The Next Web

The list of Finnish Startups

Written on October 7, 2008 – 8:30 am
Timo Paloheimo, Next Web Finland Webtipr

Ever since I started blogging about Finnish startups about a year ago, I’ve wanted to get my hands on a list of all of them. That obviously didn’t exist, so I had to compile it myself. I’ve compiled the list from various sources, mainly my own blog and Arctic Startup. At this point the list should contain most of the Finnish web startups, but I must have missed a few. Should you know a company missing from the list, please let me know in the comments.

It was quite hard to categorize all of the startups as many seem to fall into several categories. As you can see from the list, there are a lot of startups in the Social media, gaming and mobile categories. There is a nice variety in the startups and it’s great that they have managed to find some unique ideas.

The List of Finnish Web Startups

Social Networking

• ConnectedDay -communities for daycare centers
• ENCA -Coin collecting social network
• Muxlim -Muslim Online Community
• Petsie -Social Networking for pets
• Xiha Life -Multilingual social network
• White Vector -Social media monitoring

Social Networking, Travel

• Dopplr - Share your business travel plans
• Tripsay -Travel information organizer

Social recommendation services

• Eat.fi -Find and rate open restaurants near you
• RunToShop -Social recommendation service
• These Are My Brands -In stealth. By Kisko Labs

Creating and sharing media

• Comex.com -Create & share funny picture messages in web or using your mobile phone
• Floobs -Build you own online tv-channel
• Innofile -Online file transfer service
• Mahshelf -YouTube for comics/books
• Moogo -Easy creation of web sites. By Ideakone
• MySites -Online desktop for multimedia

E-commmerce

• Fruugo -Trusted 3rd party of E-Business
• Leads House -Sales leads community
• MyCashFlow -Easy to use web shop software
• Norfello -E-invoicing (laskulle.fi) and web-based sending of letters (postita.fi)
• Timalaya -Social shopping space. By Gemilo

Gaming

• Apprix -Edugaming
• CMAX.gg -Online Game Server Exchange
• EveryPlay -Stealth social Gaming startup
• HappyWise -Educational and serious games
• Ironstar Helsinki -Developer of cross-platform social games, such as MoiPal
• Mobile Advertising Solutions, MAS -Advertising on mobile games
• Tweehouse - social gaming solutions for large brands

Mobile

• Blyk -free mobile phone network
• HappyWakeUp -Smart alarm clock on mobile phone
• JoikuSpot -Turns your phone to a mobile WLAN HotSpot
• Kuneri -Mobile software based on Flash Lite
• Senseg -Touch interface technology
• Whatamap -Mobilize your maps

Personal tools

• NewsToScreen -News and ads delivered via a screensaver
• One did it -Test your consumption of natural resources, share the results and reduce it with simple, easy actions
• Scred -Community-oriented cost balancing tool
• SoftColor -Online image processing
• WOT -Free web security browser add-on

Business tools

• Lumo Flow -Social Workspaces
• Numcore -Online monitoring and controlling instruments for the process industry
• Oindex -Public listing of web sites’ analytics data
• Rate Cards -Helps online and print publishers and advertisers find each other

Development services

• HammerKit -Web-based development platform
• nCore -Embedded localisation and user interface products
• VerticeTree -Innovative platforms and applications for the internet and mobile devices
• Zipipop -Develops web-based services for making everyday life easier.

Crowdsrourcing

• Wreck A Movie -The future of film

I hope you like that post!

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finland, Startupbin, startups, timo paloheimo

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Anarchy in search engine land: Google minus Google

Written on August 14, 2008 – 6:47 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Our Finnish Webtipr is a search engine anarchist. He denies submission to Google. Sure, he uses it a lot, and probably couldn’t live without it, but he’s critical. Timo Paloheimo basically has three problems with the search giant. He was so kind to mail them to me:

• Google has 70% market share in the US, worldwide even more. (in Finland their market share is said to be 95%).
• Google has no transparency, they do not reveal how their search engine ranks content. There are numerous opinions that Google does indeed favor their own content.
• Google’s reason for existence is to make money, which is done by delivering the best possible results for them, not the best for the user. A monopoly can do that.

You’ve probably heard these complaints before, maybe you discuss them with friends once in a while. But for Timo, it didn’t end with just complaining. He has used Google Custom Search to create a version of Google that doesn’t search within Google-owned services. So no Knol, YouTube, or Blogger. Google Minus Google offers you trustworthy results.

Media company or search engine?

Paloheimo found inspiration for his project in a New York Times article titled “Is Google a Media Company?“. The article raised questions like whether Google would give Knol pages a higher ranking than, say, a Mahalo or About.com page.

Paloheimo doubts whether Google offers the best pages, as it’s the party that offers the results, but also makes money from them. As an example, he mailed me two screenshots of a search for “analytics”. The Google search shows links to the Google Analytics tool and the blog, Google Minus Google offers links to Wikipedia pages and companies who specialize in analytics.

The best results

“Don’t get me wrong”, says Paloheimo - who hopes Google consider his idea to be a parody -, “I’ve been a Google fan for years and I use it every day perhaps a few hundred times. I love the search engine, it has delivered the best results. I want it to stay that way.”

google, search, timo paloheimo, trust

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