Written on May 2, 2008 – 1:00 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
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Sometimes you just need a break. So do I. Then I either persuade a colleague to play some soccer in the hallway, or press the Stumble button. This afternoon I chose the latter and ended up at TwittEarth, a rather smashing visualization of the Twitter public timeline.
It’s a mash-up by Digitas France SA, who created this Twittearth for fun. Although I don’t question their motives, creating a Twitter mash-up seems like the perfect free publicity PR tool these days.
Just ask somebody to develop a 3D engine (Papervision), use an API for the geolocalization service (Yahoo!) and find some fancy icons (Fasticon). The result? Some heavy coverage on world’s largest tech blogs:
Keep that in mind, all you web design agencies out there. Don’t spend your money on ads, just go creative with Twitter and let the blogosphere do the rest.
Written on April 19, 2008 – 11:33 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
As we reported last week, France is on the verge of adopting a law against “incitement to anorexia” that is mainly focused on the web. It wouldn’t be the last Internet-related law this week, since the European Union announced some tight laws against “incitement to terrorism” on the Internet. By doing this, the EU wants to fight militant groups who amongst other things recruit and mobilize young people.
A statement by the ministers said that the existing Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 will be expanded by introducing three new offenses: “public provocation to commit a terrorist offense, recruitment and training for terrorism.”
Reuters reports that countries like Spain and Italy already punish public provocation to terrorism, but others, like Scandinavian countries will have to change their laws. Spain’s secretary of state for justice, Julio Perez Hernandez, told the press agency that “The battle to anticipate terrorist acts is crucial for Spain. One should not wait for smoke to know there is terrorism.”
Although the statement says that it’s “well-balanced in terms of its effects on freedom of speech and general respect for human rights”, civil action groups will probably ring the alarm bells. Though I’m not sure whether the public will actually care. Europeans have seen so many anti-terrorism laws that limit their freedom already, that they might have become numb for amendments like these.
Written on April 18, 2008 – 3:19 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The French National Assembly adopted a bill last week that would make anorexia promoting publications illegal. Anyone who “incites” extreme thinness on websites, magazines, and in advertisements risks a punishment of up to three years in jail and 30,000 euros fines. The main purpose of the new measure seems to outlaw the French pro-anorexia web sites.
On pages like these, girls advice other girls how to get super - and dangerously - thin. Pictures of ultra-skinny stars like Kate Moss, Nicole Richie, the Olsen Twins, and Keira Knightley dominate the sites’ design. “There has been an explosion of these sites over the past year. They offer morbid advice to young girls on how to lie to their parents. It’s mental manipulation,” said right-wing deputy and author of the bill Valery Boyer to Agence France Press (AFP).
This revolutionary law has stirred quite a heavy debate in France. Socialists and the intelligentsia blame the right-wing parties for overseeing the problems. “In France, we know how to punish, we know how to treat, but we don’t seem to know much about prevention,” said psychiatrist Sophie Criquillion-Doublet to AFP. Next week, the law goes to the Senate, that will judge whether the law will be finally approved or not.
I think the law won’t hurt anyone, and might make the sites less accessible for young French girls. The fanatic pro-anorexia girls will find the international sites, forums and groups though. History has shown that effectively preventing certain content from the web is nearly impossible since it always finds its way to the audience. Therefore the law should just be seen as a statement and not so much as the end of the French pro-anorexia movement.
Written on April 14, 2008 – 9:32 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that Paris-based start-up Iminent raised a second round of funding this month from I-Source Gestoin and previous investor 360º Capital Partners. The French start-up turns instant messaging conversations into a chaotic experience with over-the-top emoticons and video options, exactly the kind of experience teenagers dig.
With this €2.4 million series B, Iminent has raised a total of €5.4 million. So I’ve mailed CEO Francis Cohen to congratulate him and ask some questions. He told me that they’ve started Iminent because they thought Instant messaging was still a poor medium. Cohen: “When we compared IM and the web as a platform, it was striking to see that the range and deepness of services were very poor on IM. So the idea was to expand IM services beyond the obvious, so IM could sustain the comparison with the web.”
When I was taking a look at the Iminent site, it immediately struck me that the service supported a large number of languages - English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian - yet not any Asian languages. This is kind of odd, since Asian teenagers seem obsessed with self-expression. Will Iminent use the new money injection for Asian expansion? “Our first priorities are Europe and North and South America, but Asia is definitely in our plans”, said Cohen.
So is Cohen prepared for the day that IM services will launch the very same features as his service offers? After all, it isn’t too hard to create psychedelic smilies. “Once you see IM as a platform, you don’t stress about IM software editors coming into services. We are working with some IM editors who like to assess companies like Iminent as good as they can. Since we’re expanding the functionality of IM.”
Written on March 26, 2008 – 3:15 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When traveling through Europe, trains come in handy. It’s cheaper and sometimes faster than flying. Moreover, the train seats are more comfortable than the cramped up Easyjet chairs. You even got the space to open your laptop without having to sit with your elbows in your neck. So far, there’s only thing missing though: wireless Internet. Of course some people have this Vodafone satellite connection, but that’s just slow. No, we need a fast and reliable connection.
Well, vive la France! The French are making my wireless Internet dream reality. Railway company SNCF announced today that the company is running tests with three trains from and to Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg. It’s just six weeks before the first Internet-equipped train will leave the station.
The infrastructure of the wireless connection has been developed by Orange, Capgemini, Eutelsat and Alstom Transport and is suitable for every Train Grande Vitesse.
I think it’s a great way to lure travelers away from planes into trains. A lot of people will save time and money if they can keep working online during a trip. The only thing that might temper my enthusiasm is the price SNCF will charge for a Wifi key.
Written on March 17, 2008 – 12:43 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yes, I’ve again discovered a new search application that tickled my interest. It’s called Surf Canyon and it specifies your search results by offering three relevant links. After downloading a browser extension, Surf Canyon shows a bull’s eye behind a search result. When clicking on it, Surf Canyon gives you three suggestions within the search page itself. So it’s basically helps you to find relevant results in the ever growing amount of rubbish content on the web.
These days, new search apps and services popping up everywhere so you gotta offer something special if you want to get noticed by the crowd. So I decided to test the pitching skills of Surf Canyon’s CEO Mark Cramer. What is his service going to add?
Cramer: “Innovation is very strong at the moment. There are literally thousands of different search-related websites right now. We certainly fit into that trend, however, our technology - real-time personalization - and implementation - client-side browser extension - are, we believe, innovative and powerful.”
So how does Surf Canyon fit into the future of search? Cramer: “We believe strongly in implicit personalization. Clustering, query suggestions, visualization and universal search will certainly be very important, however, as the quantity of content on the Internet explodes, it is becoming increasingly difficult to access all of that information with two- and three-word queries. Users could enter more keywords, either suggested or not, but this can be difficult, tedious and often eliminates potentially relevant documents. Therefore, something is needed to get a better understanding of the user’s intent beyond the query.”
“By disambiguating the user’s intent post-query, we enable access to a much greater quantity of information by automating the process of digging out relevant results”
And Surf Canyon believes to have found that. Instead of looking at the surfing history, Surf Canyon focuses on real-time behavior. “This behavior gives very strong signals as to the user’s ‘at the moment’ intent, which is potentially a much more important indicator of relevancy”, Cramer explains. “These indicators of relevancy are imperative since the ambiguous nature of queries makes it virtually impossible to put all of the relevant results on page one. By disambiguating the user’s intent post-query, we enable access to a much greater quantity of information by automating the process of digging out relevant results.”
Apart from it’s new approach on search personalization, I also like the international mindset of Cramer and his team. Most US-based start-ups just focus on the huge home market, yet Surf Canyon works in 13 different languages. And that immediately pays off, since the search service is pretty big in France, Cramer says. Why is that?
“The major reason we’ve got so much traction in France probably has to do with the excellent coverage we’ve received there. We got nice reviews at Outils Froids and Journalistiques. But most important was the review on Rue89. It helps when somebody compares you to Google in an article entitled “Welcome to the 3rd Age of Search”.
I think other US-based start-ups can learn from Surf Canyon’s approach. As you can tell, offering European languages definitely works when your service is relevant for Europe. So yes, it might be worth the effort and money to hire some French or German students.
Written on March 15, 2008 – 5:37 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
This week we’re interviewing Raphaël Arbuz from WatZatSong. Our UK WebTipr David Petherick met him during start-upcamp in London. Together with some fellow-students, Arbuz founded this English-with-a-French-accent named service. Users can hum a song of which they forget the artist or the title. The community can then guess which song it is. So you have the quiz-factor and you’re also helping people out. How did they come up with this funny and useful idea?
How did you come up with the idea of WatZatSong?
“Thibault Vanhulle and I were sharing a flat in London while finishing our studies. We were both absolutely crazy about music quizzes and one day, hearing a song that none of us knew, Thibault said “wouldn’t it be great if there was a website where you could hum a tune and the visitors would listen and tell you what it was?”. I loved this idea and, after having been joined by Erez Abittan, a fellow classmate from my French engineering school, then studying at Notre Dame University in the United States, we started developing it straight away.” (more…)
Written on March 3, 2008 – 5:05 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
As the major social networks are working their way into Europe, interesting news about localization features keep popping up my feed reader and mail inbox. The two major headlines today: Facebook launches a German version and LinkedIn is partnering up with a big French job listing service.
The one million German speaking Facebook users now have access to an interface in their own language. I’m sure they appreciate that, since the German voice-over business has been a booming industry since the rise of television. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that 2000 German users voluntarily fixed the translating job in less than two weeks.
It’s only the third language version of Facebook. The choice for a German version is kind of weird if you consider the fact that Germany or other German speaking countries are not listed in the top 10 countries for Facebook users. After the United States, Britain is number two with 8 million active users and Canada is third with 7 million users. Turkey is fourth, followed by Australia, France and Sweden. So if you just consider the user numbers, Turkey would have been a more logical choice. Yet Germans have more money to spend, and in that light, a French version will probably be next.
In that country, LinkedIn did a pretty good job expanding their market reach. TechCrunch reports that they partnered up with Apec.fr, a job listing site that claims they have about 1.2 million unique monthly visitors, 600,000 registered users and 35,000 registered companies. Those users can now register for LinkedIn and start using the service without leaving the French interface of Apec. If I were working at European LinkedIn competitors Viadeo and Xing, I’d be scared.
The way LinkedIn and Facebook approach Europe - just offer language support - is pretty effective. One of Europe’s largest social networks Netlog can certainly confirm that. They hired two two Turkish students to translate the service for a 1000 dollars. It took the students a week, four months later the Turkish version had 2.5 million users.
Yet I prefer the MySpace approach. They are already based in France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and soon in Russia and Turkey. When they launch, they install a local team who knows what’s hot and what’s not in the country and throw a great party. I’d thought I would never say this about a company owned by Murdoch but here we go: It feels like MySpace respects the cultural differences more and really wants to make an effort. I hope it will pay off.
Read this post by Patrick de Laive about possible Facebook acquisitions in Europe.
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