Christophe LANGLOIS (first version)

Blogs on the rise

Weblogs have reached an all-time high: there are more than 50million blogs on the Internet, with the blogging community expanding by around 65,000 a day.

If you fancy having your own blog, have a look at www.typepad.com!

Technorati tags: Blog, Blogging, Internet, Typepad

Blogs & Women (in France)

In a recent article posted on the blog from L'express magazine, I found list of blogs from networking groups for women.

List of blogs (in French)
* Du rose dans le gris
* Action de femme
* Administration moderne
* Arborus
* HRM Women
* EPWN

European Professional Women Network (EPWN)
If you are a professional woman I would advise to check the website from the excellent networking group, EPWN.

I know this network very well: the members are bright, open-minded and available, the team is great, and the events are always excellent!
Moreover, it is a real pan-European network with chapters in Paris, London, Oslo, Geneva, Vienna, Amsterdam, Sophia, Brussels, Milan, Madrid.

"Blog Based Books"?

"Our goal is to empower bloggers to publish their blogs as books."... I am not sure about the concept, but they came up with the idea in Austin (Texas)!

Please find below two paragraphs from the website:
Hello and Welcome to Blog Based Books!
Blog Based Books is an online bookstore specifically geared towards bloggers and blog readers. 
Our goal is to empower bloggers to publish their blogs as books.  In the process we hope to start a
new trend that may one day overthrow the traditional publishing world!

What are blog-based books?
This is pretty self-explanatory. Blog-based books are books that are based on blogs.  They can
be fiction or non and come in a variety of genres (novels, cookbooks, political theses, etc.) and
formats (hard cover, paperback and e-book).  Blog-based books are the equivalent of reality TV for
the publishing world.

Moblog: post pictures or videos, anytime, from your cellphone

Moblog is a blend of the words mobile and weblog. A mobile weblog, or moblog, consists of content posted to the Internet from a mobile or portable device, such as a cellular phone or PDA. Moblogs generally involve technology which allows publishing from a mobile device.
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org)

The concept is great: update your blog when you are on the go.
As a good example of moblog, please visit Loic Lemeur's "Daily Views"!

VideoEgg/Typepad: Business Model & early Comments

 VideoEgg: Video Publishing Over Easy
I was curious to test the new VideoEgg service provided free of charge for all Typepad users! (the video with the cats was the only one on my computer...)

I found out about this service on one of my friend's blog, Alex de Carvalho.

The concept of publishing video on your typepad blog, in an easy way, is excellent!
One more time, SixApart's management proves to be smart to some extent that it's going to be another real differentiator to their blogging service.

Business Model - Partnership SixApart & VideoEgg
You would probably ask yourselves how they could provide that video service "for free", whereas it has to be very demanding in terms of bandwidth.
What is the Business Model? What are the key benefits for VideoEgg? For SixApart?

The Business Model is very classic on the Internet, and based on advertising: they will introduce advertising, and you will have to pay to get rid of it.

Free storage, free bandwidth  whats the catch?
This feature preview is provided free of charge, but at some point in the future VideoEgg may introduce advertising to support the video content you upload during this preview. Before that happens, we promise that you will have the opportunity to support your content ad-free through a subscription service at VideoEgg.Com . You can also choose to remove it from the system. To receive an email notification from SixApart when ads are on the way, check the "notify me before placing ads on this content" box on the posting page. VideoEgg will not have access to your email address at any time. 

Key benefits for SixApart
* Be ahead of competition and provide a video service to their users
* Generate more need for bandwidth (I suspect they would launch new subscription based offers for more bandwidth)
* Get a share of the revenues generated by advertising and/or the content ad-free subscription service

Key benefits for VideoEgg
* Raise their profile and demonstrate they have an excellent product
* Get access to the huge number of typepad users around the world
* Please their investors, and generate a lot of cash in a minimum amount of time

My comments
It is still a Beta version. Please find below my comments:
+ Easy login: you use the same login/password at http://typepad.videoegg.com/
+ Easy upload: you can easily upload any kind of media files
- Poor typepad features: for the moment, you don't have access to the full range of features such as changing the color of the fonts, or assigning more than one catagory...
- When you open the post later on Typepad and try to apply any kind of changes like send a trackback or change the category, the VIDEO DISAPPEARS!...

VideoEgg: TEST - Play videos on your blog!

VideoEgg: Video Publishing Over Easy
I was curious to test the new VideoEgg service provided free of charge for all Typepad users! (the video with the cats was the only one on my computer...)

I found out about this service on one of my friend's blog, Alex de Carvalho.

The concept of publishing video on your typepad blog, in an easy way, is excellent!
One more time, 6 Apart's management proves to be smart to some extent that it's going to be another real differentiator to their blogging service...