After waiting in the freezing streets of Paris for a post-Myspace party taxi last night, I’m not sure another day in the ex-morgue is what the doctor ordered. Here’s a warning for anyone with colleagues at Le Web, they’re likely to return with a rather nasty cold. Today’s programme has speakers from the French government, Creative Commons, and Publicis, as well as Web 2.0 stars Robert Scoble and Kara Swisher. I’ll also be checking out the “Deep Discussion” stage, where topics include social advertising and mobile social networks. Check back here for updates.
09.15am – Eric Besson, the French internet minister has brought his blueprint for the digital economy along to the event… on a USB stick – and printed out for the non-digitalised economy. France is at 95% access and the blueprint talks about fibre-optic roll-out to boost this towards 100% at super high speeds.
09.26am – Questions from the floor cover language barrier, tax infrastructure, online advertising. HIghest earners can reduce their tax by investing in start-ups.
09.39am – Right – this should be interesting. spokespeople from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, MySpace and OpenID all cram into a cosy panel on “getting along”.
10.07am – Nothing hugely surprising… Open Source is great for developers but essentially not mainstream enough or a complete solution; Google is good for open and open is (mostly) good for Google; Facebook is realising that it has to be seen to open up; MS is the newer, warm and cuddly company, and MySpace is all over the Open Stack – but realistically, it has to be given that Facebook is so dominant. It’s open vs quasi-open on the couches.
10.34am – Moved to the “Deep Discussion” stage for a couple of panels on social advertising. With 2009 set to be tough for these guys, we’re focusing on what makes money now rather than the “Love” theme.
10.46am – All panellists are finding search campaigns a struggle since it’s all done on the profile and the person rather than anything search based. Meebo spokesperson talks about not trying to force search into your offering in an unnatural way. Lots of chat about ads driving buzz or conversation from advertising, but there’s a risk that brands will slap metrics on that as well.
11.27am – Mobile Social Network panel. itsmy.com – a company without an online version of its social network – has 2.5million subscribers. Big with older demographic, also cabbies and truck drivers 46% of users haven’t used a social network before, and 60% 16% don’t have email addresses – also claims more ARPU than Facebook, one to watch I think.
11.36am – Ewan Spence from Wubud saying that it’s not about the number of friends you have or about trying to compete with existing social networks, it’s about full access to all features on your most personal device.
11.46am – Role of the operator being brought into question – pipe or portal? Mobile SN folk say they should be pipes and be happy!
12.07pm – Back to the main stage with Maurice Levy from Publicis which he calls “a start-up”. Also says that US has a natural advantage for start-ups due to language. Growing is difficult, and US giants pave the way… we shouldn’t be worried about it. Also gives out his own email address and invites people to pitch him their business plans.
13.06pm – WiFi connections have failed again, so few people could blog about Google’s Marissa Mayer or actually find out where anyone else is – Twitter and Skype are the tools of contact du jour.
LUNCH BREAK
13.46 – I’m out of here in just over two hours, so the rest of the content will be written up in proper posts later on this week. Thanks for watching/reading.
