MYBLOG by Ouriel

Conversation with a Minister

It is the first time i had some private time to discuss with a Minister. Anne Marie Idrac is Minister of Foreign trade in France and during my trip in Korea and Japan i had some opportunities to discuss with her. I was impressed by the personality and ambition of her project. I will report more soon on that. This picture was taken a few minutes ago while we were discussing on the competitiveness of French high tech companies abroad, the presence of the public organizations on the web and her own personal usage of the web and blogs.

I think this is what i could call a GOOD news

TechCrunch France that i run, is probably one of the rare if not the only blog now listed in google news tech section in France. pretty happy and proud about it

Oil is the new cash

In Korea and Japan next week

I am very excited by my upcoming trip to Seoul and Tokyo. I was invited to join a delegation of business men by french foreign trade minister Anne Marie Idrac. I ll spend a couple of days in Seoul and Tokyo for several interviews and meetings with key local business men, politicians and trade organizations.

I have travelled a few times in the past for business to China and Hong Kong but this is my very first time in those two countries.

Right now i am trying to find out how to get a 3G phone there. Neither my blackberry or iPhone are working there (nor the collection of nokias or LGs i have at home)

I will have close to zero connection to internet and cellphone. Funny for countries where very high speed internet is years in advance of our old countries...

If you have any special tip, please drop them in comments

Technorati Tags: korea, japan, trip, france, annemarieidrac

The new iPhone 3G: available everywhere, except israel.

Will be sold in 70 countries eventually. i Think there is already more iPhones in Israel than in the whole Middle East all together. So Who cares ?

The most famous Israeli Hair Dresser in Hollywood

This is going to be the biggest blockbuster this year in Israel. Don't miss Zohan - Adam Sandler as an ex-Israeli soldier becoming a hair dresser in NYC. I can't think about a better pitch for a massive success in Israel (maybe also elsewhere). Below the trailer

HEC in Israel for a discovery trip on the success of high tech

Most Israelis do not really know HEC Paris, the business school i studied with. They commonly know INSEAD and rightly so. It is a great MBA and many israeli go study there.

However HEC has been ranked #1 business school in Europe by the financial times last year and there is an exchange programm with Tel Aviv University MBA happening for years. This year, for the first time a delegation of HEC Alumni came to Israel to get familiar with the country. I attended the last day seminar where high ranked personalities (Orna Berry Chairman of IVA, Aharon Fogel, Nissim Zvili former ambassador of Israel in France..) came to speak about what is making israel so unique and in a way successful. I still have not found the right answer, but in the video below (where you'll see twice my back) some try to bring an answer.

I was particularly impressed by the "one man show" of Elishai Yanai, the president of Motorola Israel (the only non US SVP at Motorola world wide) which put a VERY energetic presentation and that summarized it with one point: it is eventually about 3 things. Education, education, education.

I personally think it is a mix of Education, absence of alernative by lack of natural ressources, socio cultural melting pot, recency of the country and strong entrepreneur DNA at all level, strong commitment of the government to support entrepreneurs, and obviousy strong military infrastucture.

On the video someone says she was surprised by what she saw here and discovered "nice people". I'll never repeat it enough. What the media show and what you have here are 2 different worlds. Come have a look...

ps: congrats to Assaf Saayada and Karta partners for putting this together

Technorati Tags: israel hec alumni high tech

Israel.com not sold : the underground story

I spotted some while ago that Israel.com would be on sale. I tracked the news and noticed that the auction around the domain name was closed a few days after being open. The end price was 5.88 million dollars a little more than 5.5 millions which was the opening price.



A few days later a journalist from the marker contacted me about this story and asked me for more information in particular about the buyer, information not disclosed on theMoniker, the web broker in charge of the transaction. Yesterday TheMarker published a story (they claim an exclusive on that story but do not mention of my previous post or even our conversation) on the acquisition. A few more titles published also the story although i am not sure why and how they got the news.

The fact is that i was contacted yesterday by the PR agency of theMoniker that precised me that the domain name was not sold. This was to me really surprising. Why was the auction closed if the domain is still for sale? Did the owner retract? Was it cancelled? was there some fraud around it? I obviously immediately brought an update to my post and Flickr Picture and asked those questions

I received an unclear answer from the CEO of theMoniker, Monte Cahn mentionning that there was an extended auction and that the bid was still open. Where is this extended auction? Who can participate? why was it not mentioned on the original page i found the information? Here is the answer

If the domain does not sell in the extended auction, the online auction closes but the domain is still available for sale through private negotiations now. The online auction has ended

Bottom line: TheMoniker seems to me no to do a good job in being clear to their users. Both on the operation of the auction and the communication around it. I was told i would get clearer answers soon. I am waiting for them and would prefer to get them directly from the company rather than their PR agency. It sounds like there was not enough bids. But let s wait for the final answer.

Technorati Tags: israel.com internet domain moniker

Seesmic-ed

We just hit a comment record both text and video on TechCrunch France thanks to an operation i called "Killer Startup" which was about posting a 30 sec video about an internet startup idea (serious or not). More than 220 comments including 65 videos. Seesmic the partner of the operation is mentioning it today in their daily show. See below

Engagement is to me the most important form of reward as a blogger. A blog that does not engage is not really a blog. A post should provoke a reaction. A rating, a comment, an email, a trackback, a video comment,...whatever.

Silence means either that that you don't have readers (not very rare), that it is boring (not very rare), that it is not written adequately and that readers do not perceive the necessity of a conversation (not rare). It can also mean your blog post is so perfect it does not need more (extremely unlikely)

Technorati Tags: blog conversation videos comments reaction engagement

Israel.com finally sold at 5.88 million dollars [update: not sold yet]

important update: i was just contacted by the CEO and team of the Moniker. Although the site indicates that the bid was closed i understand that the domain was not sold. I am expecting more explanations to understand why the bid was closed.

The bid started at 5.5 millions, it was closed at 5.88 millions only 5 days after it opened. I thought it would be more. I wonder who eventually got it? Let me guess...Ahmadinejad or Ben Laden certainly.



ps: the information is available at themoniker.com. you need to register to get access to the information



Technorati Tags: israel.com domain bid auction orlando moniker