Web jogging

Internet World 2990

2009-04-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

So here we are with a booth at the Internet World Tradeshow...

We are really happy to present our speed tracks. So for a start here is a track we have just built to present all the exhibitors on the French Pavilion:

The french pavilion companies

We will also be able to provide the Tom's Hardware users feedback regarding JogTheWeb...

This Week's Hot News - April 20th to 24th

Our new architecture actually enables us to provide customized readers within days. Just an example:

Find the reader...

Reviewing some opinions

2009-04-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

JogTheWeb is all about editing virtual tutorials, magazines, catalogs or reviews by stinging together a set of relevant pages found around the web.

There is so much out there on http://www.jogtheweb.com/explore.php that I'll simply provide one example for those who want to gather some video reviews that users car flip through...

Some considerations regarding the iPod

Some news

2009-03-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

I am definitely not very good at posting news on this blog... But these tracks may just speak for themselves:
Environmental Concerns Thousands of teachers are already regularly using JogTheWeb and building webquests for their students.
A french magazine: Femme Actuelle Simply flip through the pages like with a real magazine
Femme Actuelle – Le meilleur du web The same magazine leveraging its content by including content from around the web
The new reader for an important e-commerce site in France...

JogTheWeb a new reader

2008-10-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

JogThe Web has been around since last june and the intitial reader was efficient but could be improved so we asked one of our designers to think it again from scratch. The new reader is now available but the new site still needs some pimping up before we can release it... So en avant première here is Kryptomodes's beautiful track on fashion for your eyes only...

Kryptomode's beautiful track

Here is another one

Whoever is Tom??

And for those who like animations or guitare...

Fun animations

Guitare...

New version on its way

2008-08-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

The guys have been hard at it and the latest version sould be ready for "thourough" testing by the end of the week. Our aim is to have the new version online round about the middle of september (this year ;) ).

This new version will be quite important as both the front end (reader, editor and site) and the backend (architecture and servers) have been deeply modified.

Among others here are some of the new features:
- Vocal comments: it will be possible to comment oraly each page of a track
- Sharing tracks: it will be possible to mail tracks or post them to blogs, digg, facebook and other such services
- Skins: for each track it will be possible to choose the reader's skin among an increasing set of available ones. Down the road it should even be possible for users to upload their own skins.
- Comments: The tracks comment section will, at last, look good and, most importantly, be convient to use.
- Open APIs for building tracks will be available and we should be soon integrating a service in facebook
- Editing tracks should be simplified and a track's owner will be able to edit the comments directly from the reader (it won't be necessary to go back through the site).
- User profiles on the site will be more interesting...
- The site layout will be enhanced...
- ... and quite a bit more

And that would be what is visible because the back-end has also been reengineered in order to increase stability (even though we have been doing quite well so far) and simplify adding new features down the road.

Up until now we haven't been doing to well regarding news so this is the first post of many. So do stay tuned and do comment as much as you please!!!

Whoever is Tom

2008-07-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

For those still wondering simply follow the guide!

Whoever is Tom

How are we doing

2008-07-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

JogTheWeb was finally launched in June and it seems quite popular. According to statistics we have had joggers from more than 50 different countries!

We are now now working on three subjects:
- Communication
- Funding (subprimes haven't helped that much...)
- New version for september...

Sapphire and Steel

2008-05-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

Back in 1979, my brother and I spent a couple of weeks with my parents in Gravesend Kent in the UK. We were in a large house owned by friends of my parents. One evening my parents left Ian and mysefl alone in this big place. As we were living in Monaco since 1977 we had lost touch with what was on TV on the english channels... That evening we looked at one episode of Sapphire and Steel and ever since it has been a sort of reference between us ...

I have found on youtube the different "bits" building up the whole "season" and have built a track... mostly for Ian ;-). Simply click on the link below:

Sapphire and Steel

A peep on the latest version of Jogtheweb

2008-05-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

Normally, if all goes well jogtheweb's first version will be coming out on the 15th of may (probably 2008). For anybody interested the still very private version can be viewed at:
http://www.jogtheweb.com/revision.php

Do click on a track as you will see a new version for the reader. If you are in a hurry simply click on the following link...
http://www.jogtheweb.com/readerv2/index.php?trackId=14

You'll notice some icons which you may try out (they help you stay on track...)

Updated animation track

2008-02-27T22:17:00.000-08:00

I've just added a couple of animations to this track... and I know there are still plenty out there...

http://www.jogtheweb.com/reader/index.php?trackId=11

Some animations

2008-02-20T22:25:00.000-08:00

Here is a track with some beautiful animations...

'nuf said!

Animations...

Kryptomode - Fashion à la française

2008-02-20T07:33:00.000-08:00

Kryptomode is french, loves fashion, is a good friend of mine and is one of our first beta testers for JogTheWeb.

Fashion is her second name and believe me if I say Kryptomode is a régal to look at.

For those who don't know "mode" means fashion in french and Krypto... well that'll stay the mysterious part.

Kryptomode has worked on this lovely fashion related track with her 13 year old daughter...

Enjoy!

As a reminder: to jog the track simply click on the arrows...

Mode 2008 pour toutes : les fashions et les classiques

Education is all about...

2008-02-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

Education is all about teaching my children what I have figured out as being best for them. In fact it doesn't always coincide with what I consider is sure or best for myself as age brings in a certain dose of cynism or sad realisation that would be both too heavy and misunderstood by my loved ones...

In fact I'm quite convinced that education is a bit like charging a battery. You "feed in" as much good will, trust-in-others and love as possible in your child which gives him an incredible energy to start in his adult life. That would be because he is convinced that the world walks with him and that given the right arguments anybody will see the things as he does. As life goes on the battery runs progressively down as the adult realises that some people aren't that kind and that others have other "absolutely true" beliefs of their own...

Stangely enough some people go along through life remaining optimistic and happy. These same peolple are often those who live over a hundred years old. That kind of conforts me with this battery theory...

Well I got a bit side tracked from what I really wanted to talk about: Rugby.

My 8 year old boy loves rugby and I'm happy about it because the team spirit (and all that) seems to be a precious value for the life venture. The only thing is that I've never really been interested in rugby. If there is a match on and that I'm with rugby-lover friends I'll be very happy to share the moment and get excited over all these adult men running after a ball whilst knocking each other over and tortoise-like hugging... but if I'm alone I can't stand a minute of it. I just don't get the feeling for it and I honestly envy those who do (... well from time to time anyway).

In june last year my boy had his end of term school show and with the other boys of his class he performed (danced would hardly be the word) the New Zealand Haka... and he prepared it so seriously and his grimaces were so true that I looked onto it with all the pride and wonder I could show... In fact the wonder was genuine, I really wondered at the space-like-distance that stood between what normaly really impressed me and this Haka which impressed me because... well it was my little boy taking these war-ritual like poses... Ok, I must say the pride was also genuine ;-).

All this to say that when I was shown the videos in the following track, I knew I could laugh with my son about the NZ Haka without breaking anything he was building upon and that, by the end of the day, it was laughing that really gave sense to all my children's bringing up...

Haka history...

Enjoy ;-)

Social Networking

2008-02-09T00:59:00.000-08:00

Here is some breaking news :-), in fact I set up this blog to start publishing JogTheWeb tracks I like... and as I get on quite well with myself I'll start with my own :-D.

So this one is about Social Networks. Who hasn't heard about Facebook or Linkedin? In fact there are really plenty out there and here are a few:

Some social networks out there

I have obviously forgotten all those which aren't in this track and I'm terribly sorry about it ;-)

The Lift conference - Quite mind-boggling

2008-02-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

If you're free in september and can be in Seoul do not miss the next Lift conference... Otherwise you'll need to wait till the beginning of 2009 and go to Geneva.

I went there thinking it was another web 2.0 related event only spread out on three whole days... and in fact it turned out to be much more of an Attitude 2.0 event (I know adding 2.0 at the end of a word isn't really original but being original isn't quite the point here ;-) ).

90% of what I heard really interested me and got me thinking and I love that feeling (so rare ;-) ). I didn't agree with everything I heard but hearing about technology, psychology, ethnology, inventions, Carla Bruni (do let go!!!) and sustainable development among many other topics just kept me listening.

Here are a couple of JogTheWeb Tracks I built to tour you through the event:

My train was late I started with "The Venture Night"
Follow me through thursday

By the way JogTheWeb is in very private Beta (hardly out of alfa if you ask me...). Its very wobbly just now but its my baby...

Just one more word regarding the Lift conference:
Well done Laurent Haug and all his team for such an event!! Really, really worth it

Enterprise 2.0 – The shortest path

2008-01-20T12:40:00.001-08:00

When I was at school I was told that the shortest path between two points was a strait line. I believed this for quite a while as maths was part of my engineering cursus and then I discovered that in the real world the shortest path between two points is the one I know… and that is often what large companies stumble upon when wanting to benefit from the Web 2.0 nimble technologies.

I once knew a project director who knew Lotus Notes inside out and whatever project he had to deal with, Lotus Notes was the answer. I have no negative opinion regarding Lotus Notes but one thing I am sure of is that it is not really meant to be a solution to all needs. I have witnessed some quite strange Lotus Notes based answers to projects dealt with by this project director.
The thing is that in a large company you have plenty of project directors who do not have much time to look around and see what’s new, so they have a tendency to always dip into a same bag of technologies to build their projects. A large number of these project directors have reached their position, more or less as a promotion, after many years of coding and analysis. Many are obviously really worthy people but they have much of their long built experience which is not only useless but also often encumbering as it offers out of date solutions.

Smaller companies do not have as much time and means as large companies so if a young employee seems good he’ll immediately be set project director and instead of leaning on his experience he’ll search the web to know whether others have addressed the same need. This project director will even put aside any message over six months old as he’ll feel it’s out of date…
Turning back to large companies, project directors are not alone they have technical architects to help them. These people are essential but are rarely given the means to really help. Their mission, theoretically, includes trying out new technologies in order to assist the projects in finding the best technological fit to their need. The problem is that these architects are rarely considered as essential and their number is often very low. I have often spoken to architects who complain that they have only time to study products which are imposed to them by their hierarchy (that’s right, once again the older generation who are often very intelligent but simply not aware).

One of my activities is to be a Knowledge Management consultant. KM is all about identifying knowledge, trying to get hold of it, transforming it into digestible material and finally doing your best to re-inject it at the right place… Well in fact it’s a little bit more than that but as far as Web 2.0 is concerned I’ll stick to it for the time being. Speaking of Web 2.0 it could be summed up by saying that its all about giving the user control and sitting back to see what he’ll do with it ;-). What really interests me is that once the user gets infected with the Web 2.0 virus he happily pours out his knowledge/experience/contacts and that could just be sooooo useful for large companies…

So there I go explaining all that could be rapidly achieved with Web 2.0 to the business analysts who are ready to listen to me. As I can be convincing we then go together and knock on the technical guys’ doors (the project directors I spoke of above). It nearly always happens the same way, they listen to us politely and, each time they consider we’re proposing a technical solution (wiki, blog, RIA …), they remind us that we must stick to expressing our functional needs. We try and stay as functional as possible and the meeting ends with a “we’ll see what can be done and will come back to you very soon”. They do finally come back (even sometimes very soon after) and nearly each time they propose either a specific development or the use of some pocket knife like existing application that they will try and twist to our need. The Web 2.0 technologies are not even considered.

As I said earlier on theses technical directors are often intelligent people who just do not have time to look around. Insisting a bit is often the key to ending up on the right track and everybody ends up happy.

The problem is that the Web 2.0 solutions are rarely envisaged by the business analysts knocking on the technical guys’ doors and most needs that could really benefit from a nimble Web 2.0 answer end up with lead weight shoes…

As I see it architects would often be the best key to helping large companies stepping up to be “Enterprise 2.0 inside”… if only they were given the means.

Scapegoats and bond building

2008-01-05T07:56:00.000-08:00

Friendship is all about two people looking in the same direction. The same thing is said about love in fact. Looking at one another ends up to be quite boring and once you've finished reviewing the pretty details you'll pass on to the not so pretty ones. So the best is to look in the same direction.
Sometimes its all about sharing a real interest in a same subject or simply working together on a same topic. But most times, it seems to me, bonds are built by having a common scapegoat. Team spirit thrives when everybody starts complaining about a same person. There is nothing really glorious about it but if you want to bond quickly wih someone else start criticising somebody that this someone else can't stand. Within minutes you'll be just so close and have so much to share...
Today facebook is all about you declaring you know others and then its all about standing all together and poking one another or hoping that somebody will state he has a secret crush on you... there is a bit of biting and racing but by the end of the day are you any closer to the rest of your friendly herd? I have the impression that it is all rather static in fact because it stays artificial. So how long till people tire from facebook if no real bonding takes place...
So I wonder whether facebook won't soon seriously go down the "scapegoat" path because it is a rapid bond builder and may bring some dynamics to it all...

Best wishes

2008-01-01T04:22:00.000-08:00

Wishing all 366 glorious days!

Australia taking a walk down the censorship path

2007-12-31T02:28:00.000-08:00

It always starts with the best of intentions: protecting the weak and the innocent... and then once the censorship starts it becomes very difficult to resist the temptation to use it to get the rest of the world to see things as you do. So its like smoking the best, if possible, is not to start... because it may be really difficult to let go of censorship once the Austalian government gets used to it.

The australian labor party's move regarding censorship for protecting their country against the internet threats is well explained in this techcrunche's article.

Obviously censorship can be a real danger and can’t be the solution to the possible threat that internet can be to children. Selfishly I am therefore 100% against australia’s move, but the truth is I have a couple of young children and that I am sometimes worried regarding them using internet. Netnanny (or similar) is a good solution of course but I can’t help wondering about about my children’s friends whose parents don’t have an idea about how a computer works (let alone the Internet) but who buy a computer and an access to the web for opening the world to their children. There will definitely never be a Netnanny on these computers. So what can be done? Only a few weeks ago I heard about these two girls who committed suicide after diving deep into gothic sites. All this to say that it is really not simple and maybe some of you who have children know what I’m talking about…

There must be some solution which is other than censorship… At one time, for instance, it was proposed that pornograpgic sites all have the extension .xxx , but that went down the drain.

Hey! Stop biting me

2007-12-29T01:06:00.000-08:00

Ok its all about Facebook, and I'm obviously not the first one to have something to say about it.

But I'm 40 years old and that definitely puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to collecting faces you more or less know!

The thing is, most of those who started living around 1967 are quite rarely into knowing what is really going on, on the web. And should they know, they haven't really been infected with the Web 2.0 virus making them believe (realise???) that their opinion counts and that existing is all about appearing on the web.

So when I looked up all my school mates only one appeared... (well done Delphine) so how was I to compete with all the "newbe's". I ended up scraping all the younger people I new, family came in handy of course, and I've reached the mild score of 31 "friends".

Thats when it finally bore into my head that facebook was more than just about collecting faces. I started getting poked and superpoked, walled and super walled (a great new spam like tool), challenged and even bitten again and again.

I started realizing that getting into Facebook wasn't the only challenge to a 1967er, a new generation gap was sniggering at me just a few steps in. The thing is challenging another "vampire" every evening really seems to amuse my younger comarades. But I don't feel the slightest lingering within me to do the same...

In fact I initially went on Facebook to know what it was all about because one of my subjects (I have Knowledge Management focussed company) was social networking. I'd already tried more professional oriented services such as linkedin or the french viadeo but Microsoft is betting on Facebook so I had to give it a try.

So what can a big company learn from a service such as facebook compared to linkedin or others?

Well I see at least two things. The first is that collecting faces is more "catchy" than collecting names. In fact it is good fun and browsing through a friend's friends is easy enough to quickly find faces you recognise. If a large company wants to set up a social network for boosting interactivity, including that feature may help.

The second thing that can be noticed is that getting older people (thirty and over) to collaborate in a web 2.0 fashion is far from natural. Just showing them how great it is won't be sufficient.

But... and this but is really important, the new generation thrive for this way to work and if a comany doesn't offer such services, it will be missing a real opportunity of using its younger employees' talents.

So I suppose it must be accepted that companies should start seriously looking into putting up new such services (even if over 70% of its employees will probably never use it) whilst focussing on what the new generation are interested in. If the service is designed to interest everybody it will probably be a failure.

It a nutshell companies may have to start thinking about Web2.0 generation oriented services rather than just web 2.0 services.

Web 78.0

2007-12-28T01:03:00.000-08:00

My favorite animals are ducks and elephants but the only animals I can more or less draw are cows. The reason is simple, one day some time ago (just about 25 years in fact), I decided I wanted to know how to draw; so I took a Gotlib comic book and started practicing copying a cow again and again until it looked quite good. The idea was to do the same with all sorts of animals but it sort of just never happened...

Many have been talking about Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 but I wanted to be the first to talk about Web 78.0 so I took a random thought and gave it as title Web 78.0.

Truth is I follow the opinion of some regarding the fact that it is quite improbable that a Web 3.0 will ever arise as such. There will be some other buzz word or hype concept which will take over. I'll bet on web jogging :-). We've done enough browsing.