The new Hot Off the Crowd edition is online! Our watch based on crowfunding and crowdsourcing platforms: Kickstarter, Indiegogo, AngelList, Product Hunt… FABERNOVEL is digging the gold out of the crowdfunding mine: emerging trends and tomorrow's it technologies. And this time, we decided to shed light on GitHub, “the real open platform for code”, halfway between a Facebook for coders and a software factory outlet, limitless, to craft new applications.
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La troisième et nouvelle édition de Hot Off the Crowd est en ligne ! Les pépites et les tendances telles qu’elles émergent sur nos plateformes de crowdfunding et de crowdsourcing préférées : Kickstarter, Indiegogo, AngelList, ProductHunt. Et cette fois, coup de projecteur sur GitHub, “the real open platform for code”, entre facebook pour codeurs et magasin d’usine logicielle, sans limite, pour fabriquer des applications.
"Subclassing and Composition – A Pythonic Tour of Trade-Offs", Hynek Schlawack
Hot off the Crowd – FABERNOVEL's watch based on crowdfunding and crowdsourcing platforms // April 2015
1.
2. Whoever will consider themselves in this way, will get frightened of themselves, and, supposing they are held up by the mass that the nature
endowed them with, between those two abysses of infinity and void, they will shiver in the sight of those wonders; and I believe that their
curiosity turning into admiration, they will be more inclined to contemplate them in silence than to seek them with presumption.
Pascal, The two infinities, Pensées
Our two digital infinities: these are the assumption of this quarterly column, they are the GAFA - we had dedicated the end of 2014 to them -
with our GAFAnomics study - and all those projects, those millions of o�en tiny projects, that flourish or proliferate, supported by the
crowd. This crowd, by means of the internet, becomes expert. Pascal, founding father of computer science, was right: curiosity turns itself
into admiration, the presumption vanishes in front of the genius of the internets, but it would be a pity to stay silent when everything is
changing...
This Hot Off the Crowd edition was fueled by months of investigation and daily discoveries on the leading platforms: Kickstarter, Indiegogo,
AngelList, Product Hunt... And this time, we decided to shed light on GitHub, "the real open platform for code", halfway between a
Facebook for coders and a so�ware factory outlet, limitless, to cra� new applications.
Our key learning, at the start of 2015: the crowd is keen on ambition and nostalgia. Startups devise new approaches to tackle Internet
navigation and search, but also payments, thus challenging Apple, Google and Amazon. You can more and more subscribe to everything,
and probably sooner than later to anything. As regards nostalgia, what if emoticons were, at last, our Esperanto? What if social networks
had the memory of your granny? And we're pleased to notice (it's been for a few years now) the return of DIY within technology: building
one's computer, subscribing to surprise bags for makers.
Retro or future, tiny or giant, Pascal, again, would have said: the Internet "is ageless, it is always nascent".
INTRO
Stéphane Distinguin
CEO FABERNOVEL
INTRO
3. _
GitHub, the real open platform for code
_
Build It Yourself
_
In search of Renewal
_
One Card to rule them all
_
Unlimited Subscriptions
_
Sharing Nostalgia
_
Goodbye to (alphanumeric) language
_
Contacts
SUMMARY
5. Created in 2008, GitHub has become the essential
website for developers, regardless of their chosen
language. On this platform, they give open access
to their code, their software so that others can use
and improve it.
Why should you pay attention to it?
It's not trivial to watch this platform and its
"deposits"! As a real trends indicator, Github is an
absolute must for every project that will count
tomorrow.
Moreover, the GAFA - Google, Apple, Facebook and
Amazon - make no mistake about it and expressly
ask their developers to contribute to the website's
projects.
GITHUB,
Social network for coders
GITHUB,THEREALOPENPLATFORMFOR
CODE
6. 2048
Published on GitHub by the programmer Gabriele Cirulli, this mobile game quickly
became popular. Especially thanks to its derivative versions: remix culture is a sign
of success, don't forget it.
PopcornTime
Popcorn Time is a cross-platform application that allows you to watch movies and
TV shows online for free. The program is a competitive alternative to
subscription-based video streaming services such as Netflix. Taken down by its
original developers due to pressure from the MPAA, it has been deposed on GitHub
in open source to enable its survival with forked versions.
APIfication of Reddit & HackerNews
Both Reddit -the famous online communitys- and HackerNews -the social news
website created by the director of Y Combinator- unveiled on GitHub their API and
source code.
IT HAPPENED ON GITHUB
GITHUB,THEREALOPENPLATFORMFOR
CODE
7. REMIX CULTURE
With derivate and forked works, GitHub is the land of Reappropriation. A sign of time
but also a new way to see what is succeeding, according to Lawrence Lessig's Remix
Culture.
CODE'S DEMOCRATIZATION
"Deposit", "bootstrap", "framework": GitHub's keywords converge towards one purpose:
to simplify preexisting programming languages, and to make them more efficient in
their development and execution. But also handy. The popular Ruby on Rails language,
easy to learn and practice, is a figure of this democratization of the code.
CULTURAL THINGS ON GITHUB
GITHUB,THEREALOPENPLATFORMFORCODE
9. Far from the "cliché" of the dodgy DIYer or geek, the
growing makers movement earns its pedigree. This
year, the TechShop fablab will open in Europe with
Leroy Merlin, a chain belonging to Adéo, the third
largest DIY retail company in the world.
Today we extend our experimentations to our
technological devices, we go to fablabs to print keys or
build Arduino-based connected objects. Also, a
mention to the Makerbox launched by Usbek et Rica,
which grants you direct access to Paris's fablabs.
Why should you pay attention?
The "BYI movement" responds to both an increased
consumer's concern about control and customization,
and a growing need for technological accessibility and
democratization. As in Africa, where there is an
outbreak of fablabs and where 3D printers and
computers are built by recycling wastes.
MAKERS ARE GOING
HARD(WARE)
BUILDITYOURSELF
10. Kano
In 2013, 2 americans created
Kano, a DIY and open source
computer. Very affordable
(99$) their "learn-to-code
computer kit" was sent to
18,000 people after a $1.5M
campaign on Kickstarter in
September 2014.
Sam
Sam
SAM is a wireless electronics
kit that will allow anyone to
make connected devices
without specialist coding
skills. SAM seamlessly
integrates hardware, software
and the Internet.
WeIO
CROWD-FUNDED & CROWD-BUILT
Designed by the French
agency NoDesign, WeIO is
an innovative open source
hardware and software
platform for rapid
prototyping and creation of
wirelessly connected
interactive objects using
only popular languages
such as HTML5 or Python.
BUILDITYOURSELF
12. The advent of smartphones brings about the need for
a new search paradigm: whereas the web search
relied on universal adresses to index content and
services, the mobile era has engendered bloated app
stores and siloed apps, for which a connective tissue is
clearly lacking, using private and public data without
compromising the former. A gap that new upstarts are
willing to fill (and conquer), building a new index
infrastructure (called deep links) and a customized
search experience.
Why should you pay attention to it?
Look at the clout Google acquired starting from an
uncontested superiority in search, and you will
understand that the winning player will certainly be
the gatekeeper of our content for more than the
decade to come - and an Internet giant.
BAND OF BROWSERS
INSEARCHOFRENEWAL
13. The unfolding quiet battle for mobile search
involves powerful incumbents (Google, Microsoft and
Yahoo) but also nimble challengers.
Vurb is a browser-based web application. This
contextual content engine is a platform that connects
and compiles relevant information. It gives you the
possibility to perform searches within the many native
apps of your smartphone.
Relcy is building a search engine that searches across
all the content on your mobile device to help you find
what you are looking for in a faster and easier way and
deliver an intelligent and highly personalized search
experience.
A MOBILE SEARCH
INSEARCHOFRENEWAL
15. Credit cards are threatened to be wiped out from our
digital future: even if devices such as Stripe's dongle
are attempting to make them accepted in every store,
new substitutes have recently emerged, from Apple
Pay to M-Pesa, a feature-phone-compatible mobile
payment system that has almost become universal in
several African countries. Credit cards have barely
changed in several decades and may become
irrelevant to the smartphone era.
Why should you pay attention?
Reinventing the credit card system means broadening
its function, from a dumb piece of plastic to an
aggregator of multiple accounts and loyalty cards, a
spending tracker, a fraud-prevention device, all
coupled with a mobile app... Through a truly hybrid
(physical & digital) experience, credit cards could
become our "transactional identity" tomorrow.
FUTURE OF PAYMENTS: WITH
OR WITHOUT CARDS?
ONECARDTORULETHEMALL
16. It's no big news: several startups try to rethink the credit card as a unique card that will
replace the other ones. We already know the unsuccessful Coin or Clinkle. Here are the
new Knights:
Plastc, who wants to turn all your cards into one sophisticated device. With a magnetic
stripe and barcode display, Plastc Card's promise is to work in all the places you already
spend your money.
Final is meant to help people not only control their spendings but prevent fraud. Unique
credit card numbers can be set up with individual retailers.
Swyp, which is backed by the startup Qvivr, is the latest "smart" digital wallet system to hit
the market. Swyp learns users' behaviors and anticipates the card they want to use, based
on the time of the day or their location.
THE QUEST FOR THE HOLY
UNIQUE CARD
ONECARDTORULETHEMALL
18. Netflix for movies and Spotify for music have made us
accustomed to an unlimited type of consumption. Source
of sociological changes regarding culture, this trend is
now extending to the physical realm. Unlimited
subscriptions were not so much a byproduct of the
digitalization of cultural goods but rather a new economic
model applicable to any industry.
Why should you pay attention to it?
The unlimited subscriptions trend reminds us that the
digital revolution is affecting every industry, on the web
and in real life. What links the two is the rise of platforms
that aggregate demand and fine-tune the client
relationships and their overall experience with third-party
providers. The result is a welcome access to more and
more goods and services. But this democratization
process also means that the economic power is shifting to
the client-facing platforms from the service providers, the
latter slowly becoming the commoditized endpoints of an
experience they do not control anymore.
UNLIMITED CULTURAL GOODS
UNLIMITEDSUBSCRIPTIONS
19. A new wave of startups with disruptive business models revolutionized mass travel
on both sides of the Atlantic. The "all-you-can-fly" airfare concept created by the
company Surfair is growing. Beacon offers unlimited flights to a variety of
destinations across the Northeastern United States for $2,000 a month. Take
Air Europe's first experiment is launching in March 2015.
One card to access all the cultural events without tickets.
MoviePass is the pioneer of subscription-based services for going to movie theaters.
Born in 2011 in NYC, it inspired several others. Only available in the United States,
this service gives members across the country the ability see up to one 2D movie
every 24 hours for a fixed monthly fee.
Jukely this startup is offering users an unlimited subscription to concerts in their
city for just $25 a month.
ALL YOU CAN SEE
SKY'S NOT THE LIMIT
UNLIMITEDSUBSCRIPTIONS
21. Facebook just announced a new feature called "On This
Day" which will allows users to highlight the content
they posted over the past years. It will be available on
both the website and the mobile apps.
The fact that Facebook is trying to ignite the spark of
nostalgia is not an isolated act, remember the previous
features "Look Back" ( a 62-second video montage of
your most notable moments shared on Facebook) and
"year in review"(surfacing the 20 most popular posts in
one's timeline).
But we can quote several other initiatives driven by
other social networks including Foursquare's Time
Machine, Instagram's best moments...
Why should you pay attention to it?
In the era of information proliferation, finding and
remembering events that we hold dear is not easy. The
Millennials adopt as fast as they forget the new features
and apps that give them the satisfaction to review,
consume and share again those memories.
Marketing strategies which value propositions based on
nostalgia make it possible to re-engage users, to
encourage them to return on the social platform.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
LAST SUMMER
SHARINGNOSTALGIA
22. This new feature propulsed by Facebook is in fact not surprising. Popular Apps are
directly targeted, and they have the advantages to be connected to not only with
Facebook but also Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare...
Timehop is a "time capsule of you".
Each day this popular app surfaces past status updates and pictures shared exactly
one or more years ago. Timehop helps you remember and share all of your online
memories.
Since 2013, Memoir helps you relive and share your best memories - buried in
your camera roll, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, Dropbox, and your Mac
accounts - when they matter the most and with just the right people. Every single
day.
NOSTALGIC APPS
SHARINGNOSTALGIA
24. Thanks to many specific mobile applications, Millennials handle a
particular language made of images that allow them to visually
support their emotions and reactions.
Text messages, tweets, Facebook inboxes or Line messages are filled
with emoticons – from emojis to stickers – and compete for new
discoveries to stimulate discussion: very short videos and gifs,
pictures associated with texts and drawings, sometimes directly
made on a touch screen.
A communication phenomenon quickly seized by brands: Ikea
offers its own emoticons keyboard (like Karl Lagerfeld with
"emotiKarl"), Burberry his stickers on Line...
Why should you pay attention to it?
This cultural phenomenon carried by Millennials summarizes years
of debate on the simplification of language - to curse the SMS
abbreviations is now outdated. If it appears to be effective, will it
soon be universal? This dream of a new Esperanto is defended by
The Guardian in his article "Emoji: the first truly global language?".
But don't be naïve, for now it is especially a boon for brands which
decline their products in emoticons and other stickers, which squat
social platforms and which extend their influence. Startups as Swyft
Media (in the United States) and Feeligo (in Paris) surf on this
emoticons "stickers" business by offering their services to brands.
EMOJI INVASION
GOODBYETO(ALPHANUMERIC)LANGUAGE
25. This animated GIF keyboard
makes it easy to communicate
via reaction GIFs.
Steven
Founded by pushd,
Steven is an app that
automatically shares
locations as emojis. Steven
doesn't actually send out
precise locations, simply
images.
Emoj.Li
Emoj.li is an emoji-only chat tool.
The username and conversations
are a combination of emojis: easily
confusing.
PopKey
SMS FULL OF IMAGERY
GOODBYETO(ALPHANUMERIC)LANGUAGE