Le croqueur de pommes

Last weekend I attended my 3rd Startup Weekend but this time I was part of the facilitators. This one was focused on Mobile and was held at the AT&T Foundry (awesome building !!).

After being a part of DitchTheTourBus project in November 2010 during Startup Weekend Twin Cities and attenting the Mega SW in Mountain View, CA couple of months ago; I decided to help and join the SW bay team to make these events happen.

It's a really interesting experience to be on the other side. You can help teams to go on the right path and be focused on key points. My ultimate goal is to bring Startup Weekend in the East part of France, where there is (beside of Strasbourg) a lack of this kind of events.

So during the weekend I tried my best to help teams, especially teams that did not have enough time to work on app to demo or to build a website. I shared with them couple of wireframing tools like Balsamiq, Mockingbird or Mockflow.

But I also tried to make the part 2 of a previous article I wrote on my blog couple of months ago.

This article should help StartupWeekend teams but also small startups to create an easy nice-looking website/launch page in less than an hour. You can find the first part of the article about which tools we are going to use here : create a startup webpage in less than 1 hour - tools

The second part is contains in this screencast that shows all the different steps to create your launch page.

Check it out And let me know what you think about it, feel free to ask any questions in the comment section

HOWTO - Create a landing page for your Startup ! from Nicolas Grenie on Vimeo.

Big shout out to Amed and John who are the main organizators of SW in the Bay, also to AT&T guys, SW attendees, and other facilitators !

Give me an A ! Give me a P ! Give me an I ! API power !!

If that sounds like a cheerleader's song, it's totally on purpose. "API" is the new buzzworld in the tech world, with lot of fans and gurus. And you better join them now, if you don't want to be left behind.

What is an API ?

API stands for "Application programming interface" which means in a more understandable English : A hook to access a company's data/website/technology and use it in your own application. A good way to not re-invent the wheel and to sync up with other services.

Who provide APIs?

As a website you want to have as much user as you can because users means business and money (not only, we agree :P) . If you have an API you will let others create their own applications on top of yours based on the datas you are willing to share.

For example you can use Facebook Connect platform and let your users authenticate themself throw they Facebook identity. On your side it is simpler, you get all the data directly from Facebook, no more boring form asking basic informations. From a user perspective it also easier and very smooth, one account to rule them all.

Big players on API :

Facebook

Twitter

Google Map

Youtube

Linkedin

Klout ...

Why APIs are that big ?

Nowadays you could not think about creating an innovative startup without using somebody's else API. As we said before you do not need to re-invent the wheel, somebody else did it before you. It saves you time, money and let you focus on bigger challenges.

You need a video-chat system ? use OpenTok. You need to send SMS ? use Twilio. And so on... It no more "there is an app for that" but "there is an API for that".

APIs are a good way to share/sell your technology and your data with others and make revenues out of it.

How to find the right API ?

With this growing market there is a lot of places to find the API that meets your needs. You check APIs providers like Mashery or 3Scale, they help companies to maintain their API documention and servers. There are also API directories like ProgrammableWeb or Mashape. There is alo Apigee where you can debug APIs in a console.

Now that you know a bit more about APIs, it's time to code

Go to hackathons and meet engineers that are building those awesome stuff.

Having a website is cool, having a social website is better SEO is not the only way to drive traffic to your website anymore, you need a social presence to get more people coming on your site. If are looking for an easy way to make your website social you can use services like AddThis, with a small line of javascript, your users will be able to share your website on main social networks.

That's super easy but you might be the kind of person who likes to manage everything and want to code your own stuff.

Implementing a like button is also super simple go on this page http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

And get the code you need to implement to have a nice-looking Like button

Recently Facebook add a comment functionality but you may want to disable it. Add these few lines of CSS and the comment box won't show up :

[CSS]
.fb_edge_widget_with_comment{
  position: absolute;
}

.fb_edge_widget_with_comment span.fb_edge_comment_widget iframe.fb_ltr {
  display: none !important;
}

Now you have old-style like button without a comment box Have fun "hacking" Facebook

Spread the word : Geeks are not living in caves anymore !! Or at least they going out from their caves to see the sunlight once in a while for a specific occasion. Something in between a computer science class, a LAN party, a crazy scientist lab and a networking event.

If you are part of the geek crowd you understood that I was talking about Hackathons.

For those who don't know what what is it, let's make it easy :

Hackathon = Hack + athon = Hack marathon

Hack ? Wooo... like Hackers ? Cracking credit card, launching NASA spaceship or changing traffic lights ?

No, nothing like that. It is about Hacking but in a good way. People are building awesome products to solve problems or just for the fun of programming.

This kind of events is very tech oriented, so if you are not a programmer it could be hard to attend. People are coming to work on their projects or to build new stuff during the event depends on the kind of event.

Since I moved to San Francisco I already attend to two different Hackathons. The first one was the HAPIHack weekend organized by OpenTok at their place. The principle was to create an application using at least one API from the sponsors. At the end of weekend, teams presented their work and a winner per API was designate to win the prize.

During this HAPIHack I work with a Spanish mate (Ignacio) on an application called FaceRate. FaceRate lets you take a picture of yourself to express your thought about a content (Video, Picture, text...), it is more powerful and meaningful than just a "like" or a "+1".

We used Embed.ly API to display a content (215 types of content available), OpenTok API to take the picture and Face.com API to analyse your facial expression.

If you would like to try a live demo it's here (might be a bit buggy) : http://facerate.cloudfoundry.com/

The googledoc prez :

And the Github repository if you want to fork it. FaceRate on Github

It was a really nice adventure to work on a new project with somebody I did not know before. He initiate me to Play framework that uses Java to build web applications and we were able to win two prizes, an Apple TV from embed.ly and a JamBox from Face.com.

Hackathons are really a good time to meet people like you (coders), talk about technique, learn new APIs and tech stuff, be efficient (you need a result by the end of the weekend)...

This weekend I attend to the SuperHappyDevHouse at the HackerDojo in Mountain View, it was an afternoon+night Hackathon but without competitions or prizes. It was just for the sick of being with others instead of coding in your cave or at a coffee shop.

Special mentions to Localno.de that lets you share your localhost application easily (helpful in dev mode) and to for a 100% HTML5 amazing tower defense game.

Hackathons are the new trend around here with at least one every week. It a signs that tech people also need their events to meet others of their kind, so open your eyes more are coming ! Companies also need Hackathons where rockstars (#buzzword) developers will be able to see the limit of the API or ask for new features. And Hackers can help APIs providers in their development process.

So if you are a coder or a student who is learning Computer Science you should definetly attend to the next Hackathon around you, meet others geeks, eat pizza and code

PS : companies love if you hacked their API before applying for a job

Next Hackathons in the Valley :

10-11 Sept. Techcrunch Disrupt Hackathon

10-11 Sept. Cleanweb Hackathon about energy and environment

In Paris and other cities :

17 Sept. Global Foursquare API Hackathon

Unfortunately this post was not reviewed by a English native speaker, so if you read something grammatically chocking please send me an email me @@ nicolasgrenie.com

I came to San Francisco for the first time last Christmas with my family for Christmas break. We did a lot of tourist stuff, but being in family of professors interested by technology, science and programming, you cannot avoid the "Tech tour" of the Bay. So we visited downtown Palo Alto, Stanford University, Berkeley and San Francisco SOMA...

It is kind of a dream come true when you recognized the logo/name of a product you use everyday. At that time I was not looking for an internship yet, but was very excited by the concentration of startups and high-tech companies. At the end of our journey I was sure that I want to come back in SF.

And I came back Last march I came for a week, to attend the Web 2.0 Expo. It was during my Spring break, and instead of getting drunk with hot babes in Cancun I decided to push myself to attend this professionnal conference. I was already interested and curious about the new startupmania, social media, SoMoLo (#buzzword :D) scene but I had to see it to be sure that I want to be part of it.

Attending the Web 2.0 Expo was the best decision I have made, because now I am interning in the Engineering team of ifeelgoods.com (winner of Web2.0 Expo Startup Showcase 2011) and I have a larger vision of what's happening on the Web.

In October there will be the Web 2.0 Expo NY and I would like to share with you guys 3 reasons why you should attend, specially if you are student.

1. Trending topics and trending people

Talks, sessions and workshop are about what is happening now in the Internet world. You will hear experts in their domain about their experience. They are people who are making the Internet of today. I remember for example an interisting panel about pivoting with Kevin Systrom (founder of Instagram), it was just couple of weeks after their raised $7M.

The crowd of attendees is also made of great people, for example I've met the VP products of ICQ, engineers from Viadeo or someone from UberMedia. You will be impressed by the quality of these people and their availability. It's a chance for you and your business !

2. Not only g33ks, not only bu$ine$$

You might be studying Computer Science or Business and really love that, but please stop being a nerd in your own field ! Go out and meet others, understand what others are doing. If you are the kind of kind who can understand and talk with both sides, you earn points on a resume pile.

Web 2.0 is great opportunity to understand the other side, you can attend sessions in Technical track or Business track and go back and forth between the two. Plus, sessions are very understandable even if you do not have a PhD in Computer Science or Business. No reason to be close-minded !

3. You learn more in one week than in a year of school

Kind of an evidence : it is too recent to be taught in schools.

I am wondering which kind of prof will be able to tell you more on OpenGraph, Ruby on Rails, or mobile devices economy than people who are using/making this technology everyday. You learn few things in school, but don't forget that you have to learn the rest by yourself

By attending this kind of conference you also prove to others that you are more than a basic good student. During social events (usually more than one every day) you will be able to improve your communication skills, work on your personal elevator pitch, and build your network.

Career fairs are something awful for students and not really a good place to show to recruiters your personality : you are just one student out of the 1000 others who stopped at their booth during the day. During conferences, there are few students, you are the exception, for once .

Beside talks you also have many other events in the city related or not with the Expo, plus some companies in the Expo hall, don't miss that

I am sure Web2.0 NY does not have the same "taste" because it is not in the Valley, but it still a great conference with interesting sessions and people. And I bet NYC is a nice city too, even if I never been...

For students you can have a 65% discount so it's very interesting if you live in a hostel and take a low-cost flight, it might be cheaper than visit your parents or going to Cancun Code: webny11fts

For others you can have a 20% off with this code : WEBNY11RF9

Enjoy !

Unfortunately this post was not reviewed by a English native speaker, so if you read something grammatically chocking please send me an email me @@ nicolasgrenie.com