Winner of The Next Web startup competition was:
Wakoopa
Since May last year, Wakoopa will scan your drive, tell you what software you use most and suggest new stuff, as well as hook you into a social network of fellow software users. TechCrunch calls them the LastFM of software. Since 2007 they have gotten 25k users, 100k software items, 150 million hours of software usage. They give software developers a way to connect with their audience better. Aiming to track Web applications, like Facebook apps etc and generate. They are closing a new funding round right now and new partners.
(Not to be cynical, but they are based in Amsterdam. The Next Web is a conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands).
Other winners in the Next Web Awards, which the organisers say garnered 126,000 votes online, were:
LastFM (UK – not a startup any more BTW everyone…)
Hyves (The Netherlands)
StudiVZ (Germany)
Loic Le Meur (best ‘Web Celeb’, he’s French)
DutchCowboys (blog, The Netherlands)
Glubble (UK)
Maybe nice to report the big financial injection for Hyves. Official facts are not available at this moment, but the dutch entrepeneur Joop van den Ende has taken a 30% share in Hyves so it must be a deal of around 20-30 million euros. (much more if you compare it with the Facebook share that Microsoft took a while ago)
dutch news about this fact can be readed here:
http://news.google.nl/news?svnum=10&as_scoring=r&hl=nl&tab=wn&ned=nl_nl&aq=f&q=hyves
Note that Hyves link does not work. It should be http://www.hyves.nl
More about the winners Dutch Cowboys: http://www.dutchcowboys.nl/nextweb/13440
It’s great to see some activity in the Dutch startup scene. Best of luck to Wakoopa!
Hope to see YouTellMe on the list for next year!