[Update: photo and pdf link added, 8 February]

[Ed. note: GenevaLunch is carrying a series of articles on the Lift08 conference: articles on Lift08]

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - "First connect the rabbit, then connect everything else." That’s the simple business  principle that keeps Rafi Haladjian moving his charming little digital rabbit, Nabaztag, through the world, hooking it up to lamps and books and more.

The rabbit, created in 2005, is the starting point of French entrepreneur Haladjian’s company Violet. Violet has an equally simple business mission: connect objects. Start with one and connect the other thousands, millions - a rabbit’s work is never done, it appears.

The rest of us have the simplest job of all: love the rabbit. It’s easy to do. In fact, even the web site that encourages you to buy or adopt a rabbit is lovable.

But why a small digital bunny: the question is hard to avoid.
Haladjian, talking about the creative life of an entrepreneur at the
Lift08 conference in Geneva, says the idea was not to connect a rabbit
but to show that even a rabbit could be connected. A bunny
happened to be sitting on his desk the day he needed the first object
that would connect to all the others. A rabbit, he decided, had much
going for it as a first connectable object. Its ears would be simple to
move, it has no voice so he could add voices. A rabbit has no known
psychology. He could freely adapt it.

Haladjian believes people fall in love with products that let them
directly affect the people they connect to. Sending an "I love you
message" to an Internet-connected lamp that blushes red when the
nessage arrives is the equivalent of filling a room with the scent of
roses - an emotional message, he says.

Other people like the ears that dip to show what the air is like or to
offer the news, and the rabbits have interchangeable coloured ears.
Nabaztag is not something you need, but it’s there to make life more
fun, with a touch of love. The cost: euros 135, £90 and $170, and ears
are around £5.

Even librarians and grandparents at a distance who wish they could
read nighttime stories are likely to fall for Nabaztag’s charms (press release, English, pdf).

"We want to find ways to create interactive products without
destroying things that are not digital," says the inventor, pointing to
a photo of Nabatztag reading a children’s book, "where you can choose
the voice you want to read the story, so it doesnt kill the book, it
enhances it."

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