Innovative Strategies by Guillaume Wolf

Connected devices to enhance sport experience

There are more and more intelligent objects which disrupt simple things we like to do into totally new experiences. We are now quite used to have our smartphones and everyday we discover new apps to improve our daily life. Here I will show how Nike and Oakley use technology to improve sport experience.

Nike designed FuelBandto transform your physical activities into a game.
Oakley developed Airwave, Goggles that a real dashboard of your skiing feats

It's been a while on-line services spread all over the Internet. Mails, instant messaging, file storage... you name it! For now, it's quite hard to monetize these services. Web surfers are not used to paying for anything on-line. Therefore developers had often to use advertising.

But advertising isn't very efficient. Therefore the market had to adapt. The answer might be applications stores. Applications stores smooth on-line payment so that it will be easier to pay for the services you consume.

Microsoft will probably launch their new OS in the next few months. So... What's new?
Basically, Windows 8 will be very similar to Windows 7 except for the Start Menu. The Start Menu will be replaced by the Metro interface which is very similar to Windows phone (touch screen friendly). And this will completely change the use of Microsoft Windows: There will be two interfaces and two completely different experiences.

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) has been introduced in late 2011. Mid January, the FBI decided to shut down MegaUpload. You can read it on megaupload.com. They also arrested all founders. It's sad, because MegaUpload was widely used on the whole planet.

But it isn't over. Now Mega Upload is down, all websites know that the governments are a real threat. And there are some changes that occur:

French authorities made irc.lc shut down its iframe pointing to the Anonymous webchat.
Twitter recently announced that will censor tweets.

It's as if the government have now full power on publishers. Although I understand that content has to be controlled, I'm worried. I doubt that the methods used are fair. This censorship is definitely not the solution... I wonder how will thing evolve...

Xavier Niel, CEO of Iliad is well known in France. He already turned the ISP (Internet Service Provider) industry upside down several times with his offers.
This time, he targeted the mobile industry with two outstanding offers:

All included: 19.99€- $25.50 (or 15€99 for Free ADSL subscribers)

Unlimited calls (from France to more than 40 countries)
Unlimited texts
3 Go data
No commitment

Small package: 2€ - $2.50 (free for Free ADSL subscribers)

One hour out-going calls (unlimited received calls)
60 out-going texts (unlimited received texts)
No commitment

When designing a new service on the Internet, the goal of an entrepreneur is to become mainstream. That means they want their service to be used by everyone.
Now let's consider the new services that became mainstream after Facebook. The main names would be Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, Angry Birds... The common factor that made these service become so popular is the fact that they were really easy to use. Actually they didn't change our old habits. They integrated on existing platforms. Therefore the barrier to use it everyday wasn't huge.

If you ever tried to travel by cab in Paris, you're probably aware that the French capital doesn't have enough taxis compared to the need. On the other hand, there are companies that let people hire a car with driver for a couple of days. These drivers usually have some spare time they would be happy to monetize.

Uber will efficiently connect people who need a ride with these drivers. The experience provided is just outstanding. They just launched their offer in Paris. I've tested it.