Greetings, after a memorable few days at Le Web!

Jerome and I were in Paris this week for what has got to be the biggest conference covering the web and social media that I have ever been to in Europe. Over 2,000 of the leading people from the digital media world, representing nearly 50 countries, turned up to mingle, be inspired and hopefully learn something new.

The theme of this year’s event, which was celebrating its 5th year, was the real-time web. And as Hermione Way posited on her recent Video blog, you can’t get more real-time than Twitter! The tweet stream which was being displayed alongside the speakers for most of the conference sessions was moving so fast that you could barely read it. It’s amazing though how people will still post their tweets for their 3 seconds of fame and to foster engagement amongst their followers.

I think we can all learn a lot from what Twitter has achieved.  What on the surface looks like a really simple user interface, is in reality an powerful broadcast and engagement platform that has taken the world by storm. We were fortunate enough to hear from the inventor of Twitter, Jack Dorsey who is also acting Chairman. Jack was a great inspiration and I found the story behind what led him to invent Twitter very enlightening, as it touched on the importance of knowing where people are and what they are doing.

Here at WAYN, ever since the beginning we have always believed in the potential value of real-time engagement based on your whereabouts and activities and we are busy working on a variety of capabilities that will hopefully unlock some of the value being demonstrated in this area, but more as a compliment to the way people use sites like Twitter and Facebook, rather than instead of. I look forward to announcing more on this in the New Year, but in the meantime, check out our new Activities offering, which is one of the first in many steps we are taking to broaden our appeal beyond travel.

Jack’s new invention – Square – is quite simply – ingenious! Soon, we will all be able to transact with others via our mobile devices without having to be set up as a business merchant with companies like Natwest Streamline. Instead, you will be able to get your Square adaptor and raise all the money you need from your friends, family and fools to set up your next bootstrapped venture by simply asking for their credit card

There were many other highlights such as people like Chris Brogan reiterating why culture is so important, along with many other amazing speakers who are helping to change the world. I could go on for ages and I’d be only scraping the surface, but there is one other aspect that I really wanted to add a  special mention to, and that is the folks at Microsoft Bizspark. Microsoft can often get a bit of bad press from the early adopter community as many entrepreneurs see them as the slow moving giant that can’t compete with the cachet of Apple for example. However, when you consider the fact that Microsoft remains the world’s largest software company, that is to be expected. However, for WAYN, Microsoft represents an important enabler for our business and many people tend to forget that many of the world’s leading technology stacks rest on a Microsoft based platform, like ours does.

The Microsoft BizSpark program is a fantastic example of how Microsoft are working with a number of start-ups to help them succeed. Particularly those on BizSpark One, which helps accelerate the growth of high potential start-ups like us, through nurturing a one-to-one relationship with Microsoft. The reason I am “bigging” these guys up is because they really pulled out the stops for us this year to show their support. It is thanks to them that we were bestowed the privilege of attending Le Web as they sponsored our tickets and also gave us access to our own booth, like all the other BizSpark One companies. And last but not least, and certainly most enjoyably – they helped put on the best parties at Le Web, which brought everyone together and strengthened relationships, which can be priceless. They even had the brands of their BizSpark partners flashing up on the screens in this trendy boutique that housed us for the Drink Tank after party on the closing night, which was a nice touch. For those of you who are keen to find out more about the various perks you get as a BizSpark partner and would like to take advantage of their various technology platform benefits on Micrsoft SQL and Azure cloud computing for example, you can find out more here.

Peter Ward and Jerome Touze at the BizSpark One Stand at Le Web 2009

That about wraps it up for this instalment. Le Web, as Loic Le Meur said himself “has become a platform” for us tech and new media geeks from around the world to benefit from. For me it was great to see some of the familiar faces from across the internet sector. Le Web has definitely morphed from a European event to a Global one and represented one of the top 5 trending topics on Twitter, generating over 100,000 tweets. Hats off to both Geraldine and Loic, for pulling it off! They definitely learned from most of the mistakes from last year. My only one complaint?.. Why couldn’t the food be as good as the Nespresso coffee?

Roll on next year…

Pete

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Hi everyone,

I hope you are all well.

This month has been hectic to say the least and has been filled with mixed emotions, with us having to go through a small redundancy process and also cut back on some of the contractors that we have had the pleasure of working with over the past few years. Despite hitting our first quarter targets and achieving our best month of ad sales ever last month, we have had to take many of the same precautions as other companies by reducing the costs within the business and focus on the core elements of the business. For those that we are having to say good bye to we would like to thank you for your hard work and dedication during the time that you have been with us! We wish you well in your next roles and hope that our paths cross again soon! For those of us that remain, we have a number of challenges in front of us, but what with our renewed focus on the site re-launch,  which is due to take place in the Spring, we remain positive and bullish about the future ahead…

Not exactly what I was wearing...

This week, apart from the usual chimping away hard on new product development and dealing with the usual list of problems to solve, I also attended a girls networking event called Silicon stiletto’s, which is not because I like to where stilletto’s clearly, but I have to say that I was intrigued to find out if there was indeed 120 females in the internet world that were turning up. It is an event organised by Zuzanna Pasierbinska, the marketing Manager from Huddle.net, who have also run drinktank, which is a great little shindig! Silicon Stiletto’s is aimed at bringing all the girls together from the Internet world along with some token guys, like me, who have been invited to join them. It was good to meet Zuzanna finally, after hearing a lot of good things from Marta, who is our Marketing Manager. It was also good to catch up with Bindi Karia from Microsoft, who is one of our biggest partners, and find our more about some of the new initiatives (and budget) that they have access to!

One other person who is most certainly worth mentioning, that I met at the Silicon Stiletto’s event was Amanda Rose. Amanda, with a little help from her Twitter friends, and extended network, has helped launch what must be one of the fastest, if not the fastest ever social networking related event – ever! In the space of a few weeks, Twestival has managed to raise over half a million dollars for Charity Water by selling £5 tickets, for what is now going to be 120 + global events around the world. The tickets for the London event sold out within 1 hour. I am personally in awe of that achievement and it just goes to show how much of a phenomenon Twitter is becoming. Move over Facebook!

Taking hold of your future?

Last night I did a talk / interactive session for an event organised by one of my good friends Gori (Gary to me) Fashina, at my old university Brunel, in Uxbridge. The event was called “Taking hold of your future” and is one of the first in a series of events being run by the Emerging Leaders Academy – a newly formed organisation that is attracting a lot of interest and attention from people a far afield as the President of Nigeria and even Barak Obama himself! The talk I gave was designed to help thise attending to obtain the tools that can help them to harness the power from within to achieve their full unique potential. I did a similar talk in Kenya when I was invited over there to speak in front of a few hundred students and it was good to do the same here on home turf for students from my own university. Hopefully, there will be a few people that take on board the learnings that I shared and possibly even set up the next big thing!? It was nice to hear from Gori afterwards that they had received very positive feedback already and that one student felt inspired to stay at college and finish his studies and progress on to University, when he was close to dropping out!

That’s enough from me for now. I’ll be getting my head down and focusing on the big product launch that is happening in a few months… So have a great weekend and speak soon.

Pete

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