Archive for April, 2008
« Previous EntriesCulture Wars - Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008I just read a great article in the New York Times, “Bridging the Gap, The Sequel”, about the supposedly ripe dealmaking between Silicon Valley and Hollywood amidst the elephant in the room: culture barriers. And no matter how you slice it, anyone who has spent time in both cities understands those differences immediately. After all, the buzz we’re hearing about the collision of the 2 worlds isn’t new; we saw it in the early 90s, and it didn’t work then.
The problem is that the business climate there is vastly different — while L.A. is focused on the immediate profits, Silicon Valley has a long-term perspective. But, as with all cultures, there is a reason for everything. The very infrastructure of Hollywood is short-term, and so the deals reflect that.
Whatever happens this go-a-round is questionable…perhaps we should elect ambassadors for each region. Think about it - the Silicon Valley ambassador could head down to L.A., wear a tight, black t-shirt, drive a convertible Mercedes, and have lunch meetings at the Ivy. All the while, the LA ambassador would be in Mountain View, in his jeans and wrinkled t-shirt, twittering and blogging while simultaneously writing code on his mac.
It’s an idea…either way, it will be facinating to see how this story unfolds….
Originally
from Under the Radar Blog
by
reBlogged
on Apr 15, 2008, 7:25PM
Is Pingg an Evite killer?
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Evite is so 1999. Think about it - that was way back when Britney Spears had her first hit and the Matrix was released.Its was also when Evite was just a startup.
Fast forward to 2008. Im in charge of creating the invite for my cousins wedding engagement brunch and I was groaning about having to use evite - it’s too web 1.0 and frankly, I’m tired of it. Luckily, while researching startups for Under the Radar in June, I stumbled upon the evite killer, Pingg.
Not only was it super-sharp looking, but it was also really simple to use, has beautiful photos that are modern and tasteful, and offers multiple ways of sending your invite.
Theyve created a platform called surroundSend that lets you send the invite through email, SMS/texting, Facebook, a dedicated event web page, or with actual print invitations (pingg stamps and sends them through snail mail to each guest).
Heres more info from a press release I pulled from their site to better describe their product:
* Each event automatically gets its own dedicated webpage with a unique address. Hosts are able to customize their page with photos, videos, gift and charity registries, tools for money collection, Google Maps, news and RSS feeds of the event, guest comments and RSVP tracking. All of this is presented without intrusive or inappropriate banner ads.
* Easily import contacts from multiple sources. Using the pingg address book, hosts can tag, group, and organize contacts and print and export contacts and guest lists
* Beyond basic RSVPs reporting, pingg provides tracking of email open/forwards/bounces, web page views, event capacity, and all guest activity via event and news RSS feeds.
* Add photos, videos, gift/charity registry, collect money and more all from a dedicated ad free event web page.
And of course, best of all it turns out….they are Canadian. Call me biased, but it seems like those Canuks really are a talented bunch 
Originally
from Under the Radar Blog
by
reBlogged
on Apr 16, 2008, 7:47PM
Tripit, an Under the Radar favorite, gets $5.1M funding
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008One of the most popular UTR Business of Web Apps presenters, TripIt, announced today that they’ve received $5.1 million in Series B financing from three investors: Sabre Holdings, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and European Founders Fund. The investment will be used to expand development, marketing and support for the rapidly growing number of travelers who rely on TripIt.
TripIt is an online service that helps business travelers manage all their travel plans no matter where they booked. To get a TripIt itinerary travelers or travel arrangers forward their travel confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com. TripIt processes these emails and automatically creates a master itinerary with all your travel plans along with driving directions, client meetings, restaurant reservations, daily weather, city guides and more.
They’ve recently added a mobile component and a “closeness” feature that let’s fellow travellers know who’s coming their way.
Originally
from Under the Radar Blog
by
reBlogged
on Apr 17, 2008, 6:40PM
Design is finally within reach at mydeco.com
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Ok, this is a design-lovers dream come true…it’s called mydeco.com, and it combines furniture shopping, design, creation, trends and deals together in one place. Not only can you shop for furniture with mydeco, but you can also plan out and design your room (via web-based cad tools), view other designed rooms, and shop furniture by already-styled rooms. It lets you hear about the newest trends in design and finds designers whove created awesome rooms to give you inspiration. You can buy furniture that will give you the look of that room or you can create your own room and try out various colors, floors, furniture etc.
This is a HUGE find if you’ve ever bought a rug from Crate & Barrel, a table from West Elm, and then a sofa from Williams Sonoma….and then realized once they were in the same room that you now have a bigger problem. The pieces don’t work together, and you now have return the items and start over.
It’s an even bigger find because of the landscape here…online retail is a major market segment, and if they partnered with West Elm, Crate and Barrel or CB2, I have to believe it would bolster sales and, more importantly, make us all more stylish dwellers.
Unfortunately for me, this is only available in the UK but hopefully, they will expand to the US sooner rather than later. Co-founder Brent Hoberman of lastminute.com fame launched the site in February Mike Butcher wrote an excellent overview of the site and the background its brilliant, and I sure hope they bring it to the States…I’m ready to design my “dwell’ home.
Originally
from Under the Radar Blog
by
reBlogged
on Apr 18, 2008, 10:58PM
Startups - Listen Up!
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008By Mark Suster
Mark Suster is a Partner at GRP Partners, and one of our closest comrades in L.A. If you haven’t signed up for our L.A. mailing list (to get the scoop on upcoming events in the Southland), you can do so HERE.
Dealmaker Media’s newest addition to their family of top-notch events are “Startup Labs“. The concept: a VC firm hosts a “lab-style” evening event, complete with curriculum and presenters. Startups apply to participate, and we then work with Dealmaker to choose the top 15 companies we’d like to bring into our office.
Last Monday night (April 14th) was the actual event - It was great to see the energy in the room as 15 pre-series-A tech startups debated a series of hot topics such as:
- whether to raise large or small rounds
- whether to take strategic money
- how a senior of a team is needed and how to best launch products
My partners at GRP and I shared some experiences weve had in financing companies like Starbucks, CostCo and BillMeLater from their early days and gave our views on how the economy would affect early-stage companies.
The variety of LA technology start-ups and the background of the entrepreneurs were certainly impressive and rivalled many similar events I have attended in Silicon Valley. We had some open source software vendors, several digital media companies, SaaS vendors and even some technology infrastructure companies that one would expect up North.
We followed the lab with a cocktail party and invited a much broader set of LA entrepreneurs to this event including some later-stage entrepreneurs to network with. Only regret? It would be great to have more than an hour to debate these critical topics, as there was clearly a good exchange of information. Great reason to schedule a follow up!
I highly recommend hosting and/or attending one of the startup labs this year- upcoming labs are:
May 19th @ First Round Capital in San Francisco (Pitch Coaching)
June 19th @ Clearstone Ventures in Santa Monica (Raising Money)
July 23rd @ Norwest Ventures in San Francisco (Raising Money)
Originally
from Under the Radar Blog
by
reBlogged
on Apr 21, 2008, 6:45PM
LoveFilm merges with Amazon’s DVD rentals
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008In an expected move, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading has greenlighted the merger of LoveFilm and Amazon’s UK rental operations, giving the merged entity control of about 90% of the online DVD market. It also bring in the and German DVD business. The OFT said LoveFilm had no incentive to degrade its service as there is plenty of competition in the video market, especially from emerging online sources. The site also offer a fast-growing film download service. (Release). The deal is a good one of for LoveFilm’s investor’s TAG, Arts Alliance Media, Balderton, DFJ Esprit and Index Ventures.
Originally
from TechCrunch UK
by
reBlogged
on Apr 17, 2008, 4:39PM
And the winner is…
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008Admittedly, asking who should be the next director of future media and technology for the BBC in an online poll was a slightly flippant move. However, the results are kind’ve interesting - even though they probably say more about the TechCrunch audience than anything else. So the winner is Ian Forrester of BBC Backstage who has a sizable Geek following (perhaps accounting for his online-oriented stardom). Next was another popular and Geek-ish chap, James Cridland, head of future media & technology, BBC audio/music interactive. But heading up the more tangible runners and riders was Tony Ageh, BBC New Media controller of internet, and a long-time popular choice amongst the UK’s online community. It’s also pretty cool that a woman was high up the list, Jo Twist, BBC Three Multiplatform Channel Editor, ahead of who many think is the ex-Microsoft “shoe-in”, Erik Huggers, BBC Future Media and Technology Group Controller and deputy to the outgoing Ashley Highfield. Why is he a shoe-in? Here’s what my high-up source at the Beeb says:
It would amazing if he (Huggers) is not announced. He’d basically leave if he didn’t get it. It was one of the bits of bait when he joined. And as a I say, he is convenient for 2-3 years while it’s about getting product out the door and not budgets and politics. it’s taken Ashley 8 years with internal politics to win budgets and full acceptance of what the division does and its importance. The hard bit is done for the next few years, all budgets are kind of settled for the long term now.
Meanwhile, let’s hope the BBC takes even a little notice of this debate and listens.
Originally
from TechCrunch UK
by
reBlogged
on Apr 17, 2008, 4:59PM
Facebook has a new role - fighting crime in Manchester
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
When Facebook was created I daresay the last thing on Mark Zuckerburg’s mind was the idea that one day it would be used to fight crime. But that’s what’s happening, at least in Manchester, UK.
It seems Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has twigged to the idea that Facebook is as much a distribution platform as breaking items on the evening news. So their new Facebook application adds local crime alerts to your profile and your news feed, getting the news about crime incidents out there to more youthful users of the Net than anything a normal police web site would be capable of.
Users can submit items via links to GMP on the application, and as well as news items, the GMP YouTube videos (yes!) which the Police have made as part of their awareness-raising.
The application appears to be the first of its type in the UK (I’m not sure about the world, but it could be a contender for that title).
As Chief Constable Rob Taylor points out: “Facebook has 59 million users, seven million of which live in the UK, so we realised that this was an excellent way of spreading our messages to people on a more personal basis.”
I don’t know who developed the application but if anyone out there knows, then get in touch.
Originally
from TechCrunch UK
by
reBlogged
on Apr 18, 2008, 10:10AM
TechCrunch UK is coming to San Francisco, and bringing startups!
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
From Saturday through to Friday next week I’ll be accompanying 20 UK startups on a trade mission to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, dubbed Web Mission 08. We’ll also be taking in a bit of Web 2 Expo. Here’s a list of the 20 startups going (add WebJam, a last minute entrant) and here’s the schedule. In particular we’ll be having drinks (you’ll have to buy you own I’m afraid!) on Saturday night and Thursday night at the Clift Hotel, to which other US startups and investors are welcome to come along to. I’ll be contactable via the usual methods. See you there!
Originally
from TechCrunch UK
by
reBlogged
on Apr 18, 2008, 12:34PM
Events News 180408
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Here’s a rag-tag rundown of UK/Irish/Europe events related to startups and Web 2 that might be worth checking out. Feel free to pimp more in the comments. For a previous list which has even more upcoming events in April/May/June etc see here. The picture was taken at the recent DrinkTank event in London, which put a lot of startups and potential investors in one room. Over drinks, incredibly. More pics here.
geeKyoto 2008
May 17th: Mark Simpkins and O’Reilly author Ben Hammersley are putting together a conference on how developers can help save the environment called geeKyoto 2008.
GameCamp2008
GameCamp 2008 is taking place on Saturday May 3rd in the Spitalfields area of London.
North West Startups
14 May NS20 - Silicon Valley and Investment Readiness
Thinking Digital Conference
Newcastle
21-23 May 2008
Seedcamp dates:
Kiev 21st-22nd May
Paris – 6th June
Berlin – 20th June
Erlang Exchange - London - 27- June
Seedcamp Week - 15 September
Top Cats in June
London
Social Media - Tuesday 6th May
Facebook Developer Garage
MAY 7th
London
Next08
Hamburg
May 15
Telegraph Labs: Developer Weekend 2008
The Telegraph Media Group’s weekend for web developers at its offices in Victoria, London on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th April 2008.
Hints and Tips from established entrepreneurs
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Brighton
BarCampUKYouthOnline
Saturday, May 17, 2008
London
Mashed (formerly BBC HackDay)
Saturday, June 21, 2008 - Sunday, June 22, 2008
8:00 PM - 11:00 PM
“School Assembly”
Y Combinator / Startup School style event in Brighton
Thursday, May 1
Ireland:
3Dcamp
Barcamp being held in Limerick - 3Dcamp.barcamp.ie
At at the University of Limerick.
The theme will be ‘The internet beyond the 2D browser’. The organisers hope to attract talks on, and participants interested in, virtual worlds, 3D modelling techniques and tools, Augmented Reality, GPS and Location-based-services and mapping, among other things.
Originally
from TechCrunch UK
by
reBlogged
on Apr 18, 2008, 12:56PM