LeWeb report: Real-time is exploding

2009 is the year of real-time. At the first day of LeWeb, almost every item on the packed agenda had something or the other to do with real-time and also to make that real-time information go places. MySpace are following closely on the heels of Twitter and Facebook and are now opening up their service for real-time search with an API that allows developer to create services to search for videos, images and people. Unlike many other similar API services, MySpace doesn't put any limit on how many calls can be made to the API. MySpace’s initial partners are Google, real-time search engine OneRiot and Groovy Corp., which builds hardware to help push data as fast as possible across the web.

Google didn't have any news to break at this year's LeWeb, but Michael Arrington from TechCrunch made an excellent interview with a very tired-looking Marissa Mayer. And, no wonder, with the flurry of new annonuncements from Google the past weeks including mobile picture seach, Google Goggles, and music search in the US. If your computer use an American IP number, you can now search for music from MySpace and Lala, and play songs straight from the search page.

More interesting was alla the different start-ups, where three caught my attention in particular.

The day's buzz was definitely Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's new startup Square,
an iPhone payment system which lets anyone accept credit card payments
using their phone. Square will distribute the small card swipe
attachement for free and you don't have to sign up for expensive
payment gateways. It allows both individuals and small businesses to
accept credit card payments without a lot of costs. As a side note, the
technology is cool. The card reader jacks into the iPhone's audio jack
and actually converts the information on the magnetic strip to sound.

I signed up for SilenTale even before going to LeWeb but hadn't recieved my invitation code to the closed beta. SilenTale aggregates and archives all conversations with the people you are in contact with, regardless if they appear on Twitter, Gmail, Facebook and others, so you din't have to search in different channels for conversations you had. It sounds really useful and especially for people for actively work with and on their social network. I did an interview with CEO Laurent Féral-Pierssens that will appear at Sweet Sunday Web Crunch soon.

Another start-up that can be super-useful for companies is Tiger Lily - a Facebook pages management app that I hope to try out today. It helps companies to customize and manage Facebook pages and build leads. It also promises useful widgets as well as statistics

The greatest thing about LeWeb is however the people you meet and connect with. Last night I had dinner with some industry heavy-weights; Brian Solis, Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Heuer and Dave McClure. But it's just as fun to connect with all startup entrepreneurs that are spearheading the next wave.

Stay tuned a blog summary of the second day of LeWeb tomorrow as well as a host of video interviews.