Homepage of the Google Art Project

Last week one of the big stories in both traditional and social media was the launch of the Google Art Project, an ambitious project merging the Google Street view technology with “gigapixel” digital images of the works of art from seventeen of the world’s greatest museums, including the Hermitage in Saint-Petersburg and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Although Google’s technology is highly advanced, its Art Project is essentially doing what has been done ever since the very first years of the Internet: trying to give people the ability to visit various museums virtually from the comfort of their homes. However, it’s interesting to note that many of these museums, including the Louvre and the Tate have stopped trying to offer virtual visits and have instead focus on digitizing as many pieces of art as possible and making them accessible through a search engine.

Virtual tour of the Uffizi Gallery

This brings me to my main argument: I just don’t understand why we are still trying to reproduce the feeling of visiting a museum in a virtual way. I believe this feeling will never be fully reproduced in the digital sphere because as much as I love seeing high resolution pictures or prints of my favorite works, I just don’t feel the same emotion as when I am seeing the work in person. There was much talk of images with up to 14 billion pixels in the Google Art Project (although currently there is only one per museum) and this feature surely could potentially alter the way we see art since anyone will have access to the infinite details of every element in a painting. Yet, you still cannot get the subtleties of the brushstroke or the way light reflects on the painting, and I’m not even talking about the indescribable feeling associated with seeing firsthand the work done hundreds of years ago by some of humanity’s greatest masters.

Zoom in a Van Gogh Painting

Therefore, if I cannot reproduce the feeling of seeing a painting in person, it is pointless to try and reproduce the feeling of visiting a museum. And this is why I don’t get the reason for using the street view technology to allow users to move within the museum to somehow give them a similar experiences to actually being there. I know that the intent is not to reproduce with complete fidelity the experience of being at the Tate, but rather to give people who may not have the chance to go to the London a glimpse of what they could see there.  But I think that instead of investing so much energy trying to imitate a feeling that cannot be reproduced, we should be using the specific advantages of digital technology and the Web, including the ability to transcend physical limitations.

Here I am in no way trying to undermine the work done by tremendous art curators whose knowledge far exceeds what I can ever wish to know about art, but I believe museums have one major flaw: they can only display pieces that are in their collection or temporary exhibition and are physically present at the museum. Moreover, the number of pieces of art that can displayed is also restricted by a museum’s physical gallery space.

Homepage of the CCA website

Having acted as Bluesponge’s account manager for the Canadian Center for Architecture, I know a thing or do about this issue. The CCA holds one of the world’s greatest archive of material related to architecture. However, only a fraction of this collection is displayed in its physical building in Montreal. The CCA website project was partly built on the belief that this invaluable collection belongs online, where it can be enjoyed by the public and accessible for researchers worldwide. Instead of trying to reproduce its physical space, and because increasing it is no small feat given how the current economic downturn has affected people’s ability and desire to donate money to cultural institutions, the CCA regards its website as a virtual extension of its physical building.

In this sense, wouldn’t be more interesting for humanity to gather all of the world’s biggest art collections, digitize them and commission art historians to organize virtual exhibitions where they would have the leisure of associating any piece of art around a theme and display them accordingly. Moreover, wouldn’t be great to be able to view all of Picasso’s work, arranged chronologically. And how about navigating geographically? I would love to see all of the paintings produced in Spain during the 1910s! And how about show me all of the work produced around the world in the year 1777. You see my point, the possibilities are endless, and this would actually have a profound impact on the way we interact with art.

Now I know I have simplified this issue to the degree where an art expert is probably looking for the comment section to tell me that I don’t know anything about the subject. Yes I know that digitizing all of the world’s art is probably not very realistic, although if someone can do it, it’s definitely the people at Google who are currently also taking on the other improbable task of digitizing the vast majority of books ever published by humanity. And yes, I know that choosing Picasso as an example basically demonstrates my lack of credibility on the subject. But the point is that I’m a 26 year-old geek/history buff/stats lover and if you get me to write such a long blog post about how excited I am about the prospect of comparing European painting during the Renaissance to the work done in China, Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica at the same time, then isn’t this level of excitement from younger generations precisely what museums around the world are striving to achieve?

My friends at Bluesponge  have just launched a brand new concept: branding 2.0. We’ve seen websites let their users create content for them, we’ve seen brands reach out to their enthusiasts to help them “spread the word”, we’ve seen people getting together to mass purchase (often useless) items to get a group discount. Now we are seeing for the first time an agency rethinking its brand and positioning… and letting people in on the process!

Check out this cool initiave on Bluesponge’s building-in-progress website, and follow them on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

For good measure, here’s a more official description of the projet:

Every single day this February, the team at Bluesponge invites you for a daily online encounter. For 28 consecutive days, we will share the whole ongoing process of our rebranding and online presence for the next ten years. Everything – from ideas and sketches to brand new content and design for our online platform- will be gradually presented to you as they pop at bluesponge.com. Each and every aspect of this undertaking will be presented to you live on a daily basis along with questions and issues that will help us shaping Bluesponge renewed brand.

Bon, sans plus attendre, voici en rafale une liste désorganisée de points à retenir, qui vous permettront de prendre le poul de qui s’est dit aujourd’hui:

• Il y a un an, le mot d’ordre au Webcom était de convaincre les gens d’affaire de la pertinence d’utiliser les réseaux sociaux, et notamment Twitter, dans un contexte d’affaire. Cette année, on a surtout parler du besoin d’embaucher et de former des community managers, et de l’importance grandissante du mobile comme plateforme de consommation de contenu numérique.
• Il y a déjà 1 million de personne qui ont un téléphone intéligent au Québec, et d’ici la fin 2011 il y aura autant de téléphones intéligents que de téléphones sans-fil traditionnels.




• Jared Spool a clairement donner la meilleur conférence de la journée, et si il y a une chose que je retiens, c’est que ce n’est pas le nombre de features qui font la qualité d’un site Web, logiciel ou application, mais bien l’expérience usager. De plus, un site avec trop de fonctionnalités se traduit mal sur un mobile, et l’émergence du mobile va amener une simplification du Web.




• Le hype autour de Foursquare est maintenant terminé, et la valeur d’un check-in a largement diminué, et doit maintenant être remplacé par une valeur économique (un rabais lorsque on check-in dans un restaurant par exemple).




• Il n’est pas facile de mettre en marché une application sur le App Store. Frédéric de Pardieu a bien détaillé son experience de mise en marché pour mtrip, et je pense que la plus grande frustration est le manque de statistiques pertinentes fournies par Apple. On connait les commentaires des gens et le nombre de ventes qu’on a fait, mais aucun moyen de savoir les tendances de recherche sur le app store ou le nombre de gens qui ont accédé à la description d’une application sans l’avoir acheté. À quand les résultats de recherche payants sur le app store?




• Il y a 3 ans, quand le iPhone a été lancé, tout le monde trippait à lire des journaux comme le New York Times avec le nez collé à son écran. Mais avec l’arrivée de l’iPad, on se rend compte que c’est complètement contre-nature de consommer autant de contenu texte sur un si petit écran. La multiplicité des plateformes va continuer parce que c’est illusoire de penser qu’une machine peut servir tous nos besoins adéquatement.




• Lorsque on développe une application pour iPhone, il ne faut pas oublier que lorsque l’usager entre du texte, la moitié de son écran est caché par le clavier virtuel. Il faut donc prévoir le design et s’assurer que l’expérience usager ne sera pas affectée.




• On ne peut pas bâtir une communauté en ligne sans apporter de valeur ajoutée au public. C’est bien beau de dire “OK, je lance tel produit, on va créer une page Facebook”. Mais il faut être capable de répondre à la question que l’usager va se poser: What’s in it for me?!




• Un bon community manager ne fait pas qu’écouter et modérér une communauté, il doit être capable d’analyser les commentaires des usagers pour comprendre leur sentiment  et réagir en conséquence.




• Lorsque une marque décide d’investir dans les réseaux sociaux, il faut qu’elle soit prête à faire face à tous les commentaires du public, même ceux qui sont négatifs. Mon ami Laurent R. me disait qu’il connaissait quelqu’un qui s’est plaint sur le wall Facebook de Telus après avoir fait face à un service à la clientèle affreux, et qui a vu son post être effacé une heure plus tard. C’est l’équivalent d’appeler un client et de lui dire d’aller se faire f*&”/…




• Un principe que les nouveaux adeptes de Twitter devraient garder en tête: plus un individu (ou une marque) parle de lui-même, plus rapidement il va perdre ses followers. Twitter est un outil de partage d’information et de conversation, pas un outil de marketing direct!




• Et pour terminer, j’ai découvert cette vidéo amateure qui démontre clairement la nature humaine: il faut atteindre une masse critique de membres avant qu’une communauté puisse vraiment prendre son envol. Dans ce cas-ci, le 3ème fêtard à se joindre à la fête a vraiment fait lever le party!

1. Lorsqu’on fait du marketing interactif, il faut à tout prix arrêter de penser en terme de campagnes. Sur le Web, on ne peut pas mettre un paquet d’argent pendant 4 mois, se bâtir une communauté, des réseaux sociaux etc.. et ensuite arrêter pour recommencer l’année suivante. L’investissement dans le Web doit être à l’année longue. Et de dire Florian Schedler de Nurun “l’utile n’est pas limité dans le temps”.  Je ne peux qu’insister sur l’importance de ce point. Si il y a une chose que je me force d’apprendre à mes clients, c’est celle-là!




2. Comme Lionel Pardin de Fjord l’a mentionné, on connaît aujourd’hui une multiplication des canaux, ce qui donne une importance encore plus grande au contenu. Ça reste l’enjeu majeur sur le Web. On a qu’à penser que chaque jour, 1 milliard de vidéos sont vues sur Youtube (!). D’ailleurs je sens de plus en plus un retour du balancier en faveur du contenu professionnel de qualité plutôt qu’au contenu amateur généré par l’usager.




3. Lorsqu’on fait un brief créatif, il ne faut surtout pas essayer d’être créatif! Un bon brief découle d’une réflexion stratégique, et ne doit pas être un copier coller du brief client. Il faut analyser l’information, faire des choix et ne donner que l’information qui sera pertinente. En gros, il faut que la personne qui prépare le brief créatif apporte une valeure ajoutée à celui-ci.




4. Damien Lefebvre de W.illi.am a un excellent point lorsqu’il dit que lorsqu’on conçoit une application mobile, Iphone ou Ipad, il ne faut pas tenter de reproduire le Web. Interactif n’est pas toujours synonyme avec Web, et il faut que l’interface soit adaptée au particularités du medium.




5. Avec les médias interactifs, ce n’est plus la marque qui rejoint le consommateur mais plutôt le consommateur qui rejoint la marque quand il le souhaite. Pour l’inciter à aller vers la marque, il faut lui apporter dans la valeur à un moment précis de sa journée. Ex: meteomedia.com le matin avant de partir, feed twitter de la STM sur Iphone avant de rentrer dans le métro, contenu vidéo sur Mobile quand je suis dans le bus ou en train d’attendre chez le médecin etc…




6. Malgré ce qu’on pense, le CRTC ne contrôle pas grand chose au niveau des médias interactifs. C’est très facile pour un adolescent de se donner une adresse IP aux Etats-Unis, en Europe ou même une IP Vidéotron vs. Bell et d’avoir accès à du contenu dit “exclusif”. Le modèle d’exclusivité ne marche pas. Il faut s’adapter à cette réalité.




7. Les installations interactives prennent de plus en plus de place, surtout aux États-Unis. Et je pense qu’au Québec on a tout intérêt à investir dans ce medium. Lorsqu’un consommateur magasine en ligne, il a accès à une foule d’information, notamment des commentaires sur la qualité d’un produit. Mais lorsqu’il va en magasin, il n’y a que le vendeur qui peut (parfois) l’aider. C’est pour ça qu’un nombre grandissant de gens vont magasiner en ligne avant d’acheter en magasin (on parle de plus de 50% dans certains secteurs). Pour facilité la décision des gens, on pourrait très bien voir Archambault offrir une installation qui permettrait au consommateur de scanner un code sur un CD ou DVD pour avoir accès à une description, des extraits et surtout des commentaires d’autres consommateurs.

Et voilà ce que j’ai tiré de cette journée. Si vous avez d’autres conclusions, n’hésitez-pas à les partager dans les commentaires!

First of all, any person who knows SEO will tell you that promising a #1 result on Google is just like predicting that the Montreal Canadiens will win the Stanley Cup this year:  while not impossible, it’s very unlikely and many things have to go right simultaneously for it to happen.

Second of all, and I cannot stress this enough, what we call on-site SEO, or the optimization of your website’s content and code structure, is just a portion of what determines your position in search engine results.

In order to give you an idea of what I mean, here is a little diagram illustrating what I consider the ideal SEO cocktail, or the proportion of effort should be allocated to the various aspects of SEO to get you the most effective results. Of course these proportions are by no means scientific, and are largely influenced by what your competition is doing at the same time, but they are based on my personal opinion having optimized many sites successfully:

External sites linking to page: The biggest factor influencing your site’s page rank is of course who links to you. Each link to your page is like a vote of confidence from someone else which gives you greater credibility and will improve your position in search results. However, the one thing to remember is that the value of an incoming link depends on the page rank of the site that links to you. A link from Yahoo, for example, will be much more valuable than ten links from unknown blogs like mine. To illustrate this principle, here is an excellent diagram taken from wikipedia:

Page content: This factor is often overlooked but I consider it to be worthy of at least 30% of your SEO efforts. In order to get the most traffic from search engines, you need to make sure that your site’s content is optimized. Identify keywords that you wish to optimize for, and make sure to use them repeatedly on your page. In order to avoid “keyword cannibalization”, you should also make sure that each page is optimized for one or two keywords, and that these are not used as frequently on other pages.

Page title: Don’t forget to optmize your page titles with the same keyword strategy as for your content. Avoid keyword cannibalization at all costs in the page title in order to drive traffic from a variety of keywords. If you can’t remember the number of characters in a page title, read this post.

H1, alt text, other code structure: I could go on and on about minor optimization techniques such as using keywords in your h1 and h2 title tags and using alt text for your images. Make sure to check SEOmoz to get detailed tips to optimize your site, but remember to focus on the important suff first.

Technological choice: This might seem a bit random but should not be overlooked. Choosing to go with html vs. flash or using a certain javascript gallery instead of another can have a huge impact on how your site’s content is parsed by search engines. Whenever designing a new website, these considerations need to be taken into account. If you want to see your site the way Google does, you can use seo-browser, a simple web-based tool that can prove very helpful.

External links from page: In an effort to combat span websites that use black hat SEO techniques, one of the tools implemented by Google is to analyze the quality of the links coming from your page to determine whether you are a legitimate content provider. Make sure that you link to a variety of external sites so that all those inbound links you worked so hard to acquire are not going to waste.

Internal links from other pages: Allowing search engines and users to access your site’s content in a variety of ways ensures that  search engine bots will go through most of your site everytime they crawl it. Think of your site as a wiki, and provide links to other pages and articles whenever it’s relevant.

To conclude this long overview of my perfect SEO cocktail, I want to reiterate the fact that 40% of SEO efforts need to be assigned to off-site SEO, that is the acquisition of inbound links from quality websites. This process is an ongoing one, and a client can’t expect his new website to get a great position in search engine results right away without investing time and money on a long-term link acquisition strategy.

How many characters in a page title and meta description? The answer for most search engines, including Google is:
page title: max 60 characters
meta description: 160 characters

Reminder: Page titles are a key element in defining how your site is ranked by Google and other search engines. Make sure to do some research on what keywords users are using to do a search, a great tool for this being Google Adwords‘ keyword tool (you’ll need to create an adwords account to access it). Then do some creative writing in order to insert as many keywords as possible in your page title while still remaining coherent to the user.

As for meta descriptions, as SEOmoz describes it perfectly: “while not important to search engine rankings, [they] are extremely important in gaining user click-through from search engine result pages”. Make sure to sell the content of your page to the user so that he clicks on your link and not the ones below or above you in search engine results.

How to measure the performance of a newsletter or e-blast ?

There are several ways to measure the success of a mass mailing, but the 3 most important performance indicators are:

- the delivery rate is the proportion of emails sent that have reached the recipents’ inboxes. This rate provides information regarding the quality of an email database.

- the open rate is the proportion of delivered emails that have been opened by users. This rate provides information regarding the visibility of an e-blast and is mostly influenced by the sender ID, the email title and the moment when it is sent.

- the click rate is the proportion of opened emails in which at least one link was clicked by the user. This rate provides information regarding the email’s content relevance and quality.

How to improve the performance of a newsletter or e-blast?

These 3 elements can have a great impact on the performance of your campaign and are easy to control:

The email title: the key factor which determines your open rate.

- The email title should be a maximum 50 characters long (including spaces) in order to make sure it is not truncated in the recipient’s inbox.

- Titles should be as precise as possible. One would think that a mysterious or vague title can lead curious users to open an email but the truth is users want to know what they are clicking on and are likely to disregard your message if it’s not appealing enough.

The email content: has to be relevant while encouraging users to click on the various links provided.

- There is no ideal lenght but the email should be relatively short and long paragraphs should be avoided at all costs. It is ideal to repeat the email title and to have an introductory paragraph which sums up the email’s content.

- You should have at least one explicit call to action which invites users to click and reach a landing page with more relevant content. Make sure to avoid the words “click here”. For example, say “discover this product” instead of “click here to discover this product”

The delivery time: An often-overlooked factor, this can have a huge impact on open and click rates.

- In the case of B to B campaigns, the best day to send your newsletter or e-blast is on tuesday, wednesday or thursday. since employees have to deal with a great number of emails on monday (included those received during the week-end) and they often disregard commercial emails on fridays in an effort to clear their inbox before the weekend.

- The ideal time to send a newsletter or e-blast is during the late morning to early afternoon period (between 11 am and 2 pm) since the morning’s email rush has been dealt with and there is still enough time left in the afternoon for an employee to take the time and read your email.

Many of the tips included in this article are a summary of the many great articles which can be found on the Mailchimp articles section, which I strongly encourage you to read to get more information.

But then a story like this happens, and I realize that the power of social media is a big deal after all.

A couple of weeks ago, someone close to me who grew up with a severe heart condition saw his health deteriorate fast. His doctors all agreed: only a heart transplant can save him. The only things is, Philippe El-Hage lives in a Lebanon (where there isn’t enough equipment to perform a heart transplant) and he does not have medical insurance. It order to live, he has to go to Paris to have his operation, which is to be paid in full by his family. Needless to say, they don’t have the required 220 000 euros (minimum) to pay for the surgery.

This is where Facebook comes in. The groupe Un coeur pour Philippe was created in the morning of wednesday May 19th. Two and a half days later, there are over 3,600 members (by the time you read this, the figure will probably be  much higher) many of whom have made donations through paypal. We don’t have exact figures yet, but we know the donations are in the tens of thousands, if not more than a hundred thousand dollars. Events are being organized throughout Lebanon, in Paris, Montreal etc…

Can Facebook help save a life? If yes then all I can say is that in the end, social media does deserve all the hype. The REAL power of social media is not just in allowing people to connect or allowing businesses to create awareness their brand or product. It is still about gathering people from around the world to support a just cause.

If you want to help, join the group and donate through this paypal page. Thanks!

In the meantime, many people have told me that they would like to read my Master’s thesis (technically, it’s a Research Paper though), and I have always thought that I’d rather publish it on the Web in the hope that one day it might be useful to someone. If you’re a historian and you read this, feel free to contact me. I love to talk about history and I’d love the share my limited research with you.

My paper was written in the spring of 2007 under the supervision of Professors Nicholas Dew and Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert and was entitled Intercolonial Trade within the French Atlantic World, 1708 – 1763. Frankly, it was a fascinating and under-studied topic that allowed me to combine my interests for Economic History and the History of the Atlantic World during the era of European Colonialism.

Here’s a pdf version of my paper: Intercolonial Trade within the French Atlantic World, 1708 – 1763

And a summary for those too lazy to read it (it’s OK, you don’t have to pretend to want to read a 50-page paper just to be my friend):

Between 1708 and 1763, metropolitan officials tried to promote a system of intercolonial commerce between French possessions in the Americas because of France’s inability to provide sufficient supplies to its colonies. The goal of this policy was to create a self-sufficient economic sphere within the French Atlantic World. While legal intercolonial trade rose to significant levels during the eighteenth century, it was overshadowed by the great quantitative superiority of illegal contraband commerce between British and French colonies. Because of a variety of structural factors, as well as a series of inefficient policies, illegal commerce was more profitable for French colonies than legitimate intercolonial trade, and this eventually led to failure of the ‘Colbertist’ economic system that had prevailed in the colonies since the 1670s.

Cet article a donc 3 objectifs principaux (oui, j’adore les listes chiffrées…):

1. Démontrer au comité de sélection de Radio-Canada que je mérite le rôle de blogueur représentant les Pays-Bas pour la Coupe du Monde 2010.
2. Prouver à ces mêmes personnes – et à ma blonde – que je suis tout à fait capable de bloguer en français (je n’ai pas passé dix-huit ans de ma vie au Collège Marie-de-France pour rien!)
3. Expliquer (enfin!) à mes amis et connaissances mon obsession pour l’équipe nationale des Pays-Bas.

Voici donc les 5 TRÈS BONNES raisons de me choisir comme blogueur officiel des Pays-Bas pour le mondial 2010:

1. Bien que ma famille ne soit pas d’origine néerlandaise (mais alors là pas du tout) ma soeur s’est mariée à Rotterdam. J’ai donc passé deux mois aux Pays-Bas au courant de l’été 2001 et ceci n’a fait qu’amplifier mon amour pour ce pays.
2. Je suis probablement la seule personne au Québec qui possède l’immonde maillot orange fluo de l’équipe nationale néerlandaise qui ne s’est pas qualifiée pour le mondial 2002. La preuve:
3. J’ai failli me faire casser la gueule à cause de ce fameux maillot le 9 juin 2008 alors que je courrais au milieu de la Petite Italie après la victoire des Pays-Bas 3-0 face à l’Italie. N’ayant pas appris de mon erreur, j’ai répété la manœuvre en face du Massilia sur Parc quatre jours plus tard alors que les Pays-Bas ridiculisaient la séléction française 4-1.
4. J’ai passé près de deux ans de ma vie à prendre Feyenoord à Football Manager 2005 pour essayer d’en faire une équipe championne d’Europe. Je pense que le jeux est truqué, car malgré tous mes efforts, je n’ai jamais pu passer les quarts…
5. Mon DJ préféré est hollandais (Tiësto), ma bière préférée est hollandaise (Grolsch) et mon joueur préféré est holandais (Van Persie). Si ça existait, mon joueur de hockey préféré serait hollandais!

Si vous n’êtes toujours pas convaincu que je suis le candidat idéal, pensez à ceci: quel autre non-hollandais serait capable d’adorer cette équipe avec autant de passion alors qu’elle nous a si souvent déçue, notamment au Mondial 2006 avec une défaite en huitièmes face au Portugal, et à l’Euro 2008 avec une défaite en quarts face à la Russie… ?

Sur ce je vous laisse avec les moments forts de cette fameuse leçon de soccer que nous avons donné au Français, ce 13 juin 2008: