Net

Register for Le Web 3'07 Fourth Edition


 The registration for the fabulous Le Web 3 '07 fourth edition and preliminary program taking place in Paris on Dec 11-12 has opened. If you are only going to attend one web related event in Europe this year - this is the one!

Hong Kong Web Startup Meet Up

Last year when I was visiting Hong Kong and met with the Simon Lee & the guys at Bullpoo, they complained that there where not enough web entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. And if there were, they were not aware of each other. I then suggested that the meet up with a few people I had been in contact with and start meeting informally for drinks once a month. Guess what? Today Simon tells me over Skype that the initiative I started have just resulted in the fourth Hong Kong Web Start up Meet up, and they were almost 200! Amazing!

EditGrid hosted the last meetup, Yahoo HK have started to show-up and  Catharina Maracke from Creative Commons was there as well. I am really excited about the fact that it was started on my initiative and in one year has grown to such an extent. There is nothing more gratifying than being able to help and connect people with each other.

And of course, what event/group can be taken seriously if they don't have their own Facebook group? Join HK Web 2.0 on Facebook here.

I for sure will come by next time I have an opportunity to join the meetup. Good luck - and thanks Simon for sharing the story.

Off to San Francisco & SuperNova 2007

I'm off to San Francisco (again) for a bunch of meetings and SuperNova 2007. I have a lot of interesting meetings lined up, amongst others: meetings with my two favorite platform providers: Facebook and the Twitter. I know most of my readers have lots of request for new features and improvements - dump them here and I'll make sure they reach the right people.

I will spend all Wednesday to Friday in San Francisco and will be in Palo Alto the rest of time (until 27th). I you wanna meet up please leave me a comment or just get in touch directly.

I will also try to post a daily video on Facebook so feel free to tune in from time to time. Also, don't forget to join The Maxthon Lovers group on Facebook. It's growing and would love to see you there as well. Oh, and don't forget to join the Le Web 3 group as well.

Maxthon also have a skin competition coming up soon for the 2.0 version with cool prices. If you want to create a cool skin and spread it to millions of users around the world and even have the chance to win the default position - please let me know. Start- ups and companies are also welcome!

Technorati Tags: Jaiku, Maxthon, leweb3, leweb3.1, Supernova2007, Twitter

A Conversation About Le Web 3

Here is Loic's answer to my suggestions on Le Web 3. This is getting more and more interesting. I like this format. Don't forget to swing by the new group leweb3 group on Facebook to leave your comments and suggestions.

Technorati Tags: leweb3, leweb3.1, loiclemeur.facebook

Microformats Now On Maxthon

At Web2.0 Expo last month Alex Faaborg, Chris Messina and other Mozilla folks talked alot about Microformats. Alex mentioned how important Browsers are to drive the uptake of it. So here you are guys, Maxthon 2.0 now has a Microformat plugin!

Supported Microformats:

• geo
• hCard
• hCalendar
• adr
• tag

Give me your feedback!

Technorati Tags: Microformat, Maxthon,

Two great weeks in California & Phoenix

After two full weeks on the road it's finally time to head home to Israel again. It has been two great weeks starting out in San Francisco and the Web 2.0 Expo, followed by five days in Palo Alto and finally the CRV Leadership summit at Royal Palms Resort & Spa in Phoenix.

I think I summed up my views on Web 2.0 Expo before so I won't comment on that here. It is always so great to be in California, I get so much stuff done and have time to meet and hang-out with interesting entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and other great people. Although I try to spend a week a month in California, I must say that this time has been the best so far.

One of the highlights was hanging out with the Plymedia gang on Shabbath (for whom I am an Advisor) and especially hiking at Tiburun with Ben Enosh. It was a great day and I felt that I really made a new great friend. I also had time to meet new interesting entrepreneurs like Nik from Omnidrive, Yahya from Freewebs and others.

The best event was however the Charles River Ventures Leadership Summit at the Royal Palms Spa & Resorts in Phoenix, Arizona. What a great place! I wish I had brought my wife..This was the first time in five years that CRV had invited all their CEO's and founders from their portfolio companies and top speakers from various industries.

Against the backdrop of the Camelback mountains the event was very well planned and with a great lineup. I am really glad I decided to stay another week just to participate here. Besides all the portfolio companies people like Chris Sacca (Google), Evan Williams (Twitter), Andrew Baron (Rocketboom), Scoble, Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Ted Leonsis, Nathan Myhrvold (Intellectual Ventures & frmr Microsoft CTO), Prof. Yared Diamond (Pulitzer winner and author of "Collapse"), Larry Summers (frmr US Treasury Secretary), Matt Jacobson (Facebook), David Eckoff (VP Turner) and many more.

I particularly enjoyed chatting with Evan Williams (Twitter rocks!), Chris Sacca, Om Malik, Matt Jacobson, David Eckoff, Andrew Baron and David Sachs (Geni). Man! Geni is so good. Its going to become so big. David is a fantastic entrepreneur.

The event was really top quality in terms of speakers and participants but best of all - intimate enough for having quality time with each other. There was also time for desert hiking (see photo above with me & Bill Tai making the "m" Maxthon sign) lots of cactuses and a feeling of being beamed to Indian and cowboy land. Will post a separate CactusCast that I shot on the hike later.

I definitely learned a lot, met new friends and was inspired. Lot's of stuff on my mind now, new potential partnerships and new business ideas. Time to head home to wife and kids - I really miss them!

Technorati Tags: CRV, Freewebs, Geni, Larry Summers, Maxthon, Nathan Myhrvold, Plymedia, Rockeboom, Royal Palms Spa & Resort, Ted Leonsis, Twitter, Web2expo, Yared Diamond

Advice to Start-ups : Do Not Sponsor Big Conferences

I am surprised to see how many new web start-ups that are sponsoring big conferences like Web2.0 Exp, Web 2.0 Summit, Digital Hollywood etc you name it.

I have only one advice to these companies:

If your target audience is not conference attendants (and they very seldom are) Do not waste your marketing budget on these events! It's a total waste of money. Your potential users/customers are most likely not early adopters, partially half-converted Internet savvy media people and developers. If I would be an investor I would be very upset to see resources wasted like this.

Believe me, if you as a start-up would instead pay anybody on the street $50 to become a user - I bet that it would be a better return of investment that paying outrageous sponsorship fees for web conferences.

Go where your users are. And they are everywhere. The big challenge is to aquire real users - Go and get them!

Technorati Tags: Web2expo, Web2.0expo, Marketing, Advertising, Start-ups, Web2expo

Web 2.0 Expo Next Week

I am going to be at the Web 2.0 Expo in SF all next week and I am going to bring with me two developers from Maxthon as well to the show. My schedule is jammed packed but if you would like to meet up April 15-22 at the show or on Thursday/Friday in Palo Alto - please let me know.

Technorati Tags: Web2.0expo, Maxthon

Twitter For Maxthon!

Faster than a Twitt, Maxthon super plugin developer Neo101, created this cool Twitter toolbar for Maxthon 2.0 The toolbar enables you to post to Twitter straight from Maxthon. Add me as your friend.


Technorati Tags: Twitter, Maxthon, Maxthon 2.0

Track BitTorrent Swarm in Google Earth

This is quite cool. By using the swarm plugin for Google Earth you can look up the BitTorrent client that is used by each peer, what percentage of the file they downloaded so far, and their exact location. The only thing is that now it only shows seeds for torrents that contain the word "Borat"... I guess that more useful words are on the way.

If this could track all p2p traffic in China - you wouldn't see any thing on the map except pins.. Via TorrentFreak.

Technorati Tags: BitTorrent, Borat, Google Earth, p2p, peer-to-peer, mp3, mashups, Swarm, Torrents, tracking