Hello everyone, if your wireless drops or if you do not have a laptop just use your smart phone. The mobile site has a useful interface to view the schedule by day and by track.

I am hosting a BOF in room 206 at 4:15pm today, Monday to present how we created the mobile version of the DrupalCon website. The mobile version will automatically load for all webkit based smart phones.

The music identification app Shazam was one of the first must-have apps for the iPhone. Today, the company released one of the biggest updates in the app's history. Shazam for iPhone and iPod touch now sports an updated interface and support for fast-app switching in iOS4. The app now also features a new focus on music discovery outside of tagging. The new "Shazam Charts" highlight the most often tagged songs from 20 countries. Most importantly, though, the app now features an option that starts the music tagging feature immediately after opening the app without the need to click a single button.

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Today's upgrades are available for the free version of Shazam (limited to 5 tags per month) and the paid version (Shazam Encore). The (Product) RED version will get these upgrades soon.

According to Shazam's CEO Andrew Fisher, the service now has 20 million users on the iOS platform (up from 15 million in October). As usual, it is hard to pinpoint how many of these are active users, but there can be little doubt that Shazam is one of the iPhone app ecosystem's biggest success stories. Earlier this year, Fisher told TechRadar.com that Shazam was identifying about 2 million songs per day and that it was selling roughly 160,000 tracks daily. Now, with a significantly larger user base, chances are that these numbers are even higher.

Discuss

While the Bank of America has partnered up with Visa to begin testing out mobile payments later this month, analyst firm Forrester says one big question remains - are consumers ready to ditch their plastic?

According to Forrester analyst Emmet Higdon, the test is less one of the technology involved, but the user interface and whether or not "consumers' current love affair with smartphones is enough to change card payment behaviors that date back more than 50 years."

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The mobile-payments trial run involves equipping a group of users' phones with near field communications (NFC) technology, which currently does not come installed, but we expect to see as a pre-installed feature in the near future. NFC makes

To make any headway, writes Higdon, "banks need to convince customers that using a mobile wallet can be as simple and convenient as swiping a plastic card". Beyond that, companies would also need to ensure security and privacy, "as well as competitive issues regarding control of the mobile wallet application itself - before any broad consumer rollout could be contemplated."

Perhaps, though, mobile payments aren't entirely about the transaction itself, but the whole experience. Online payment systems could make it much simpler to transfer funds and to put limits on spending, features that might not be available for credit or debit cards. There's also the issue of security. A recent episode of NPR's On The Media discussed mobile payment systems and related how they can actually be more, not less, secure than cash. For workers in South Africa, the story went, everyone would get paid on the same day and often, returning home from work could be a scary time, as the chances of getting mugged were higher. Therefore, getting paid virtually rather than physically, was actually safer. Another possibility is that NFC could replace plastic in locations where completing credit card transactions become difficult, though mobile credit card solutions are becoming increasingly common.

According to Higdon, nearly 50% of iPhone users are interested in mobile payments. Are you one of them? And if so, why, because we can't imagine that the debit card in your pocket is taking up too much room. What is the value added by mobile payments?

Discuss

Gov 2.0 advocates have printed a run of QR (2D barcode) stickers they will stick at bus stops all over Washington DC today, allowing mobile phone users to quickly get up-to-the moment bus progress reports, post traffic status updates, and more. This augmentation of the physical world with real-time data from the ether strikes me as accessible and useful. The project was one of many ideas discussed at DCWeek this June and is being implemented by the Research and Development group in Office of the CTO, DC Government (on Twitter: OCTOLabs).

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O'Reilly's Gov 2.0 correspondent Alex Howard shared a link to this photo on Twitter this morning. Smart phone users will use QR reading apps to snap a picture of the codes, then their phones will be shown relevant real-time information corresponding to the bus stop they are at. (That makes more sense to me than NYC's new QR codes on the back of garbage trucks, but hey - they point is, these things are growing more mainstream in the US.)

Here in my home town of Portland, Oregon, the ability to check "time-to-arrival" for busses by phone is much appreciated. Augmenting that kind of data with a richer experience, launched by QR code, sounds great. Santiago, Chile added similar QR codes to 4,000 of its bus stops this Summer.

"See" also this audio interview earlier this week with Bryan Sivak,
Chief Technology Officer at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) in the District of Columbia.

Below: US interest in QR Codes, as expressed by Google search queries, has shot up fast. Google Trends info via UK QR news blog 2d Code. Discuss

Montreal-based entrepreneur and blogger Ben Yoskovitz knows a thing or two about hiring employees at startups. Yoskovitz formerly founded his own company, Standout Jobs - a tool designed to improve hiring and recruiting techniques for small businesses on the Web. Needless to say, the hiring and performance tracking of employees at the SMB level is a topic of interest for Yoskovitz. One of the items he recently wrote about is whether startups should hire workaholics expected to work 80+ hours each week, and some interesting arguments against this doctrine emerged.

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"You have to hire people who are passionate about the business. If they're not passionate, they'll fail you. If they are passionate but lazy they'll fail you."
- Ben YoskovitzThe startup ecosystem has long accepted the "all day, every day" methodology toward building a company, especially at the early stages. When you think you have a great idea you don't want to stop working on it, and young entrepreneurs will work during every spare moment to hasten the progress of their idea. That's great, and many successful entrepreneurs have done just that, but should that translate to your employees once you begin expanding?

Yoskovitz argues that a startup shouldn't be hiring and measuring their employees based on the number of hours they work. The only thing "hours worked" is a good indicator of is just that - how much time they put into whatever it is they were doing, he says.

"I'm not even sure it's a great measurement of passion (which is an essential quality you need to look for in startup employees.) It could just be that the guy is slow, so he works more hours," writes Yoskovitz. "We need to think about other measurable indicators of an employee's quality and value.

In a post about hiring workaholics at startups, Yoskovitz reiterates this point, stating that passion and work ethic are far more valuable than simply the number of hours the person is willing to commit.

"You have to hire people who are passionate about the business. If they're not passionate, they'll fail you. If they are passionate but lazy they'll fail you," he says. "They need to have a strong work ethic, a sense of responsibility (to you, their peers & the business) and they need to be passionate."

Startups are a unique beast. They are not normal jobs. Anyone applying to work at a startup knows that they will not clock-in and out at the same time each day. That said, it would also behoove startups to look beyond a person's time commitment when evaluating potential and current employees. Just remember that 5 hours of concentrated hard work always trumps 20 hours of lazy work devoid of passion.

How many hours a day do you think employees should be working at a startup? Or do you agree in Yoskovitz's "hours, schmours" argument? What are the best new ways to gauge your employees work performance? Let us know in the comments below!

Discuss

Six Apart is shutting down its Vox blogging service. Users have until Sept. 30 to export their data to other services, including Six Apart’s TypePad blogging service. After that, Vox will be gone.

If you’ve got a Vox blog, there are several export options — Six Apart has instructions for moving to TypePad, Posterous and WordPress. There’s also an option to move your photos and videos over to Flickr.

Of course none of those services quite combine the privacy and small social network features that endeared Vox to users, but at least you can retrieve your content in some form.

The export options also make no mention of the fact that Vox is an OpenID provider, which means that, presumably, when your Vox URL is gone, your OpenID is gone with it. That means any site you’ve signed into using your Vox account will no longer let you sign in. In some cases that could mean a total loss of access to the third-party site — exactly the sort of thing OpenID is supposed to help prevent.

If there’s a moral to Vox shutting down, it’s pretty simple: choose your OpenID provider with care. It would seem that the bigger the provider, the safer you are. Alternately you could be your own OpenID provider, ensuring that you retain control over your identity.

Six Apart’s blog does not give any reason for the shutdown, and the company did not respond to requests to comment on this story. However, it seems likely that Vox was simply supplanted by Facebook, Twitter and other, more popular means of sharing content with your web friends.

The social network landscape has also changed considerably since Vox launched in 2006. Much of the initial appeal of Vox — namely, its tightly controlled privacy — is less of a concern for many of today’s users.

This article originally appeared on Webmonkey, Wired’s site for all things web development, browsers, and web apps. Follow Webmonkey on Twitter.

See Also:

• New ‘OpenID Connect’ Proposal Could Solve Many of the Social Web’s Woes
• To See How OpenID Can Work Well, Look at Stack Overflow
• Be Your Own Open ID Provider

Have you ever wanted to walk into a building and be automatically checked into Foursquare, without any action on your part? That's the promise of an intriguing DIY project from electronic engineering hobbyist, Casey Halverson. He has come up with a low-cost solution that involves a Nike+ sensor, a $25 breakout board and a Web service called Stumble.to that watches for electronic devices, then automatically checks you into your favorite places via Foursquare and other location-based social networking services.

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Every so often, we like to feature a "weekend project" here on ReadWriteWeb. These generally consist of the kind of things you'll want to try out and play with when you have some free time, like over the weekend! None of our projects to date have been quite this involved, but it's a holiday weekend here in the U.S. - and doesn't building an automatic Foursquare check-in system beat eating hot dogs at a cookout? We think so.

If you have a few hours this weekend, you can build this automatic Foursquare check-in system yourself, with very little upfront investment. If the idea sounds appealing, but you're not sure if you have the skills needed to make this happen, don't worry - the hardware may soon be available for purchase alongside re-modded sensors that dangle on your keychain.

Materials

To get started, you'll need the following materials:

• A Nike+ sensor: If you don't already have a Nike+ sensor, you can pick one up by locating the nearest store that sells Nike gear using the company website. Sensors are sold either with a pair of running shoes or along with the Nike+ sportsband. (If you don't have a sensor on hand, you can still do this. Stumble.to's service can register Wi-Fi clients via MAC addresses, too.)
• A USB+iPod Serial Adapter: This $25 breakout board (available here from Sparkfun Electronics) sends and receives commands to the receiver and listens for individual foot pods. Your local electronics hobbyist shop may carry something similar.
• A computer

Accounts

• Obviously, you'll need a Foursquare account. (Twitter check-ins and Fire Eagle are also supported.)
• Secondly, you need to register an account with Stumble.to and obtain an API key.

Software

• Python
• PySerial
• The shoe-agent Python script (direct download): This is the script that connects the Nike+ sensor to the Stumble.to software.

Just Do It!

Once you have all the components in place, here's how to get started:

1. Install Python and PySerial
2. Plug in the serial adapter.
3. Obtain your API key from Stumble.to
4. Edit the shoe-agent script with your API key information and specify the serial port your USB adapter appears as.

That's it! Halverson is working on a more detailed how-to guide, so stay tuned to his blog for an update on that, if you need further details.

Garage Project to Become Commercial Success?

Although the above guide is meant for electronic hobbyists who want to have a little fun with Foursquare and hardware sensors, this DIY "garage project" may end up leading to commercial success for those invovled. Halverson says he's thinking now about how he could build a different type of sensor, like one that hangs on your keychain, for example, instead one that sits in your shoe or pocket. The new sensor could be thinner and lighter or maybe have an on and off switch that would register your check-ins automatically when on while still allowing an easy way to go off the grid when needed.

The Stumble.to Web service created by Eric Butler and Ian Gallagher has incredible potential as well. Although it only works with Foursquare, Fire Eagle and Twitter for the moment, additional services like Facebook Places, Gowalla and other check in-based social networks can and will be added in the future. Stumble.to essentially works as a middleman between hardware devices and location-based networks. It works with sensors, but also with Wi-Fi clients like laptops and smartphones that register their MAC addresses with the service.

Bringing Check-Ins to Non-Smartphone Users with Low-Cost Sensors

In reality, this project isn't all that different from the system created by mobile check-in service Shopkick, but with cross-platform appeal. Shopkick, now available as a mobile application for smartphones, offers deals to users who check in at popular retail establishments like Best Buy and Macy's. However, it forces the venue to install the company's proprietary hardware to verify that the check-ins come from people who are actually in the store. It also requires a smartphone.

Using low-cost components at the venue level and short-range sensors like the one from Nike+ offers the same benefits but without excluding users who prefer using other location-based services... or even those who don't own smartphones! A sensor combined with an online account at Facebook, Foursquare or another site could engage feature phone users who want to participate in this hot, new check-in game, but can't install mobile applications on their phone.

For the end user, the experience could be simple: it would only be a matter of registering an account with Stumble.to and associating their preferred services with their keychain sensor. Afterwards, they could continue to enjoy the features of location-based apps, like the discounts, mobile coupons, tips, reviews and other rewards, without having to actually having to perform a manual check-in on their phone.

Another interesting side note: Stumble.to has a "check out" feature too, meaning it can calculate the time you spend at a venue. Although no location-based service tracks this metric today, it could be implemented in future iterations to discourage the so-called drive-by check-ins (those where the user checks in as they pass a venue, often while driving, in order to get the points or rewards in a given location-based game like Foursquare). A service could perhaps dole out more points or better rewards to those who actually stayed put for awhile instead of those who were just cruising by.

What Do You Think?

Whether you geek out on the DIY project or want to wait for a commercially available system, you can see there are clear advantages to automated, hardware-based check-in services. Whether or not companies like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and others will actually want users to skip using their apps in favor of automation is another matter entirely, though. Some smaller services may be dependent on in-app ads for example, or links posted by their users that drive traffic to company homepages. Automation would have an effect on how the services could be effectively monetized, and that's something they will need to consider thoughtfully before embracing a system like this.

But that's just them. We think it's awesome - what about you?

Discuss

On Monday we asked you about the workplace of the future - today, it's time to take a look at your comments. The biggest theme was remote work - several of you expect the workplace to be increasingly virtualized. Others suggested a few problems with this idea. "Swarming," as Gartner called it, was also seen as important - for better or worse. And could the workplace start to be more of a "FunPlace"?

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CitizenSpace in San Francisco. Is this what the future of the workplace looks like?

Remote Control

The first commenter, Martin, kicked it off by saying "People will just work from home. Homes will be built with cabinets, or people will buy wooden modeules and install them in their gardens. Commuting, and paying rents for office space just does not scale."

Many people echoed that sentiment. One reader suggested companies could give "work from home" bonuses to employees. And although there are many jobs that just can't done from home - like road construction, emergency room staff and delivery - there's obviously a huge interest in telecommuting. According to telework web site Undress for Success 40% of workers have jobs that can be done from home (it's not clear if that's just in the US or if it's both the US and Japan).

Of course, there are a few problems with this idea. Jackie Thorpe Ewing commented:

I don't believe all workers will work from home. Some folks just cannot function that way. They need the routine of getting somewhere and doing something specific. Those folks are necessary to the future work place. If everyone works remotely, where is the synergy, where is the idea bouncing. Humans need the contact to liberate ideas. Video conference, Skype - they cannot replace human interaction.

While many of the tasks can certainly be done remotely, I believe there will always be a need for face-to-face communication on some level.

I think that's a pretty common sentiment - one that has enabled the rise of co-working spaces such as Citizen Space in San Francisco and NedSpace in Portland. These sorts of spaces are popular among freelancers and startups - are there many people working for large organizations utilizing these types of spaces?

Another draw back pointed out by one commenter:

Everyone seems so convinced telecommuting will be the predominant mode of working. I can tell you as a manager, I just don't trust the productivity levels for when people work from home, and I know our CEO agrees with that. So, yes, cost-wise and time-wise, it is inefficient for society, productivity-wise, it's not.

So I don't think the percentage of telecommuting increases from here. Has anyone seen stats on it over the past couple of decades? It would be interesting to see if it has plateaued.

Looking at the stats on Undress for Success, it appears that the rates of telecommuting have been going up, with growth having slowed down between 2006-2008 - but they don't have more recent data up.

Personally, I think results based compensation will also become more common as organizations try to squeeze as much ROI out of employees as possible and replace full time, salaried employees with contractors. On the other hand, I think people have been predicting this since at least 1984 when the first edition of The Way of the Ronin was released (and I wouldn't be surprised is Alvin Toffler or Peter Drucker were talking it even earlier).

Drone Swarms

Autom Tagsa wrote us by e-mail to say:

As the recession ensues, work force headcount becomes a critical factor in ensuring healthy bottom lines. What we may see evident in the immediate is a temporary deconstruction of traditional work roles and profiles, wherein the "leaner team" is composed of workers each wearing multiple hats and becoming quite adept at performing tasks outside of their core competencies partly as a result of 'swarmed' initiatives (per Gartner) and spontaneous, autonomous work habits. The long-term impact of this trend may yield a more knowledgeable workforce constantly aggregating and fine tuning skills as a function of the need to truly multitask efficiently.

Insects are specialists, so I'm not sure if the "swarm" metaphor applies well. On the one hand, more generalist work sounds appealing. On the other, it sounds like an extraordinary amount of additional pressure for each employee.

Someone at BarCamp Portland 2009 suggested that business process outsourcing could be taken to its logical extreme: literally outsourcing entire companies. Teams of employees would work together juggling projects for multiple companies.

On Brighter Note

Jeff Walters shared a more optimistic view of swarming, suggesting that the practice will transform workplaces into FunPlaces as workers use social media to connect and engage in work that's more meaningful to them:

Example: A team working on how to improve the total experience for casino guests will come together in the casino to train, work, observe and then create a solution. They'll complete part of the solution elsewhere, of course, working from the team leader's shared "FunPlace" or home.

Example 2: A team working on a new distance learning app for university level studies will go to schools of students not yet in universities (high schools in the US), plus homes and communities where prospective students can be gathered to experience new forms of online education (a.k.a. = "games") that are engaging, effective and that simulate working in "FunPlaces."

Example 3: A team working on a new city development project will "camp" at the development site over the course of several days or weeks to live/design/architect the ideal 24x7 architecture and solution for a mixed use development (living, retail, "FunSpace," and entertainment).

Coming together physically will be for "fun" and physical/social connections or "workers" will find new gigs only a click away.

Discuss

Only 24 hours after the launch of Apple's new social network, Ping, the service has been overrun by spammers. The fraudsters have created iTunes profiles and are posting links to a number of online scams, including ones that promises "free iPhones" or "free iPads" in exchange for filling out online surveys. For the most part, these suspicious links are being posted in the comments sections of the most popular artists on Ping, like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, U2 and others, all of whom are among the recommended accounts linked to from the Ping homepage.

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As security expert Chester Wisniewski points out, Apple doesn't require a credit card or any other positive identification in order to establish an account on Ping, which itself is a part of newly launched iTunes 10. Doing so wouldn't be advisable, either, as it would lock out a lot of "credit card-less" kids, teens and young adults from using iTunes. There's actually quite a bit of free content available from the iTunes Store, from apps to music to video, allowing parents to feel comfortable in letting their children manage their own iTunes accounts without close supervision.

Given those lax sign-up requirements, however, it's somewhat surprising that Apple didn't build in a good spam filtration system into its social network, too. The types of links being posted now are what any halfway decent blog commenting system like Disqus or Echo would pick up automatically, or at least flag for review, especially since the posts contain links.

Although not mentioned by Wisniewski, we think the lack of attention to this security detail should have new Ping users concerned, or at least wary. If Ping's spam filter (assuming one even exits) doesn't block links to obvious online scams, how can we be sure it's blocking links of a more nefarious nature - like those to sites containing viruses, trojans or other phishing scams?

Where's the Spam Filter?

What's odd is that Apple is managing other aspects of the Ping network's security. User profile pictures have to be approved before becoming visible; we've yet to see blatantly offensive comments or posts, which seems to indicative some sort of filter; and, as the Apple-watching blog MacRumors notes, there is a "report activity" mechanism in place. Clicking the "report" link on any spammer's comment brings up a dialog box of choices such as "offensive comments," "inappropriate photo or video" and "spam."

But typically a report mechanism would be used to deal with the items the spam filter missed, not as the first line of attack. Due to the rampant nature of the spam - we've yet to see an artist profile not affected by this problem - that means that either Ping's spam filter needs major improvement or the report mechanism is the only spam filter Apple has.

We would ask Apple for comment on this, but they never return our calls. (Working in Apple PR must be a great, right?) So we'll just leave you with this warning instead: You can't get a free iPhone from filling out an online survey, OK? Don't click those links.

Discuss

Wow! Code-Free Drupal Layout with Skinr, Fusion and Panels has been my best launch of an ebook ever. Thanks to everyone that's already purchased their copy. I hope you're enjoying it so far. I made a special offer to my mailing list yesterday and it was so hugely popular that I thought I'd extend it to everyone else too.

Anyone that has purchased Code-Free Drupal Layout with Skinr, Fusion and Panels as of 11:59PM EST (Eastern Time..are we daylight or standard right now? I always get them mixed up.) Sunday September 5 will be eligible to attend a FREE one-hour Webinar next Wednesday. I'll run you through the content of the book. Show you the demo (and real) sites that were used to create the content and answer your questions. If you've already bought the ebook your name is already on the list for the Webinar and you'll get an email early next week with the sign-on details.

Not interested in spending your hard-earned $11.95 on an ebook? That's cool. You can learn a lot from these free resources too:

read more

As the cloud computing market gets more crowded, a number of Web-based calculators are popping up to lure customers.

These online calculators deserve their fair share of scrutiny. For the most part, they are there for the vendor to tell their own story in a way that shows the benefits of their service. Huge savings and incredible returns are pretty much what you are given when you pop in your numbers, requirements and company information. In the end, what you get is barely insightful. What the vendor gets is far more.

At their best, these cloud computing calculators provide a thumbnail view of the market. At their worst, they are slick tools for generating sales leads.

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Here are three that we looked at. None of these calculators should ever be used to decide how to use cloud computing services. There are just too many factors to consider when making such a decision. It's a complex undertaking for any established company. It's why cloud management companies do so well. They provide a full gamut of services to help companies decide what should be in the cloud and what should not.

Astadia

Astadia developed a cloud calculator based on the data it collected from the integrations it did for its customers. Its main purpose is to show the return on the Google, Amazon Web Services and Force.com platforms.

The calculator is heavily biased. SearchCloudComputing.com observes that the actual calculator itself was built on the Force.com platform. Astadia develops marketing and sales apps. Much of the apps it develops are created on Force.com.

Google Calculator

This one stinks. The Google Cloud Calculator is hardly a calculator at all. It's an advertisement and a lead generator.

The calculator asks for your company name and then the number of employees. Input two employees and the calculator says you will save about $31,000. Put in 15 employees and you will also save about $31,000. So, either Google is inflating the numbers for a two employee company or is vastly underestimating the savings for a 15-person company.

Google does not have to promote itself in this manner. Google Apps is an excellent service, it can stand on its own. Cost comparisons are fine but to call it a calculator is a bit far fetched.

Windows Azure

The Windows Azure cloud calculator is better than the Google calculator advertisement. It still requires a high dose of skepticism, especially considering that it was built by a marketing firm.

Before you launch the calculator, they issue a disclaimer. That at least removes a bit of the marketing gleam.

The calculator asks a series of questions. SearchCloudComputing.com makes the point that the calculator is no doubt collecting hordes of marketing information. Again, its more of a marketing ploy than anything else. Still, Micrsoft at least tries to show some integrity:

"You should not view the results of this report as a substitute for engaging with a third party expert to independently evaluate you or your company's specific computing needs. The analysis report you will receive is for informational purposes only," it reads. It also assumes a rough estimate of $20,000 per year to manage a server on-premise, and about $4,000 for the Azure equivalent."

There are plenty of other cloud calculators. Rackspace has one as does Amazon Web Services. Our advice is to treat these calculators like you would any marketing information. They are simply tidbits of information that should provide nothing else but a snapshot of the market.

Discuss

If you're capable of seeing past the old stones of Paris and the picturesque rural villages, you'll realize that France is every bit as technologically advanced as any other Western country - more so in some areas. Not only does the country have a higher percentage of homes with high-speed Internet than the U.S. (plus it's faster and costs half as much), it ranks first in the world for number of blogs per Internet user, and has a formidable market of Internet consumers who spent €5.5 billion online in the first quarter of this year.

When I came to Paris in 2006, I had a well-developed idea for a startup and nothing else. It's now been about three years since I joined the fray as an entrepreneur and tech blogger. In that time, I've discovered that the startup scene is infused with passion, energy and a strong spirit of collaboration.

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Pamela Poole is a blogger, translator and tech writer, and founder of Francophilia.com, a social startup for Francophiles. Originally from California, she now lives in Paris, where her involvement in the vibrant startup scene keeps her from spending too much time in the bakeries.

There's a thriving geek culture in Paris, and no lack of software development expertise, thanks to superior universities that produce superior engineers. The startup scene is relatively young, however, which is partly due to some pretty fundamental cultural barriers. But these barriers are showing some wear and tear.

Want to start up in France?

While foreign entrepreneurs wait for the Startup Visa to become a reality so they can go launch their startups in the US, France has quietly had a similar program in place for some time. The French government has translated the JEI program into English as the Young Entrepreneurs Initiative, an annual competition run by the French Embassy to the US. The name is a bit misleading - you don't actually have to be young, but your project does. YEI is essentially the same as the JEI program, and winners of the competition can come to France and enjoy the same benefits as startups with JEI status. So what are you waiting for?

There are numerous events and organizations in Paris that exist solely to foster entrepreneurship and tech innovation, many of which get partial financial support from local, regional and national government. France is not a socialist country, but it's a socialized country, and the French get a lot in return for the taxes they pay.

The Big Players

Silicon Sentier is perhaps the best-known player in the Paris startup scene. It's essentially an ecosystem whose mission is the care and feeding of innovation. Among other activities and programs, Silicon Sentier runs La Cantine, a coworking center, hip geek hangout and bustling hub for Paris tech events and activities: barcamps, workshops, competitions, launch parties, press conferences - you name it.

Cap Digital and System@tic are among a number of tech clusters in Paris. The boards of these organizations include large companies, local and regional government representatives, universities/public research labs and SMEs. Through them, entrepreneurs can hook up with R&D resources in universities and companies, and get access to a robust support network that provides opportunities for visibility, growth and financing.

Fing, another major player, is "an idea accelerator, a think tank and a resource for innovators." Fing may be a think tank, but it fosters startup success in very concrete ways. Startups can submit their projects to Fing, which provides support to over 200 projects a year through events, programs, and access to a large network of resources.

LeWeb, Europe's largest (and the world's second largest) Internet conference is held in Paris every December. It was created and is run by French entrepreneur Loïc Lemeur (Seesmic), and it includes a competition for European startups. Yes, it happens in Paris, but it's held in English because it's an international conference. LeWeb is a world-class tech conference, and the speakers on the program are always the crème de la crème of the startup world.

Incubators, Accelerators, Competitions

We have those too. Some, like Seedcamp, Startup Weekend, barcamps and the OpenCoffee Club are imports from other countries. Others are homegrown, like SeedNetworking, the brainchild of some alumni of HEC (one of France's best business schools) and Ecole des Mines (one of the excellent engineering schools), who tweaked the speed-networking concept to get entrepreneurs who need developers and developers who need projects in the same room for some fast and furious face time.

The major engineering and business universities have incubators for students and alumni, though some of them are less Internet oriented than others, and there are a few unaffiliated incubators as well, like Paris Pionnières, which receives both public and private funding and supports women-owned startups, and the incubators of Paris Développement, which is funded by the city of Paris and the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Big names like Microsoft BizSpark and Sun Startup Essentials have a presence here, of course, and The Funded recently launched their Founder Institute in Paris as well.

One thing we are missing here in Paris is longer-term intensive accelerators of the Y Combinator variety, but they exist in the U.K., so it shouldn't be long till they hop across the Channel.

The Funding

The funding landscape is complex from a foreigner's point of view because the government is very often involved somehow. There are public entities that seem to be frequently renamed or merged, as well as semi-private and private organizations, and their activities are all very intertwined with each other. And it's acronym hell. But the bottom line is that there is money for startups, and a lot of it comes from those taxpayer Euros I mentioned earlier. In fact, about three fourths of startup money comes from public funds.

One obstacle startups have traditionally faced here is that public and private funding is largely skewed towards projects that involve an R&D/new technology component. French investors are more risk averse than their American counterparts, and the possibility of a patent is reassuring to them.

And, until recently, business angels have been relatively few and far between. This is in part because the government historically filled the seed-funding void, and that is where people tended to turn. But angels are getting more structured, more active, and there more of them. Plus there's been another important new development: Several highly successful French Internet entrepreneurs-turned-investors, who are considerably less skittish than your traditional French investor, are taking matters into their own hands (Meet France's New and Awesome Super Angels).

The chart below shows the general funding options available to French startups.

Startups can access public funding in a number of ways. A rite of passage for many is to go through OSEO, which will analyze and validate a project. OSEO validation in turn makes early-stage startups eligible for a variety of support services and funding options. OSEO can be involved during very early stage activities, such as business plan creation and feasibility studies. It also provides support and guidance well beyond that phase.

A startup can be designated a Jeune Entreprise Innovante (Innovative Young Enterprise). The JEI program was created in 2004 and is managed by the Ministry of Research. Having JEI status is pretty much a golden ticket to financing, and JEI startups also get tax breaks and other benefits. To qualify, your project has to have an R&D element. There is also the Concours national d'aide à la création d'entreprises de technologies innovantes (National competition to help create innovative technology companies). Winners of this contest can be awarded up to €450,000 for R&D.

Private individuals who want a tax break can put money into special investment funds (Fonds commun de placement dans l'innovation) that are meant to be invested in innovative companies. These are managed by various wealth management entities (Conseils en gestion de patrimoine indépendents, or CGPI). The condition for receiving the tax break on these investments is that 60% of the money must go to early-stage, innovative companies, and it must be invested within two years of receipt by the CGPI. OSEO can designate a startup as an Entreprise innovante au titre des FCPI, which makes it eligible for this kind of investment. This designation is similar to JEI but has a broader view of "innovative" and is less strict about the R&D element.

Pôle emploi is the government agency that provides unemployment compensation, but it also helps those recipients who are creating a small business or startup by providing extended compensation and breaks on the social charges (retirement, medical, disability, etc.) that businesses normally pay to the government.

Réseau Entreprendre Paris, a network of business owners, and France Initiative, a network of local organizations, are examples of the many semi-private organizations that support startups. They themselves receive both public and private funding, which they use in turn to provide financial support to startups through incubators and other established channels.

I've focused on some options for early-stage startups here, and haven't discussed VC funding or the many organizations here that help French startups expand internationally. For a comprehensive guide (in French) to starting up in France, I highly recommend Accompagnement des startups high-tech en France [PDF], and for an overview of the funding cycle, Exemple de cycle de financement de startup en France [PDF]; both are by Olivier Ezratty.

Next page: The Jeunes Pousses

Photo by Konstantinos Dafalias

The Startups RWW's Never Mind the Valley series: <?php include("../../never_mind_valley.php"); ?>

You may think you've never heard of any French startups, but it's possible that you're using apps you don't even realize are French. If they've picked a name English speakers can pronounce and translated their sites into English, they blend right in. Take Netvibes, the pioneer in the personalized dashboard space, which has been written about a number of times here on ReadWriteWeb. They're going strong, and constantly adapting their platform to users' changing needs for information and social media aggregation. And there's DailyMotion, which is eating into YouTube's market share and had a 70% jump in US traffic in 2009.

There are plenty of successful startups in France that cleverly capitalized on the fact that startups in other countries didn't localize for the French market. The model of Sarenza is similar to that of Zappos, and it dominates the European market for footwear online. There are also original models that are either being copied or stealthily moving into English-speaking markets, like Vente-Privée and PriceMinister. PriceMinister, a site for C2C/B2C sales of new and used goods (at a fixed price) is the top e-commerce platform in France (recently surpassing eBay.fr and Amazon.fr). It has infiltrated the U.K., and I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. were on its radar, where it'll surely give eBay.com some healthy - and much needed - competition. Vente-Privée is a retail site selling designer products at invitation-only online sales. One of the top e-commerce sites in France, it has expanded into other European countries and its model has given rise to some me-toos in other countries.

The French have their share of exemplary startups in the enterprise space as well, including BlueKiwi, an enterprise social platform, and Exalead, which offers powerful and easily integrated search tools to help businesses and institutions get the most out of their information assets. Exalead's true entrepreneurial colors still show, thanks to its internal project incubator, Exalabs. (Exalead was just acquired by the technology giant, Dassault Systems.)

These are some French startups that have made it to the big time. But what about the little guys? All those struggling, bootstrapping, Ramen-eating founders? As a matter of fact, Paris is crawling with them. Some are clearly aiming no further than the French market, but a number of them are out of the gate in at least French and English with a view to conquering the Web. Just like anywhere else, French startups run the gamut from basic Web apps that focus on a specific niche need, to ambitious and powerful platforms that are likely to give the current leaders a run for their money. Here's a list of just a few of our jeunes pousses (sprouts).

(E= in English)

English Attack: Edutainment site that teaches English using Internet content that real people actually use: music, video, gaming, and more. (E)

GameCreds: Impressive social universe for gamers. (E)

Kontest: Ready-made solution for creating and managing a variety of interactive contests to provide user communities memorable experiences on Facebook and the iPhone. (E soon!)

Meetings: Nice collaborative app that manages all activities related to meetings: communications, attachments, agendas, action items, scheduling, etc.

MonArbre-MaTribu: Crowd-sourced reforestation project, very nicely done. One Euro plants a tree. (France only, for now.)

Pearltrees: A bookmarking site with a new approach to organization of content that resembles mind mapping. (Covered previously on RWW.) (E)

Plyce: Feature-rich location-based social network. They appear to be of the opinion that badges and mayorships are so last week. (Gotta like that thinking.) (E)

Regioneo: You know all those cute little French open-air markets where small producers sell their amazing artisanal food products? This site lets you order directly from the producers. (France only, unfortunately).

Synthesio: Web app that provides extensive data from multiple sources for companies that want to track buzz and reputation, and identify trends and influencers. (E and more)

TellMeWhere: A real-time urban guide powered by user recommendations on everything from bars to barbers across the globe. Web and mobile. (Covered previously on RWW.) (E)

Yoocasa: A private online space, developed in collaboration with child psychologists, where families interact in real time through photo slideshows, video chats, interactive games, and more. (E)

Ulule: Beautifully designed crowdfunding platform for projects that are artsy or for the betterment of society. (E)

Discuss

One of Apple's announcements yesterday was a completely redesigned Apple TV. It's competing in a crowded and still confusing field of products that stream video from the Internet to your TV. Boxee and Roku are two smaller companies trying to crack it; and Google TV was unveiled in May. The ultimate goal of all of these products is to make Web-to-TV very easy for consumers, but the market is still searching for the right formula.

We'd like to poll the ReadWriteWeb community on this topic. Let us know how you currently get online video (and other media content) onto your TV. Also, which of the emerging products do you think has the best chance to be the consumer offering of choice?

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The key points of the new Apple TV are: a much lower price (now $99, compared to $229 for the first generation product), streamlined form (80% smaller), streaming functionality, no more local storage, Netflix and YouTube access, and 99c TV show rentals.

Other ways to access Web content on your TV include: modern Internet-connected TVs; online gaming devices like Sony PlayStation 3 and X-Box 360; P2P software; Set-top boxes like TiVo (specifically, its Premiere offering released in March); streaming software for computers, such as playon; wireless USB display adapter sets; special cables to hook a computer up to a TV.

Of course, there's still the matter of accessing good content. All of the online TV players have been busy doing deals with TV and movie distributors, a process which is far from being worked through. Meanwhile, many consumers have used P2P services like BitTorrent to get such content for free.

The video below from the Google TV announcement shows the (potential) benefits of streaming Web content to your TV:

I myself use a combination of Sony Playstation 3 and the P2P client Vuze in order to stream the occasional TV show and movie to my TV. Although it converts online video to a PS3 compatible format, it's still not a completely satisfactory solution. Sometimes the sound doesn't work, or the video is choppy, and so on. So I'm looking forward to purchasing one of the upcoming devices from Apple, Boxee, Roku or Google.

Do you stream content from the Internet into your TV? If so, tell everyone how you do it in the comments below.

Discuss

Google Wave is far from dead, and developers, early adopters and enterprises will be glad to hear it. Today Google announced it will expand on the code it has already open sourced, building Wave into a functional application that will allow users to run wave servers, host their own waves and build bigger and better applications with the real-time collaboration technology.

"Since the beginning, it has been our vision that the Google Wave protocols could support a new generation of communication and collaboration tools," engineer Alex North wrote on the Google Wave developer blog.

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Google had big plans for Wave - it was supposed to replace email and the killer app among Google Apps, but the company basically gave up on the project earlier this month (see Google Wave Is Dead). It still seems possible for the technology to do big things. But it sounds like Google plans to move on after the application is released. The future of the open source project will be defined by developers' contributions, North wrote.

Wave In A Box will not have the "full functionality" of the Gmail-integrated Web app, but it will feature threaded conversations and support importing data from wave.google.com.

The release of Wave as an application could be a big deal for developers, especially at businesses that want to take advantage of Wave for real-time collaboration and discussion (see our post, 5 Services That Leverage Google Wave).

Wave was always intended for people to run on their own machines, but this release will make the process much easier. Developers and enterprise users that have been eyeing Wave will be more likely to take the technology into their own hands and build things like feature-rich Web forums, productivity tools and apps to facilitate collaborative projects.

Google did not specify a timeline for the release of the new code, but it has said that wave.google.com will be available at least through the end of the year.

Discuss

As far as Web services go, Twitter is pretty easy to use. Fill out a brief profile, follow some people and go, right? Well apparently not. Developers at the company have been fretting over the fact that some people still think Twitter is "too hard" to use.

But the solution has proved easy. By simply releasing mobile apps named "Twitter," the company has seen a boost in new users.

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Twitter announced today that the number of total mobile users has jumped 62% since mid-April, thanks to the release of Twitter for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. These apps existed before - Twitter for iPhone is just a rebranded version of the third-party client Tweetie - but they weren't recruiting new users.

"We did iPhone user tests and confirmed that even though there was a plethora of third-party Twitter apps, people were having trouble finding and selecting one because none were called 'Twitter.' This kept them from using Twitter at all," CEO Evan Williams wrote in a blog post titled "The Evolving Ecosystem" today.

Now 16% of new users sign up via mobile, versus 5% before the name changes. Almost half of all active users "make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience," according to Twitter.

Despite the mobile push and recent speculation that Twitter's clients have killed its Web site, 78% of users still access Twitter at least once a month via the Web.

Twitter.com and Twitter's mobile Web site are the top ways users access Twitter, followed by SMS and the official iPhone and BlackBerry clients. TwitPic, the photo-uploading service, and Google Friend Connect, the widget that lets websites feature content from social networks, are also in the top ten ways users access Twitter. Surprisingly, Twitter for Android was not.

The rest of the 300,000 registered Twitter applications have much fewer users, Twitter said. But Williams is encouraged by the growth and variety of apps in Twitter's ecosystem. "These new services help people get the most out of Twitter, contributing to user growth and new business opportunities," he wrote.

Twitter said it now has more than 145 million registered users, although the number of active users is lower.

How do you access Twitter?

Discuss

College hiring is projected to rebound in time for the Class of 2011 to feel its effects, according to a new survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Employers who took part in NACE's survey say they're anticipating hiring 13.5% more new college grades from the Class of 2011 than they did from the Class of 2010. And in general, just under 48% of those responding said they plan to increase their hiring, while 40% say they expect to maintain the hiring levels. Good news for those stepping into the job market after graduation this spring.

We've written before about the things to ask yourself as to whether or not a job at a startup is right for you. But if you think your post-graduate plans involve life with a startup, then there are a number of things you can do, while still in school, to prep.

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Preparing Now for the Post-Graduate Job Hunt

The first, of course, may be to look for an internship. While the traditional notion of internship conjures images of corporate drudgery (in my head, at least), YouTern is one organization that works to place college students with entrepreneurial-driven companies. (See our ReadWriteWeb write-up here.) Not only are internships important skill-, network-, and resume-building experiences, it's a great way to get a taste for the startup life - something quite different than other post-college jobs.

If you're sure the startup world is right for you, then Jason Shen and Derek Flanzraich, both recent college graduates working at startups (Shen works for isocket and Flanzraich for Clicker) have written a great set of tips on how to land a startup job out of college.

Here are a few of their tips:

• Know Your Industry Inside and Out: Do your research. Domain experience matters.
• Focus - Only Target a Few Startups: You want to find the startup that matches your skills, your knowledge (see above), but also your workstyle and your vision.
• Get Good at Specific Stuff: As Shen and Flanzraich write, startups "need people who can make an immediate impact on their 'bottom line', whether that's users, revenue, traffic, or something else." You need to bring a strong skill-set, but also a diverse skill-set.
• Prove Your Worth: As with any job hunt nowadays, you want to make sure your online presence demonstrates a portfolio of projects and blog posts.
• Get a Referral - Or Become a Friendly Face: Startups rarely have "openings," and even when they do, a reference makes a big difference. Don't know anyone who can recommend you? Shen and Flanzraich suggest volunteering. "Startups love free labor."
• Send in a Killer, Personalized and Memorable App: "Do something something different," they suggest. "Do something memorable. Something that proves your enthusiasm and dedication to the company."
• Be Yourself

Sure, it's Fall and college students are just beginning to return to campus. But it's never too early to start preparing for graduation - and the job search - in the spring.

Discuss

SEOMoz, a site we've covered before as a top-notch resource for search engine optimization tips, recently relaunched their site and opened their campaign-based Web app as a public beta.

The company is also hoping to drive new sign-ups for its Pro account, which is being offered at a discounted rate of $79 per month (normally $99), at least until midnight Pacific Time on Friday, September 3, 2010.

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The SEOMoz Web app, which manages crawl diagnostics, on-page optimization, and keyword tracking, is now available to all Pro users. Other features like XML sitemaps and integration with Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics are on the horizon, according to SEOMoz Community Manager Jen Sable Lopez.

Although the site's UI was already pretty snazzy, SEOMoz.org is also sporting an brand new design from head to footer.

SEOMoz is used by big names like Ebay, Best Buy, The New York Times, Facebook and Yahoo!, among others. In addition to their paid Pro account, they offer an extensive library of free SEO resources, including The Beginner's Guide to SEO and one of the most highly-acclaimed SEO blogs on the planet.

Interested in taking SEOMoz Pro for a spin? You can still sign-up at the discounted rate until midnight Pacific Time on Friday September 3.

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The Virginia Community College system had a problem. The IT department had run out of ways to cool its data center.

They explored going through the expense of transforming the building where the servers were housed or moving to a new building all together.

Virtualization helped sort things out. They discovered servers that were soaking up power but were doing next to nothing. The results came far faster than expected. The cost savings were almost immediate.

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Facebook's goal for its new Places feature may be even more ambitious than we realized. Facebook wants to be the central platform for location data across all Web services, a company spokesman said today at a New York Times developer conference.

The statement reinforces the image of a world where the majority of the population is catalogued in Facebook's growing database. The long-term vision for Facebook Places is starting to take shape: Facebook wants to dominate the location-based Web.

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Facebook demonstrated that it wants your profile to be your identity on the Internet with Facebook Connect (see Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login). Basically, it now wants you to add location to that identity.

Covering the basics

Places is restricted to basic location-confirmed check-ins - who is where, when - shunning mayorships and badges and leaving any sort of advertising up to third-party developers. This minimalist functionality leaves out some of the fun out of checking in, but it makes sense if Facebook's plan is simply to place its 500 million users on a dynamic map.

And Facebook hopes that soon, any app developer who comes up with a new location-based service will turn first to Facebook's massive trove of data.

Early projections

The full manifestation of Facebook Places is still five to ten years out. The feature is available to all users in the U.S., but not everyone is using it.

For one thing, Places requires users to check in from a GPS-enabled device, but less than a third of Americans have smartphones, according to Nielson. That's changing rapidly - Nielson estimates that half of Americans will own a smartphone by the end of 2011.

Trusting Facebook with location data

And all this is contingent on people sharing their location information with Facebook, of course. That's no guarantee given the company's history of privacy slip-ups (see The Facebook Privacy Debate: What You Need to Know). But whether people use the service will depend on how much utility they get from it, as it did when Facebook introduced the News Feed feature. Users initially rejected the change, it now drives much of the activity on the site because it's useful and fun.

Users, developers and advertisers should all be excited for the possibilites for location-based services, from social shopping and rewards programs to real-time travel guides. The question is whether Facebook can persuade its users to trust it with their location data. Users might prefer to give their location data directly to individual applications, or another company might rise up to collect this data.

What do you think? Are you ready to trust Facebook to handle your real-time location for the apps of the future?

Discuss

The increasingly popular online shopping site Thefind has finally found a way to connect with Facebook — without being creepy.

It’s not a technical breakthrough — plenty of sites now work with Facebook to let users log-in — but Thefind has been grappling with how to integrate with Facebook in a way that’s relevant and privacy-respectful.

‘The idea behind the face is that the person you know is an ambassador’

The company even invited Wired.com to sit in on its internal discussions this spring about how the shopping site might integrate with Facebook users profiles, how it could mine them and what just felt creepy. Those conversations happened as Facebook experienced a massive backlash over its privacy changes, including a system called Instant Personalization, which automatically turned your profile data over to Yelp and Pandora if you visited their sites while still logged into Facebook.

Thefind largely shelved its plans — basically, waiting out the storm and seeing if Facebook would grow up a bit. (For the back story, see “The Inside Story of How One Company Didn’t Mine Facebook“.

On Thursday, Thefind turned on its first real use of the Facebook log-in. Those who choose to login using their Facebook accounts give the site permission to see their profiles and their friend profiles. Thefind then matches up the pages and stores and brands you’ve liked or become a fan of on Facebook, and lets you add them to the list of brands and stores you like on Thefind. Your search results are then adjusted so that items from the stores you like, whether that’s Target or a designer boutique or both, show up more prominently in your search.

But more intriguingly, when you look at an item in Thefind’s results, you can use the Facebook “Like” button to say you like a certain brand or a store. You can also see tiny profile pictures of your friends who like a store or brand, and how many people total on Facebook like a brand or store. The key, however, is that those “Like” buttons aren’t liking a profile page or brand on Thefind — they are tied to the retailer or shoe company’s fan page on Facebook.

“The idea behind the face is that the person you know is an ambassador,” said Ron Levi, a vice president at theFind. “There’s a little reinforcement for a retailer [who has the Facebook widget] when people come to their fan page or website.”

“But with theFind, now ‘Likes’ work to the retailer’s advantage,” Levi said.

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