LeWeb report: Lifestreaming must become lifechanging
Crowds were sparser when the second day of LeWeb kicked off, even though the champagne ran out after just 1,5 hours at the official reception at Paris' historical and opulent Hõtel the Ville, the City Hall, the evening before.
The highlights of the day were mostly crowded together at the second half of the day. Queen Rania of Jordania, one of the very few female speakers, started off very pompous and PC, saying all the right official buzzwords someone had written for her, but came through and delivered LeWeb's most memorable speech. The queen who was the first to be awarded YouTube's visionary award, have used social media to advocate and drive change particulary when it comes to the right to schooling for children, and especially girls.
"It's hard to connect to people when you are a queen," she said, "but online people say their minds."
Queen Raina have over 1 million followers on Twitter and drove home the message that online advocacy is fine and important, but we need to turn that into real offline action.
"Lifestreaming must become lifechanging."
Wine entrepreneur and social media super star Gary Vaynerchuk was his usual intense and speedtalking self, and had a message of his own to drive home. He wanted us to stop complaining. Complaining that we can't afford the 42" flat screen TV or that we have a boring job. Do something else. Do what you love. He talked about growing up in the Ukraine, where his family was persecuted for its heritage, and then coming to the US with absolutely nothing.
"I long thought I was driven by wanting to create something. To prove something. But I realised I'm driven by gratitude. I have so much to be grateful for."
Gary has turned his father's wine store into a 70 million dollar a year enterprise. And he repeatedly emphasised that each and every customer is important.
"Companies say to me that 'we can't take an interest in every customer with a complaint or a question'. I say, yes you can. And you should."
Analytics superstar Jeremiah Owyang, formerly of Forrester Research and now a partner of the Altimeter Group, founded by fellow ex-Forrester Charlene Li, connected to Gary's message in his presentation.
"With Google sidewiki and similar browser based services, your corporate site will have social features whether you like it or not. Being social on the web, isn't an option anymore. It's mandatory."
Jeremiah also stressed the necessity of proper management systems to monitor and manage social media. Without them, the social web becomes a pandemonium of disjointed information that is impossible to do something strategic with.
Earlier in the week Google launched personalised search for everybody using Google search. Previously you had to be logged into Google to use personalised search, now you have to be logged in and actively turning off the feature in order for "regular" or anonymous search to take place. The result is that Google seach will give different results for everybody, depending on your previous searches (Note: read Simon Sundén's excellent article about the implications for businesses.)
Danah Boyd from Microsoft Research spoke about how not only personalisation gives us different views of the world, but also how the people we follow in social media change our outlook of the world.
"The people you are following shape your experiences which means they can be very different from other users. The people who you follow influence your norms and what you see, and differs from what the people who are following you experiences."
Overall, the three big trends right now are real-time data, personalisation and location. Check out start-ups Foursquare and Gowalla which are two competing services that incorporates all three trends. There was no sign of the recession at LeWeb, on the contrary, the place was positively buzzin' and deals were made. I'm going to return next year and tickets are usually available six months in advance for very good early bird prices.
You can see videos from most of the sessions here:
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