Traveling Geeks 09 Paris: Microblog via Twitter

My platform of choice during the Traveling Geeks 09 trip to Paris was first Twitter to microblog, then loading the microblog items to a blog post (my blogging platform is Typepad). Twitter is an application that allows people to share what they are doing at the moment in 140 characters or less. My niche on Twitter is to share parenting and technology updates, so this information would fit within my framework. At LeWeb I learned about Seesmic so I hope to try that out as an interface for my next microblogging adventure. I will also be experimenting with using the BlackBerry app for Whrrl to capture “stories” on the run.

I purchased a 200 MB International data plan for my BlackBerry Bold in preparation for microblogging in Paris, using my own daily calculations to make sure I would not go over (which is very expensive). All of this preparation would allow me to enjoy the tour, capturing the key moments while not taking too much time away to prepare blog posts until I returned home. Although microblogging does now allow in-depth analysis, it does capture the key points.

The International Data plan also helped me keep my smartphone email and social media app. addiction satisfied during my trip to Paris. The thought of a smartphone without a data plan was too much to handle.

Here is my Twitter Stream from the  #TG09 Traveling Geeks 09 trip to Paris. Each tweet is from my Twitter stream unless it has a “RT” or retweet in front of it. I took out my Twitter ID (TechMama) and hashtags after the first few to make it easier to read.

As I said in my post about global “geek” language, we had a dream team of geeks on the trip: Renee Blodgett, Matthew Buckland, Amanda Coolong, Kim-Mai Cutler, Olivier Ezratty, Eliane Fiolet, Tom Foremski, Phil Jeudy, Frederic Lardinois, Robert Scoble , Sky Schuyler, Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz, David Spark, Ewan Spence, Jerome Tranié, and Robin Wauters. For full coverage of the Traveling Geeks Paris Tour 09 click over to the website. To follow the Traveling Geeks, there is a Facebook page and a Twitter list. there is a I would have included more of the social banter that went on between the geeks, but I did not think it could be easily translated into 140 characters:

If we were not taking pictures, video, blogging, podcasting, microblogging, then we were talking about the gadgets we use to do that. If we were not talking about gadgets, then we were talking about the businesses or social media. We did all of this while walking all over the beautiful streets of Paris, at meetings or meet-ups, or running to and from the Paris Metro. But it was on the Paris Metro – that an stylish elderly French woman helped us understand that at times our laughing or conversation got too loud; she turned around to me on the Metro and said “Shhhhh” (international language for BE QUIET!).

techmama ’s Traveling Geeks Paris Tour 09 Twitter stream:

1. techmama Shout out to #TG09 co-orgs: Eiane Fiolet f/ @ubergizmo, Renee Blodgett @magicsaucemedia & Phil Jeudy – Sky & for IT http://bit.ly/5W4xdu Dec 5th
2. techmama @kimmaicutler and @techmama along with the other TravelingGeeks at #TG09 Paris 1st night dinner,we had a fun trip on metro to get to dinner Dec 6th

3. techmama Learning about http://www.moblieglobe.com – seemless international calling. Wished I would of signed up before I left.. #TG09 Paris Dec 6th
4. #TG09 kick off diner with The traveling geeks @magicsauce @fredericl @robinwauters @kimmaicutler @tomforemski @acoolong @techmama (and @olivez @ubergizmo @dspark @ewan and @jimsky7) Dec 6th
5. techmama Les Traveling Geeks Goes to Paris Mashcast video is now LIVE http://is.gd/5epU2 @TravelingGeeks
6. techmama Amazed-great reception my AT&T 3G on BlackBerry Bold in Paris, #Twitter & #Facebook also quick response.Next step is testing WiFi on netbook 8:59 PM Dec 6th
7. RT @pearltrees Some @travelinggeeks in Pearltrees right now #tg09 #leweb #pearltrees http://twitpic.com/sijsu
8. Learning about @pearltrees – Allows you to organize your fav content on web & get connected to people who share interests #TG09
9. @PearlTrees interface allows you to manipulate and move your content, can create Pearls from Tweets & Tweets from Pearls #TG09
10. @PearlTrees can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, email, embed (incl.your blog) and every PearlTree has their own URL #TG09 Dec 7th
11. Looking at @PearlTrees screencast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvJ9aDVyLUw #TG09 Dec 7th
12. Looking at the @Travelinggeeks #TG09 Flickr pictures http://travelinggeeks.com/photos/ #fb Dec 7th
13. Visiting http://siliconsentier.org/ Silicon Sentier, a cluster of 150 small & middle IT companies in Paris or nearby #TG09 Dec 7th
14. At Silicon Sentier #TG09 -Learning about MXP4, interactive listening, remix & personal playback site. http://www.mxp4.com/
15. Meeting at La Canteen w/ Invest in France Agency & Cap Digital, @soufron from http://www.capdigital.com/ introduced the event #TG09 Dec 7th
16. Invest in France Agency & Cap Digital event #TG09 – Learning about http://www.musicovery.com/ Time article; http://bit.ly/11JjGc Dec 7th
17. RT @soufron @techmama have also a look at Cap Digital, the mothership of them all : http://www.capdigital.com/ Dec 7th

18. Cap Digital event #TG09 – http://www.musicovery.com/ Built matrix based on psychologist model -music and mode parameters used to link songs.Dec 7th
19. Cap Digital Event #TG09 Listening about CiTu http://www.citu.info , CiTu is dedicated to research in emerging media fields. Dec 7th
20. Cap Digital Event #TG09 CiTu http://www.citu.info, mentioning http://theartcollider.org/ Dec 7th

21. Paris – Hearing from BearTech http://bearstech.com/ Dec 7th
22. Paris Learning about Feedbooks Buy, Borrow (from library), Subscribe, Sample or Download books. http://feedbooks.com/ Dec 7th
23. @robinwauters Agreed, why is it that my Flickr pictures are uploading faster here in Paris then at my house in California? Dec 7th from web in reply to robinwauters
24. Paris – Learning about XWiki http://www.xwiki.com/ Dec 7th
25. Paris – Learning about af83 http://www.af83.com/ Dec 7th
26. At Orange Labs, They have home wireless gadgets, TV subscription service, playback and website. Dec 7th
27. #TG09 Orange Labs websites: 61 million unique visitors worldwide, partners with newpapers and Wikipdia ( @orangewikipedia ) Dec 7th
28. Orange Labs has a search engine website: Search text, video and audio. Mixes news and content on same subject but dif. languages Dec 7th
29. @johnlpainter yes, lots of video and pictures on the http://www.TravelingGeeks.com website Dec 7th
30. Website for Orange Labs Search http://www.2424actu.fr (live soon) Dec 7th

31. Orange Labs has moblie apps, agregates moblie access to favorite social media and feeds, incl Twitter picture MMS feature Dec 7th
32. Presen. by Cedexis ,which provides collective intelligence platform that enables next gen traffic management strategies (no site yet) Dec 8th

33. Hearing about Cedexis Radar (crowd based perf. monitoring)- compares mult. data centers, delivery networks, and cloud providers Dec 8th

34. Hearing about Cedexis Open Mix-Cloud-based Global Traffic Management Platform(enables dynamic decisions based on real-time data feeds) Dec 8th
35. Paris @juliencoulon (Co-Founder) gave presentation on Cedexis, site will be up soon Dec 8th
36. Talking with @jxo – who advises and mentors entrepreneurs (has international clients). Dec 8th
37. At Paris Innovation Reunion, The Paris Digital Content Companies Incubator http://www.incubateurparisdev.com/ hosts 100 startups Dec 8th
38. #TG09 Paris Innovation Reunion discussing reasons2choose Paris: market in heart of Europe, quality of life, wired city…. Dec 8th
39. #TG09 Paris Innovation Reunion: Hearing from Int13 – next gen mobile games http://www.int13.net/fr Dec 8th
40. @Scobleizer just explained to the incubator group that they all need to be on Twitter. Dec 8th from (Note – this followup post was written by:@Scobleizer “World-brand-building http://bit.ly/5Vof3Z “)
41. Paris Innovation Reunion – CityZeum travel info for web and mobile http://www.cityzeum attracted 7 million travelers this year Dec 8th
42. Paris Innovation Reunion- Scan and Target http://www.scanandtarget.com/ solution for real time text mining for web and mobile contents Dec 8th
43. Paris Innovation Reunion- Rue89: Pure player news website (produce news in collaboration with news and experts) http://www.rue89.com/ Dec 8th
44. Paris Innovation Reunion – Gostai produces universal robotics software platform http://www.gostai.com/ Dec 8th
45. Paris Innovation Reunion- Zoomorama is a solution for zoomable images (a international team of developers) http://www.zoomorama.com/ Dec 8th
46. Paris Innovation Reunion- Stribe: Plug and play service to instantly create a social network on any website http://www.stribe.com/ Dec 8th
47. Paris Innovation Reunion – Path Motion developed a career planning and job search tool http://www.pathmotion.com/ Dec 8th
48. Paris Innovation Reunion -Website to find tutors http://www.teacheo.com & http://www.blueteach.com/ -online toolkit for live teaching Dec 8th
49. Paris Innovation Reunion – MLstate code to build web applications http://www.mlstate.com Dec 8th
50. Paris Innovation Reunion: Stupeflix – http://www.stupeflix.com/ turns your pictures, videos, & text into professional videos. Dec 8th from web
51. http://twitpic.com/srvsr – #TG09 at Just arrived to #LeWeb, discussion about enabling more people to use technology Dec 9th
52. Microsoft Bizspark provides tools for startups, discussing having one application that goes to many platforms incl. moblie Dec 9th
53. Theme of #LeWeb is Real Time Web – Real time feeds for visual (photos, video) and social apps like Twitter Dec 9th
54. Microsoft BizSpark initiative has 1000 partners, business relationships w/ Twitter, Facebook and MySpace Dec 9th
55. Discussing iPhone app for LeWeb, probably picking up this tweet b/c I used #LeWeb hashtag, integegrates Ustream and Facebook Dec 9th
56. @TravelingGeeks are meeting with @RichardatDell at #LeWeb Dec 9th
57. In Aug 2006 @RichardatDell was given role to monitor and engage social media #TG09
58. Dell actively monitors social media to listen and engage with customers, customer input is worked into customer design and support Dec 9th
59. @RichardatDell explaining Dell social media channels include Twitter, blogs, Facebook pages Dec 9th

60. @ConfFar #LeWeb is in Paris, attendees are from all over the world Dec 9th
61. Two other Dell Twitter IDs are @Dellservergeek and @mdomsch to provide tech server info Dec 9th
62. Dell sales (current data) f/ various Twitter outlets globally is 6.5 million Dec 9th
63. Dell connects to 3.5 million customers across social media outlets Dec 9th
64. Good Dell Twitter ID to follow for families is @edu4u Dec 9th
65. Retweet @kristiewells Two years ago, there was only one Twitter app — today, there are over 50k. #leweb
66. RT MySpace opening up their real-time ’stream’ as well. Let the data flow… #leweb Dec 9th
67. (RT )kristiewells MySpace opening 3 APIs: (1) search for people, images/videos, (2) public access to user activity stream/profile, (3) commenting #leweb Dec 9th
68. (RT)MagicSauceMedia #tg09 #leweb Hanging out at Microsoft BizSpark lounge at LeWeb; the traveling geeks are blogging up a storm… Dec 9th
69. Taking a look at Answers.com http://www.answers.com/ Dec 9th
70. @AnswersDotCom has Twitter ID and other social media outlets Dec 9th
71. Talking w/ @clubcooee http://www.clubcooee.com/ 3D messanger client with chatrooms ,social media & social sharing #Microsoft BizSpark Dec 9th
72. Taking with @tobiaspeggs about @oneriot Real time search engine #Microsoft BizSpark Dec 9th
73. Other #Microsoft BizSpark co. at #LeWeb : Huddle (online collaboration platform) http://www.huddle.net Dec 9th
74. Other #Microsoft BizSpark co. at #LeWeb : Xobni for people to manage, organize, and search e-mail http://www.xobni.com Dec 9th
75. Enjoying my time at #LeWeb with Traveling Geeks http://travelinggeeks.com/ Dec 9th

76. #TG09 Reading @robinwauters @TechCrunch post on Twitter at #LeWeb http://bit.ly/6D7737 50,000 regist.apps2date-been built using Twitter APIs Dec 9th
77. http://twitpic.com/stpxx – #TG09 At #LeWeb party at Hotel De Ville, Paris Dec 9th
78. http://twitpic.com/swmbr – Watching @davemcclure @davidhornik & panel at #money2 panel – #leweb #TG09 Dec 10th

79. http://twitpic.com/swo0a – #TG09 #leweb Watched Tony Hsieh discuss @zappos culture of happiness, advice “don’t chase money – chase vision” # Dec 10th
80. http://twitpic.com/swofs #TG09 @loic & Geraldine Le Meur 2nd day of #leweb @leweb Great conf.to learn about European&global web trends Dec 10th
81. http://twitpic.com/swove #TG09 #leweb @chrisbrogan:“put human face on business & how the web is going to do that -by building Trust Agents Dec 10th

82. Created pearltree: TravelingGeeks – check it out here: http://pear.ly/dQHD (will be adding another Traveling Geeks Pearltree for more) Dec 10th
83. Posted about @QueenRania ’s #leweb talk about social media and activism: http://bit.ly/85cdEf Dec 10th

84. Finished at #LeWeb heading out to our last night out in Paris. We are all going to finish putting up posts http://travelinggeeks.com/ Dec 10th
85. RT @jowyang Slides: Three ways companies can develop strategies to respond to real-time way. http://bit.ly/91I2vB Dec 10th
86. RT @olivez My main stage photo gear @ #leweb is 70-200mm 2.8 with x2 extender on a Canon EOS 5D II. 1500 pics so far today. It rocks. #tg09. Dec 10th
87. RT @dspark My summary of the entire show. “The cool and not-so-cool from #LeWeb” http://bit.ly/7ENbbx #tg09 Dec 10th
88. Enjoyed Paris and #LeWeb, getting ready to go back to California. Dec 10th
89. Flying back f/ Paris,Checked International Data plan f/4 days in Paris on my BlackBerry emailing & Twittering: Plan is 200MB,I used 153MB Dec 11th
    

The full agenda of LeWeb can be found here. Olivier Ezratty posted with a summary of LeWeb2009 startups. Renee Blodgett, Eliane Fiolet and the other Traveling Geeks covered the startups with video and blog posts on the Traveling Geeks website.

While at Chicago airport waiting for my connecting flight back home to California, I called AT&T to see what the final number of data megabytes used in Paris was, hoping that I did stay within the 200 MB limit for the International data plan. I had great 3G coverage on my phone all over Paris – better coverage then at my own house in California. In the first few days I calculated that I used about 30MB per day on my BlackBerry Bold data plan for use of Twitters and email. The final number that the AT&T customer service representative gave me for 5 days of Twittering and email in Paris was somehow exactly as I estimated: 153MB. Phew…

This post is written by Beth Blecherman of TechMamas.com. Reproduction of this article with permission only. This was a sponsored trip organized by the Traveling Geeks. Disclosure policy can be found on the Traveling Geeks website. Bitly short URL for this post: http://bit.ly/8as0ZQ