and San Francisco. You can see the pictures I took on my Flickr and I also made a little video.

Never give up on your dreams

2010-06-29T05:36:29Z

Nicolas Hayek was one of those people that I admire a lot. One of those people that are determined, extremely passionate and crazy enough to take on big challenges. He was clearly thinking differently. He saved the Swiss watch industry, and revolutionized it at the same time with Swatch. He was also part of this crazy project called the Smart car when it started in 1994. Nicolas passed away today at the age of 82, and will always remains a model to me.

Photo: Nicolas Hayek was known to wear up to four watches on each arm.

Quoted in the New York Times about the iPad

2010-04-07T00:12:29Z

While waiting in line in front of the San Francisco Apple Store, to get the iPad on Saturday, I’ve been interviewed by a New York Times journalist. I made it into the final article both on NYTimes.com as well as in the paper edition.

Mathieu Thouvenin, 26, was born the year Apple introduced the Macintosh but predicted that the iPad would be just as revolutionary.

“I think all PCs are ultimately going to be like this,” he said, citing the tablet’s touch-screen capability. “I think I’m going to use the iPad at home on my couch instead of my laptop.”

Why the iPad is going to change everything

2010-03-29T04:18:40Z

Since the introduction of the iPad on January 27th, we heard a lot of opinions on the web from various people, bloggers and journalists. I will be waiting in line at the Apple Store next Saturday to get my hands on one, and before I can do that, I'd like to explain why I think the iPad is really a revolutionary product, and has the potential the change the way we think about personal computing, for ever.

Computers are still complicated

I'm a geek, I know how to use a computer, I can code, I'm the person that my entire family calls when there's a problem with a computer,... but I'm an exception. There's still lots of people that don't have a computer yet, or have a computer but think of it as a complicated machine. And they are right. When you think about it, how many of the hundreds of features of your computer do you use 80% of the time? How many features you will probably never use? A lot.

Take the mouse for example. I still remember the day I was teaching my grand father how to use a mouse, when he first got his computer. It's very complicated! The mouse is not an intuitive device, it's a very disconnected way to control your computer. Why is this thing on the screen moving, changing its state and icon, while I'm moving my hand on the mouse a good 10 inches from the screen? You control the iPad with your finger, touching directly what you want to act on, it's much more natural than using a mouse.

Why do we have to deal with all of the hassles and complicated things that your current computer offers? I think this is an exciting time to reinvent the personal computer. Most of the people using a computer still finds the file system complicated, and just use their computer for very basic tasks, like surfing the web, sending emails, sharing photos, writing text documents, etc... That's exactly what the iPad is supposed to do perfectly.

It's not just a big iPod touch

"When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it's the first personal computer worth criticizing. So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you'll rule the world."
-- Alan Kay

That was the reaction of a lot of people after the introduction of the iPad: "It's just a big iPod touch". If you compare the hardware features, and the external appearance of the iPad and an iPod touch, it's true that it is very similar. What people seem to have a hard time understanding is that with a much bigger screen, you can do so much more powerful applications, that it completely changes what you can do with the device. I think we're going to be really surprised and amazed by the apps that developers are going to come up with. I also think that games are going to be huge on the iPad.

Are you going to use an iPad just like an iPhone or iPod touch? No. The first reason is because of the apps, and the second reason is because of its size. Unlike an iPhone, you simply can't use an iPad while waiting in line at the movies, or at a restaurant. It's too big to be all the time with you. And that's OK, because there's plenty of other situations where the iPad is just perfect, while the iPhone or a laptop are not. During breakfast for example. You're at your table, slowing waking up and having a good breakfast. You want to start checking emails, read the news, check the weather,... and the iPad is much better than the iPhone or even your laptop. You don't have to put your laptop on the table, while trying to type something on your keyboard or use the touchpad with your fingers.

Think about when sitting on your couch while watching TV. Right know you pick up your laptop, or your iPhone, and you do what you need to do. You probably don't notice it, but when you use your iPhone or your laptop, it creates some sort of social barrier around you, and you suddenly become disconnected from what is around you. Using those devices is a socially disconnected experience. The iPad is the opposite. It's a very social user experience, where you can easily hold the device while sharing the screen with other people. It's open. Evan Doll is talking about this in more details in his talk at Stanford for the iPhone Programming class (talk that pushed me to create this post). You also have a much more intimate experience with the device, unlike with a laptop, you really hold and touch the device naturally. Microsoft created the Surface a couple of years ago, and it's just the same concept, and the same social experience. Unfortunately, it's too big and too expensive for people to really buy, use and enjoy it in as many situations as the iPad.

Arriving on April 3rd

As you can see, I'm really excited by the iPad, and I truly think it has the potential to change both the personal computers, as well as the way we do a lot of things with our computers, everyday. I would not be surprised if the iPad ends up being as revolutionary as the Macintosh were in 1984. I think we're going to see a lot of different tablets, made by Apple or not, after the launch of the iPad, and that this new category has a lot of potential.

Onboard Airbus A380

2010-01-24T23:51:15Z

When booking my tickets to go back to France for the holidays, I saw that I could make a stop to JFK and take the brand new, and at the time of booking not even in service, Air France Airbus A380. It’s very easy to make the decision if you’re as passionate as me about planes. The A380 is also very special for me, because I followed that fantastic project from the beginning, the construction of the factory in Toulouse, my hometown, to the first flight, and the first inauguration. I just wanted to share my experience on board of this fantastic aircraft, round-trip from New-York JFK and Paris CDG.

Of course, the first thing that is impressive, is the size of the airplane. The tail is just gigantic and the surface of the wings as big as a football field. The engines diameter is the same as the diameter of an A320 fuselage itself! (hard to believe but it’s true!) It’s nowhere near the size of any other airplane, which make the A380 very noticeable. Boarding didn’t took much longer than my previous flights on a Boeing 747 or 777, especially from Paris where the Charles De Gaulle airport has 3 steps connected to the plane, while JFK only had 2, one for each deck.

What is different in Economy class than other airplanes? Well, quite a lot. First, you enjoy 1 inch of more legroom, a much bigger screen in each seat, and a compartment on the side of the window seats both on the main and upper deck. Windows are bigger than other airplanes, which is enjoyable. I was now seated, mood lighting was blinking and changing colors gently and we were ready to go and enjoy the show!

The plane started, and we were aligned to start taxiing to the runway. Everyone was really surprised to see the plane live on their screen, thanks for the “tail cam”. It’s a camera that is located at the top of the tail of the plane, and that gives you a live view of pretty much the whole plane, during the whole flight. It’s a really nice touch, and it’s available on all A380. Now we could see the runway, and we were ready to take off. Full power… and we could barely ear the engines! Believe it or not, as soon as the tires are not touching the ground anymore, we could barely ear a small noise, that were the engines. It’s is very impressive, and it was the first flight in a while where I didn’t had to put on my in-ear earbuds. Also, something impressive during the takeoff is that you really feel that it’s an Heavy plane (notice the capital H). It’s fairly slow to take off and get some altitude at takeoff, something I never felt in any other airplane. There’s that “huh” moment at takeoff where you ask yourself if you’re actually going to make it.

We were now at our cruising altitude, it was time for me to discover the brand new video on demand system that Air France specially redesigned for the A380. There was about a hundred movies, old or new to enjoy, definitely the biggest selection I ever got in an airplane. The screens have a much better resolution than the ones you’re used to, you can create chat rooms or use pre-defined rooms and chat live with the passengers thanks to the keyboard located at the back of the remote, you can watch one of the 3 live cameras located at the tail, under or in the nose of the plane. Something that is really nice are the new upgraded high quality maps displayed during the flight, they even added history fact on them like where the Titanic sinked, or where some historical battles took place. Definitely a nice touch. Just like the USB plug available next to your screen. While you cannot watch your own movie you could have stored on it, you can download content from the plane to your key. Content include some desktop widgets (Windows only), metro maps and other tourist documents from your destination, videos about Air France, the construction of the A380.

During the flight, I couldn’t resist to walk a bit in the plane, especially in the bar area at the back of the plane, next to the stairs that brings you upper deck, which is about 70% reserved for Business class seats, and the rest were Economy class. As Premiere or Business passengers you can also access a “Gallery” area in front of the plane, that display art from museums all around the world. I cannot say more about it since I was in Economy and could not access this part of the place.

7 hours after it was time to enjoy the sunrise while starting our descent to Paris. The flight was super smooth, super quiet and enjoyable. Definitely better than on board of old planes, which makes you want to only fly A380s after. We just have to patient for the A380 to be available in more airlines, and more routes. With 25 deliveries since it’s commercial launch, and as many planned for 2010, that’s mores chances to fly a A380 in the next year!

More photos are available on my Flickr.

Startup School 2009

2009-10-27T04:55:28Z

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook

This year again I had the pleasure to attend Startup School. Startup School is a conference for hackers that want to create their Startup. It’s basically a crash course on a lot of different aspects that matters when you create a startup, from human resources, funding, vision and execution. It’s not like a normal class though, because it’s not one professor, but a lot of different experts speaking about their own experience of creating startups. This year again the speakers were amazing, and the main ones were Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, Tony Hsieh, Jason Fried, Paul Buchheit, Paul Graham, Chris Anderson and other very good speakers. The atmosphere of energy in the room at startup school is something you have to experience to believe. Many founders have told that this event was what finally made them take the leap.

So, what did speakers talked about this year? I’m going to go over the best moments of the conference, in my opinion. After the break.

Paul Graham is such a great entrepreneur. He started the conference and talked about what startups are really like, with quotes from a lot of CEOs of the YCombinator baked startups. You can read his talk on his website, along to some great essays.

Greg McAdoo from the famous VC firm Sequoia Capital told that during the last 12 months, Sequoia did no less than 12 Seed/Series A investments, which was more than during the 2 previous years. He then pointed out that since the 1970s, most of the successful companies were created and got funding during tough economic times. He concludes by pointing our that there’s a correlation between difficult economic times and the conditions needed to build a great company. In difficult times, people are more careful about their spendings, it’s easier to get office space, you’re hiring only resources you need, etc… Linking back to last year’s “RIP Good Times” from Sequoia, that the point was that during good times a lot of startups fall into bad habits, which is much more difficult (and hence very good) in difficult times.

Jason Fried is one of the Founder of 37signals, that make simple, useful and in a word great web applications. He emphasized his presentation on the fact that you should sell your product, first because it puts a value on it, users are going to care much more about it, give more valuable feedback. “Selling your product is something you have to learn” and he compared that skill to playing Piano, the more you practice, you better you’re going to be at it, so start practicing and selling your product now. Jason also compared cocaine (or other drugs) to VC funding simply because it’s addictive. Investors want you to come back for money they want you to be addicted to the money from Round A, Round B, Round C,… it’s just addiction.

Chris Anderson talked about Freemium business models. I’m not going to say much about it, because everything is very well explained in his book, “Free” which I recommend you to read.

Evan Williams and Biz Stone answered a lot of questions both from Jessica Livingston and the audience that was able to send their questions via… Twitter, of course. They talked about the before Twitter and how they got the idea and started to really work on it. Everything started when they all worked on Odeo, but they were not really into it, not really passionate about it, they found that podcasting was kind of boring, and didn’t wanted to be the kings of the podcasting. Then one day they gave employees 2 weeks to work on something, and that’s how Twitter was born. Another part of their talked that I really liked is their current focus of making Twitter a great company, and the fact that they are working really hard to have a good corporate culture. Twitter is participating and donating a lot to some associations, for example, which is an example to follow. All the rest of the questions and answers are available on TechCrunch.

Mark Zuckerberg started his talk by saying that the crowd in the room were “his people”, which was a really good ice breaker. Mark basically explained how he arrived to what Facebook is today, and what are the goals of the company. Facebook is trying to get the world to be more open, and he also mentioned that openness and transparency are going to be important in the future. One of his quote that I really liked was “not taking any risks is the riskiest thing you can do”.

It was the first time I was seeing a presentation by Tony Hsieh, and it was pretty impressive! If you don’t know Zappos, it’s basically a website that sells clothes and shoes online… but wait, far from everything you experienced before in terms of customer service. He basically wants to think of Zappos as a company that deliver happiness, and that maybe in 5 or 10 years, Zappos will be an Airline, or a company doing other things far from what they are doing right now. Zappos has very clear core values, values that inspire employees, and that are reasons of hiring or firing employees. He said that “vision and culture can inspire passion and performance”. Before going into details about the different types of Happiness, Tony asked the question “What is your goal in Life?” then he asked us “Why?” Then to the answer he asked Why again? And in the end everything leads to HAPPINESS, that’s what people want, and that’s what Zappos is delivering, both to employees and customers.

To conclude, it was once again a memorable day. Attendees and Speakers are simply amazing, and you leave the room with inspiration, motivation and you simply want to Crush It! (More about this expression soon.)

You can see the full set of pictures I took on my Flickr, all the talks and slides are available online at Justin.tv, TechCrunch did a nice coverage of the event too, and Mark Bao well summarized all the sessions with key points.

Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Founders of Twitter

Mobile phones changed Everything

2009-10-27T03:17:02Z

Amazing ad by HTC, that represents so well how mobile phones changed everything. And it’s just the beginning…

This ad is part of the huge marketing push that HTC started today, all accross the world, for the “revealing” of their brand and their first attempt to go mainstream.

Livestrong Day

2009-09-27T21:00:40Z

Following his diagnosis of advanced testicular cancer on October 2, 1996, before he knew whether he would survive, Lance Armstrong started his foundation to fight cancer and help others affected by the disease: LIVESTRONG. LIVESTRONG Day is a global day of action to inspire people to join in the global fight against cancer in communities around the world. This year, LIVESTRONG Day will take place on October 2 to demonstrate that each person can make a difference in the cancer fight.

I’ve always been a supporter of LIVESTRONG and a fan of Lance Armstrong. That’s why I created a band that you can put on your website a couple of years ago, but I never really promoted it. If you want to support LIVESTRONG and put a little yellow band on your website, like at the top right of this page, follow the instructions here. I’m not affiliated with LIVESTRONG, I’m just a supporter trying to help. If you want to help to, promote the LIVESTRONG foundation, donate on Livestrong.org or help spread the word to your friends and family.

Changes

2009-08-20T07:56:05Z

This blog deserve an update. So many things happened in the last couple of months that I couldn’t even take few minutes to write more than 140 characters. So what’s up? I got promoted and now have a new job, and I launched a second iPhone app.

Since a couple of days I’m now working at Seesmic as Product Manager. This is a great opportunity to work with my friend Loic again so I accepted the challenge! “Oh OK, you’re working for that video conversation website?” Maybe you’ve been in a cavern in the last months, but Seesmic is now focusing on making software to manage your community, manage your Twitter and Facebook accounts in one place. We have a Desktop version, a new Web version and we’ll soon be available on mobile devices starting by the iPhone. So many things are happening in that space, that the next couple of months are going to be very exciting.

After adding a couple of nice feature to Voilà! and playing with the new iPhone 3.0 SDK, I decided that it was time to work on a really nice and simple app I wanted to realize for a while. I met with Jeremy, a talented designer in San Francisco, and he like the idea, so we decided to work on Serenade together. Serenade is a free iPhone application that allows you to share songs you’re listening to on your iPhone or iPod touch with the world. Right now, you can share them on Twitter, but Facebook is around the corner, and other nice features. We have a lot more to add (like lyrics, top songs,…) to make it the best social music player, but it’s a good start. We’re working on it, and it’s very rewarding. Apple is probably going to launch some sort of social features like we have in Serenade in the next version of iTunes, that proves that this space is hot! Anyway, you can learn more about Serenade on Crist Drive’s website, as well as on Vimeo where we made a really nice ad.

This is it, I’ll try to update my blog more often now, even if it’s not going to be as often as my Twitter or my Tumblr accounts.

State of Mind

2009-05-20T02:17:49Z

This video summarize very well how I feel right now, and what I want to do. Yes, we can change the world.

This video has been produced by GrassHopper. Big up for them!

Scout Labs launches

2009-02-16T03:51:28Z

I was waiting this day for more than a year now. Scout Labs launches and is finally available for all. Scout Labs is a web-based application that helps companies tune in to what customers are saying about them — what they love, hate, want, wish… right now, all across the Internet (blogs, twitter, social networks, etc.) It’s really quite amazing, if I do say so myself!

Scout Labs really is a useful application, but I am happy to say that it is also my “life’s work” if that means “the thing I am meant to be doing”. 1 year of dreaming, planning and building. 1 year of stress beyond belief. 1 year of real joy, learning so much and working alongside my talented Scout’ teammates and friends. And, now, finally, elated pride in the amazing product that we have built and will continue to evolve (it is just the beginning!).

It was not easy, and it’s not going to be easy. It’s an absolutely terrible time in history to be launching a product targeted at businesses (even though Scout Labs is a very advanced tool, available at a fraction of the cost of our closest competition.) Who might be interested? Anyone who runs a company (small, medium or large) or works at a company or agency in the areas of product management, marketing, brand management, PR, communications, or customer service. I invite you to take a look at Scout Labs, and try it for free for 30-days. Please let us know what you think about it we’re listening to you and are ready to improve the product with you. You can follow us on our blog, or on Twitter.

Thank you.

They talk about us: TechCrunch, CNET, MediaPost, Marketing Vox, ClickZ.

Voilà! on the App Store

2009-02-10T05:00:29Z

After weeks of hard work, I'm proud to announce that my first iPhone application, Voilà!, is finally available on the App Store. Voilà! allows you to update and securely share your location on the Web and with your friends. How? Voilà! updates your current location to Yahoo!Fire Eagle, which make your location (or part of it) available to your favorite web services. With Voilà! you can also update your location on your Twitter profile, send a message on your Twitter account or share it by email. Everything in a very simple an beautiful interface. It is available worldwide on the App Store for 0.99 cents or 0.79 Euros. Please try it, and send your feedback!

This my first, but certainly not the last. I'll continue to develop Crist Drive, and talk more about what I learnt while developing Voilà! here, very soon.

Coming Soon

2009-02-08T07:40:25Z

Mathieu http://www.mathieuthouvenin.com/

Expatriate

2008-12-16T05:42:14Z

Change. Does that sounds familiar? I’m not going to talk about politics but my blog, my life, blogs and the web in general.

I finished my studies and I graduated from the ISC Paris. After my internship I’ve been hired by Scout Labs and after administrative stuff and some round-trips to France, I now work full-time in San Francisco. It has always been my dream to live and work here, since I was a kid. I’m now fully living my dream at 100%, day after day.

But it wasn’t enough. I decided to redo my blog completely and the old archives are not available anymore. It was time to change. I’m going to blog both in English and in French, on different subjects. I will probably blog less in general, and I will be present daily on my micro-blog Tumblr and my Twitter account. Most of my online activity is available in my Lifestream (and by RSS). It looks like a small change but represent well the change in blogging that happened in the last couple of months. People are less concentrated in one blog and more present in a lot of different web services, complementary to a blog. The announcement of Motion by Six Apart today just confirm that change.

Have fun and feel free to comment on this post and all the future ones.

For your information, this blog is now powered by Movable Type, and I’d like to thank you Stéphane Rangaya for his design that I adapted and Bastien for his suggestions.