Written on May 2, 2008 – 3:43 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our '
About' page and subscribe to our
RSS feed.
If you came here from Digg it would be great if you could actually Digg us too! Do you have a start-up that we should write about?
Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
I don’t know about your countries’ society, yet I think you might notice the same development: more people start their own business. Several factors stimulate tech and new media professionals to quit their jobs and start an entrepreneurial adventure, some examples:
- personal branding has never been easier, just start a blog and work on your social media magic.
- hobbies get out of hand. When Dutch marketing consultant Marco Derksen started his blog Marketingfacts, he probably didn’t realize it would turn into a business. I’m sure you can name an example from your own country.
- the start-up culture sparks up a fire. Pioneers like Kevin Rose inspire thousands of young ambitious guys.
- You don’t have to be ashamed. Being an entrepreneur wasn’t really prestigious. Yet now universities and schools stimulate their students to start a business after they’ve graduated.
From my personal experience I can tell that being a freelancer isn’t always easy, especially in the beginning. What should I charge? How do I plan my days? Where can I find like-minded people? (on blogs!)
Co-editor Boris, Stowe Boyd & yours truly
That’s why The Next Web partnered up with Going Solo, a one-day educational conference for freelancers and small-business owners in the media, tech, design, and publishing industries. It will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland on May 16th. Organizer Stephanie Booth told me she means to inspire as well as educate the entrepreneurial crowd. Confirmed speakers include Stowe - the man with the Kangoo hat - Boyd, social media consultant Suw Charman-Anderson, and presentations consultant Laura Fitton.
So if you’ve started a business of your own - or planning on it - you might consider traveling to Lausanne. If you do so, have a look at Stephanie’s discount offer and drop me a line - as I’ll be there as well.
Written on April 23, 2008 – 8:02 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
We love scoops and we know you do as well. So here’s one: Swiss RSS service Dixero is going to launch tomorrow. Yet another RSS service, you ask. Yes! But this one is doing something new. It allows you to aggregate your favorite feeds and moreover, it transforms posts into audio by using different computer-generated voices. That means you can put the latest post of this blog on your iPod and listen to the audio version while traveling or working out. How time-saving and efficient is that?
Luca Mascaro (ceo Dixero.com) & Dafne Gobbi
One little doubt here though: will the technology behind Dixero manage to recognize names, especially the weird 2.0 ones like blurb? I mean, the idea of the service sounds good, yet if I only get non-understandable audio files I won’t use Dixero.
So according to chief strategy officer Lucas Mascaro and Dafne Gobbi we can test that out tomorrow. They’ve traveled all the way from Lugano, Switzerland to launch the service under the eyes of the Web 2.0 attendants. For now, watch this informative video featuring Luca:
Update: Frederic Martin left a comment saying this kind of service already exists. Check it out.
Written on April 8, 2008 – 5:56 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
In a discussion on TechCrunch about where Europe’s own Silicon Valley would emerge, some interesting suggestions were made (warning: many links to specific comments follow). From Moscow to Lisbon and from Estonia to London.
The latter was the most mentioned location, followed by Finland and Switzerland. Finland has an USP that is their biggest pro and con at the same time: Nokia. On the one hand, it’s THE European tech company, on the other: it sucks up all the talent.
Switzerland would be a fair option, since it’s an innovative country and home of some important venture capitalists like Index Ventures. Yet a new development makes the question even more complicated: Nokia has just announced that it would establish a research center in Lausanne. It will be a joint lab with two Swiss federal institutes of technology. It will open its doors in June.
According to All About Symbian, the research agenda will focus on persuasive communications:
- Exploring new interaction experiences and technologies utilizing all the human senses;
- Services and applications based on the user’s context, such as location, and personal preferences, e.g.,
information provided by sensors within a mobile device or in the surrounding world;
- Internet services and technologies - enriching the Internet experience on mobile devices.
Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer Bob Iannucci said to Reuters that Nokia ’sees the fusing of the digital and physical worlds as a key objective in mobility.’
So, will this cause some sort of local brain drain? Kai Lemmetty from Floobs told me during The Next Conference that this is the case in Finland. Nokia just picks out the talent and makes them an offer they can’t refuse. As you can imagine, this is deadly for local start-up action. And a good start-up atmosphere is one of the most important conditions for a Silicon Valley-like area. So all you European start-up experts, please lend me your thought on this matter.
Written on April 7, 2008 – 3:31 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
From this September schools all over Switzerland will run only Linux’s OS Ubuntu due to government’s guidelines. The new motto of the Department of Public Instruction is “Long Live Free Software”, reports Christopher Dawson from Zdnet. Already 9000 computers in Swiss schools have been dual-booting Windows and Ubuntu, since the schools want to be prepared.
The switch to Ubuntu is beneficial for both officials and students, says a spokesperson from the Department of Public instruction. Officials save a lot of money and students will be able to run the same programs at home as they do on school, since they’re all free.
The guidelines by the government might increase the market share of Linux in Switzerland, since parents will probably install Ubuntu at home as well. The reason most people haven’t considering switching to a different OS is that everything but Windows seems ‘alternative’ and ’strange’. Yet if the principal of a school sends a letter that Ubuntu is the next big thing, switching doesn’t seem all that weird again. One thing is for sure, the Swiss Linux community will be pretty busy with assisting people by installing their beloved OS.
Written on January 10, 2008 – 8:11 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.
This week’s start-up is coComment, a service that makes it possible to keep track of all the comments and discussions your are participating in or observing on the web. Moreover, if you’re a blogger, you can publish the comments you’re making throughout the blogosphere. The company is based in Geneva, Switzerland. They’re funded by Swisscom Innovations. We’re interviewing Matt Colebourne, CEO of coComment.
How did you guys come up with the idea for coComment?
“It was our CSO, Nicolas Dengler, who came up with it. He found that as the number of blogs grew it became absolutely impossible to keep track with the comments he was leaving. At first, it was just a simple proof of concept idea, but after discussions with a number of prominent bloggers it was launched at the Lift Conference. Yet, still as an early stage idea.
The response was so fantastic that the imperative became to found a company and to build a product that was robust, general and generic enough that it was applicable not only to the blogger community, but also to the increasingly large number of users commenting on general media sites.
Nicolas and the technology team came up with the new, social coComment. Based on a number of workshops and advice both internal and external and feedback from our users. coComment 2.0 Beta release was buggy and not very well received. Though quickly thereafter we were able to refine it into the award-winning product that we now offer.” (more…)
Email
Twitter
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
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. (
