The best of the rest – day 3 at LeWeb ’11
The final day at LeWeb still brought lots of tech goodness. You can catch some of the main articles on our site here, or check out some of the bite-sized action below
Twitter want to focus on staying simple
Ryan Sarver, head of platforms at Twitter, discussed the new site redesign that took place just hours before his talk at LeWeb. Responding to criticism that many seemed to find the site clunkier to use, for example DMs seemingly being relegated from the homepage, he explained that what they wanted to continue to do with the Twitter platform was to keep it simple. This, he claimed, is what Jack Dorsey specifically brings to the table, with a clear focus on how to retain product simplicity. What seemed to be absent from the discussion to an extent, were the use of Lists within Twitter, which don’t seem to be providing that much of a use to the user. These, Sarver essentially said, were a work in progress.
He also explained that the new site design had a bigger focus on discoverability of content, something which has also been heavily focused on with the new Facebook layout and summary of news stories. You can see Twitter experimenting with new ways for people to discover their content, for example with the launch of embeddable tweets, which now make it easier to track Twitter content across the web.
The 7 second rule for mobile apps
The founder of 955 Dreams – Kiran Bellubbi - who were featured among the top 3 apps of the year on the App store, told the story of his company and what he had learned through his successes and failures of app development. There were 2 key takeaways that any app developers (or indeed entrepreneurs) should follow. Firstly – that you have a seven second rule with apps. If you can’t distil the benefit of your app into 7 seconds for the user, then you have effectively lost their attention. Secondly, he said that you must only ship what you love. If you don’t truly believe in the beauty and value of your products, then your users are unlikely to as well and you’ll end up with a shoddy product on the market that will cost you in customer service what you sacrificed for premature release.
We’re just at the beginning of social media & politics
Sean Parker and Shervin Pishevar’s session was one of the most engaging at LeWeb, if only for the sheer amount of ground that they covered. Though Spotify and Napster were inevitably a major focus of the talk, they also touched on the role that social media has to play in politics. This, they both claimed, was only at the very beginning of its development and though much attention has been paid to the likes of Obama and his use of social media, Parker said that it would be in the next election that we would really see this come to the fore. Shervin also explained the huge role that traditional media – flying, posters etc.. plays in politics and how that is still winning elections. For now at least.
BabelVision shows us their vision
LeWeb ended with the results of the startup competition, which saw 3 startup apps pitch to a panel of judges. These were : BeIntoo – an advertising & ramification platform for apps ; HeyCrowd – a more social approach to polling & surveys, and BabelVision, which was the eventual winner. BabelVision is one of those products that comes along and makes you wonder how something like this hasn’t come along before. The 2 behind the product : were both particularly impressive themselves and this has clearly carried through into the product.
BabelVision essentially works like crowdsourced, live translation. It applies to both informal contexts, where you might be having a conversation with someone in a foreign country, but with particular focus on its use at conferences. As the user, you can set your task – the languages that you want translating. BabelVision then matches your request with one of their translators on hand from all over the world. You’re then connected to them live and the translating begins.
A lot of detail has been thought out in this product. Firstly in the way you access it. While you can use their app, you can also access it via Skype, a web interface, or through a standard phonecall. Particular care has also been paid to the way in which the translators are rated. When you submit to take part, you initially are set at level 1. You then perform tasks in informal settings (placing orders for someone in a cafe etc.) and are rated accordingly. When you build up your rating, your accredibility is assured and you can graduate into higher paying tasks, such as translating live for someone at a conference. The end user pays what will amount to the standard rate of a phonecall, and the translator gets 70% of the profit. A deserving winner of the competition and an exciting one to watch for the future.
