Loic and Hugh Geek Dinner

I have attended like I said in my twitter the Loic and Hugh Geek Dinner. It was happening in the Foreign Cinema downtown San Francisco. There was a lot of people, about 100 to 150, most of them from the High Tech industry.

I met very interesting persons, from different background, Stanford students, software engineers, lawyers among others. It is my first real get together in the United States and it was pretty nice to see all of this people. I will probably talk about them and their websites for people that have one in the next few days.

It has also been the occasion to meet Loic Lemeur, who is a sort of king of blog in France. Actually, as I was discussing with people there, I realized not a lot of them knew much about him, and there was also a large population of non blogger. But having been able to see and discuss with stars of blogging (even though we could not really talk as they are very sollicitated) such as Loic Lemeur, Michael Arrington, or Hugh McLeod was a nice privilege.

I must say it also encouraged me to blog, spend more time, be more creative. Therefore I committed myself to get more seriously blogging. I can't wait to get to the next event.

Desillution about the Internet in the US

First, I want to appologize to right this article in english because it is turned more specifically toward french people -even though it can be interesting for americans to know that. I just wanted to compare the French and US internet access. I was coming to Moutain View believing I would be able to use the google free wi fi, or have cheap access to the high speed Internet. But even in the heart of the silicon valley, between mozilla, google, symantec and HP, the Internet is not at his top.

In fact, the google wifi barely use (I have been able to connect myself only once even though I am working at less than a mile than the google headquarters. In New York, no free wifi in Macdonalds, you have to use prepaid cards to connect via the wifi. And the Internet plan costs $29.99 by itself, whereas in France for this price you have the Internet, some satelitte channels, and the internet for free in france and some of the biggest country in the world (US, China, Germany...). I paid $79 for the phone access and the Internet, and we never used the phone to call outside the town we live in.

About the speed, in France Free propose the Internet with 26mb/s, in the US at&t, 6 mb/s....

I think we can consider that France is pretty lucky about its network, which is cheap and good quality.

Atelier de la performance

Je tiens tout d'abord à remercier Yan Clayeyssen, pour son blog très riche et destiné à la relation client, mais aussi pour un de ses articles portant sur l'atelier de la performance organisée en avril dernier par La Poste. Cet atelier réunissait plusieurs spécialistes du marketing 2.0 et en particulier, le directeur de mon master, Pierre Volle. Très bon professeur, qui possède une vision très large de la relation client, bien au delà de la mode du CRM et de l'analyse de données. Pour en savoir plus, je vous invite à vous rendre sur cet article pour mieux connaître sa vision de la relation client.

Tell the world about your rumors

You are an insider, a geek or passionated by a subject? If so, you might be interested by broadcasting this information you own to the world. That is the concept of truemors.com. The concept is not about imaginating thrilling rumors, or to show off your creativity, but to tell to others what my be insider news. Everybody knows that already some rumors came from the Internet and happened to be true. The Ipod battery outrageous price among others shows Internet came bring to the surface well hidden information.

That's all the purpose of this website.

By the way I also use twitter

Twitter is a micro blogging platform, that allow you to show what you are doing at the moment. Therefore, it gives short insights of your daily occupations. It is in english, as I am in the US, and I saw a lot of bloggers come from the US now. But no worries, I will keep writting articles in French, our wonderful language!

Et oui, j'utilise Twitter

Et oui, finalement j'ai cédé (comme souvent au niveau des modes...), et je me suis mis à Twitter. Cependant, j'espère que cette activité ne vas pas devenir trop prenant comme elle l'est souvent.



Twitter permet de savoir en direct ce que je fais. On peux ainsi mieux savoir mon emploi du temps et mes occupations.



Après technorati, cela fait vraiment beaucoup de nouveauté sur ce blog... Tant mieux!

I am on technorati!

Hey I know it can seems weird because I have been blogging now for quite a while, but I have never signed up for technorati! Here I am! I am not really fond of this website, but it is still the main search engine motor for bloggers. Hope you won't forget to add me as a fave!

The first client quest

I wanted to talk to you about a post that Henri Kaufman, who actually has been one of my professor last week in my master in Dauphine France. I invite all my french speaking reader to log onto his blog, very interesting, and it is to me an example of how to blog.

He has posted an article on Free products and its use to communicate and advertise. It reminds me of what one of my entrepreneurship professor told to my class. He was talking about the first client quest, after having defined your product and your offer. He strongly advised us some never to sell the first product with a discount. Indeed, if the client buys it with a promotion, he will less likely want to buy it afterward full price.

In my opinion, it is very true that if your clients are not used to pay it full price, then you will never be able to reverse the trend.

What are communities made of?

It seems to be a good question isn't it? It reminds me of one of the conference I attended while I was student in Dauphine, about tribal marketing. Bernard Cova, an imminent specialist of sociology and community marketing, was discussing about tribal marketing, as a new way to see communities. Communities are based on an emotional concept that has emerged while consuming, or by the image of a product. For example, he was talking about how Nutella had developped a strong on line community where people share their love and consumption habits of the product.

Today, I had the chance to find a very interesting blog article written by Francine Hardaway - who I did not know by the way. She posted a message on Building MultiUser Social Systems. And it is based on the same concept. The community is based on an object. For example, people from facebook share the same school, or people from myspace share the same love for music.

Therefore, communities are always based on an object that has a strong affectional aspect. And to get this emotional aspect is what can be pretty hard, depending on the industry your product is made of.

Kad et Olivier nous montre leurs visions de la publicité

Je voulais vous faire part de cette vidéo fait par Kad et Olivier. Cette vidéo est très bien faîte car elle montre des facettes de la publicité intéressante:
- Toujours avoir un slogan court
- Etre proche du consommateur au moment de la communication
- Le respect de l'intimité des personnes.
En tout cas, je trouve cette vidéo très marrante.

Working by referral: définition

Cette notion est une notion américaine. On parle de « working by referrals », qui ne possède par réellement d’équivalent français. Cette notion implique de créer une relation avec des partenaires d’affaires, qui vont recommander leurs clients à un autre partenaire d’affaire, qui en échange lui enverra ses propres clients.
Exemple : Je suis un agent immobilier et je rencontre un de mes clients qui désire acheter une maison. Celui-ci a besoin d’un crédit immobilier. Dans ce cas là, l’agent immobilier peut recommander au client de voir son banquier, qu’il estime comme capable de délivrer un service de qualité à son client. Dans ce cas, l’agent immobilier va donner le contact du banquier au client, appeller le banquier en lui donnant les contacts du client. L’agent immobilier doit garder contacts avec les deux autres parties afin de s’assurer de la qualité de la transaction. En échange, si le banquier connaît une autre personne, cherchant à acheter une propriété, il enverra cette personne à son partenaire agent immobilier.

L’avantage du système est qu’il permet de valoriser ses partenaires en fonction du nombre de personnes référrées et de leurs qualités. Il diffère du bouche à oreille, qui lui reste passif en attendant une éventuelle remontée, tandis que le Referral demande une certaine activité, de contacté ses clients pour leurs référrés ses partenaires, mais aussi de garder une trace des références données, afin de vérifier si le client a été satisfait des services du partenaire.

Cette pratique est très courante aux Etats Unis.

Afin de mieux comprendre le concept, je vous conseille d’aller sur le site du BNI, et de Buffini, un coach spécialisé dans le Referral Business.

Premier article sur le wiki de la relation client

En ce moment mon stage aux Etats Unis tourne beaucoup autour de la relation de Referral, qui est un terme je pense peu développer en France. C'est pourquoi j'ai écris aujourd'hui mon premier réel article sur le wiki de la relation client. Il s'appelle cherclient.com. Je ne vous recommanderai jamais trop d'aller sur ce site, qui est une très bonne démarche et regorge déjà de nombreuses informations intéressante. Cependant, je vais quand même vous donner un aperçu de cette article, que je publierai sur ce blog... De suite!

David Beckham - Welcome to America!

Parlons sport, parlons foot! Une fois n'est pas coutume, j'aimerai parler football, notamment concernant son développement aux Etats Unis. Tout le monde sait que le football, que l'on appelle par ici soccer, est loin d'être un sport populaire au pays de l'oncle Sam. Cependant, depuis que je suis ici, je ne peux m'empêcher de constater que la situation change.

D'une part, Chelsea, l'un des meilleurs clubs européens, fait une tournée tous les ans aux Etats Unis, et j'ai pu remarquer que ces tournées sont assez populaires. D'autres part, les Etats Unis ainsi que leur championnat commence à se développer au niveau sportif. Bien sûr, il y a l'arrivée de David Beckham, qui va certainement dominer un championnat qui reste bien moyen. Mais il y a aussi l'arrivée de Fabio Cappello, entraineur star champion d'Espagne cette année avec Madrid et avec un palmarès d'exception, qui va certainement prendre en main la sélection.

Je viens aussi d'apprendre que Disney et Chelsea viennent de former un accord de 4 ans pour développer le football aux Etats Unis. Il ne faut pas non plus oublier que les USA viennent d'être récemment sacré champion du monde des moins de 20 ans.

Je pense sincèrement que les américains pourront d'ici à 2012 prétendre à une coupe du monde.
You'll see.

Premier hard discount alimentaire sur la toile française

On connaissait les versions web de Carrefour ou Auchan. Maintenant, c'est Leader Price et Franprix qui se lance sur la toile! Le site s'appelle coursengo.com. Leader Price compte sur sa marque propre, avec des produits peu cher et de bonnes qualités, pour se faire une place sur ce marché qui peine toujours à être rentable.

Un hotel pour les chiens... Et pourquoi pas?

Combien de propriétaires de chiens ou de chats se sont retrouvés en difficulté au moment de prendre des vacances pour trouver un aimable voisin ou ami pour s'occuper de leurs chers amis à poils? Plus d'un j'en suis sûr!

Aujourd'hui je me suis rendu par curiosité à Pets Mart, genre de Toy'r Us pour les animaux de compagnies. Et je vois ainsi dans un coin du magasin, une entrée ou se trouve l'inscription Hotel.

L'entreprise à développer un service d'hotel pour nous compagnons à quatre pattes. Au programe, exercices physiques, toilettage et restauration. Il faudra cependant compter 23 dollars par jour passer.

Très bonne idée, probablement à développer en France, l'un des pays comptant le plus d'animaux domestiques.

Pas de site pour Paris Plage?

Bien que je ne sois pas à Paris en ce moment, une de mes amies américaines se trouve en ce moment dans la capitale française. Je voulais alors voir pour lui conseiller d'aller à Paris Plage quand est ce que cet événement débutait. Malheureusement, aucun site Internet sur l'événement existe.

Je trouve ca bizarre qu'un événement si populaire, se déroulant tout les ans de puis plusieurs années, ne possède pas de site officiel fournissant de l'information sur les activités proposées, les lieux, ou encore les dates des événements phares. A quant un site sur Paris Plage? Espérons qu'une agence de communication ainsi que la Mairie de Paris aient cette initiative pour les années prochaines.

Live Earth Concert

Great Initiative that this serie of concerts! All around the world, artists have given free concerts to get the awareness of people about global warming. You can log onto http://liveearth.msn.com to get information and the videos of the events.
However I have one strong regret, the fact none of these concert took place in France. France has always had good trends about the ecology topic. Hopefully next time...

Les ventes du m commerce restent faibles

Les ventes du m commerce, c'est à dire des biens et/ou service acheté via un téléphone mobile, restent toujours faibles. C'est ce que nous apprend Renaud Ménérat directeur marketing de Netsize dans un article du journal du Net. Elle ne représente qu'un pourcent du total des ventes effectués par cartes de crédit.
Dans son article, on peut bien s'apercevoir qu'on est encore dans les balbutiements du m commerce. Bien sûr, l'enjeu pour les opérateurs est clair: facturer les services payés par mobile, et ainsi couper l'herbe sous les pieds des entreprises de cartes de crédits. On risque donc d'avoir une très forte bataille entre les deux protagonistes.

Néanmoins l'avénement de l'Internet sans fil gratuit pourrait accélerer le développement de cette industrie. Il reste néanmoins a trouvé des solutions d'interface, aussi bien du côté des fabriquants de portable mais aussi du côté des interfaces pour pouvoir faciliter la lisibilité et l'ergonomie des sites.

Citroen adds a sense of smell

I wanted to show you this article. As I am considering implementing an olfactory marketing action for my work (I'll tell you more about it later on), I wanted to show you up how Citroen uses odors to stand out of the competition.

Olfactory marketing should be considered more often as a good way to differenciate.

Get your avatar insured

Europ Assistance has launched the first insurance in a virtual world for virtual travels. Indeed, the Europ Assistance island on Second Life offers for free some insurance for whom might be scared to have a teleportation issue. I think it is funny though...

A Chinese competitor for google?

Baidu.com is a chinese search engine, the first in its local market and number five in the world. It seems baidu has international ambition, as he launched its launched a japanese version, which is the first trial of the company out of China. According to the Sunday telegraph, Baidu has also ambitions for the European market. Will it be able to compete the Google egemony... Let's see if it can.

France, one of the leader of the Web 2.0 trend

Here is an article about the French Web economy written by jerome archambeaud, a former Skype Manager. Just to show that in France too, there is place for Internet entrepreneurship.

France leads Europe in its enthusiasm for Web 2.0 startups, an industry that has doubled in size across the continent since 2005. According to Dow Jones/Venture One data French start-ups raised close to $40 million in venture capital in 2006, accounting for 40% of the total dollars invested in the category across Europe last year ($101 million), and nearly double the money invested in British Web2.0 companies.What are the forces behind this French 2.0 wave?
Broadband and Cultural roots, for starters!
France is one of the biggest broadband countries in the world, allowing its 15.3 million odd broadband users to experiment with some of the latest technologies over blazing fast Internet connections. Free WiFi is becoming commonplace. It is no surprise that one-in-five of us has a personal blog, a website or has published personal audio or video content on the Internet. France’s leading blogging platform, Skyblog, hosts 9 million blogs now, and according to Alexa, is the second most-visited web site in France after Google, (It is the 32nd most-visited site, globally!)
The easily availability of super-speed connections has made video and essential part of French Internet life. France’s leading a video-sharing platform, known as Dailymotion, already gets 35 million unique visitors per month. Dailymotion is the #2 video site behind YouTube, with France making up a big component of its traffic. According to ComScore, French consumers spend a greater percent of their total hours online viewing streaming video (13%) than do consumers in the UK (10%), in Germany (9%) – or even the United States (6%)!
Secondly, France, also has a financial infrastructure to support the start-up activity, with 25 venture capital funds of various sizes, that specialize in early-stage financing, among them Soffinova (France’s largest venture firm), Iris Capital, i-Source, and Innovation Funds (FCPIs).
Third, is the a small but active group of entrepreneurs who tasted success with their earlier companies and are now investing in other start-ups, much like Silicon Valley angels. These include Jean-Baptiste Rudelle, founder of Criteo; and Loic LeMeur, who till recently led U.S.-based Six Apart’s business operations in Europe.
As successful as they’ve been in the consumer space, French startups are now busy taking Web2.0 plays into the enterprise: BlueKiwi, which just raised $5.4 million (€ 4 million) from Soffinova, specializes in Web2.0 software solutions (a mix of blogs, wikis and other social networking platforms) for big corporations such as Danone, Dassault and the French postal services.
French entrepreneur Jerome Archambeaud founded and sold two startups, Avence and VRTVStudios, both in the early 00’s. Previously, Jerome served as Skype’s country manager for France and Belgium, and as a marketing director at Walt Disney Europe and Nestle Brazil. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

l'occitane in the US

This week end we decided to visit the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. On the road, I have seen a billboard advertizing l'occitane, the French retail company. I was really surprised, and happy to see a French Retailer succeed in the US. Indeed, Decathlon, the leading sport retailer in France, Carrefour, and Printemps have never succeeded in settling in the US.

I only have one question: What kind of store is it? Do they use franchising? I checked their website (which is also an online store), but I could not get an answer.

Large success for the Iphone

The Iphone has been a real success this week end. Indeed, 525000 of these phones have been sold since friday. Even though the product is expensive (between 500 and 700 dollars + a phone plan of $60 to $200 a month...), the expectation it created by developping an easyer ergonomy than the other phones has helped this machine success.