User Generated StartUp : The Rules from/for Colique Lemeilleur

From
- Get an unprecised idea
- Make the more noise around it
- Get in with a picture with a big figure, even if it's a miserable failure
- Get a minimal Alpha Server and wait for input of your users : That's the UGS
For
- Get a different buzz around-it with the king of the Video Trash
- Get a new serious competitor because you may be taken to much time on your personal face brand
and what you should have to put it on a few month ago !

Microsoft : The ostrich view on the Google rumble

A nice view of the confontation between Microsoft and Google on this paper by Steve Lohr and Miguel Helft on the NYT !

Top 75 Countries in Facebook

Country	08/12/2007
United States	22 366 340
Canada	8 075 980
United Kingdom	7 887 620
Turkey	2 192 340
Australia	2 113 660
France	1 063 100
Sweden	1 062 080
Norway	1 003 500
South Africa	677 880
Columbia	622 900
Mexico	531 480
Egypt	512 640
India	447 320
Germany	417 940
Singapore	352 700
Israel	330 960
New Zealand	284 700
Spain	275 020
United Arab Emirates	248 820
Malaysia	225 640
Lebanon	217 440
Italia	200 780
Ireland	199 380
Switzerland	184 440
China	166 740
Netherlands	166 140
Saudi Arabia	162 760
Pakistan	151 580
Belgium	135 208
Japan	124 500
Greece	103 145
Philippines	94 324
Indonesia	82 280
Brazil	70 112
Venezuela	66 288
Argentina	60 059
Poland	56 652
Taiwan	53 384
Thailand	49 114
Russia	49 047
South Korea	45 789
Dominican Replublic	43 000
Nigeria	39 868
Bangladesh	35 819
Sri Lanka	30 948
Peru	30 635
Kenya	30 000
Hungary	26 746
Syria	26 309
Portugal	24 597
Morroco	22 442
Guatemala	21 842
Romania	21 694
Vietnam	15 694
Ukraine	14 856
Ghana	11 323
Iran	11 303
Sudan	9 886
Nepal	8 602
Iraq	7 880
Tunisia	7 093
Tanzania	6 691
Uganda	5 724
Algeria	4 475
Ethiopa	3 692
Afghanistan	3 086
Cuba	1 855
Yemen	1 849
Cameroon	1 817
Uzbekistan	1 766
Mozambique	1 686
Myanmar	1 536
Madagascar	1 164
North Korea	406
Total	53 780 257

The country in green are not in the Advertiser statistics

Here is the percentage of population using Facebook

Country	Population	% of pop.
Canada	33 087 000	24,408%
Norway	4 727 777	21,226%
United Kingdom	60 587 300	13,019%
Sweden	9 150 000	11,607%
Australia	21 129 222	10,003%
Singapore	4 436 000	7,951%
United States	303 545 000	7,368%
New Zealand	4 249 600	6,699%
United Arab Emirates	4 380 000	5,681%
Lebanon	4 099 000	5,305%
Ireland	4 301 000	4,636%
Israel	7 208 520	4,591%
Turkey	74 877 000	2,928%
Switzerland	7 508 700	2,456%
France	64 102 140	1,658%
Columbia	44 055 000	1,414%
South Africa	48 577 000	1,395%
Belgium	10 457 000	1,293%
Netherlands	16 387 773	1,014%
Greece	11 147 000	0,925%
Malaysia	27 544 000	0,819%
Egypt	75 498 000	0,679%
Saudi Arabia	24 735 000	0,658%
Spain	45 116 894	0,610%
Germany	82 314 900	0,508%
Mexico	106 535 000	0,499%
Dominican Replublic	9 760 000	0,441%
Italia	59 206 382	0,339%
Hungary	10 053 000	0,266%
Venezuela	27 657 000	0,240%
Taiwan	22 935 000	0,233%
Portugal	10 623 000	0,232%
Guatemala	13 354 000	0,164%
Sri Lanka	19 299 000	0,160%
Argentina	39 531 000	0,152%
Poland	38 125 479	0,149%
Syria	19 929 000	0,132%
Peru	27 903 000	0,110%
Philippines	88 706 300	0,106%
Romania	21 438 000	0,101%
Japan	127 718 000	0,097%
South Korea	48 512 000	0,094%
Pakistan	161 930 000	0,094%
Kenya	37 538 000	0,080%
Thailand	62 828 706	0,078%
Morroco	31 224 000	0,072%
Tunisia	10 327 000	0,069%
Ghana	23 478 000	0,048%
India	1 169 016 000	0,038%
Brazil	185 130 000	0,038%
Indonesia	231 627 000	0,036%
Russia	142 499 000	0,034%
Ukraine	46 205 000	0,032%
Nepal	28 196 000	0,031%
Iraq	28 993 000	0,027%
Nigeria	148 093 000	0,027%
Sudan	38 560 000	0,026%
Bangladesh	158 665 000	0,023%
Uganda	30 884 000	0,019%
Vietnam	87 375 000	0,018%
Tanzania	40 454 000	0,017%
Cuba	11 268 000	0,016%
Iran	71 208 000	0,016%
Algeria	33 858 000	0,013%
China	1 322 413 000	0,013%
Afghanistan	27 145 000	0,011%
Cameroon	18 549 000	0,010%
Yemen	22 389 000	0,008%
Mozambique	21 397 000	0,008%
Uzbekistan	27 372 000	0,006%
Madagascar	19 683 000	0,006%
Ethiopa	77 127 000	0,005%
Myanmar	48 798 000	0,003%
North Korea	23 790 000	0,002%

The population data are from Wikipedia

Microsoft Live Search and Yahoo promote Fake Ads Site on first result page with undertaker domain parking company

It will be the second aniversary of the death of ConstellationW3.com*. It was a collaborative blog in french were in Quebec we where between august 2002 and december 2005 two dozens of Web passionates of IT who was writing on that blog.

*It was sponsored by Michel Cartier a professor and researcher at the Department of Communications at the University of Quebec in Montreal and consultant in new information and communication technologies (NICT) for various companies and governments in both Europe and North America.

Now the surprise, a query on my name on Microsoft Live returns today for first result : ConstellationW3.com !

The domain name seem to have been purchased after the end of that blog more than a year after the site was closed, and this smart guy from Australia who use Switzerland server, have seems to study the old links pointing to our city and use it to put sponsored links to Montreal now.

Yahoo, also give me a third position and this, 23 months after the site was closed and where my name was never been there!

I don't really explain to be a mistake, just a deal with the undertaker domain parking company Sedoparking !

I'm Feeling lucky cost more than a hundred million to Google

A bit surprizing !

Larry Page to get married : Pretty costly this wedding !

Seem Goog don't like Lucy ;-)

I choose the wrong job!

Too funny : Google options put masseuse in crowd of multimillionaires.

Facebook Pages Stats

Quite good for focusing on different age segmentation with those statistics provide by the new FaceBook Pages !

Almost 25% of all the canadians are in Facebook !

Exactly 7,759,540* Canadians have a profile on Facebook. If you look at the last demographic data (end of september 2007) of Statistics Canada we are 32,976,000, now. An huge percentage no ?

Well, theses numbers was also confirmed by the first FaceBook Camp held this week in Montreal, Quebec where, - in less than a week of promotion in... FaceBook Events -, we get almost 250 peoples met together with also some folks of Toronto and also as far as New York too.

In Quebec province (the only french province of the Canada) we have 749,740 profils in FaceBook which represent 10% of all the Québecois for a english interface social network!

*This number come from the FaceBook Social Ad of FaceBook witout any age restriction.

Google China : Other culture, other design

Here is the new look of Google China.



Here a automatic translation of the new Google China homepage.

Myspace jump in the Google OpenSocial Network

Nice move and it will make pressure on Facebook to jump in too. But I think it will wait after the launch of their ad platform.

Google Transit jump out to Canada

And it is Vancouver the first of the canadian cities to be include in this handy feature :

View Larger Map

More than 20% of all the canadians are in Facebook

The small ads network page The Flyers Pro give us the statistics of all of those countries include in the location dropbox !

Geo Targeting Clicks for Ads

If the US dollar keep that pace may be the ads networks like Adwords/AdSense will have to manage the geolocation of clicks ?

Peter Kopimi take on the ifpi.com domain and giving back to Pirate Bay

Too funny and a good lesson for domain's owner. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry - IFPI.com- (org site still here) have been transferred to The Pirate Bay and the accronym have been change to International Federation of Pirate Interests.

Hello Google

Seem to be serious this time, the venue of the Google Phone and the stock price (wow $50 in 5 day) fly like the Google guys !

Google brains switch to Facebook !

I think Larry, Sergey and Eric have to sit down and brainstorm now !

Almost 3 Canadians on ten have a profile on a social network !

That's huge !

Nokia goes in the maps and local business for $ 8 billion

Nokia throw out a press release from their hat, informing us that they will acquire Navteq for 8.1 billion dollars. Huge deal and a good step to the advertising market for mobile.

Navteq is the principal provider of maps for Google Maps and Google Earth and a few other. I'd love to hear something form Google about this deal !

More information about that huge deal here.

Facebook & Microsoft Deal : Why not a advertising platform for local and mid-size advertisers instead ?

The Facebook platform have been at this place in the top place in the Web since few months in America for two reasons :

1. A developers platform . Great viral effect and massive new applications developed since end of may.
2. The switch of the primary focus clientele from colleges to everyone.

But where is the money ! For now, more than half seem to come from insignificant ads from Microsoft. And now, they will sell 5% to MSFT ?

After seen the possible with MSFT, I was wondering why the Facebook team are so dependant of Microsoft for their revenues ? They got a huge community divide in a lot of cities network with a lot of open profile. Why they not start their own advertising platform instead ?

You got the answer ? Please comment on it down here.

Google and Baidu stocks are going very well

After Apple, it's Baidu (China leader search engine) who go very well in the last year, is stock growing from around 80 to $300 while Google goes with new all-time high.

For the search engine market shares of China, Baidu still have the lead by far :

Google Web2Print new tool

A new tool to compose your Ad for the Google's print network (225 of U.S.-based newspapers) have been quietly released last week. Here how it's look like.

Nice acquisition for Google

The guy behind one of the best latest project of Yahoo who surprized me a lot and the only one I use everyday have been hired by Google. Hope will seen that kind of RSS aggregator going out as a new service at Google.

Google Shared Stuff

A good article with the best and worst of this new service launched a bit to soon in my opinion.

New York Times goes free and open up their archives

Finally another one catch-it up ! I laughed a bit specially reading this part of the article :

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” Ms. Schiller said.

They will be suprised a lot in a few month if I compare this to a small newspaper from Montreal who I managed to make their archives really easy to crawl with a bit of SEO. The traffic from Google grew from 4,000 UV/month to around 600,000/month !

Facebook launching a new business model

Interesting concept to promote a platform. I think it was time to make a clean-up and to try to manage the thousands of all kind of sometimes stupid application in there !

Panoramio photos now in Google Maps

After Google Earth it's now the turn of Google Maps to embed photos from Panoramio. You'll have to check the Panoramio box on the left side column to display it.

PS: A got one here, the orange sunset.

Lenovo goes really green

Lenovo, who acquire IBM’s Personal Computing Division less than 3 year ago, is one of the first company producing electronic devices to go really in the green manufacturing.

Not only his new desktop use only 45 watts of power, it also can be use with a solar panel to provide energy input and also contains up to 90% of reusable and recyclable materials and 90% recyclable packaging.

Wow ! The others will have to follow soon !

Google Drive up for the ninth's birthday of Google ?

Seem to be soon and the 27 september seem a good date where Google will turn nine !

Google Reader add finally the search feature

Great!!!! The new search functions allow you to search in :

• All your items
• The starred items
• The sharred items
• The sub-category generated by your tag
  
• The individual RSS feed
• The use of classical search operator ( OR |, " ", -)
  

Very nice. Here a few other thing they should add in it :

• A vacation button to stop the aggregator with a calendar option
• A way to classify the post on the same subject with your historical click preference to sort the most click at the top and gray out the bottom one automatically
  
• A RSS feed at the end of a query in Reader. With that, you can extract some nice data from multiple or single feed and share those results for users who don't use google Reader.

Google Bug : Interface language affect a lot the positionning of the results

Another weird bug at Google almost unknown. The language of the interface modify a lot the positionning of the results even of local declinaisons. (like google.ca, google.fr, etc).
Here a example with Google.com : http://www.google.com/search?&q=top%20challenge%20montreal%202007

My picture blog (vupar.blogspot.com) on this query got the 25e position.

But now, go to the preference and change the Interface Language to French :

Get back in the first page of results : Tadam ! Vupar.blogspot now showing in first place !

Soem countries like Switzerland or India have a lot of common language used there. Not very easy to know in which position a page are ?!?

Note: If you don't wan't to pass by the preference you can add &hl=en (english) or &hl=fr (french) at the end of the resulting URL

Odd Google suggestion

Sometimes all the products can't be use used ;-)

Martin Bouchard is now president of Mamma

Good news for that meta search engine. I met this guy a few years ago when he was at Copernic and i'm pretty sure he will dynamize that company. Good luck Martin.

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