e-remediable

As you may know, I am currently in Morocco for my internship in a publishing company.

While surfing on the web yesterday, I got amazed by the breakdown of Youtube servers. For the very first time since I know this site, not a single Youtube videoclip was working (neither embedded videos, nor those on YouTube website). As a customer-care maniac, I was quite upset by this. I tried Dailymotion (which was perfectly working), but unfortunately, the videoclip I was looking for was not available on it.

Investigating the web for more information about this, I learnt that YouTube had been blocked by my ISP. Only Maroc Telecom (the historic telephone operating company in Morocco, subsidiary of Vivendi) customers were concerned, the two other ISPs kept granting access to the website and its videoclips . Resistance against this was organizing, many websites linking to proxies to access YouTube. The buzz around this case was so high (crossing borders to France), that Maroc Telecom brought back access to the website yesterday evening.

To protest against censorship, I show you the dissident video I was looking for, another excellent live performance of Ben Folds (during the concert he gave broadcasted live on his MySpace page):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9qa_c-UYSs]

In a recent post, I referred to the the interview (in French) of Jean-Marie Colombani in L’Express. As the editor of one of the 3 national daily newspapers in France, he advocated for the development of the online edition of Le Monde, on the Financial Times model.

Today, the journalists of Le Monde decided not to follow his path, putting an end to his 12 years long career as the editor of the daily.

Obviously, other reasons led to this choice. French written press is undergoing deep crisis. The last presidential election uncovered people mistrust in the media as a whole, and journalists on the front line.

But Colombani’s inspired opinion on the written press future was undoubtedly too controversial in such a conservative industry. Wait to see his successor views on this subject …

2007 will be a crucial year in France, since for the first time, both favorite candidates are running their first presidential campaign. Ségolène Royale, 53, used to be an outsider facing her fellow elders in the Socialist Party, and Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, came out with his presidential ambitions only 3 years ago. It is a real revolution in the french political landscape, where presidents often run several polls before being elected. On top of inherent good communication skills, both of them knew how to benefit from new communication channels.

New generation of candidates brings new means of communication. My friend Jeremy (the Tech IT Easy guy) found a good definition of Web 2.0 : “Web 2.0 companies are companies smart enough to make users do the job.” That’s exactly the point of this presidential campaign. The UMP (Sarkozy’s rightwing party) website provides the militants with free space and interface to create their own campaign blog. On Royal’s Socialist Party website, you can subscribe to take part in the pre-election socialist participative debates.

Well, make users do the job, but be receptive to their signals. Remember your economics lessons: There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The internet is not simply a mean to reach more audience. Allowing bilateral communication, it needs to be used bilaterally. There’s nothing more disapointing than a politician’s blog only fed by militants (and most of them are in this case). Such websites only reach a militant base already convinced (pro or con). That’s precisely what Royal understood starting her controversed participative debates. On the internet, Sarkozy (who early pointed at new media assets) posted a comment on Mathieu Kassovitz’s blog defending his policy as Minister of the Interior.

The web will play a major role in this presidential campaign, as it has been playing so far. Remember Royal controversed off the record videos posted on YouTube, Sarkozy advertising on Google, new year greetings on their respective websites. All these processes are not new, the new thing is the buzz it generates (and which, for sure, is not gonna decrease). You now can adress directly your policy-makers, they can answer your questions. You can contribute to the debate on your blog, be a journalist posting your own videos on Youtube. Good or bad shift, welcome to Democracy 2.0.

If I had not decided to start blogging this month I might never have started.

3 events led me to do so :

• The Web 3 convention, organized by Loïc Le Meur (HEC Alumni, french guru of blogging whose company is hosting this blog). More than the two previous ones which were focused on the bloggers community, this convention was opened to the outside (real ?) world. Two candidates to the french presidential election, one peace Nobel Price owner, many web-entreprenors, but also “brick & mortar” firms representatives …

• The Person of The Year 2006 in Time Magazine : “You”, as the hero of the new information era. Did they lack relevant candidates to receive this prize or is it only a very good buzz marketing campaign ? Anyway, this choice highlights the main difference between the first internet revolution (Web 1.0), whose firms fosters the so-called “bubble”, and the current one (Web 2.0), whose obvious unifying feature lies in content personalization (e.g. Google with news, Last.fm with music, Youtube with video, or Vox with blogs). As if new economy firms got more mature and focused now on the Internet main competitive advantage : interactivity, making information feeds more and more bilateral.

• Last but not least, a friend’s blog about IT (Tech IT Easy) which reached new trafic peaks. I must admit that I was quite admirative of his discipline in posting everyday, and starting blogging became a new challenge for me.

Information business model is experimenting a true revolution since everyone is a potential information-provider and above all acts as an information provider. This increase in range of information sources, added to the popularization of main information chanels (pictures, video, audio, text) challenges traditionnal media companies. French newspapers are one the verge of bankruptcy and the music and cinema industries are deeply suffering from P2P. Most innovative companies can take up the challenge : The Financial Times makes money thanks to its online edition, Apple and its ITunes Music Store sold more than 1 billion tracks while settling its IPod as a standard of the market.

I and Romain will do our best to update this blog as frequently as possible. In order to reach the largest public possible, I will post in English and Romain in French. Don’t hesitate to leave comments on our posts: exchanging ideas is the best way to increase one’s level.

And guys, one last reminder, you’re the person of the year, yes, you. You control the information age. Welcome to your world.