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Economy

MyLittleParis: How A Newsletter For Girlfriends Became A Huge Internet Hit

It took only a few years for this little start-up to become a digital 'what-to-do' phenomenon: without any advertising, it has 800.000 readers and growing...

Nicolas Rauline

PARIS – It's the success story of a French start-up that has set Parisian inboxes abuzz for the past few months. Providing local news while at the same time giving useful tips and promoting e-commerce, MyLittleParis has broken the boundaries of traditional newsletters. Sent for the first time "to 50 friends' four years ago, MyLittleParis has since become a real buzz machine -- and a profitable business.

The website is read by more than 800,000 people, nearly 500,000 of whom have subscribed to the newsletter. All of this achieved without any kind of public advertising.

"I wasn't expecting it to be such a success," says Fany Péchiodat, the young founder of MyLittleParis. "At first, I just decided to do it because I wanted to share my tips with my friends, and I was a bit fed up with conventional newsletters."

Six months and 10,000 subscribers later, Fany Péchiodat quit her job as head of sales in a cosmetics firm to devote herself completely to the project. She created a start-up company, with an initial 5,000 euros in capital. "The key was to expand without ever losing the original spirit", she says. "Now we're writing to 800,000 readers but each one feels like they've received an e-mail from their friend." This explains why MyLittleParis's newsletter gets opened more than the average and why click rates go as high as 12% - compared to the typical 1%.

The secret of MyLittleParis lies in its particular advertising method: Once a week, the newsletter is specifically devoted to a partner, in a sort of advertorial that allows the start-up to keep control of what's in the e-mail and how things look. For example, to promote trips by train to London, MyLittleParis issued a newsletter telling its readers about its favorite restaurants in the English capital, and slipped in mentions of deals offered by the advertiser in the different articles. "It is more effective than traditional banners," says Péchiodat.

Expanding

The start-up now employs about 30 people: one third in the editorial team - including five "dénicheuses' (spotters) responsible for finding top tips and good deals - one third in the commercial team and one third in the technical team. MyLittleParis has also expanded by adapting the brand to other cities like Lyon and Marseille and by launching themed sites devoted to children (MyLittleKids) and weddings (MyLittleWedding), as well as creating a male-oriented version of the website (MerciAlfred.com).

In terms of online media, Péchodiat and her team have invented a unique model by adding e-commerce to their activity. Every month, subscribers can receive MyLittleBox, a package of various cosmetics, books and surprises for a monthly fee of 15.50 euros. Launched four months ago, the "box" has so far attracted more than 25,000 women and could represent 40% of the site's revenue in 2012. The turnover of MyLittleParis may soon exceed 10 million euros.

Read the original story in French

Screenshot – MyLittleParis

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Future

AI Is Good For Education — And Bad For Teachers Who Teach Like Machines

Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.

Journalism teacher and his students in University of Barcelona.

Journalism students at the Blanquerna University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

© Sergi Reboredo via ZUMA press
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ - Early in 2023, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates included teaching among the professions most threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), arguing that a robot could, in principle, instruct as well as any school-teacher. While Gates is an undoubted expert in his field, one wonders how much he knows about teaching.

As an avowed believer in using technology to improve student results, Gates has argued for teachers to use more tech in classrooms, and to cut class sizes. But schools and countries that have followed his advice, pumping money into technology at school, or students who completed secondary schooling with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have not attained the superlative results expected of the Gates recipe.

Thankfully, he had enough sense to add some nuance to his views, instead suggesting changes to teacher training that he believes could improve school results.

I agree with his view that AI can be a big and positive contributor to schooling. Certainly, technological changes prompt unease and today, something tremendous must be afoot if a leading AI developer, Geoffrey Hinton, has warned of its threat to people and society.

But this isn't the first innovation to upset people. Over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher Socrates wondered, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, whether reading and writing wouldn't curb people's ability to reflect and remember. Writing might lead them to despise memory, he observed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English craftsmen feared the machines of the Industrial Revolution would destroy their professions, producing lesser-quality items faster, and cheaper.

Their fears were not entirely unfounded, but it did not happen quite as they predicted. Many jobs disappeared, but others emerged and the majority of jobs evolved. Machines caused a fundamental restructuring of labor at the time, and today, AI will likely do the same with the modern workplace.

Many predicted that television, computers and online teaching would replace teachers, which has yet to happen. In recent decades, teachers have banned students from using calculators to do sums, insisting on teaching arithmetic the old way. It is the same dry and mechanical approach to teaching which now wants to keep AI out of the classroom.

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