Le Web Decompression
December 11th, 2009 
Business, Social Media, Video 
Paul Fayngersh
We (Paul and Mark) just spent two days @ Le Web in Paris and had a fantastic time. The conference was incredibly well organized and kudos to both Geraldine and Loic Le Meur (founder of Seesmic and one of France’s most influential tech bloggers) for doing such a fantastic job.
We had the opportunity to meet interesting people, network with industry leaders, hear inspirational talks (and not so inspirational ones), and rekindle some of our energy/enthusiasm about the future of the web and 2010 in general. It was surely a nice antidote for entrepreneurial burnout. Off course, some truly great food and wine and simply enjoying the beautiful City of Light doesn’t hurt either.
A lot has been written about Le Web 09 already and we don’t want to simply recycle content, but rather offer a few highlights of our personal experience:
Twitter and Square
First off, we heard the term Twitter a bit too much, but that’s not surprising. Not only was it spoken about constantly (especially rumors about a Google purchase), but it seemed like everyone were on Twitter compulsively every spare second they had. The conference started out with Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, presenting his newest venture: Square. Square is a small hardware attachment for the iPhone that allows users to accept credit card payments directly in person. It looks very promising and using the headphone jack plug is a creative solution. The application’s interface seems incredibly intuitive and quite beautiful, and will likely be a hit. We also had an opportunity to watch Jack demo Square close up at a reception thrown by the Mayor at the Paris City Hall:
Russia roundtable
With:
Sasha Galitsky (Almaz Capital Partners)
Bernard Lukey (CEO, OXON.ru)
Edward Shendorovich (Managing Director, Kite Ventures)
Arkady Volozh (CEO, Yandex)
The Russia roundtable was of course especially interesting for us. The discussion was both broad and in-depth, covering topics such as Russian innovation, startup culture, search (specifically Yandex), venture investment, ecommerce (why it is failing), and what is in store for the future. The single most salient question that permeated all discussion was the paradox of a high-tech, relatively wealthy country not really developing Internet technologies on par with the rest of Western Europe and Asia. Again, Russia falls into its strange neither-here-nor-there conundrum, an existential dilemma that has defined the country since the Slavophiles and Westernizers went at it in the beginning of the 19th century. Clearly, the largest problem is not talent, but a complete lack of a startup culture or any institutional support. Taking risks, experimentation, “doing your own thing” – these are not very highly regarded in Russia and especially not in the Russian business world. So even though so much raw talent is there, and even some true innovation (for example, Yandex was in search before Google), it will require a significant cultural shift for Russia to develop the sort of atmosphere that makes Western startup hubs so successful.
It was also agreed that there is LOTS of opportunity remaining in Russia and a lot of room for growth. Take one significant example: online shopping. Currently this is suffering because of a) the terrible, unreliable postal system b) the commonplace cash-on-delivery payment method and c) peoples’ general distrust of digital commerce. All three are inevitably going to evolve – probably quite soon – leaving a ton of possibilities for developing online retail solutions. We are excited and will be keeping our eyes on future developments in the Motherland!
Startup competition
The startup competition was one of our favorites aspects of the whole conference. In our limited experience these are often really hit-or-miss though this year it appeared that all 16 companies had something real to offer. When the dust settled, Paris-based company Stribe took home the Gold. Stribe aims to provide an instantaneous social network on any site, helping companies foster conversations around their product/brand/etc. directly on their site. What’s interesting is that just before the ceremony, at the Brand Roundtable moderated by Chris Brogan, one of the key conclusions that arose from the discussion was that brands must mediate conversations directly where customers are visiting them – aka, their websites. Providing an accessible channel for customers to converse will become a priority that will separate companies open to the future, who will thrive in the new economy, versus closed off companies that will become less relevant. Stribe solves this problem with seeming aplomb.
The Silver prize went to TigerLily, another local (French) startup also operating in a similar domain. TigerLily basically pimps Facebook fan pages. Controlling and modifying the page seams extremely simple and they really did a polished job with the entire interface. The value is obvious and the improvements upon Facebook’s own capabilities are inevitable, though it is a bit sad to see the site veer away from the clean, minimalist, egalitarian aesthetic towards the realm of MySpace cacophony.
The Bronze prize went to CloudSplit, a Dublin-based startup that provides analytics to cloud computing customers. They’ve already received €100,000 of seed funding and are looking for $2M more. We don’t really know much about this industry, so all we can say is that CEO(?) Joe Drumgoole probably had the most confident, well-rehearsed, down-to-business pitch. 
A few other promising startups we would like to note and encourage readers to check out: Taskly, Hyperwords, Shutl, Mendeley, Runkeeper.
Finally, we’d like to thank Gary V for the inspirational talk and reminding us how much we miss New York! Hope to be back in Paris in 2010.
Tags: Business, Conference, LeWeb, Paris, Russia, Social Media, Square, Startups, Twitter, Video
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