Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on March 27, 2008 – 8:55 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
As I’ve promised you last week, I will interview the start-ups who participated in the start-up rally of PLUGG 2008. This time I’m interviewing Dani Warshager from sportme. As you might have guessed by the name, this is an online sports community. It’s all aimed at connecting sportsmen and women to connect and practice in the off line world.
How did you come up with the idea of sportme?
“The history of sportme started with a couple of friends who wanted to arrange a meet-up to play sports. As usual the annoying and time consuming phone call chain began. It became even more irritating when half of the friends decided not to show up and stayed at home. Since this incident the birth of sportme and the idea of simplifying the process of sports meet-ups began. Eventually the original idea evolved in to a real vision, which was to connect sports people through a universal online sports community. A portal specifically built for athletes, teams and clubs of all sports to promote, network and represent themselves in the sports world. sportme offers its members a true advantage not only on the sports field but also in everyday life as it doesn‘t matter if you are a leisure athlete or club; university team or professional club, sportme will always fulfill your sports organization and communication needs. (more…)
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Written on March 25, 2008 – 9:50 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
As I’ve promised you last week, I will interview the start-ups who participated in the start-up rally of PLUGG 2008. This time I’m interviewing Joonas Pekkanen from Floobs. That’s a Finnish start-up which enables anyone to setup their own live internet and mobile TV Channel. The advantage of this streaming video service, compared to competitors like Qik, is that it’s Java-based. So theoretically, the Java client is easily exported to a large number of mobile devices. Our WebTipr from Finland, Timo Paloheimo, has written a good overview of this promising start-up. Here’s their own story.
How did you come up with the idea of Floobs?
“We had been discussing different ideas with my co-founder Kai Lemmetty since the end of summer 2006. By winter we found ourselves discussing more and more often on the subject of live video and its possibilities. One evening we just suddenly realized that everyone will be carrying a video production tools in their pockets in the form of smart phones very soon. In the end of January we set-up the company and started working on the first draft of the business plan, recruiting key people and looking for seed funding. Our idea is to allow anyone to set-up their own live mobile Internet TV channels – streaming live content from mobile phones, web cams, DV cameras and mixing that with pre-recorded content.” (more…)
Written on March 23, 2008 – 1:25 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
As I’ve promised you last week, I will interview the start-ups who participated in the start-up rally of PLUGG 2008. This time we’re interviewing Bertrand Bodson, co-Founder Bragster.com. He already got some coverage on this blog for some serious pie throwing. Yet he and his team can do more than getting attention in an unconventional way, since they run a rather popular start-up. It’s a service on which friends can dare each other to something incredibly stupid. How did they come up with that?
How did you come up with the idea of Bragster?
“It all started as a “coffee-machine” type of idea. Wim, while at Morgan Stanley, was going to the hairdresser before an important meeting. Some of his colleagues dared him to go bold. They would supposedly pay him £500 if he did it. They kind of agreed, but eventually it never really happened knowing that he wouldn’t probably get the reward. That was enough to get us thinking - I was still at Amazon.com at the time. The net was the ideal platform to make it official and record those dares, with no way back and even getting your friends to chip in by betting if you would do it or chicken out, adding the necessary and fun social pressure to it. Over time, lot of things have evolved of course, e.g.: we added a strong community dimension to it, a virtual currency, the ability to easily upload video evidence and so on. But one thing remained the same: we are simply bringing to the net what has been a natural human behaviour for centuries: there is a competitive spirit in all of us, and bragging with friends is part of the human nature… and fun.” (more…)
Written on March 22, 2008 – 2:05 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
As I’ve promised you last week, I will interview the start-ups who participated in the start-up rally of PLUGG 2008/ This time we’re interviewing Alberto Naranjo Galet from Tagmore. This is a company that focuses on connection online content with off line content by using a mobile device. As our WebTipr from Japan reported, this is normal in Japan and other Asian countries. Yet in the US and Europe there’s a whole lot to do before it gets common. Tagmore is one of the pioneers that are ahead of a new trend. If you want to know more about the technology, I suggest you read this thorough post by Mike Butcher.
How did you come up with the idea of Tagmore?
“I think it was a thinking process that lasted 10 years. I have always dreamed with the idea of linking the physical world with the “virtual one”, under the influence of William Gibson’s novels and the virtual/expanded reality concepts. Thanks to the Tagmore architecture a physical object is the object itself, plus dynamic rich data, plus communities and networks of real people around the physical object. So we basically hyperlink this physical object in a secure way, and offer services around it. We can issue secure mobile tickets and coupons, enable smart shopping or launch mobile marketing campaigns with 2D barcodes and RFID based technology. That’s bringing the future to present in a way that’s usable for businesses, don’t you think so?” (more…)
Written on March 21, 2008 – 12:13 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
As I’ve promised you two days ago, I will interview the start-ups who participated in the start-up rally of PLUGG 2008/ This time we’re interviewing David Whitewood, co-founder and VP Business Development of Trutap Limited. His colleague Carl Uminski presented Trutap for the audience in Brussels.
Trutap is an easy-to-use free mobile service that combines all the elements of a young person’s social life into one application. It sort of turns a phone into a platform for social media . You can send SMS and email from your mobile phone for free. You can also chat with your friends on IM and post to blogs, photo-sharing accounts and social networks.
How did you come up with the idea of Trutap?
“It was back in 2004. There was a great scandal across the UK news when David Beckham was accused of having an affair with Rebbecca Loos. Apparently they had been having text sex with each other. At the same time the Mobile Data Association were reporting record texting figures for the New Year and Valentines day and there were reports of text bullying causing problems at school. Texting was going thru exponential growth, yet it lacked the basic privacy and control options that are found in email and IM. I saw a mismatch and knew that my phone had GPRS data & Java capabilities and spotted a huge opportunity. And the more I looked at it, the bigger it became.” (more…)
Written on March 19, 2008 – 2:43 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK started the second panel as a depressed man. The credit crisis not just affects the world’s economy, but also the mood of one of Europe’s best bloggers. Luckily there were four investors at Plugg to cheer him up a bit.
Paul Fisher from Advent Venture Partners noted that lots of the start-ups have an advertised-based business model. And online advertising is still growing. Moreover, there’s a continued roll-out of broadband, specifically in Eastern Europe. He also said it’s a challenging time for VC’s: “Talent is a lot more expensive now”. So an important issue, according to Fisher, is that start-up expect more than VC’s.
Julie Meyer (Ariadne Capital) sees the crisis as a way to seperate the women from the girls and the men from the boys. The one’s that really want a start-up will pursue. So she sees it as some kind of filer. “It forces entrepreneurs to be a Fiat Punto instead of a Mercedes S class. Discipline is important now”. Reshma Sohoni from SeedCamp agreed with her: “Companies are now more careful with cash burn and costs”.
So in a few years, people will ask successful entrepreneurs: “What’s your secret?!” Those guys will then probably say: “Wel, we started in Q1 of 2008 and learned to start a company in an efficient way.”
The investors convinced Butcher. I even heard him saying a remarkable thing, something you would expect from a optimist instead of a guy who just lost his faith in world economy: “Yes, it’s a fantastic time to build a start-up.”
Written on March 19, 2008 – 1:01 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Start-up rallies can be disastrous. Take the start-up rally at Le Web 3 for example. They had installed a start-up dock over there, which was a nice place to rest for most attendees. On top of that, the jury consisted of a few ‘I’m playing with my Blackberry’-guys. So the entrepreneurs saw a disinterested crowd and turned really nervous. I couldn’t watch it.
Here at PLUGG it’s totally different. Start-ups present on the main stage in two rally’s of ten companies. They only have two minutes, short ‘n’ sweet, and were encouraged to ‘act excited’, since if they aren’t excited about their own product, who will? That’s what I’m talking about!
The guys from Bragster really got the point. It’s a service on which friends can dare each other to something incredibly stupid. And it works, the people and the press love it. Moreover, rapper 50 cent is registered as well. What more can you ask for?
One of the team members of the French Bragster team challenged his colleague Niko to ‘throw a pie in Bertrand’s face’. So guess what happened when the two enthusiastic guys walked up the stage? Exactly, Bertrand’s world suddenly consisted of just pie and whipped cream. The audience was stunned.
After a rally, this very same audience had the opportunity to rate the start-ups. I won’t be surprised when Bragster really gained some points just by bringing the idea of their very fun start-up into practice.
Update: There you have it: Bragster is one of the tree finalists at the Plugg startup rally.
More about the other start-ups in the upcoming weeks, that’s a promise!
Written on March 19, 2008 – 10:22 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Setting up panels: why are conference organizers doing this? So you have four entrepreneurs on stage, all really good in what they do - I assume. You ask a moderator to do her job. And here we go: an entrepreneur gives a mediocre answer, the others are just nodding. The moderator tries to spark a fire, yet the only daring thing the entrepreneurs do is trying to speak louder than the other. In my experience, it often goes like that.
Same thing with today’s panel: Simon McDermott (Attentio), Rodrigo Sepúlveda (Vpod.tv), Andrej Nabergoj (Noovo) and Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (From the blog you’re reading now) are all skilled entrepreneurs. Some of them are even gifted speakers. Moderator Colette Ballou from Ballou PR is doing the best she can - making jokes, asking daring questions. Yet like aways, the result of a panel isn’t noteworthy.
I rather see these businessmen give four well-prepared short presentations. Discussion can follow afterwards, or on a backchannel (like the coffee break). Only then they’ll manage to share their expertise in an exciting and fairly thorough way.
Oh, I was just about to press publish, yet I wanted to share this cool quote: “starting a company is like having sex for the first time. You don’t know how it works, , it takes very long, but you’ll discover along the way”, stated Rodrigo Sepúlveda. Boris’ reply: “There’s one difference, if you have more sex you take more time.”
Left to right: Andrej, Rodrigo, Simon, Colette and Boris
Written on March 19, 2008 – 9:44 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Rebecca Jennings, a Senior Analyst from Forrester Research, talked about Social Computing in Europe: Facts & Figures. She asked how well social computing is being adopted in Europe. Why is the adoption and use of social computing different from country to country?
She started of with some examples to show how important social computing gets. Of course she mentioned Lego, the toys company who really gets how you can use your engaged following. For example, they asked the community what kind of Lego thing they wanted to see. The crowd asked for a bit more challenging object to build. So Lego launched the Lego Imperial Start Destroyer, an expensive Starwars space ship (80 euros). It was sold out in five weeks.
So Forrester figured it might be about time to do some profiling. Here’s what they came up with:
- Creators (10%) - creates content, like blogs and Flickr pictures
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Critics (19%) - commenting and participating
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Collectors (9%) - Following RSS feeds and social bookmarking
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Joiners (13%) - Maintain profiles on social networks
- Spectators (40%) - Watch, listen, read
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Inactives (55%) - guess what: none of the above
The percentages refer to the whole European population. When you look at the numbers per country, the Dutch turn out to be the keenest creators - reason for us to start yelling (sorry about that Rebecca). So why is that? Jennings thinks it’s because Holland was pretty early with affordable broadband. Yet cultural reasons do matter as well. Germans for example, are less into sharing than their Dutch neighbors.
Jennings waving at the yelling Dutchmen
If you look at different age groups, you notice that social media is a way of life for young customers. Companies should jump into this trend. A good example according to Jennings is Spine Breakers from Penguin Publishing. It’s a writing community for writing youngsters. The team of Spine Breakers gives their young users what they want, and it a huge part of the content is generated due to that philosophy.
So profiling should be the foundation of a company’s computing strategy. Companies have to ask themselves: What do we want to achieve? Then strategy evolves next. This is becoming more important everyday. “It’s a long term phenomenon. As you know, since I’m preaching to the converted”. In 5 to 10 years, we’ll see ubiquitous social networks, based on developments like open technology, shared identities, an information flow and advertisers who embrace the social influence of the community. And, as Jennings noted, thanks to internet entrepreneurs like us.
Update: check out the graph Ton Wesseling from Dutch blog Marketingfacts made.
Written on March 19, 2008 – 9:09 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Boris, Robert and me just arrived at the fancy Hotel Plaza in Brussels for ‘a European perspective on Web 2.0′. If the Wifi connection survives - it looks pretty good right now - we’ll cover this event for you. It’s up to TechCrunch UK’s Mike Butcher to now open the event - which is called Plugg by the way, while everybody is still having their regular conference breakfast: croissants and coffee.
After that, Rebecca Jennings from Forrester Research will address Social Computing in Europe in her keynote. To know what happens then, have a look at the schedule. If you have any requests about covering, or you want us to ask a certain question, give us a shout on Twitter.
Updates:
Butcher opening the conference by walking into the public, asking who people are
More photos by Robert or Ernst-Jan
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
