CYB3R SAPIENS

I first talked with Marissa last fall, at TechCrunch50, shortly after she announced GoogleNews and helped celebrate Google’s 10th anniversary with cupcakes and candles and a cheering TC50 crowd:


Alas, it wasn’t until the end of the day, when I found out that our over-20 minutes of videotaped conversation was gone – total audio loss due to a faulty microphone connection. I sat down again for another interview with Marissa, a few months later at the LeWeb conference in Paris. This time we discussed Google’s OpenSocial and content sharing and distribution on YouTube, which was just acquired by Google:

The Seesmic video conversation, discussed by LeWeb ’08 participants and Seesmic users – Phil Jeudy of San Fancisco-based Altaide Valley, and artist Philippe Lejeune:

I also asked another French expat, Seesmic investor  Jeff Clavier of  SoftTech VC about his take on video conversations:

Selected in 2007 by Forbes as one of the 100 most powerful women, Christine Lagarde Minister of Finance of France, introduced the winners of the Startup Competition at LeWeb 08, with Loic Le Meur and Robert Scoble: Viewdle (Ukraine), Webnode (Czech Republic) and Zoover (Netherlands):

Nikesh Arora, SVP, Google and President, EMEA Operations, shares Google’s vision about crossing language barriers with innovative translation technologies (from a LeWeb interview with Loic Le Meur):

In an interview with me, following a panel discussion titled Platform Love: Getting Along, David Glazer, Google’s Director of Engineering, referred to the expansion of social networking platforms:

He also discussed privacy standards and how they changed over time:

Why love? On his recent Seesmic post Loic Le Meur explains why was love chosen as the theme for LeWeb08:Why LOVE is @leweb theme this yearnrelated blog post http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/11/why-love-is-thi.html
Why LeWeb? In an interview at TechCrunch50 last September, he explained why LeWeb is a blogosphere Mecca:

These excerpts were videotaped at the TechCrunch50 conference (with the exception of the interview with Sarah Lacy which was also later re-taped at her Boston UGBT event):

Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience, announcing a new Google product on the company’s 10th anniversary:

Ariel McNichol and Julia Johnston are the co-founders and co-CEOs of mEgo, yet visitors to their demo booth at TechCrunch50 often asked “to speak with a guy”:

Sarah Lacy, author of Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0, commented on Web 2.0 women during her recent book tour event in Boston:

As of the time of posting this blog there have been 7,529 blog reactions to BlogDay 2008, as cited on Technorati. My Blog Day selections are more about blogging demographics than about certain individual blogs. All are categories I look at in my documentary Cyber Sapiens, all are people whom I met or know from my own exploration of different themes of social media, and all are of bloggers whom I read and follow their blogs and the content they chose to share on different blogging platforms.

Digital Immigrants:

According to the Blogging Iceberg survey by Perseus “blogging is many things, yet the typical blog is written by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life. It will be written very informally (often in “unicase”: long stretches of lowercase with ALL CAPS used for emphasis) with slang spellings, yet will not be as informal as instant messaging conversations (which are riddled with typos and abbreviations)”.

Millie Garfield started blogging after asking her son Steve Garfield what a blog was and he, in return, created one for her. Warm, fun and often funny, her frequent entries cover daily anecdotes, hobbies and interests and rich life experiences. Micro-blogging on Twitter is not unfamiliar to her as are such web acronyms as LOL, BTW and OMG, and at 83 years young Millie certainly defies the typical blogger’s profile.

Visionaries & Evangelists:

Chris Brogan, whom I met at one of Jeff Pulver’s social networking events, created his first blog as a two-columns Excel spreadsheet long before ready-made blogging templates where available. The cofounder of PodCamp, his blog is a practical “how to” guide which offers thorough advice alongside motivational inspiration for early adopters and novices alike.

Taking the conventional blog concept one step further, Seesmic founder and French, now American, serial entrepreneur Loic Le Meur says that traditional media – send messages, and blogs – start conversations. He also says that vlogs are tomorrow’s blogs.

His About section of his website reads: “I am blogging every day a video on loic.tv about (almost) everything I do as I start Seesmic, I also constantly post short thoughts to twitter and often my pictures on Flickr.” Or in the French edition aussi: “Vous pouvez me suivre tous les jours en vidéo sur loic.tv, plusieurs fois par jour en style SMS sur Twitter, je poste aussi mes photos sur flickr.”

Traditional media have been all along about communicating messages to the masses, lacking any mechanisms for feedback, dialog or interaction. Blogs were the first to offer a feedback, talkback, but left the interaction in the print environment. And while vlogs created a face-to-face familiarity and an opportunity to develop a dialog, Loic is turning Seesmic into a cozy virtual salon, where any one can drop by and drop in on a conversation or start a conversation in any language and any time zone or geographic locale.

Social Media for Social Change:

In her blog Media Awaken, Maria Thurell suggests that through the use of social media tools, her clients can facilitate collaboration, communication and community relations. A digital Native by age definition and a self described “undeniable dreamer and an advocate of social change,” she promotes, on her blog and in life-beyond-keyboard, social causes and social change such as the ongoing SM4SC campaign. In a recent post, she links to Beth Kanter’s blog, a BlogHer contributing editor who, on her own blog, discusses how nonprofits can use social media, and offers a compilation of Gen-Y bloggers who write about social change in their blogs

Women WWWloggers:

Speaking of BlogHer, a website for “women who blog” and following their slogan “You say it. We share it,” women bloggers have been doing just that all along. From Halley Suitt, who trail blazed the blogosphere since before it was even dubbed as such, to Cathy Brooks who describes herself as a “genetically engineered communicator who is fascinated by how technology is changing behavior” and whose frequent, daily Seesmic vlogging conversations like her personal blog posts offers witty commentary on most everything… other than that – there’s a long, respected list of women who make for about 56% of the blogosphere demographics.

Tech Talk:

From across the pond, Brit Phil Campbell, whom I met in podcampnyc2 and pcb3, introduces himself as a “web geek, street geek that likes to dabble with all things techy,” as well as film his “new daughter a lot because she rocks.” His me.dm (pronounced medium) blog cultivates his work projects as well as his web presence on a host of social media sites such as FriendFeed, YouTube, Twitter, Seesmic, Del.icio.us, Ning, to mention a few. Oh, and he “haz Pulver.tv in development” too.

Laura Fitton, aka @pistachio, shares her perspectives on Twitter as a new platform which is rapidly changing the way we communicate and nature of our connections:

Production started in early-April 2008, with filming at the COMvention conference, at one of Jeff Pulver’s worldwide Social Media Breakfasts and at a GarageGeeks‘ party – all held in Tel Aviv, Israel. Additional filming followed later that month at PodCampNYC and then in May at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for the Internet & Society 10th anniversary event.

Welcome to Cyber Sapiens – a documentary film about social media in the digital age.