The eMini Blog

gCrime

2008-07-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

When police reports meet with Google Maps, it gives you this daily updated mashup of what's going on near you.
Here's our neighborhood at netvibes office for the last 30 days... [here]

PS: note to readers: thanks for your patience (and emails), I've not blogged much lately. I'm not putting this blog on hold but will simply post now and then.

Cool doesn't last on the internet

2007-10-01T16:26:00.001-07:00

compete released the comparison between attention in 2001 vs 2007 and... the column on the right making this computation is... all red.

AgendiZe show at Demo Fall

2007-09-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

Great performance from Alex Rambaud, AgendiZe's Founder and CEO, at Demo Fall, San Diego. Love the demo, love the product. The bay area is waiting for you...

PS: AgendiZeMe est really cool!

New netvibes Ecosystem welcomes all major widget makers

2007-09-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

We're really proud to welcome all major widget makers in our newly released Ecosystem.

YourMinis, Clearspring, Labpixies, newsgator, widgetbox, slide, RockYou, Miniclip are now on netvibes Ecosystem, all UWA (Universal Widget API) compatible. This means all their widgets can not only be installed on netvibes but also on all major platforms UWA supports: currently iGoogle, Apple Dashboard, netvibes of course and much more to be announced shortly.

We also release our new Premium Widgets, allowing multiple RSS and branding for our partners. Proudly, we launched yesterday a Premium Widget for USA Today, the New York Times, CBSNews and major International newspapers.

More to come, but as always, your comments are very welcome...

A cheap guy

2007-09-22T10:05:00.001-07:00

According to yesterday's filing, Steve Ballmer was paid $1.3M in fiscal 2007, a year in which Microsoft profit reached a new record at $14B.

This guy is world's best bargain :-)
So, no stock plan, just that? really...

Do NOT fly British Airways

2007-06-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

I've been using BA for years and appreciated an excellent service... so far. On Wed last week, I flew from San Francisco to Paris, thru London. Beyond fact it was delayed, my luggage was not at arrival in CDG. At this point, Monday, 6 days later and me being back in SF, my luggage hasn't been found.
No luck? I'm afraid not. At claim desk, I was told that 6,000 luggages where "missing" at Heathrow and since I posted on my French blog, I received numerous testimonials from people in the same situation.

I change my summer plan to NOT fly BA and will use another airline. I'm sure they'll fix this but meanwhile, I encourage you to avoid BA as much as possible.

This is not against BA but rather to help you out. I will update this later on.

US envy France

2007-06-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

I love Bill Maher. Loved him before this show. Love him even better after.
Point is, the truth is in between. But his pitch is simply hilarious.
Enjoy...

Powerpoint 1.0.1

2007-06-06T21:26:00.000-07:00

Very funny.

Truck driver looking for a job.

2007-06-02T16:28:00.001-07:00

Well. 13 feet ain't 13 feet and 6 inches. No negotiation with a tunnel height. That's the lesson, this Texas truck driver will remember after going thru, all the 1.5 mile way, inside the tunnel to get to Manhattan.
Not sure, he's mention this on his resume...
[source NYT]

We are here!

2007-05-29T14:19:00.001-07:00

Google Maps just launched its Street views. Great service. netvibes' offices in San Francisco are at 840, Battery Street. Just click here to get there :-)

PS: No, the guy on the picture ain't me :-))

What future for Yahoo!?

2007-05-25T14:05:00.001-07:00

Is the Search engine market share game over?
Many think so.
In April, Google has again gain market share (+1.4%) to be close to 50% (49.6), on the back of Yahoo! losing -0.7% (26.8%) and Live.com -0.6% (10.3%)

So, what would be your advice for Yahoo! moving forward?
Just for sake of ending the never-ending rumors about a Microsoft take over.... to have Microsoft buy them? :-)
Cut exclusive content deal in video streaming and downloading, to preserve juicy ad revenues?
Jump in the Social networking bandwagon to get in a game Google isn't yet and take on MySpace and FaceBook?

What would your advices?

Case study

2007-05-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

After the classic strategy dilemma between the razor and the blades, the decent slowdown in airline seats demand presents another interesting marketing case study.

I'm asking for your opinion, and if doable some arguments to sustain it thru commenting this post. Don't be shy, top airlines CEOs are in opposite disagreement about the right solution moving forward. For those curious and French readers, I've asked the same case question on the French version of this blog, Le eMini Blog.

Case study:
In 2006, booming demands for airlines seats had major airlines adding more planes and flights. Recent slowdown in growth has 2 major airlines offering opposing solutions.
> AA says they will increase the number of seats per plane and reduce the number of planes
> Southwest confirmed the additional 4 737s for 2007 and won't change an inch from current plans: same number of planes, flights and seats per plane.

If you were an airline CEO, which strategy would you pick? and why?

King of Thailand stronger than Viacom?

2007-05-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

Threatened by another lawsuit, Google has accepted to remove 4 videos from YouTube that Thailand King found offensive.
How do you think this decision will impact their dispute with Viacom?
[very interesting article in NY Times here]

Late April fool?

2007-05-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

A California based company, Media Rights Technology (MRT), is going against the biggest giants like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe... because those companies are infringing its rights by... not using its technology. "actively avoiding" is the technical term for this guilty behavior.

And what does MRT do?... Copyright protection!

So, let me picture this:
the accusation to not protect copyright comes from a copyright protection company because they believe not protecting copyrights violates their copyrights. (gee, my head hurts now!)

Marketing coup or bad joke? Would have been funny on April 1st...

[great post on this story here]

Pimp your netvibes

2007-05-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

Jealous of Ben Harper, Mandy Moore, Ben Harper because their netvibes looks much more personalized than yours?

That's it now.

You too, pimp your netvibes to the max. As of now, go to "Settings" and follow the "new" signs (or go to the netvibes blog, here)

Even better, you like an image, a photo on the net, you'd like to get a netvibes looking like a theme on MySpace or Twitter? Just select the source of your choice and... voila!

So, go crazy and post your netvibes creation on FlickR, here. Did you know, searching for "netvibes" on FlickR, get you more than 1100 returns already?

Don't be shy. Share your netvibes :-)

iGoogle vs netvibes: Round 1 to netvibes

2007-05-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

Interesting article on Web Worker Daily.. today.
iGoogle vs netvibes and... we just won Round 1.

Now, don't be afraid of my biased mind (I'm netvibes COO, heading Netvibes US operations, based in San Francisco) to answer my simple question:

Who should win this match? why?

Ready, Aim...Shoot in comments :-)

The Web 2.0 Trial

2007-05-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, it seems it is finally going to happen.

Google is calling the bluff on Viacom's $1B claim for copyright infringement and replied with a "see in court" type reaction.

How can the suit not to happen now? it will as both parties seem to be short in option to keep face in what is already the most visible disput of the over bubble era.
Philip Beck of law firm Bartlit Beck, who argued President George W. Bush's side in the Florida vote-counting case following the 2000 election, is one of the attorneys from two outside firms named to represent Google. The Chicago-based attorney also defended Merck in the Vioxx drug case. [all story here]

No doubt that content, and user content will get generated and will get numerous books about it, if not a movie.

This, to me, is definitely the trial of the Web 2.0 that will set the stage for user content generation and how can a user share content across the Internet.
Without sounding too dramatic, shall this trial happen, this might be an inflection point of the Internet...

iCheating to exams

2007-04-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

Interesting post here on the 10 unexpected use of an iPod
1. Train Doctors to Save Lives
2. Bring Criminals to Justice
3. Get Yourself Into Serious Shape
4. Tour Around Great Cities
5. Calculate the ight Tip
6. Record Flight data
7. Throw a Meaner Curveball
8. Learn Foreign Languages
9. Learn to Love and Buy Wine (hum, must another cultural gap. I confess not needing an iPod to learn to Love Wine...)
but my favorite is
10. Test cheating as this very serious article on CNN states: iPod are become a great tool for cheater. After all, a little music to get focus on my exam can't harm ;-)

Your video store is a click away

2007-04-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

Summer in the Valley will be hot. At least regarding Video distribution.
After Microsoft efforts to push its Media Center and recent launch of Apple iTV, a Silicon Valley startup, Vudu will unveil its Vudu Box over the summer.
Pushing the promise further, the Vudu Box, like iTV, doesn't require a computer, just an ethernet connection to hook to the net and voila. A sleek box and a remote control promises to get you the latest blockbusters directly to your sofa. Articles here and here.
Vudu seems like David in front of the Apple Goliath but is showing serious motivation with experienced management with Chairman Alan Rossmann (WAP, phone.com, EO...), CEO coming from AT&T labs, COO and VP Engineering from TiVo and strong VC backup from Benchmark and Greylock. Sounds like the WebTV story...
Let''s add to this last week announcement from Steve Jobs made to iTune partners to push for DRM free content, both audio and video

I'm a strong believer of a more connected TV, more intelligent, more like a computer with a bigger screen and a lighter, more mainstream user interface. As the computer is taking longer than expected to morph into this, a box might be taking on the whole game...

So, between a PS3, an iTV, a Vudu box... we should less and less opportunities to walk or jog to the video store near by...

Digg as a distribution vehicle

2007-04-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

We knew peer to peer to distribute content. It's always suspicious and even if some torrent sites have discussions, there is always this feeling of suspicion.
Why not using a well commented, well respected social networking site for distribution: In less than 15 hours, this company, over one single Digg comment got more than 2500 Diggs, placing it at the second most popular spot over the past 24 hours.
Nice and easy (and way cheap) way to promote icons.
That should give ideas... and influence sites like downloads.com and the like.

The eMini Blog is born

2007-04-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

The eMini Blog is not the English version of Le eMini Blog. Both will continue to live separately and unless real interest, posts will be different. I've been doing Le eMini Blog for 18 months now, in French, my native citizenship language and since we moved back to the US few months ago, I believe it makes sense to post in English.

Here is it. voila. :-)