Eightly co-founder Andy Grignon “I’m addicted to creating Platforms”
Sitting in the Hotel Vendome bar with Andy Grignon, a man whose title ‘fuckchop’ at Apple comes second in awesome-ness only to his position as one of the original iPhone team members, the phrase ‘moving the needle’ comes up quite a lot. I met with Andy during LeWeb in December to discuss his most recent […]
BNP’s L’Atelier releases its ‘portrait’ of the French entrepreneur
L’Atelier, BNP’s technology and innovation tracking unit, recently conducted a comprehensive study in conjunction with TNS/Sofres on the motivations, aspirations and lifestyle of tech entrepreneurs in France. While the results will likely confirm the perceptions that many have of today’s tech entrepreneurs, there were some particularly interesting insights around their varying motivations in choosing to […]
5 French tech companies shaking up the Mobile AdTech space
The writing is written on the wall: the next frontier for advertising is mobile. The difference between advertising budgets devoted to mobile and usage on mobile vs. desktop is staggering, and analysts predict that it’s only a matter of time until the budget percentage and usages converge. Startups in France don’t seem to think it’s […]
French GPS service Coyote to take Waze to court over “unfair competition”
French startup Coyote thinks that Waze (acquired by Google, 2013) has gone a bit too far with the precision of highway radar guns, according to LesEchos. Coyote, which offers a GPS navigation hardware device for your car similar to Garmin or Tom Tom, says that French law prohibits exact precision as to where speed traps […]
Orange finally joins effort to bring 3G and 4G to Paris metro
After holding out due to its concerns over RATP’s high fees, Orange have finally signed on to bring its 3G and 4G services to Paris’ metro system. Bouygues and SFR accepted to join the effort last year, so with Orange finally coming on board, the vast majority (roughly 75%) of metro commuters will be covered […]
Why are Apple ads in France advising against the iPhone 5C?
I’ve spent the week in Paris for LeWeb. One of the highlights of the trip has been riding in the Paris Metro, a highly visible symbol of what the French do best: combining world-class engineering with artistic beauty. Adverting is omnipresent in the Paris Metro (it’s no surprise that adtech is a growing part of […]
Will WebRTC Defeat Skype? Technology does not a product make
In a time when the average lifespan of a tweet can be calculated in seconds and the fight for eyeballs is constant between publishers, it is becoming increasingly common to read outrageous statements to capture one’s attention and wrongly put the spotlight on otherwise promising technologies. HTML5 has got its share of over-the-top statements lately […]
35k+ register for France’s new MOOC since launching October 2nd
Finally realizing that they were substantially behind other countries in the MOOC space (massive open online courses), Minister of Higher Education Geneviève Fioraso decided to launch France Université Numérique (referred to, of course, as FUN) in response. Thus far 35k+ have signed-up since registrations opened on October 2nd. While certainly a drop in the bucket compared […]
Collaborative listening platform Soundrop expands beyond Spotify; now available to Deezer users
The venture-funded music listening app Soundrop has announced that it will be available to Deezer users starting today. The application, which was originally built exclusively as a Spotify app, allows users to listen to music together in ‘rooms’ – a Turntable.fm of sorts, if you will. The startup has already raised $3 Million for its application, and a […]
Gamification: Merchants of Meth or Merchants of Faith
Last Thursday, 2 very different, gamification focused, emails made it to my inbox and highlighted a growing dilemma for those of us using gamification techniques in our applications: Are we creating applications that benefit our users by empowering them to perform certain tasks more efficiently or are creating digital meth to get them addicted to […]