to be or not to be

more blogs...

2006-05-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

Something is happening... I did not know much about blogs a few months ago (how was is possible ???) and now I see blogs anywhere, about any subjects. So I decided that it would probably be the subject of my "mémoire" for the Celsa.
It seems to be a new way, an alternative or informal way, to distribute information. Very interesting because for a journalist the blog is a medium that could help to cast a free and more personal speech. But at the same time, it set the problem of the legitimacy of a speech, if we consider that a paper or a media is legitimate.
I read a note of the afp about the Cannes festival and the explosion of blogs as if for the reporters blogs are a kind of way out to escape to a formal (tecnically and subjectivement) speech. As if they though "in my paper I can't write that I didn't like much "Marie-Antoinette" but in my blog, it would be easier".
Poor Marie-Antoinette, she seemed to be under a curse !
These are some tof the blogs I looked at :
Darren Waters, th BBC reporter, Thomas Sotinel and Jacques Mandelbaum from "Le Monde", Aurélien Ferenczi from Telerama, the reporters from "Time Out" (London), etc.

In a form of conclusion...

2006-05-11T00:42:00.000-07:00

How to get information ???
The Celsa was for me an opportunity to work with Wikipedia encyclopedia in french or in english. Before coming here to class I knew it exists but never worked with it because at RFI I had many other sources of information. But here, for new technologies Wikipedia is essential. I know we have to be carefull with some definitions but it's a great help for me.
For new technologies of information and internet I use Webopedia too and Comment ça marche.
In fact all my documentation in on line. I subscribe to many magazines on line like le Journal du Net.
But sometimes there are tecnical concepts that I don't understand (my culture is a print culture) and I usually ask my class fellows for some help. Most of them are much more clever than I am and they are helpfull.

M-Shopping
If M-shopping is mobile-shopping, i.e. the possibility to do your shopping with your mobile phone connecting directly with the shop, I shall have to accelerate my own habits cultural because I confess I never use even internet for diary shopping. So old fashion !
I read that m-shopping could be a revolution for advertising : walking on the street you pass by a shop that has promotions. It could send you a message to invite you to come in.
It will satisfy some of our "killer applications" principles.
-For example, it will ensure continuity for the customer : for the customer who use internet before, there will be no real change but continuity.
-It could change the interfaces to better ones may be
-Besides the customer is becoming more and more the only actor of its own consumption. He is physically alone.

Podcasting
I knew what podcasting was before coming to the Celsa, may be it was the only piece of new technology I knew !!!
I think it's very usefull when you don't have time to listen quietly to the radio. You can listen to your favorite programmes whenever and wherever you want.
What I discovered with the work we did together is that there is a huge offer : before, when I though about podcasting I though about the programmes of radios like Radio-France or RFI. I realized than many people make their own podcast. I think I 'll continue to prospect this new media beacause I'm interested about web radios. May be one day I'll have my own radio !!!!

Class on line
I think there is not much diferences between a class on line and a class when the teacher is with us. We have interactivity with the teacher, with our fellows, with internet trying to find information on different sites.
But I think that there are tecnical limits : it is possible only with little groups of students and not with little pupils who need more the physical presence of the teacher.
In a live "before" I was a teacher (of geography and history) and I realized how teaching was sometimes similar to acting. You have to captivate your audience.

Applications of e-communication
All professions or activites are concerned by e-communication but I am just discovering it.

- In tourism (I like travelling) I discovered here in Celsa that tourism was changing a lot with the new technologies. We are doing a kind of evaluation of a Tour Operator (La Maison de la Chine) marketing strategy so I had to reed a lot about the tourism market and the new technologies there are used. For example what we call m-tourism : the possiblity to download on your mobile phone maps or informations about the place we're visiting.

- In journalism, the emergence of journalists blogs is an interesting way to give, to distribute a "non official" speech. Another evolution is the possibility you'll have to choose your information according to your favorite topics : you only need commercial or financial information and you just download on your mobile phone or pda the articles about these subjects. I think that it's a way to save time going directly to the information you need but I think also that it is necessary that general newspapers exist because we all need a general background about the world we live in.
In journalism again, and I'm thinking about RFI where I worked and which is a peculiar radio with a lot of correspondants abroad. Most of them feel sometimes very lonely and in difficult conditions because of the political situation of the countries where they work. I think it will be helpfull for them to have a regular meeting like who are having these days with the information directory. Every week if necessary especially for those who live in bad conditions.

- Another profession is "artist" like a painter. To make his or her work know, he or she can use the web : a blog, a personal site to show some of his paintings, the galleries where he 'd exposed, personnal datas, etc.
I'm trying to convince a friend of mine, a photographer to make her own blog. She has a lot of talent (especially in portraits) and would like to live from her art but it's difficult to get contacts from gallery for example.

Students blogs.
I think it's helpfull ! After our first exam I had a look to the blog you recomended to find definition and information. At the beginning of our class, when I saw that some of them had photos on their blogs I try to download pictures too to improve my blog, to make it nicer. I though I won't be able to do it but I was successful.
So my fellows' blogs are at the same time a way to inform me and an incentive to improve mine ! It's quite a stimulation !

My first experience of e-learning...

2006-05-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

.... I confess I did not know how to adjust the volume !!! ...

If I would have to give a definition of e-learning I would say that it is a way of learning using the tools of new technologies (computers + communications) like we did on tuesday.
It is different to distant learning precisely because these tools suppose and permit interactivity. We should learn using the radio programmes (all the international radios have lenguage lessons), cd-rom or dvd but they are not interactive tools.
Email, forums, collaborative tools could be tools of e-learning too. I red than cell phones, pdas should be providers too (M-learning).

Personaly, I need interactivity. Distant learning is not adapted to me. E-learning is not, to my opinion, so diferent than a "clasical" way to teach with the teacher in the same classroom. The teacher or your fellows are "somewhere" and you can comunicate, share doubts and experiences with them.

I have not enough experience of this method to have an opinion about how ot improve the class. I think it depends of the relation the student has with these technologies. It's obvious that it will be easier next year and even more within two years because for the students using this kind of technology will be a no-brainer, so natural. Just a question of time !

Some more examples of e-vocabulary and concepts

2006-05-09T01:06:00.000-07:00

some new concepts of e-culture

beginning with easy concepts to understand...

-click and mortar company
a c-&-m company is a company that has an activity both on the web and in a shop. It's at the same time virtual and real. An example is Air-France

-pure dot.com company
following the concept above, it's a click company. It has no shop. I found an example in the Journal du net : capvert.tv. The boss of the company explains that she decided not to rent an office any more because it was a waste of money. Her employees prefer to work at home. They communicate by msn or mail. The company is an internet advice service.

-monetize an internet model
When you have a good service at the beginning you share it freely but in a second times you sell it. It could be a strategical tactic : you invite people to a new, efficient and free service and when they get used to it, you, as a wily manager, decide to sell your product. It could happen tomorrow for many services like maps, weather, and so on.

two more concepts quite easy to explain too...

-intellectual property
When you invent or produce something (product, service, art) you get rights to sell or to make capital out of your invention or creation. You are the owner of your invention so you get an intellectual property which is protected by law.
For example there was a debate in France, in parliament these last weeks about the protection of intellectual property in internet. In Internet it's quite easy to copy music and films.
I think that creators and inventors might live and live well with their creations. So it is necessary to protect the rights of the creators so that they could live decently and carry on creating.
The question is the way they distribute their creations. If internet is the only way, they have to be paid. If internet is a secondary way of distribution we could imagine it would be free so that the greatest number of people could enjoy it.

-DRM or digital rights management
the DRM is a technology "used to enforce pre-defined policies controlling access to software, music, movies, or other digital data and hardware. In more technical terms, DRM handles the description, layering, analysis, valuation, trading, monitoring and enforcement of the usage restrictions that accompany a specific instance of a digital work".
The definition comes from Wikipedia. It is a technology that protects from copying.

now, talking about medias...

-TIVO
I did not know what it was so I looked on Wikepedia for a definition and I found a "popular video recorder".
You can record your favorite programs not in video tapes like a "magnetoscope" would do but directly inside your TV : TiVo records television programs to an internal hard drive. You just have to select your program once and then Tivo would understand that every day or every week it would have to record the new episodes. "You didn't know there was an episode of your favorite show Friday instead of its usual Wednesday slow. That's ok, TiVo knows. Even when not recording something for you, TiVo keeps a live buffer of 30 minutes so you can pause live TV to answer the door or take a phone call. The instant replay button jumps backwards 8 seconds giving you a chance to rehear missed dialog or you can rewind to see that winning touchdown pass again without waiting for the network guys to run a replay".
So it's much better than a magnetoscope, much more reactive. That's the way Tivo.com presents the product.
There are fans of Tivo who share informations and opinions in a forum in Tivo.community.
I found a funny message from Andy. It's funny because he speaks about Tivo as if it were a person : "My upgraded Tivo died a death recently and I would like to make it a single disk version as I have no idea about divorcing/marrying drives together...". Tivo may become like another member of the family.
I don't know if it exists in France, may be but I did not find anything about it in french !

-Time shifting. In tv, "Time shifting is the recording of television shows to some storage medium (tv, magnetoscope, VPC, mp3...) to be viewed at a time more convenient to the consumer.
I found an application of time shifting on video : an application which help you to program the downloading of your favorite programme.
Another application of time shifting could be a radio podcast.

-pay-on-demand-tv. It is a new service that offer you to pay to view a film or a TV entertainment you can choose or on a special network (cable) or on internet. I found examples on internet : Howard Stern or Roo-TV. This one proposes you to download entertainment programs, music, news, etc.

-streaming media. A radio usually proposes to listen to its program in a streaming way : It means that you consume the program (read, heard, viewed) while it is being delivered. On internet the medias are distributed in a streaming way or in a non-streaming way (podcast, books, video cassettes, audio CDs). BBC has such a service.

-podcasting is the opposite of streaming. The radio or the tv have programs that you can download on your mobil device or your computer (epod, mp3 key) to listen to them whenever and wherever you want. I found a nice podcast of scottish music called "tartanpodcast"
(the scottish music independant scene)

Who is Eula ?

-EULA or "end user licensing agreement". It's a software licence that allows you to use this material.
Webopedia definition is : "An EULA is a legal contract between the manufacturer and/or the author and the end user of an application. The EULA details how the software can and cannot be used and any restrictions that the manufacturer imposes (e.g., most EULA’s of proprietary software prohibit the user from sharing the software with anyone else)."
When you download a program from internet you always have to answer to a question about the license. You, as the final user, have to read and to accept the terms of the licence.

and what about marketing strategy... ?

-a longtail marketing strategy. I found a definition in Elanceur.com, Thanks to Mister Chris Anderson we know now what a longtail strategy is and the example the site gives is precisely related with books : Internet is a good tool to sell products that do not concern a lot of people.
In a general book store it would be economically non profitable to sell rare or uncommon books, because there are a "niche" demand and it is expensive to manage a big stock. A general store can't have a huge range of products.
On the other hand, internet is a solution because you don't need to have any stock. On internet you can federate many niche markets.
The "Da Vinci Code" do not need a longtail marketing strategy because it is a best seller. A book seller would sell a lot of exemplaries. May be in a hundred years...

How a killer App is a way of redefining the Interior ?

2006-05-04T03:27:00.000-07:00

Redefining the Interior

It means changing the way you "apprehend" the world.

Treating your assets like liabilities which means that the purpose of an entreprise is to reduce costs and internet is a ggod tool for that... So things that could appear as assets like a wonderful store on the Champs Elysées are becoming with e-culture a liability because it represents o lot of improductive money (ex. FNAC).

Destroy your value chain
you can modificate the chain suppressing one segment. Fo example e-market doesn't suppose the existence of a retailer. There are no more go-betweens. The customer buys directly to the producer or to the wholesaler (ex. Directproducteur).

Manage innovation as a portfolio of options
Innovation gives you the opportunity of developping new strategies, for example you can sell things in your boutique or on internet, like the Naturalia shops.

Hire the children
The children are very clever using electronic medias. So it is important to connect with them so that they will be tomorrow's consumers.

How a killer App reshapes the landscape of e-marker ?

2006-05-04T03:25:00.000-07:00

The way it reshapes the Landscape of e-market could be :
outsourcing the customer. It means that the consumer becomes the actor number one of any operation. There is no more go-between. For example, I don't need to go to La Poste now to make any financial operation. I can do everything on my computer. Another example could be the train tickets I buy and print myself.

cannibalizing the market. Hen say that a firm or a service cannibilize its own market when it gives a free service when it should (and sometimes is at the same time) be paid. For example the newspapers on internet. Why should we pay for Le Monde when we could read the information on their internet pages ?

Treating each customer as a market segment of one. The sncf is once again a good example. When I connect myself to buy a ticket I don't have to give many informations about me beacause as I am a regular customer, it "recognize" may name and adress.

Creating communities of value. When you buy something, the e-store proposes you to buy another book or cd because : it happens in Fnac.com."You bought this book so we recomend you this one. People who bought the same book usually got this one. You should like it".

how the killer app allow building new connections

2006-05-04T03:23:00.000-07:00

Building new connections

Replacing rude interface with learning interfaces. If I take the example of La Poste once again, it means that I won't have to wait and queue up any more. My new interface is the new e-service the bank proposes to me.

Ensuring continuity for the customer, not yourself. You must be careful not to frighten the customer so it's important that there is no rupture in his habits. The uses should be near the uses that he was used before. I think that La poste for example didn't get very successful in the way it changed their customers users. Their internet pages is not very easy to use.

Giving away as much information as you can.

Structure every transaction as a joint venture. To sell something, it's better to have a net ; we took the example of the Tupperware meeting at class. Besides, you could become a seller yourself.

What is a killer Application ?

2006-05-03T13:22:00.001-07:00

A killer App is a successfull application.
More than that, we could say that it is so successfull that it grow on to became the only way to get or do something on the web. We took the example of the MP3 : the cd was a killer app of the tape and the MP3 is becoming the killer app of the cd ousting it.
A killer App has many ways to impose itself
- Reshaping the landscape
- building new connections
Both things suppose to modificate the way the consumer/customer acts

Let's weigh anchor !

2006-04-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Let's weigh anchor together...
My first podcast ! I dedicated it to the sea, open the window, breath deeeeeeply...

I had an appointment with Ellen Mac Arthur, do you remember her, but she 's preparing her new boat for a new challenge (an asian tour) so we shall meet her on our next podcast...

the blog I recomend you in the podcast is : liensdemer
Music : Paolo Conte "La mer"

And don't forget, I'm waiting for your suggestions and comentaries ! My e-mail...

interdependance

2006-04-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

Internet is a good tool to connect people and to create virtual communities : leisures, hobbies, passions... you can share every thing you like.
I red internet played an important paper in organizing the latinos "boycott day" on the 1st may in the US. The fact is that there are many blogs (like Vivir latino which proposes many links with latinos blogs) that organized debates about the boycott. Another example is the MAPA, the Mexican American political organization, or Polizeros.

It is a good way to exchange informations for people who have a specifical problem. I'm thinking about a friend of mine who has a health problem and uses internet to get information, to share experiences (blog) and to fight his lonelyness (health). Usually they have a forum and chat sessions.

Another example, more funny, the Wallace and Gromit fan club on Yahoo...

e-vocabulary

2006-04-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

Ten words of e-vocabulary :
- file (dossier)
- download (télécharger)
- tab (onglet, dérivé des tabs du "keyboard" le clavier)
- portal
- to rip a cd
- a search engine // a web browser (to browse = what the cow do when it eats)
- a keyword
- a spam filter
- a hoax
- links//hyperlinks : linking and creating pages ...
- dot... that' the "point", and a relative expression, the "dot-com bubble". Another one, a dot-com start up...
- up to date : not exactly a e-word, it can be used for every information or data, but as we saw last week the information on the web is particuliarly impermanent

dansez maintenant !

2006-04-25T00:29:00.000-07:00

Salsa and gavotte !
A musical site I recomend because I like the musicians who did it, la bande à Lubat, they have so much fun playing that you enjoy yourself listening ang seeing them playing. Listen to the Radio Télé-UZ !!! The best french jazz musicians played there.

my podcasts

2006-04-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, my podcats were very traditional ... Bybye Radio-France !
I tried to get some more to present to the class and I found a podcast with a very nice scottish accent... : Tartanpodcast dedicated to the scottish independant music scene !

What about e-generosity ???

2006-04-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

Taking the example of Google what coud we say about e-generosity ?
I know that the the philosophy of the creators of Google was to create a system which permit to share information freely. And we can say they were very successfull. Now Google is the most famous search engine, number one in Great Britain I red yesterday and I suppose in France and in the United States too and a very profitable business and "le journal du net" wrote a few days ago .
The fact is that now Google has more references (8 billions url addresses !) than any others because everybody use it. That's the story of the hen and the egg. Which one came first ?
Last week, I didn't undestand the question we had to answer so I the exercice again.
So, for me, examples of e-generosity could be :

google earth I know that it is not a real example because it's Google's baby. But I really like this application, it's like travelling without spending money ! You can imagine landscapes, how people live, etc. I put this example because, for me, the fact that Google provides this service freely means that despite it's economical success it has not (completely) lost its ethic.

Wikipedia... of course. I suppose that we all give this example because as "students", we are all users and fans of Wikipedia. The philosophy of this "Free Encyclopedia" is really remarkable and a great exemple of what internet is ans should be more and more : collaborative and shared culture.

Very different... when I need holidays or just some fresh air, I go to the sea with this blog. I don't know who did it, just that it is opened and that you can collaborate. There is very little advertizing, nice photos and lots of information for people like me who are found of sailing, fishing (just shrimps !) and "grand air"...

Public services ,a very useful, and free of course (although we pay it with the taxes !), a public service with lots of information and advices. That's not exactly an example of "e-generosity" but more precisely a tool of "e-free-service"...

I'm very fond of history and geography and I found a very useful anf free site : Atlas du monde
A lot of information and not many advertizing. Besides the advertizing is for other sites like Wikipedia or l'Histoire en ligne, which are good too.

how could be defined e-culture ?

2006-04-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

e-culture could be characterized by :

-impermanence : most information has a very short lifetime
The home pages of most sites change every day. More than that, is a site is too static, it means that it is not put up to date... That looks bad !
We can take the examples of the home pages of wanadoo, google, etc.
One of the effects is that a non dated information is most of the time a useless and unavailing information. At RFI, searching information for a paper, we always have to check the date (and the source) of an information.
other examples : media (France Info) , rss like Alertinfo

-transparency
Now it is easier to check information about administrations, business... because they have to publish it on the net. Why do they have to do so ? Because if they don't, some one else could publish this information, or another information... even an uncontrolled one.
Better do it yourself.
Besides there many sites which purpose is to act as "counter-powers" (????), alternatives.
examples : the "official" media and the site "Observatoire des medias/Acrimed" which is critical about their methods and professionnal practises.
Another example could be the bloges which are perfect "counter-powers". One we heard much about during the manifestations in the suburbs last year was the blog of Bondy and the history goes on : the swiss journalists formed young pepole of Bondy to carry on the experiment and now they are the journalists.
Now each site may have its opposite.

-it invites us to open our minds
e-culture could be an opportunity to change our habits. For exemple, as I am a very traditional, "oldfashioned" consumer, it could be using services like Fnac.com or e-Bay
I started my own little revolution buying plane tickets or train tickets. Normally I use sncf.com service. I think that step by step I would use more these services.

-it changes our relation with the time
the web is the best medium to save time. I can take once again the example of the train ticket. Now I can edit my train reservation at home. I could do my shopping too.
And how else could you connect or inform so many people at the same time ?
e mails (hotmail) and msn could examples : you organize a party for your birthday. The best way to inform quickly your friends is to send them a mail...
and for business of course : to inform about a new product, a new service, the web pages or a news letter are very effective.