As France welcomes MIDEM, its music industry still faces big challenges
This past Saturday saw the kick-off of MIDEM, one of the world’s biggest and best conferences and tradeshows focusing on the music industry. This year’s edition, which will be running through tomorrow,has had a particularly strong emphasis on digital. It’s evident that digital still continues to be both a blessing and curse for the sector, which is still […]
And then there were two | Netflix to delay entrance into the French Market
Netflix announced its fourth quarter results from 2012, which outperformed all market expectations. The video streaming company saw a 30% rise in its stock after hours yesterday, as it was originally expected to see massive losses from the Nordic market ($112 Million, to be exact), and instead performed quite well internationally. As TNW reported, this […]
France has a love-hate relationship with its digital devices
There’s always a vigorous debate about whether digital devices and technology in general are a net-positive or net-negative for society. Obviously at the Rude Baguette, we fall firmly in the net-positive camp, however, it’s worth taking a look at the concerns of the other camp. In particular, France’s psychology community, which has grown more concerned […]
Orange offers Deezer-competitor Spotify to under 27 users in Switzerland
This week Orange & Spotify announced a partnership in which Orange customers in Switzerland with a “Orange Young” plan would receive Spotify premium for free, in addition to unlimited texting & calling as well as a sizeable data plan. Orange Young is Orange’s cell phone plan offered to anyone 27 or under, and Orange’s VP […]
Tech Sector growth is outpacing all other sectors in France
Syntec Numérique, one France’s leading professional organization representing the tech sector, just published a report offering some interesting and encouraging findings on the state of France’s tech sector. Not surprisingly, the sector has been major driver of economic and job growth in France over the last decade, outpacing many other sectors. Here are some of the […]
We’ve got the Pitch Deck for TheFamily, Paris’ newest Accelerator
We announced earlier this month that LeCamping’s manager Alice Zagury has left LeCamping to start her own accelerator, named TheFamily, though details at the time were scarce as to how they were planning on differentiating themselves. LeCamping receives a combination of regional and national funding from the government and also counts several corporate partners, who […]
Bouygues is getting ClockBlocked from having an iPhone monopoly in France
In the weeks coming up to the iPhone5 launch last year after the new phone was announced, most of Europe was buzzing with one common problem – not one single carrier was running the correct frequency (1800MHz) in order to provide the iPhone with 4G. Most of the carriers had built 2600MHz & 800MHz frequencies […]
In the end, Free has opt-in (Google) ad blocker on FreeBox & Mobile
After what can be described as the world’s worst publicity move followed by an even worse reaction from the government, Free has relaunched their ad “filter,” allowing all mobile and fixed internet subscribers to opt-in to the ad blocker. Originally opt-out, the ad blocker launched weeks ago, much to the discontent of Net Neutrality advocates, […]
Orange announces Orange Horizons, their newest “exploratory” subsidiary
Most TelCo’s are feeling the hurt these days – job layoffs, margins being cut, new players taking market share – however, one giant has managed to navigate the stormy TelCo seas quite successfully this past year. This week Orange announced the creation of a new subsidiary, Orange Horizons, who’s job will be to actively seek […]
French universities to offer 20% of courses online…in 5 years
Around the world, university-level online courses have become a standard part of higher education. What began in the States in the for-profit education space through online universities such as University of Phoenix and Walden Universities, has now expanded to the top universities in the world. Many top and second-level US universities started migrating several of […]