Where is Keyvan ?

Keyvan is in the kitchen…

December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Santa Claus

November 29, 2007

They said that 1984 won’t be like 1984… they didn’t talk about it after that :S

Google

I googlise, you googlise, he/she googlises, we googlise, you googlise, they googlise.

Nice several forms of the verb “to googlise” which means to use google or to make research on the internet and to explore it to its boundary. Yes “Google is fine, Google is good”. Everyday they offer an amazing amount of information, help, tools, entertainment contents, and all that for free!

Well, free… for the users…

To be googlised or to googlised someone.

That is another point… every information about people is known, everyone is online, whether he wants to or not. It’s a huge robot that just accumulates tones of information about people for people, but not only.

Yes, Google provides tools and contents for free but they use them to sell information to marketers for commercial purpose. Now, with their new tools they can track you. They can exactly know who you are, where you live, what’s your name, what’s your opinion, what you like, what you try to hide, everything. And they sell it. Of course they sell it anonymously to companies! They’re not mad!

Well, they’re not mad in our countries… but in countries like China ?

As long as they will respect a certain morality, I think people will continue to use their services. It is their interest. They know at Google that a huge part of their success is based upon trust. Trust of the people. So they might be more cautious with governments of countries like China, a friend maybe not so well-intentioned.

Conclusion : You understound, I am neither a pro nor an anti-Google, I’m just an average user who use their services as long as I think they remain trustworthy.

November 21, 2007

Mail it right (with Dilbert ;)

Emails became an incontrovertible way to communicate in everyday “business life”… But there is several principles to follow to email right and not to be put on the unwanted mailing list! So lets discover the guidelines our good friend and co-worker Dilbert settled up.

Rule number 1 :
Be concise and prefer a clear page setting

Rule number 2 :
Respect your reader, check spelling

Rule number 3 :
Avoid useless messages

Rule number 4 & 5 :
Do not forward untrustworthy content & and do not forget to remind the aim of your message

Follow the advise of a professional ;)

More Dilbert at Dilbert.com

Pictures by Scott Adams, inc./Dist by UFS, inc. All right reserved.

November 20, 2007

Microsoft bought equity stake in Facebook to expand ad partnership


 
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November 15, 2007

Schools Shooters and the Web


 
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An American tragedy

November 14, 2007

My Video Presentation

November 8, 2007

Prosper.com : Microcredit or SubPrime 2.0?

Web, trust, and money

Trust has been a major issue these 5 last years, and its improvment permits to largley increase the online business. People don’t fear anymore to buy and even sell on the web according to the succes of online shops and the now notorious site ebay.com.

Microcredit in India help women to launch or developpe little businessDuring the same period the principle of microcredit grown up and it has been even reward by a Nobel Price for one of his upholder Muhammad Yunus. Many web sites supporting microcredit uprised. They offer the possibility to the internet users of developped countries to lend money for tiny business projects in third world countries, at very low rates.

The Web 2.0 new wave maked it more and more actual.

A new player : Prosper.com

Surfing on this new wave and on the microcredit principles (people lending money to other people in need) appear the site Prosper.com. It proposes to link loaners and lenders, and to make the business easy for both parts.

An interesting initiative… or a very self-serving interactive plateforme ?

But a little look on the site may lead to see something less sparkling than genuine microcredit. Whereas Microcredit is based on the generosity of the lenders, Prosper.com offers to lenders the perspective of making good profits. The high level of rates offered by lenders just seems like usury : nothing under 14% and sometimes offers of more than 60%!! The lenders just look for something as profit-making as the stock exchange.

Sadly, we know what it does when lenders take great risk and offer usury rates to poor people… it leds to kind of Sub Prime crisis! And for moral values and generosity: tomorow is another day.

For sale

October 21, 2007

“Where is Brian?” : the Original! (in French)

October 20, 2007

When Microsoft thinks “packaging” :p

October 19, 2007

This is FOOTBALL!

October 7, 2007

Back to the futur (again)!

Macintosh SE

How can I resist to show you that old 1987’s Macintosh SE, the first computer I used when I was a young child! How many hours I spent drawing on that Mac? A lot. But the reason that push me to make a post about this Mac SE is that it is a part of the huge personal collection of a Mac-lover! Just stupendous!

His Mac collection on Flickr

September 27, 2007

I have 1 billion friends

How poor are our parents, who lost their school friends, who won’t be able to talk to the little guy of the schoolyard they met at 6 years old, who won’t be able to know that yes, cousin Sam knew Sarah when he goes to Kings London, the same Sarah they hated in 2nd grade… We, the ‘new generation’, in our wicked global village, thanks to social network, we’ve got the chance to keep everyone in mind and not very far from a click. And we count them: the more you’ve got friends, the better it is… That popularity (an other good question we may think about : what being popular means on the internet?)

Who are these social networks? They are many, but two of them lead the race: MySpace and Facebook. What is improbable in these two networks is that they recreate the real world gap between people. That is not a bad joke, but the result of a research I heard about. When Myspace is most used by young, lower-middle class workers, and musicians, Facebook is used by faculty students, upper-middle class workers, etc. That’s the result of their birth. MySpace has been known because of its artistic and musical aspects, when Facebook is a creation of Harvard students and was reserved, at its begin, to US faculty students.

I used MySpace (at the time I was in a band), now I’m on Facebook…I follow the ‘vogue’, so what will be the next ‘trendy social network’? Will people continue to post private information about themselves on the net with site like Spock (a kind of BigBrother’s database)?

Got friends

Think generous!

Welcome back!

On my last post, I said that for me generosity couldn’t be compatible with business model. I have to admit that my provocative part took over, and that these questions are much trickier to explain. But the debat is now open, and that was the goal of that kind of gentle provocation.

Adium's DuckIf I can’t consider true generosity - as when you give your money or your time for the others in need without any expectancy of reciprocate - as a good business model, I have to say that generosity may lead to interesting business model on the internet. The very best example is freeware. Instead of creating virus and spyware to build their name, some coders make nice softwares for everyone and for free (and that’s definitely generous actually :D ). That is generosity because they spend a lot of their time and money for the others. But it could be a good business model also because they build a reputation based on professionalism and efficiency. So then they are most likely to be able to sell their competencies.

Finally, there is also a third form of generosity on the web which is exchanging. And this is maybe the basis of the Internet. A long explanation would be inessential, some examples talks about that ‘third form’ far better by themselves: Wikipedia, technical forums, etc.

Here some examples of very good freewares (especially for mac users) :

Techspansion, the home of iSquint

Cyberduck, I can’t live without it

Adium, which is also an Open Source program as Firefox

September 26, 2007

Generosity as a business model ?

 
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