Good advertising

Economy sucks?
I saw this in New York, and laughed so much I had to photograph it:

But it seems like I wasn't the only one. The photo of (apparently - say if I'm wrong) the same place is also today on the Website "International Spiegel". So now you know, we European like such advertising!

Infrastructure renewal: what could it bring?

Originally, I just wanted to put a comment on a post of the blog A Smarter Planet.
Well, it didn't accept my comment. I got a pop up window with something like "We cannot accept your data". OK, then I'll blog about that :)

The post argues that it'll be a great opportunity to upgrade some of the US infrastructure. Not the roads, but rather "smart grids, healthcare and broadband" - because they are predicted to generate growth, and will help keep up against the international competition.
I think this is not wrong, except for one thing. This article is forgetting that the crisis is not only in the US. And so are governments stimulus. Germany, France, lots of countries in Europe are planning such actions too. So soon, it'll be just a question of keeping up with the Joneses. I'll concentrate on the broadband here.
What does that means? It means that if the US invest in broadband, some other countries will slip in the broadband ranking, and will have to invest heavily in it too. The winner? Surely the IT industry. The ones who will build the cable, but the ones that will build the software and hardware that will make use of these cables too.

I don't know what it could lead to - just thinking of media streaming now- but I think this is an interesting trend that could lead to big changes again in the Internet landscape. And you, what do you think?

Back in Tuebingen

So I'm back from New York. It's sometimes hard to accept :)
I was one month there and it was an awesome experience. I met a lot of different, interesting and nice people (Aneel, Liz, Jesse, Suki, Chaz, Maria, Donna...), and saw a lot of places I'd wanted to see for so long: New York, Boston and the US East coast.


















Want pictures? You can have a look at some of them on flickr. (shortened url)

Most of all, I've tried to avoid the tourist in New York cliche, by trying to meet New Yorkers (much more easy to do than most people think) and seeing a little behind the tourist books. Well, I just said I tried :) Beside this, it was nice to meet people from all the world (inclusive French, yes!) in the hostels too.

New York impressed me very much because of its dynamic and all the ambitious and interesting people there. Other things surprised me too. For example I would have believed the dominant colors were grey and blue, but it's more of blue and brown. And beside all this light and superficial stuff, I got a grasp of the finance crisis too; people in Europe are not taking seriously yet (is that good? or bad?).























During my long walkings, I saw lots of things on the street. A man proposing, another lying on the ground who had just been hit by a car.
My highlights in a few words, maybe? NYC Ballet, Blizzard, Christmas Eve... Although these are just a few samples.

I've tweeted during the travel, so I'm not doing a big post here, but this travel has been really inspiring for me. Not only it was an occasion to get some rest (I'm not kidding! Alone having no computer there helped a lot for that) and walk a lot through the city, I got to think about my career and what I could do next year. So now the year already began, and it's time to go on!

















See you soon!
Stephane