US press ignores French startup successes, and here’s proof.

Prior to the election of French President François Hollande on May 6th, successful French serial entrepreneur and investor, Marc Simoncini, threatened to leave France. Citing various issues primarily with France’s wealth tax (not to be confused with the 75% tax), the founder of Meetic said France could become the last place any entrepreneur would want to be. And guess what – the US press went wild.

The best France-related questions on Quora

As some of you may know, I used to be a very loyal fan of Aardvark. The famous question and answer service launched as “Mechanical Zoo” in 2007 was acquired by Google in 2010 for $50 million and very sadly shut down last year. I used to get some of the most amazing questions from other Aardvark users – including “what time is it now?” and “where is Paris?” – but you can see my all time favorites here.

What the new French President means for startups

Yes, that’s right, over the weekend France elected a new President, François Hollande. It came as a bit of a surprise to many, as the country has not has a Socialist President since François Mitterrand in 1995 – nor has a President only served 1 term since Valéry Giscard-d’Estaing left office in 1981. Still, clearly France made the decision to move on and turn a new page. So, what does this mean for startups?

TechBaguette gets a Logo

Every now and then an entrepreneur will make something for me that will totally blow my mind. For example, not too long ago, the amazing DuoApps boys in Corsica reached out and said they would make me an iPhone app. To be totally honest, I have no idea if anyone in their right mind will ever actually download it (maybe, since it’s free!) but I was totally touched by this. Plus, what better way to get in good with a blogger that totally flatter her ego (yes, we love our egos)?! You can also check out GoodBarber, their apps ~~maker~~ shaver.

Thoughts on Being Hungry and Foolish

As you can tell, it took me a while to decide whether or not to write something about Steve Jobs. At first, I thought it was perhaps a little cliché. After all, everyone is writing about Steve right now (yes, we’re on a first-name basis) – my words would simply get lost in the crowd. But then again, how could I not? Steve is one of America’s most celebrated modern visionaries – and the footprint he left will forever mark the development of technology, culture, business and much more. And on a much more personal note, he is one of the most inspirational people I have ever discovered.

Parents, Stop Exploiting Your Children via Social Media

This is a topic that is not necessarily France-related but has been on my mind for a while now. It’s a bit of a difficult subject – I want to be sure that I don’t offend any friends or family that could be concerned by my opinion. And hopefully what I say will not come as a surprise to any of them, hopefully they will have already considered what I am about to say and the implications of the content they publish featuring their children. But for anyone that hasn’t, well, it’s definitely something to think about.

A message to the jerk who tried to ruin my blog

I contemplated for a long time whether or not I should write something about this. After all, the (most likely unemployed and sexually frustrated) man who has been amusing himself by writing dirty comments on my blog is simply seeking attention. Therefore, by writing something about him, I’m probably doing exactly what he wants.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that for whatever reason some jerk has been writing dozens of horribly inappropriate comments on my blog, using either “Dominique Strauss-Kahn” or “Michael Arrington” as his name. Most of you have probably already seen them, but if not here’s a sample of some of the comments I’ve received:

French Innovation Trends: Food, Fashion and Flirting

It’s funny how often the subject of conversation goes back to “Why is there no Google or Facebook coming out of France?” Some people like to point fingers at investors, saying French investors are too risk averse. But then there are others that say this is simply because the local exit market is, well, almost nonexistant (yes, I’m exaggerating but only slighly). But if you think about it, there are some things “made in France” that pretty much sell themselves.

Haha, the Oh-So-Silly French Startup Pitch

I don’t really know when it dawned on me for the first time that the practices of the startup world are actually, well, kind of silly. For people who aren’t in the industry, some of the lingo is probably just incomprehensible. Startup pitches, various business models, investment trends – most of the people I go to school with must look at my facebook status updates and think I’m on drugs. In fact, one person once thought I was talking about religion when I posted an article on the rise of European super angels. 🙂

So, if we’re so funny why aren’t more comedians making fun of us yet?

Man, Those French Rappers Love Their Startups

This is just a random post on something that crossed my mind rather randomly the other day. You may’ve heard of Snoop Dogg’s gig with leading social games publisher Zynga. And if you didn’t, well, all you need to know is that it involved Zynga hiring Snoop Dogg to blow up a car for the launch of a new game, Mafia Wars. Whether or not you love the idea, Zynga did it. And it got noticed.

Orelsan is to Facebook what Snoop Dogg is to Zynga.

So if Snoop Dogg is out there promoting Zynga and Kanye West is showing-up for random concerts at Facebook headquarters,we might as well put French rapper Orelsan in the same boat. It’s not exactly the same because – unlike Snoop & Co.- Orelsan and Toxic Avenger probably weren’t approached by Zuckerberg or Ternovskiy to feature Facebook and Chatroulette in their video for the song N’importe Comment (yes, I translated Alexia Tsotsis’s post for TechCrunch France on this).