MYBLOG by Ouriel

10 things i'll remember on TWS 2007

Good “demo” event organized by thecoils.com guys. Some things caught my attention

• About 400 attendants, which was representative of the internet startup israeli pool. Good Mingling. Good Vibes.
• The couple Yossi Vardi/Shimon Peres seem to tour the web conferences (they were already there in LeWeb3)
• “The first entrepreneur was God”. Peres. Where did he raise money?
• Food was good but served too early (yes this is important)
• Like many busy men Yair Goldfinger seem to have a big collection of the same Tshirt (a cool one btw)
• Disappointed to see no pic on flickr with TWS2007 tag
• Not enough blog buzz about this event. Come on bloggers!
• Twitter was the subject of discussion here and there
• Being a good startup does not mean you are good at presenting and convincing. This is not key to succeed but yesterday it was important.
• Good selection of 10 Startups (out of 70 i heard). i was surprised to see one of them was financed by a sponsor/jury of the event (any conflict of interest?)
• One more: everyone start to seem to understand there is no Bubble but like Yaron said “some hot wind”.

This was a first good edition. This was missing in the israeli landscape. Congrats to Yaron and Yami.

Suggestions for next year: wifi connection / demo corner for startups / more goodies / visibility on companies that were not selected/ an international guest for the event / a blog/wiki for the event / think of all the “ole haddachim” that do not read/speak hebrew but would like to participate (many of them are good entrepreneurs)

 

 

Tags: tws2007, israel

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has a blog

Just discovered that info here. I also thought it was a joke. But it is not. Ahmadinejad has a blog. Actually i even take it very seriously. Ahmadinejad is fully aware that a large part of the opinion is from now being expressed/read in blogs. So he enters the game (note the “poll”).

The blog is rather well done(although it hurts me to say so)  with a lot of bugs (no surprise)  and i am curious to see how really personnal and open to constructive discussion it will be. Ahmadinejad should know that bloggers/blog readers are not fool and will be a tougher audience.

Blogs are very popular in Iran, although you can be condemned to prison if you speak too much.

The blog is in 4 different languages including english. Already spotted in DIGG

ps: oops no trackbacks there….very bad….

technorati tags: ahmadinejad blog
del.icio.us tags: ahmadinejad blog

If i was working at...BlogLines

BlogLines is my favourite RSS reader. But it does not mean the product is perfect. It is just convenient (at least more than its competitors). But there are 2 things i don t like

• i hate page refreshes: when you clik on a feed, edit it or want to “keep new” a story it refreshes the page and forces navigation from top page again….. Have they heard about Ajax? Ruby on Rails?
• the OPML management is just not convenient. There they use Ajax, but this is not good enough and offer offer a better a faster UI. Ideally i would like to move a feed to one folder to another without accessing an “edit” function
• UI is not sexy at all: ok i am not asking for a masterpiece. But Bloglines is rather ugly
• Easy tagging for feed and post would be also welcome so i could organize better all that mess…
• No smart ranking: for example sort the feed i read most and give me the possibly to put them aside and separate/delete others.

If they could make that better that would be perfect much better

TechCrunch France in default Feed in YahooMail France

TechCrunch france i am authoring has just been added in default feed in the new version of YahooMail in France

We are featured just next to “Les Echos” “AFP” and other prestigious media sources. In order to add TechCrunch France in their RSS reader you just need to click the link “Ajouter” next to “Fils RSS” and the above window will appear. Just click “ajouter” and you re done.

That is a great news and puts TechCrunch a steps further. YahooMail is one the TOP3 largest webmail in France. 

Thanks to Shamir Ramjan, Product Manager at Yahoo France for his decision.

Some of my secret blog life/ingredients

On the proposal of talented blogger Eric Dupin, i accepted to answer some of his questions on my blogging habits. It is in French, sorry again.

 

I say a lot about the tools and sources i am using. But OF COURSE i did not give away the secret recipe…

In the news (again): VC blogs

Last week i was again mentionned (with others) in the news in an article dedicated to Venture Capital blogs and concluding that more VCs should come to it. 

Blogging is a huge trend in the US and only starts in Israel.

The article is mentionning a few of my Gemini fellows (i recommend you to read) as well as the blog of Michael Eisenberg from Benchmark (our neighbour from downstairs i still don’t know)

The article came online (sorry it is in hebrew only) and also in the press (featuring mine in picture). From the reactions on the article people don t really seem to understand the benefit of doing a blog specially when you are in the VC courtyard.

Blog is a killer tool to build quality network and generate fantastic deal flow. It is also one of the best way i know to save the first steps of a meeting where you need to introduce yourself (i realize that most of the people i met with read my blog before the meeting) and gives a new dynamic to the meeting.

I actually started blogging even before i began to think i would work in the VC world. Actually i started to read blog from famous VCs a while ago. If you are interested in the sector i recommend you a few of them:

• Guy Kawazaki
• Jeff Clavier
• Josh Kopelman (founder to Half.com)
• Union Square Ventures (behind Delicious)
• A VC
• VentureBlog (David Hornik)
• Alarm Clock (to be informed of all deals)

They provide plenty of useful information to understand this industry and will certainly help entrepreneurs prepare better their search for funding. But they are not only related to investment as most of them feature other subjects (which is great to know better a personn). Each of them will give you access to tones of other good VC bloggers

Thanks to Guy Grimland from TheMarker to put that together.

PS: by the way some VCs don t have a website and prefer having directly a blog (like Union Square Ventures) and i believe we will do the same with LGiLAB

A 1st timer: A podcast raises VC fund

I think this is a first time in the history of blogs. PodTech A (very good) podcast is raising fund with VCs to set up a substantial business.

Some big blogs start to reach critical mass and therefore should consider their activity as business/startups. Raising fund may make sense is business model is following up

In the case of PodTech they just estimate that Tech Companies will pay to get interviewed and broadcast.  I am not so sure about the reliability/objectivity of a podcast/blog where companies would pay for it and PodTech should look at a different direction.

source. alarmclock

 

 

PIC: ROBERT SCOBLE HAS A TWIN

I was recently watching Punch Drunk Love and i had a flash.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman one of the actor (also seen in the 25th hour, Magnolia,..) is the twin face of Robert Scoble one of the most famous world blogger. Judge by yourself (left Robert Scoble / right the other one).

Compare more here and there

So my question is: Philipp Seymour Hoffman has recently played the role of a famous american writer: Truman Capote. Will he play the role of a famous blogger?

 

 

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IPOD WILL BECOME A PHONE

And a picture phone too…Well this is my anticipation within the next 18 months maybe less. Mobile phones with Hard memory and embedded mp3 player start to have too much success and a 3 in 1 would make totally sense. Apple/ iPod cannot ignore it. Business interest is huge as they could at last adress the ringtones market. Motorola experience was just a start to a longer story. Below a mock.

More about what iPod will become here

tags technorati : ipod phone mp3

LE JOURNAL DU NET GOES RSS

I have been waiting for it for a while…..

This will interest only my french readers, but the journal du net (the high tech online newspaper) decided AT LAST to distribute its news into RSS…well let not dream not all of it (they still have to sell advertising) but the “short” news category at the bottom.

Slowly but surely all serious media will come to it, even more when RSS marketing will get bigger.

The feed is http://www.journaldunet.com/rss/breve/

 

 

tags technorati : journaldunet rss