Jack Ma - Alibaba Group

Interview of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group (Yahoo! China recently acquired by this Chinese company) in Davos. Alibaba is the e-commerce leader in China and i think in all asia with also Alipay, the leading CtoC Payment platform in Asia.

"it will take time for them to learn, i think they'll be back in the next 5-10 years" talking about US companies in China...

"I think that's why i'm very confident with china, every young people start to create, to be entrepreneurs..."

"We'll be global in the next 5 years, in US, EU..."

I'm currently waiting for the launch of Alipay outside of Asia, Myspace could has been a huge opportunity but it's seems to be too late.

"France must learn to forget faster" - John Gage

French version of the Video :

One interesting discussion with John Gage, vice president of Sun Microsystem (with Loic Lemeur) about France's value in the mondialization...

Myspace's approach of the value chain

After a long discussion with my binomial & friend Carl Hallard, i would like to share on Myspace approach of the music industry's value chain... (The picture is the myspace page of Fancy an emergent french band)

I remember my school's tutors wondered us : "where do you place So ME (Our platform) on the value chain?" We were not sure, especially because it was a new web 2.0 platforms editor (Business plan 2004). So ME, the first launched platform was an intermediation one for artists and fans (a Myspace like but with a deeper focus on the relation between fans and artists), allowing "experts" (artists) to sell entertainment/cultural products on the site...

Value chain seemed to be the thing we must respect and we used to say "We respect the value chain and bring solutions". It has been designed to bring promotion tools and revenue drivers for artists, diversity and direct contact with artists for fans, tools for Majors (to select the artist with huge potential artists with an objective approach)

I think Myspace's success is mainly due to this. They focus on bringing solutions to most of the value chain actors... If you think Myspace is blog or just "6 degree rule", you're wrong...

We don't need to respect how things goes in the current value chain but we need to bring solutions to actors that are currently involved in. Then when you get most of the market share as Myspace or Apple with the Ipod you can bring your own value chain in a sense.

Myspace has created social links between people around their interests, involving expert as emergent artists, video makers, nights clubs staff... as fans and other consumers (public), they will start to allow them the generate commercial transactions. It's relevant to introduce commercial transactions on a Social Network but it's not easy to generate social links based on commercial transactions.

Yes i know that some people are now engaged after meeting them as sellers and buyers on Ebay... Just crazy but not very representative...

Why will i need to buy music in a store if i can buy it to "my friend" the artist directly on Myspace?

Today the only reason i could buy music in a store (for myself) is that "my friend" artist told me to, or cause the packaging add a specific value... (I've finally put all my cds' packaging in my cave last week...). I've never buy MP3 files yet but I'm just waiting for Myspace to allow registered artists music sells to do it and I can't wait (yes truly!)

I think Myspace will become the first MP3 paid distribution platform, Apple store is not so relevant for Myspace users...

Myspace could become a strong e-commerce player soon.

Who is going to make the smart move to deploy his CtoC payment solution on Myspace?

. Ebay with Paypal

. Yahoo! / Alibaba with Alipay
. Google with Google checkout

I think it's the most important deal to make this year for Payment solutions to expand market shares. It seems to be Paypal but we don't know really...

Will Myspace and Newscorp turn into e-commerce successfully?

I'm more in love with the e-business than with any company so i hope it they will do it!

Myspace VS WAT Episode 4

Last month myspace's growth was slow as all the market. The site has officially been launched in January so we can expect huge growth next month.
In December, myspace FR has gain 224 000 UV to reach almost 1.5 M UV.
Skyblog is slowing down... Yahoo! 360 lost 30% of traffic (- 50% in 2 months), the product is dramatically loosing market shares... Quite surprising, I didn't know if they launch another acquisition with big budget but WAT traffic increased by 200% MoM! As retention has not been improved I think they've done it lol

Will myspace reach 2M UV in January? I think that's realistic!

Audience (December UV):

. Myspace FR: 1, 448 Millions of UV (+224 000 UV MoM only)
(Beta officially launched in the middle of August 06)

. Yahoo! 360: 117 000 UV (-41 000 UV MoM!!!)
(officially launched in the middle of February 06 with no marketing budget
but integration on low Yahoo! portal)

. WAT: 600 000 UV (+ 395 000 UV only MoM)
(officially launched in the middle of June 06 with huge marketing
> SEM, Banners campaigns...)

. Skyblog: 4 921 000 UV (+ 94 000 UV only MoM)


Retention (December pages by user):

. Myspace FR: 51 (-7 MoM)

. Yahoo! 360: No data (7 last month)

. WAT: 11 ( +4 MoM)

. Skyblog: 149 (-2 MoM)

Next Episode on February the 14th

Previous Episodes:
Episode 3 : December
Episode 2 : October
Episode 1 : September

Direct Marketing Campaign to get a mission at Yahoo!

During the 6 last months i used to think about how to get the opportunity to bring something to Yahoo! US on product side. As I’m too young and not Stanford branded, with a bizarre deal to make (1 week at Yahoo! 1 week at school and so on during 4 months), using the HR way was not relevant to make it. So i've decided to launch a direct marketing campaign targeted on the 4 top management persons managing products BU's including the famous memo author.

I needed to surprise them and i was thinking that nobody try to contact them directly. I used a Yahoo! answers EU campaign to design 4 personalized emailing introducing my request, our shared contacts and pushing them to discuss about it together. My speech was US oriented showing my passion for the internet and my can do attitude (My vision of my professional life). I precise that i sent it without any resume but i made a "call to be redirect" on my corporate website gregorytalon.com

It's quite crazy but why could it not work? Let's try, i had nothing to loose.

I wanted them to read it and to convert (not a 0,5% conversion rate allowed), so i included the receiver picture in the creative, not only mine. I was thinking that the first reaction will be "who is that young man pretending to..." so i've put it in the creative : "Who are you?" said by the receiver. I've tested it to know if they'll receive well and not as spam, i had big issues on that point during 4 days.

Then it works one of my receivers called a shared contact to know more about me. After 3 weeks of push with US, UK and FR with 5-6 contacts across EU helping me to negotiate with US. I'll start to work for Yahoo! US and Yahoo! EU on Yahoo! users value (subject has changed, even more interesting now). We'll work as a team with my colleague Julien Marie.

5 things you don't know about me.

This is the blogosphere buzz currently!

Following invitation of Vincent Thome on his blog I'll do it also...

Here they are 5 things you don't know about me.

. I was 18 when I found what I love, when my life created too much lacks of loved things.

I've some Portuguese origins, my mother was not allowed to study when she was young because she was the older child of a 5 children Portuguese family. My father is a self-made man with no graduation. They divorced when i was 7 years-old and i started to live with my mother. I wasn't so good at school, and i spent one year to find what i love at the Paris VI science university. My mother wanted me to become engineer (high level one as she said) and my father wanted me to work as soon as possible. After 6 months of boring general science courses... I decided to leave the faculty and i started to make websites, first for my music band called Elerium to promote our music, then for my video makers association linked with an artist’s online community in order to promote our contributors' talents... I was good for many things like music, design, video... but i didn't find myself excellent on anyone of those things. I feel more comfortable with finding solutions for others. I was 18 and i had the chance to find what i love very early: Making Internet products & services bringing solutions and value for people with conviction that they're many things to build on all subjects!

. I'm feared of my death so I'm running faster each day to make my life great.
I used to be attached to things that don't change every time. I don't know really why and when but I've changed : I think that the better way to make more each day is just to challenge this objective with a huge amount of can do attitude. Why should i let someone tell me what's possible or not for myself. All is possible if you have the passion to do it with a different approach! I think i can say "many thanks" to Carl Hallard, Arnaud Portanelli, Guillaume Le Dieu de Ville, Pascale Furbeyre and Claude Vogel who helped me to understand that point. I'm trying to go deeper each day.

. I don't support flat periods.

It's pretty hard to feel good for me when i didn't reach to make "huge" progress.
Fortunately I'm confident that I'll connect the dots soon each day of my life and most of the time, work paid!

. I always tried to have experiences in places I'm not supposed to like
Agencies & HEC are good examples and I've learn lot on myself there. :)

. Something I even don't know yet

Following the tradition i invite Carl, Alban, Julien & Pete to share 5 things we don't know about them.