Le Blog d'Olivier Seres

Bitty : ajouter des wikis, Bloglines mobiles et d'autres fenêtres dans une Page d'accueil

Bitty : Une façon amusante d'intégrer des micro-navigateurs (avec des mini-sites comme Bloglines mobile) dans une Page d'Accueil.
Vous pouvez configurer et dimensionner vos micros-navigateurs manuellement et les intégrer dans GoogleHomePage ou Live.com (pas encore dans Netvibes, ce serait bien pratique).

Steve Rubel explique comment il a fait pour intégrer différents mini-sites.

J'ai fait quelques essais pour intégrer mon Bloglines mobile ca marche plutot bien :

Voilà une belle idée pour faire des portails mobiles personnalisés !

Une idée aussi pour XWiki (ou d'autres outils de publication): intégrer ce type de fonctionnalité en standard avec le drag'n'drop en plus.

Video about Net Neutrality

A little video to explain what Net Neutrality (which has been widely discussed in the US) is. Om thinks the debate is a bit US centric. It should come to Europe soon...

 

Freebox HD : "FON ready" soon ?

FON is currently dealing with european ISPs, to allow its service running.
The FON Wikipedia page lists the ISPs that allow FON service and the ISPs that don't.

The next stage is to deal with ISPs so that they embed directly FON technology in their modem-routers.
In France, I bet Free Telecom (2nd ISP in France with 17% marketshare) could be FON's first partner and embed the software within its brand new FreeBox HD (2 separate elements : 1 modem-router, (PC connected) and 1 media Center).




Makes a lot of sense for both companies :

        1°) for Free :

• to take the advantage of the highly viral concept of internet sharing brought by Fon. Freenauts are not alone anymore  : they become Freefoneros while open ing their laptops in Paris and catch a Freebox signal.
• to take advantage of Fon technology embedded in laptops
• to be the first ISP to deal with FON (even if Fon could knock 9Telecom's door as well)
• to densify their WiMax network (which makes more sense in rural areas)

2°) for FON 

• to adress  4,650 Millions Freenauts (april 2006)
• to take advantage of Free's distribution channel and the "ready to use" Freebox HD (it is still a bit complicated for the mass market to configure a Linksys)
• to take advantage of Free's telephony services (telephony is not FON's core business).

Business model ? Revenue sharing. Read the ISP page in  FON's website
"FON will share the revenues generated each time an Alien accesses the Internet through the FON Community with the different ISPs with whom we are reaching collaboration agreements."

I still don't know who, between FON and Free will deliver the GSM-Wifi phone

I see a lot of forthcoming synergies between Wireless Access Providers (WAPs) (sponsored by Google to deliver ads in mobility) and Home Access Providers.

Update (25/04/2006): 1st partnership announced (fr) with 9telecom, 3rd ISP in France(after Free and France Telecom). The press release says it is an exclusive deal, i wouldn't  be surprised to read another anouncement with 1 or 2 other ISPs... The video should be coming on Fon French Blog.

Congrats Jean-Bernard !

tags technorati : free fon freebox mobile internet
tags del.icio.us :  free fon freebox mobile internet
tags icerocket :  free fon freebox mobile internet

In Brief

3GSM  :
First time in 6 years I don't attend to 3GSM event (in Barcelona now). I'm not sure i didn't miss anything. (and besides, my employer would have asked me to delete any post like in 2005).

• Lot of talks about convergence and Wifi. When you hear about Wifi & mobile, make sure you know the difference between UMA and SIP. UMA is designed to retain the customers WITHIN the (fix or mobile) operator's network& services.
  In other words, with a UMA WiFi phone, you will only access to your operator hotspots. But don't imagine you can connect to Skype.
  At the other hand, SIP is more like the open-source version of wi-fi. With SIP, you can acess any hotspot and internet service.
• MS's mobile ambitions are on display at the 3GSM, thanks to HTC (supported by MS). Steve, what're you doing ? We're all waiting for the iMacNano !

Collaborative Tools

• Wikis : ChristopheDucamp showed me his personal wiki on communitywiki. Communitywiki is an amazing lab on wiki usage. In particular, it links wikis and communities throught CamelCase wikiwords. And i must admit it is more exciting to share personal content in a wiki connected to other wikis than in  n-personnal  weblogs. And i love this BlogControlledByWiki concept.
  Problem: CSS and skins of these wikis are not as nice as traditional weblogs, for the time beeing. Designers of all country, do shape the wikis into something beautiful ! =
• Blog : 2 options for me : move to DotClear 2.0 OR design a nice BlogControlledByWiki, powered by OddMuse.

Web2.0

• 2 month ago, i described (fr) my difficulties to sell a siemens SK65 on Ebay. The day after, a French reader of my blog based in NewYork and looking for a Blackberry enabled phone dropped me a mail and we made the deal almost immediately. He didn't hersitate to trust me and send me the money on my bank account because of my blog (he said). Since that experience, i've dreamed of a service that  would enable bloggers to put adds on their blog to promote items they want to sell. Apparently Edgeio will do it. (via Benoit (fr))

edgeio-key: 73a44f65586a0072874c2c36ee313fb267601ea0

"The way Edgeio works is that bloggers would post items they want to sell right on their blogs, tagging them with the word "listing" (and eventually other descriptive tags). Then, Edgeio will pluck them as it constantly crawls millions of blogs looking for the "listing" tag and index them on Edgeio.com." described BusinessWeek.
Some screenshots on flickr here and here.
The future website seems neat.

Personal Devices:

• Photo/Videos : Should
  
  • by an Archos AV700 or wait for the next iPod Video ?
    
    
    
• Mobile : I'm using the Siemens S500 with Imode (thanks to the 6Mo  Bouygues's employees plan-no comment). I love the design of this object. I use it as a little Blackberry-like  mail-push handstet+ surf on the brilliant MobiType reader of blogs, NO MORE. I already miss my P900. Visit the P990i-blog
  

BeautifulPhone : some fresh news from the beta-test

Following my post (fr) , some news (fr) of BeautifulPhone(fr) (en), the convergence-solution of 9telecom-Cegetel, (the 3rd ISP in France-12% marketshare), based on a dual-mode GSM-Wifi handset, that aims to cannibalize mobile telephony at home (as a first step).
Beautifull Phone is still on trial (over 400 geeks).
We learn that  :

• it's not already possible to receive incoming call through WiFi  (I initially thought it could be true)
• you can make outgoing calls at MacDonald's (see the comments of the article) and at some other hotspots (if displayed on the BeautifulPhone's screen)
• on Wifi mode, BeautifulPhone's battery empties itself within 3 hours ...
• you can access to 9telecom portal (and see 9 telecom TV programs for instance), subscribe to RSS feeds and even listen to podcasts  (pre-configuration of mobile 2.0 ?)
• France Telecom could soon follow the tendency with its homezone solution.

Bouygues, Free and the future telecom value chain

 

Following a brilliant & far-sighted analysis  (fr) about Google and Microsoft, Christian Jegourel details the possible strategic options for 2 french players :

• Bouygues Telecom : 3rd MNO in France
• Free Telecom the "David" of the french ISPs with its 18% market share  opposed to Wanadoo "Goliath".

There has been a lot of buzz around Bouygues and Free since Q3 2005, probably due to people interested in the rise of the stocks values !
These rumors were based on a logical economical analysis, so that everybody, including employees, could believe something was likely to happen.

Christian's credo about Bouygues is :  moving is a matter of emergency.

Reasons :

• the ISP value proposition is stronger than those of pure mobile player in the long term because ISPs can become MVNO whereas a pure mobile cannot bill the end-user for broadband internet @ home. This statement should be challenged, IMHO.
• the cannibalization of cash cow revenues (voice), due to the emergence of ISPs'  4x play + Skype on mass market phones

Therefore, there are 3 possible scenarios for the future :

1. preparing for selling the company to an "incumbent" (historical operator) (Telecom Italia, DT,...)
   
2. considering  a "Data Pipe mobile" wholesale business, thanks to their infrastructure and frenquencies.
3. integration with the TF1 TV network (a subsidiry of the Bouygues group), Vivendi like.

On the other side, Free is in the nirvana, and doesn't need the hand of an MNO.
Besides, Bouygues and Free 's history, owner's personalities, management culture are so opposed at  that a merge is like something of science-fiction.
However, as the content war could soon come to the shores of Europe with MS, Google and Yahoo "in the living room strategy", Christian thinks Free could take advantage in considering a long term Data Pipe (just as option 2 for Bouygues) OR joining an infrastructure+content alliance (the TF1 intergrated offer for instance).
2006 will be hot, he concludes.

tags technorati : telecoms free mobile bouygues

Gmail reveals the "Delete Button"

I'm an early adopter of Gmail, and stay tuned with the latest improvements of Google's web mail (first appearing on the English display language).
The delete function was only available in the menu for the time being. It was apparently possible to create a button with GreaseMonkey, what did Rodrigo last September (haven't tested it personally).
The Delete Button is now available, and even if it could be considered as a "gadget"  for the following reasons :

•  with Gmail don't need to order your mails any more", first true principle
  
• the anti-spam engine is rather efficent, not bothered with spam any longer.

it is really useful.

I'm waiting for :

• a WYSIWYG+view HTML editor , so i can prepare my posts on-line in Gmail (advantages : user-friendly English check spelling+backup)
  
• a Contact manager with much more advanced features
• a integrated calendar

Next step : "Ctr+Alt+Del" button  in the GoogOS ;-) ?

YahooGoMobile : the begining of the end for Mobile Walled Gardens ?

Last week, Terry Semel announced   Yahoo GoMobile, a PC, mobile and TV...follow-throuh service. In other words : your mails, photos, contacts are always with you.
3 strong messages :

• “Personally, I believe that walled gardens are a thing of the past”
• With Yahoo ! Go Mobile when you lose your mobile you just lose your mobile not your entire life !!
• "Connecting any device to internet is the next step of the web. Consummers are claiming this to bring information on the move. " (I like that !)
  

Philippe Kerignard tested the service yesterday night till 4 AM on a Nokia 6680 and tells us about his experience in a great post (fr). I had a demo this afternoon.

I'm not a Yahoo fan like Philippe,(i prefer to handle my data in separate apps connected to each others by APIs) but i must admit i've been astonished by the usability of  Yahoo Go Mobile (once it has been installed).
But for me , the killer functionnality is the combination of  :

• off-line consultation of emails, contacts
  
• contact and easy sync with My Yahoo!
  

Installation of the client is still a difficult task and a barrier to entry for the mass market, but apparently Yahoo! is speaking to Nokia and Motorola to have the client embedded in the terminal... Some operators will probably try to dissuade them.

I've tested the moblog functionnality : you take a photo, it goes to your photo album and it synchronise with your on line photo album. A flickr integration would be cool !

As Phillippe says: Mobile Network Operators (MNO)should move their a... if they want to offer broadband internet access AND portals at the same time.
But as Yahoo and Google don't have the same experience of billing the  customers, MNOs have still a key avantage.

tags technorati : yahoo yahoogomobile mobile convergence
tags del.icio.us : yahoo yahoogomobile mobile convergence
tags icerocket : yahoo yahoogomobile mobile convergence

Jacques Chirac lit mon blog

"Enfin, nous devons être pionniers dans le développement de la télévision numérique et de technologies à très fort potentiel : développer un accès à haut débit à Internet en mobilité, et déployer, d'ici la mi-2007, la télévision sur mobiles et en haute définition."

(Allocution de M. Jacques CHIRAC, Président de la République, à l'occasion des voeux aux forces vives, le 5 janvier 2005.)

• Voir les voeux aux forces vives au format Windows media - - (télécharger la vidéo).              
• Voir les voeux aux forces vives au format Quicktime - - (télécharger la vidéo).

Voilà donc une occasion pour moi de faire plus fort que Loïc : aller podcaster le Président !
         

tags technorati : haut débit mobile broadband président Jacques Chirac mobile
tags del.icio.us :  haut débit mobile broadband président Jacques Chirac mobile
tags icerocket :  haut débit mobile broadband président Jacques Chirac mobile

Ebay vous présente : Skype

Je viens de recevoir ce matin un message sur Mon Ebay :

Cher Membre,
Si vous utilisez eBay, c'est que vous avez un ordinateur et une connexion internet.              
Il ne vous en faut pas plus pour pouvoir désormais passer tous vos appels  gratuitement dans le monde entier.              

Il ne s'agit donc que de co-marketing, pas de l'annonce d'une intégration.
Mais Skype va- t-il être intégré à EBay directement ou à PayPal, filiale d'Ebay depuis 2002?

Fin novembre 2005, une offre d'emploi sur Craiglist pour un Senior Product Manager pour l'intégration de Skype dans PayPal, finement décryptée par Zdnet.

Comme l'indique Elenbi, EBay a au moins 6 raisons d' intégrer Skype, afin de sécuriser les transaction.

Je vous livre mon expérience récente.
Le mois dernier, j'ai mis en vente 2 terminaux mobiles (dont le Sk65 dont je ne me sers pas).
Deux Ebayers ont bidé pour le prix demandé (160€ et 140€)
Je les contacte par mail puis par téléphone.

• Le premier est dans le nord de la France, me tutoie d'emblée, il ne se souvient plus du terminal pour lequel il a enchéri. Il me promet de me rappeler pour me donner son mail. Puis silence radio
• Le second est en UK, après plusieurs relances, je recois un mail qui m'indique que je dois joindre son "avocat". J'arrive à parler avec l'"avocat", probablement d'origine indienne, qui parle dans un anglais incompréhensible. Je comprends juste que je dois envoyer le terminal contre la promesse d'un paiement... Pas la coutume sur Ebay.

Je m'apercois qu'en parallèle, EBay a considéré que la vente était réussie et me facture les frais de commission (2% je crois). J'ouvre un ticket pour signaler le défaut de paiement qui n'est toujours pas traité après 2 semaines. Bravo Ebay !

Résumé :

Skype est un média nécessaire pour EBay, afin de créer davantage de confiance entre acheteurs et vendeurs et pour laisser des traces.
Et puis Ebay pourrait améliorer l'ergonomie de son site : la navigation sur Ebay, c'est du grand n'importe quoi.
Et vous qu'en pensez-vous ?

Update:( 14/12/2005) un de mes lecteurs américain vient de lire ce post et m'a contacté pour me racheter le sk65. Deal conclu en 3 coups de cuillères à pot. Conclusion :  les blogs, c'est plus efficace et + sûr  qu'Ebay !