Written on September 15, 2008 – 9:39 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Ok, so conferences are really important if you want to get the word out about your start-up. Meeting people face to face and getting a chance to pitch your start-up to an influential via a different way than his overloaded inbox is just priceless. Unfortunately, the conference ticket fee isn’t. 750 euros 1250 euros, it’s too pricey for most start-ups either way. Let alone the flight and a place to stay.
My dear colleagues at The Next Web found a solution for that by starting their own conference three years ago, but something tells me there must be more simple way. Michael Arrington gave it a try by organizing TechCrunch 50. But the tough selection and weird ways of communicating with start-ups (more on that later) have turned that event into a fortress as well.
Find some part-time angels
Earlier this year, a few weeks before the Next Web conference took place, the no. 1 Twitter user from Holland Erwin Blom started an initiative that helped start-ups to see our keynote speakers like Scoble and Werner Vogels, but most of all, to meet other attendees. Blom decided to start a pool where people can drop in some money to buy a ticket for some of the starting entrepreneurs. Some part-time angels did this and we decided to double every euro collected. All a start-up had to do to get a ticket was sending in a three minute video pitch.
Get them to Picnic
In the end, 16 start-ups got a free ticket for the Next Web conference. A great result, if you ask me. For the second best web conference of Holland (biased opinion, I know :-)), Picnic, Blom is doing the same thing - though with a different format. Now he wants start-ups to show the public a week of their start-up life on Seesmic. Here’s an example by John Nota from Zideo (Dutch only, sorry):
Dag 3
This turned out to be a bit too much to ask, so now Blom just wants coverage of three days. I would’ve ignored the comments, as we’re talking about a ticket of 1250 euros here (!!). Anyhow, I figured I share this original way of getting start-ups at conferences. Some might not have the money, but they sure have an interesting story! How about starting a similar initiative in your own country?
Here is Garrett Camp’s keynote from The Next Web Conference 2008. After a short summary of the history of search - from directories, to algorithm, to social networks and social media - and types of search - page, query, image, visual, video, people, product and music - Garrett Camp shared some thoughts on the future:
social search is on a roll
collaborative annotation becomes more important: use tags!
taming the wisdom of the crowds: expertise is more important than popularity.
trust becomes more important than authority. You want to know the people who recommend stuff to you.
Here is Werner Vogels’ keynote titled “Uncertainty” from The Next Web Conference 2008. Vogels shares with us that “everything fails all the time. We lose whole datacenters! Those things happen.” and “let us worry about those things, not you as a startup. Focus on your ideas.”. An interesting presentation whether you are considering using Amazon’s shared hosting solutions or not.
There is also a very detailed post about this keynote by Anne Helmond for TheNextWeb.org, and you can listen to an audio interview with Werner given at the Next Web Conference to David Petherick about Amazon’s Kindle. The video also shows all the questions and answers from after the keynote. Also see our other Next Web Conference videos:
Gil Penchina, CEO of wikia.com talks about his experiences with “Giving insane levels of control to your customers” at eBay (8 years) and now at Wikia. The difference between Wikia and Wikipedia, as Gil explains, is that WikiPedia is the encyclopedia and Wikia the rest of the library. By giving his user lots of responsibilities and freedom he found out that people are fundamentally good and will work together to make your service better. Watch the whole video for some great insights on how to ‘get more’ by ‘giving more’.
Written on June 18, 2008 – 7:54 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Thanks to a ‘stumble‘ by Melody McCloskey, I’ve found this brilliant footage of the trip Diggnation made to Amsterdam for The Next Web Conference. Especially fun are the parts about the Speakers Dinner at Boris’ house and some random footage from the live show. We’re really glad that Glenn, Kevin, Alex, Jim, and the others had a good time.
Leah Culver talked about starting Pownce.com, how they came up with the name and the idea, the whole story about their API, how networking helps entrepreneurs, her reason for being in San Francisco and more interesting insights. Then she also takes time to answer some questions from the audience. Anne Helmond wrote a post about Culver’s talk and gave it a legendary title: Leah Culver and the magical unicorn: A Pownce story. The presentation is titled “Start a Webapp in 5 steps”.
Written on May 30, 2008 – 6:14 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Take a look at your desk, chances are high you’ll see a huge stack of business cards. All collected at conferences, meet-ups, and Open Coffee’s. It’s actually a bit absurd: while we’re digitalizing our lives, we still use paper to create the foundation for a new contact. Project E is one of the first initiatives that strives to change this contradiction. They’ll allow you to get connected in seconds with a newly developed portable device.
Renato Valdés Olmos at the Next Web
E is a small, slick-looking, curvy white device. It’s just a matter of pressing two of these devices against each other to get connected on services like LinkedIn. Sync it to a PC or mobile device once you’re done with a conference or meeting, and all of your social networks are up to date with new contacts you’ve made.
Three Dutch designers came up with their idea during their graduate master year at the academy for art and media technology in Hilversum. I’ve talked to one of these innovative guys, director Renato Valdés Olmos. He explains the thoughts behind this new approach to social networking: “What we, and everybody else for that matter basically observed is that the Internet has made our world very small. We can connect with anyone, at anytime, anywhere. This has changed our world thoroughly. Especially at a social level. Quantity of contact has taken over quality of contact. So we figured, ‘Hey, can’t we get the benefits of all these great online services and communities to real-life situations?’ ‘How can we translate these benefits and getting people closer together in physical reality at the same time?’ We still believe in face-to-face contact.”
The next step for Renato and his two partners was thinking about how to do this: “We researched connectivity between cellphones and smart phones. We came to the conclusion that there must be a faster way to exchange information.” Renato wanted to get people connected with “a device operated by a single gesture. “Exchanging contact info and social networking info with E takes as long as a formal handshake.” (more…)
Written on September 15, 2008 – 9:39 pm
My dear colleagues at The Next Web found a solution for that by starting their own conference three years ago, but something tells me there must be more simple way. Michael Arrington gave it a try by organizing TechCrunch 50. But the tough selection and weird ways of communicating with start-ups (more on that later) have turned that event into a fortress as well. 
Written on August 19, 2008 – 4:09 pm
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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. (
