Written on August 21, 2008 – 8:31 pm Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
My buddies over at Belgian web agency Netlash have updated one of the coolest looking tools they’ve ever built imho, so I couldn’t resist letting you in on it. I’m referring to Spamgarden, a Wordpress plugin that will wipe out every problem you’ve ever experienced with life online.
Actually, it won’t, it doesn’t even serve any other purpose than making spam look pretty (example).
The way they figured, spam isn’t good for anything (which would be true enough if it weren’t for the fact that so many people actually respond to it), so they decided that they could take something bad and make it into something good. That constructive way of thinking led to Spamgarden, which takes all the spam coming into your Wordpress installation and uses it as fertilizer for a virtual tree made out of random keywords from the junk.
Enjoy!
I hope you like that post!
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Written on August 21, 2008 – 3:59 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
World’s largest independent IM service eBuddy has hired former Google Netherlands executive Marc Duijndam to stimulate its international growth. Duijndam will work together with eBuddy’s senior management team. His focus will be on rapid development of eBuddy’s worldwide revenue and expansion of the partner network.
Marc Duijndam
From a national point of view, I’m proud to see a Dutch web company actively working to sustain and develop its international top position. But to hell with this proud, I’ll save it for the Dutch blogs. So here’s some more information that’s not just interesting for the Dutchmen.
Duijndam has six years of Google experience (2001-2007) and will play an important role in transforming a young fast-growing web company into a solid and really profitable player. Or, like eBuddy co-founder and CEO Jan-Joost Rueb says, “Duindam will take eBuddy to the next level”.
It’s part of every successful start-up’s growing curve. After gaining some traction, a round or two of funding, and some more traction; a careful selection of experienced business executives is made to turn the popularity into revenue.
eBuddy’s decision to hire the former Google executive matches with the international promise the company made when it secured a Series B round of 6.5 million euro from Prime Technology in February.
[Disclaimer: look at the right of this page, eBuddy sponsors this blog.]
VIDDIX, which started as a study project and launched in February this year, can be best described as a combination between YouTube and Slideshare. The video is playing at a panel on the left, while different web content - such as slides, pictures, YouTube videos, HTML and Flash embeds - shows up in a so-called iPanel at the right.
DCIF’s financial injection in VIDDIX is bigger than the fund regularly gives. Gert-Jan Bennen, fund manager, said in the release: “We’re investing in VIDDIX because its tool is a valueable contribution to existing webvideo services (..). We foresee a good role for this tool in the future of online video.” The Dutch fund normally invests between €20.000 and €40.000, says their website.
Example of VIDDIX video featuring my co-editor Boris
VIDDIX CEO Sébastien Willems is particularly excited about the network of DCIF. He told Emerce that his company is already negotiating with Holland’s largest Internet publisher, Ilse Media. VIDDIX is also working with onine shopping giant Bol.com, the results of which we will see at the end of this year.
In the comments on my review of VIDDIX, Edo van Santen en “1234gybotf” raised questions about VIDDIX’s business model. Turns out that the video company is aiming at a B2B approach, while offering the service for free to normal users. Sounds like a solid plan to me.
Written on August 21, 2008 – 11:00 am Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Being a web developer and system admin for my own network, I have more sympathy than most when it comes to problems with scaling and general system admin. But this is Paypal I’m talking about and being the ‘premier’ service provider of online payments it is simply unforgivable.
I’m actually generally very fond of Paypal, since my last rant about their ineptness they actually contacted me and followed up with some useful tips on resolving some idiosyncrasy’s with their system. As I had long since given up with their standard customer service (which is generally considered to be non existent) it was a welcome interjection of support.
They have even implemented at least one of my suggestions that I made which would IMO improve their system (glade to hear their listening) and it was a great improvement. Alas, as of the last 4 weeks (at least) paypal has been suffering with consistent rounds of intermittent downtime (in Europe only I’m told). I have emailed my contacts (some higher ups in France) who have explained they have been having some issues with ‘cookies’ and some localized issues that were thought to have been resolved.
Well I can assure you Paypal they have not been resolved. I have spent most of the day (trying) to test a shopping cart function for a new application and Paypal has been intermittently down for much of today (very annoying). Even more worryingly for the last month every time I have checked the site for one reason or another I have had issues ranging from some features not working to complete downtime.
But for companies trading using Paypal as their sole method of payment these ongoing troubles are tantamount to denial of service attacks. The effort companies go to actually get a customer to the checkout is huge and extremely costly, to have the checkout girl throw a wobble at the last minute and tell the customer to **** off could rightly be called a sackable offense!
Written on August 21, 2008 – 9:30 am Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last June, the Sweden’s parliament approved controversial new laws allowing authorities to spy on all Internet traffic and telephone connections, starting in January 2009. The wiretapping won’t be limited to physical borders, meaning the Swedes won’t just listen to the conversations of its citizens, but also to those from people all over the world.
This decision has already stirred some hefty discussions in the Swedish blogosphere and press. Yet the people behind Urban Lifestyle, a Swedish company devoted to helping companies and people to navigate and understand the social web, feel like the whole world should be aware of the upcoming wiretapping.
So Urban Lifestyle owner Tomas Nihlén mailed me they’re working on a web documentary, in English, that is scheduled for publishing somewhere in the beginning of September. What I particularly like about this noble initiative is that Nihlén wants to know WHO he should interview. You can nominate yourself, or for the less vain persons, somebody you consider to be an expert. Nihlén will keep track of the names on this page.
So far, there’s just a witty trailer that shows what can be the consequences. I just hope they’ll leave the Powerpoint-like sounds out of the final product.
Written on August 20, 2008 – 5:53 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Emily is a gorgeous woman whose life is dedicated to acting. She welcomes people to websites, does commercials, and helps users to navigate through new online tools. Best of all, she never complains. She always works, even outside office hours. Yeah, those life-like animations is everything a start-up could ask for. Everybody prefers charming Emily instead of the boring presentations by geeky founders.
Emily has been developed by Image Metrics, and “will set a new precedent for photo-realistic characters in video games and films” (and web sites, I assume).
The researchers at Californian-based Image Metrics made Emily by breaking down the facial movements in a video of an employee. They then broke the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a ‘control system’. The goal of this process is replicate human imperfections and the timing we tend to have when telling something. “Ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real,” Mike Starkenburg, chief operating officer of Image Metrics, said to the Times.
It takes one hell of a processor to generate these computer images. But maybe in a few years, every start-ups has its own virtual life-like character that guides new users through sites and tools.
Written on August 20, 2008 – 4:56 pm Mike Sheetal, Next Web WebTipr in Japan
The answer to that question seems to be a resounding yes going by the title of a new Japanese magazine called Shinkansen&Love. The Shinkansen (bullet train) is apparently now the way to see the big city, go shopping and find love.
It is actually a fashion-related magazine with accompanying stylish video minisite to show what a wonderful time you can have shopping in Tokyo. All sarcasm aside, the combination of intercity trains and love, while having its roots in some strong history (The Orient Express for example), is comical even for Japanese.
Written on August 20, 2008 – 4:09 pm Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Actonomy, a Belgian company, has introduced a new version of it’s ’search and matching’ technology platform xMP along with an enormous knowledge base for HR professionals. HR is the field that Actonomy focuses on primarily, because there is such an obvious need for searching through vast amounts of data in a structured, intelligent way.
So what does it do?
It’s probably not the sexiest product you have ever laid eyes on, but the software is making its way in the recruitment market, and is already in use by companies like HP USA, TopJobs.com, Belgacom, Vacature.com, Umicore, VUB, etc. In essence, Actonomy’s xMP allows you to search through documents in such a way that you can retrieve information that isn’t necessarily literally mentioned in those documents. The algorythm is capable of looking for references that aren’t keyword-based, but rather seek out synonyms, terms in other languages and other links as well.
For example: if a job application includes ‘JAVA developer’, and your resume doesn’t include ‘JAVA’ but does mention that you have experience in object-oriented programming, Actonomy would be able to weed you out anyway.
For corporate HR managers and recruitment agencies, time is always an issue. With often hundreds of resumes coming in for one vacancy each having a different structure, it’s virtually impossible to evaluate and search them in an efficient way. Actonomy lets them do just that. Note that even the most basic version would set a customer back at east 8500 €, which is nothing to sneeze at.
Written on August 21, 2008 – 8:31 pm
Written on August 21, 2008 – 3:59 pm
Written on August 21, 2008 – 11:00 am
Written on August 20, 2008 – 4:56 pm
Actonomy
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