I am proud of our teams at Echovox
By David | July 7, 2007
5:43am and still a little under 10 people here at Echovox working hard on our new flagship summer launch, Zong’s Apollo release. A special tribute to their dedication and motivation! Thanks guys!
Sphere: Related ContentiPhone full video demos
By David | June 26, 2007
Some of you might think I’m unhealthily obsessed with Apple’s iPhone, well… you’re right! I’m still reserved on email usage with no physical keyboard, but the rest of the device will certainly push the whole industry towards full web/mobile convergence. Before we can get our hands on the actual device, here are 3 full demo videos created by Apple before iPhone’s official launch on June 29:
Sphere: Related ContentCan anything stop Facebook?
By David | June 24, 2007
This week I registered to Facebook and for the first time while trying out social networks online, I had a ah-ha moment. The virality of the platform is truly amazing, you can feel that not one little detail was left behind. The news feed feature is the first thing you see when you log-in, it shows what your friends are doing and displays a list of friends being added to your own friends’ network. This really pushes users to add more friends and to be part of the show. Facebook is really Egocasting at its best!
Now comes the developer network. Facebook has created an open-API standard that enables thousands of developers and companies alike to develop new applications that can be added to your profile. These range from mood indicators to maps that display the countries you’ve visited. This amazing ecosystem is fueling the fast viral adoption of the platform. Over 150,000 new subscribers are added every day! At this pace, Facebook will count over 50 million subscribers by the end of the year…
For the time being, the engineering team has done wonders with scaling up the back-end infrastructure. Since Facebook, originally only open to US students, opened up to everyone, the traffic quickly tripled from all over the world and unlike Twitter, users didn’t experience massive downtime and usability problems.
Facebook is now generating annualized revenues of over $150 million from advertising. Was the company’s founder, 23-years old Mark Zuckerberg crazy to turn down Yahoo’s offer to buy Facebook for a rumored $1.6 billion a few months ago? Not so sure… This might certainly be the next startup to go for several billion dollars.
Sphere: Related ContentZong Apollo release: a web and mobile revolution
By David | June 18, 2007
All of us, and especially the dev team, here at Echovox are working day and night to launch Zong’s latest release, codename Apollo. This new release is not merely a version with minor improvements, it is a complete redesign that focuses on web and mobile convergence. On top of increased functionality and massively improved ease-of-use, Zong will go global for non-premium services for the first time!
Stay tuned for the launch, only a few days left!
Sphere: Related ContentNew iPhone ads
By David | June 4, 2007
The iPhone will finally be available on Cingular (the new AT&T…) as of June 29 with a 2 year contract. Here are some new ads:
A week without Blackberry
By David | May 30, 2007
After a few days in Asia, I lost my precious Blackberry at the back of a taxi in Bangkok. What I initially felt as an excruciating organ loss, ended up as a very interesting experiment. I could have had a new device with a new SIM card shipped to me but decided against it. I had my laptop with me and managed to inform key people where to reach me at all times in case they needed my immediate help.
Bottom line… I chose when to manage emails and had a tremendous amount of time to think, put things into perspective and potentially come up with good ideas and things to change when I get back to Europe.
We spend an unbelievable amount of time communicating through email, Instant Messaging (IM), phones and now blogs. But communication is not synonymous with production, we don’t have time to think anymore, we’re interrupted by calls, emails and IM sessions hundreds of times a day. I am now convinced this is massively detrimental to good old productivity time. I already banned Blackberries from staff meetings some time ago, I believe I will also enforce some new rules on IM at work. Some of my colleagues ask me questions using IM while sitting less than 5 meters away!
I will now try to decrease communication through Blackberry, email and IM for the next couple of months and experiment whether, beyond making my wife happy, that will materially improve my productivity levels. Somehow I feel I already have my answer…
Sphere: Related ContentNew “Get a Mac” ad
By David | May 11, 2007
<>>
Presidentielles.com + Zong.com = roaring success
By David | May 7, 2007
We closed down Presidentielles.com and returned the domain to its generous owner who lent us this wonderful brand for our operation. What a week! All the French media related our initiative and traffic on the website literally exploded yesterday, eventually killing the server it was hosted on.
Here are some of the medias which related the initiative (in French): LCI, L’Express, Le Monde, Nouvel Obs, and 20 Minutes. Bloggers also participated in the huge buzz that was generated only in a few days.
Sphere: Related ContentJust launched Presidentielles.com!
By David | April 30, 2007
Just launched Presidentielles.com. The service enables millions of Frenchmen (and women…) to receive poll results ahead of French media, which are obliged to wait for polling offices to close before they can air the numbers and declare a winner. Since the French presidential race is a close call and is one of the most followed election since Mitterand was elected in 1981, the service is of great interest to French voters.
The service was developped using Zong.
Sphere: Related ContentCool iPhone usability video
By David | April 30, 2007
It looks great and I can’t wait to get one. My only concern… will text input be efficient enough without a physical keyboard?
