Ludovic Copéré

The TypePad effect

The bigs news of the day in the blogosphere (at least the French part of it): Neuf Telecom, a fast-rising French ISP, is partnering with Six Apart to offer neufblog to its dial-up and broadband customers. Just like previously in Japan with NTT and Nifty, it is an integrated blogging service powered by the TypePad platform.

However, not only Neuf will offer a free blogging service (similar in its scope to what Blogger and U-Blog already offer, and maybe tempting for the few complaining users of the later who want TypePad for free ;-) ), but it will also relay the 3 paying Basic/Plus/Pro subscription plans (look at the feature matrix for details). Another difference with its Asian counterparts is that the blogs and subscription/administration interface seem to be hosted directly on TypePad's servers, just like generic TypePad blogs.

At any rate, big congrats to Loïc and JM (now we all know what you have been busy with after 09:09), and looking forward to seing similar initiatives popping up all-over Europe!

Mooo, Swedish style

Quite ironically presently out on vacation in southern France, I don't resist to write a bit about one of the perkiest initiative right now up in Stockholm: the CowParade.

In a nutshell, imagine 68 life-size cows made out of fibreglass, artfully painted and decorated, peacefully grazing all around the city under the stare of the curious and the amused. It sounds strange, and it surely is, as hilighted by this improbable elk-and-cow crossover, this scandinavian Beatles' remix and this rare example of bovine zen (my personal favorite).

Public art is rarely as noteworthy as that, and this one gets even better when one looks at the vision and ideas behind it:
- Open invitation for designing the cows for the upcoming host cities. And it seems to work, as the youngest artist for Stockholm is 9 year old...
- Creative marketing channel for companies sponsoring the event. The last thing one could expect is cows proudly showing gas stations logo, but it does happen.
- Auction of the pieces after the exhibition ends, with the funds being given back to charity. Now, I cannot say of the actual impact of that, but at least it conveys a positive image and good PR.

If anyone knows how to add one of those fine cows to my Amazon wishlist, I will be moo-re than grateful.

And there was much rejoicing

So, after half-tinkering with MovableType and Blogger, here is my very own variation on the "first post tradition" to celebrate my coming to TypePad (which does look and feel very polished indeed). Expect more glist and (hopefully) interesting content in the not-so-remote future. In the meantime, I am all the way down toying with stylesheets, Technorati, syndication and the likes.