In September 2007 I launched TechCrunch UK & Ireland. But within three months I realised the tech story that needed to be written was across Europe. So I went on tour to find contacts and companies. This year we’ve re-launched as TechCrunch Europe and I’ve begun running events across the continent to bring the European tech scene together, along with our first ever day-long conference. Today I’m opening up TechCrunch Europe to new contributors from across Europe so that we can really tell the European tech story the way it is.
We’re looking for guest contributing writers for TC Europe. Contributors will get a log-in and password to the back-end Wordpress publishing system of TCE. But in order to apply the same editorial standards as we have across all the TC blogs, we’ll be running a slightly different system to ‘normal’ blogging. To save anyone wasting their time writing something that we can’t publish, the blog posts will need to be pitched first as ideas to TC Europe editorial. This is not going to be a free-for-all where anyone can post anything. The posts will require our approval to go live on the site and will almost certainly be copy-edited by TC Editorial staff prior to release. Some may not like that approach, but that’s the way it will run. At least for now.
But posts that do go live on TC Europe will have the byline of the writer and will also get Tweeted by our @TCEurope account with the Twitter name of the writer, e.g. “Headline http://tcrn.ch/xyz by @person”. That Twitter account has over 3,000 followers right now, and obviously this will grow. If there is a post we really like then the post would get “cross-posted” to TechCrunch.com (but that’s up to us).
Content-wise we are looking mainly for breaking news, exclusive stories and other types of content, like interviews. Unfortunately we don’t have a budget for European contributors as yet, but we hope that this would be a good way of promoting yourself in the scene. Plus, it will almost certainly bring you more Twitter followers. Of course, it goes without saying that our preference is for contributors to be independent of the things they are writing about, and where they have an interest, that is declared.
In order to apply to be a TechCrunch Europe guest contributor you must send an email to me, Mike Butcher, marked “TC Europe contributor”. Please include links to previous blog posts you’re proud of and stories you’ve broken. In particular we’ll be looking for people who have contributed to country-based blogs that cover the tech scene in the local language.
We’ll be running this contributor model for the next few months. Assuming it works OK we’ll make it a permanent arrangement, but it will be reviewed periodically.
We are looking for contributors from the countries that, coincidentally and conveniently, also make up the Eurovision Song Contest catchment area, as well as wider Europe. Anyway, These are, in alphabetical order:
Albania
Andorra
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
FYR Macedonia
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxemburg
Malta
Moldova
Monaco
Montenegro
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
San Marino
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom (we have that covered)
Just curious to know why Italy was left out
Whoa! Apologies, corrected!
That’s easy – Italy is not in the Eurovision song contest..
I noticed that, but I have a deeper and wider concept of Europe than a list of countries participating to a song contest.
it could have been because of freedom of speech that makes Italy closer to some african states than EU?
nobody cares about Austria!
Do you think contributors from Australia will be an option anytime soon?
I don’t know. Is Australia in Europe?
Contributions from Australia to Techcrunch Europe?… I doubt it will be an option anytime soon.. unless you move the country several thousand miles west?
Maybe it’s just me, but Australia just doesn’t *feel* like it’s in Europe.
australia is land of racist dickheads, just like “some” europian countries.. maybe that’s the reason it needs to be included in tc europe.
Your editorial standards miss a lot of typos. Just sayin! I still have love for TC
not sure about Australia but Hungary should be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVLIx1D8I-I
Great idea to open it up.
Yugoslavia should not be in the list – all the countries that used to be a part of Yu are listed, and the country “technically” does not exist.
Have a good one with TC Europe!
Whoops!
Mike, please add Kosovo as well.
Please, do not.
Oh. Hong Kong is not on the list.
well, if we excluded Australia, perhaps Israel geo location is not really europe right?
yugoslavia haha
Yes, Israel is not in Europe! They are in between terrorist countries.. Poor guys… Anyway, they kick islamic terrorists’ ass very nicely… I like it…
@Eddy:
Wow, Hong Kong comes to good ol’ Europe?
Dear Sir,
I love Your initiative to offer people from poor second and a half world countries the opportunity to contribute to such a great cause as to make You shareholders even more wealthy.
Please accept my request to include another country in the list: it is the Republic of Moronia, a land of mentally impaired people, and the only country in the world where you can actually buy food and gas with retweets and international fame.
Australia is not in Europe… Austria IS..
Yeah that’s the country I have to drive trough to get to Germany
Other than longeing my trip I don’t know what the point of that country is really 
being from slovenia, you better not even open your mouth to comment about the point of a country and its size.
p0wned!
hehe, we are small yes I give you that
Besides, it was a joke
Dave nobody said that it is.
And couldn’t you give a crunchpad to the writers who collaborate?
I didn’t even know there were SO many countries in Europe!
Just sent a mail!
HI I am also interested in joining but what exactly should we do? Cover the local startups? I say so because usually across europe there are some nice startups but the focus mostly on their local markets usually because of language barriers or simple because they adapt or copy international success stories
Good question. I’m interested in anyone doing anything interesting. If you have a local startup that is a straight copy of Twitter – for example, that’s not interesting. But if they are doing something interesting, like doing a Twitter for video, or adding features, that’s more interesting. An example of this might be Blip.pl in Poland. Other than that I’m interested in any tech startup that is clever and that we might not have heard about in the English speaking world. That’s what I want to get at.
Why is Israel part of TechCrunch Europe? I understand that it’s a huge technological ecosystem (one of the best in the world) but how does it belong in a blog about European startups?
Last I checked, it was in the Middle East. When I first read that Australia comment (but especially Mike’s brilliant answer to it) I fully agreed. Then, I saw Israel was included on the list of European countries.
Any clarification on that would be great
See the Eurovision remark.
Eurovision in all respect, but they expanded beyond Europe itself. Maybe a ‘too’ touchy subject for some politically minded folks out there, but you forgot Macedonia in your list, and Kosovo is still not fully recognized as a country, yet.
Eurovision = 42 ( http://bit.ly/U2V8i )
European Union = 27 ( http://bit.ly/Qxey2 )
Europe = 48 ( http://bit.ly/7H315 )
Well because I think we can cover the scene there in more detail than on TC.com, plus large swathes of the scene there is English speaking (this is an English language blog), plus they do things in Eurpe a lot, plus the Eurovision angle, plus the fact that frankly I don’t mind covering the Middle East as well and we probably will.
Israel is also closer to the European timezone and has a huge tech scene. And frankly if you guys can help me find the tech scenes in the Middle East and Africa then we’ll do that too. Yes?
Haha, Mike. Sounds like you are seeking to take over the entire tech-related news world
Add India and China while you’re at it too
Good luck with all!
Yeah, Israel is a big ? to me… Hats off to their market, but they are not europe. If they are, so is Lebanon, Syria… Oh well, while at it, lets make all north african countries part of europe… all the way to the Morocco.
but it is true that, for some reason, Israel is part of eurosong…
I’d like to think of this project as “EMEA” but Europe is a simpler way of putting it right now.
how much does this job pay? thanks
If this is now TechCrunch Europe, then why are you still using the uk.techcrunch.com sub-domain? Any plans to switch of to eu.techcrunch.com?
Greetings Mike, I wonder. Does TechCrunch have coming plans to expand to Latin America?
Think we should focus this dialogue on content that TC is looking for about exciting startups and activities supporting startups across EMEA rather than the focus on country discussion. Am sure Mike and the editors will post and give the right country its due credit if the content is awesome! Let’s focus on content folks…
Spot on Reshma.
This is an opportunity to highlight some of the brilliant entrepreneurs, hackers and startups in Europe that often get missed over. I’m personally looking forward to reading more about hidden gems. There’s lot of innovation I see in Europe all the time, but press coverage is limited. This is an opportunity to change that. Well done Mike!
I love the idea of TechCrunch Europe. There are lot of a promising European startups, which should be covered on TechCrunch. Thank you Mike
Besides startups being covered, I’d like writers to also talk about angels, local VCs, killer developer groups, etc who are part of the ecosystem. There’s also a lack of visibility of these groups who are critical
When Techcrucnh Latinamerica or “en espanol”? Theres a big space to develop things here….All the best Al
Please Mikey can I follow Vatican startups?
I’m told there’s big angel scene there.
Although it’s easy to get crucified.
Fnaar.
Great initiative Mike as always you’re flying the flag and now that flag has lots of little stars on it. Bravo.
I see France is on the list of countries. Will you be cross-posting stories from Techcrunch France in English? (http://fr.techcrunch.com)
Free, competent, reliable.
Pick two.