A weary hello from O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois – the world’s coldest and most inhospitable airport, right in the frozen heart of the world’s coldest and most inhospitable city. That a community organizer from this city would dream of becoming President is no surprise. Chicago is, after all, the only place in the world capable of making Washington DC look like a step up.
I’m trapped here in standby limbo: my original connecting flight to Nashville cancelled due to snow – the kind of freak weather condition that no one in Chicago could possibly have predicted for December.
Still, at least I’ve been awake since 4am GMT, and at least my flight left London an hour late because every single passenger had to be patted down by American Airlines staff at the gate, having already passed through the usual madness of security. And at least by “every single passenger” I mean there unfolded a preposterous pantomime where posh white dudes like me were given the most cursorily of rub-downs in order to keep the line moving while those poor saps who fit the terrorist profile – which is to say, anyone who looked a bit brown – were deep-tissue massaged half to death a gaggle of goons in latex gloves. And at least all of that nonsense was utterly pointless because, as any self-respecting terrorist apparently knows, they don’t dare go anywhere near your groin.
[UK] O2′s newly announced Incubator Project would normally be the kind of scheme that we’d happily share with readers (and possibly recommend). On this occasion, however, not only is the whole thing vague – it’s neither a traditional incubator nor straight up commission – we think the mobile operator is going about it in the completely wrong way. The deal, as far as we can tell, is as follows.
Teams of 2-3 developers are being invited to submit ideas for “a network for small businesses” which will help them “sell services to each other and build reputations.” It’s to be a web app not mobile specific and must deliver an “outstanding online experience”. That appears to be the brief in its entirety.
[Austria] Vienna-based tunesBag is opening up the public beta version of its social music service today, after allowing access by invitation only for the past year or so.
The launch has been a long time coming, considering the fact that the startup has already produced a fully functional web client, and Adobe-AIR powered desktop client and applications for iPhone, Facebook and Boxee since its founding in late 2008.
Since the TechHub project was first announced on TechCrunch Europe, I figure we owe you an update here, just so you know what is going on with it.
As you can read here, TechHub – the project to create a create a large space for tech startups from the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia, the US and beyond to work and meet in London – has been busy since the idea first broke cover. I’ll declare my interest: I am acting as a strategic board advisor, although once the project is up and running I won’t be involved in any ‘day to day’ decisions.
Elizabeth Varley has been an incredible lead for this project, and last week, took the idea straight in to the heart of the UK government. More on that in a moment.
[UK] A new social network that connects people with real-world places and enables them to have discussions around those places is set to launch in just over a week.
Currently in a closed alpha, UK-based Zubworld mixes elements of Facebook and Twitter (and just about every other social network) but with a central and potentially distinctive theme. Members of Zubworld can purchase their favourite ‘real world’ places – 3.2 million of them – and become a virtual property tycoon. In that sense, it’s a bit like Monopoly, except you play with real money.
Locations typically cost $5 via PayPal, although the more prestigious New York is priced at $50. The more places you buy, and the more followers you amass for each place you own – users follow places not people in Zubworld, although they can still friend each other – the higher your rank. So it has the gaming element of location-based social networks like Foursquare too. Zubworld doesn’t currently offer a mobile version, however, although an iPhone app is planned.
So it’s the end of 2009 and an appropiate time to take stock. We’re not going to bore you with a long analysis of the year. Suffice it to say that funding for startup tech companies remains tight. And when VCs are running out of LPs to go to, you really know it is. The VC model is still finding its feet in a market where exits are still not that clear. For many companies 2009 was a nightmare – especially the first half. But anecdotal evidence I’ve been picking up suggests that confidence in the European tech scene re-started tentatively after the summer. Hoepfully, conversations that have been going on for the last few months will see the light of day in new announcements, launches and, I daresay, one or two exits in the new year.
The European scene remains disparate and spread out. The view that it should somehow magic together it’s own version of Silicon Valley into existance is highly misplaced. As I coninute to argue, Europe is a network of ‘tech hubs’ (something I hope to help with in some small way with my personal involvement in TechHub). But initiatives like the recent SeedSummt are enlivening the startup scene once more, along with Europe’s lively event scene.
But before we hit the new year running, let’s look at a handful of companies that aimed for the moon only hit the next field in 2009. One of the things we don’t do in Europe enough is mull over what hasn’t worked. We need to get very much more real about these kinds of things if anyone is to learn anything. So here is a stab at just that.
[UK] Build an API and they will come. OK that’s not always the case but throw in a genuine revenue stream and support for a hot mobile gadget with an affluent customer base (the iPhone) and you probably stand a much better chance.
That’s the hope of London-based Touchnote and it appears to be coming true. The company, which competes with US-based Shoot It!, turns a digital photograph into a postcard and then sends it to anywhere in the world, has seen its service integrated with ShoZu’s iPhone app.
San Francisco-based ShoZu, which describes itself as a media hub, enables users to push various content, such as photos and status updates, from their mobile phone to multiple social networks and other online destinations. The partnership with Touchnote extends the list of supported destinations to the physical world via a postcard in the mail.
We’d like to heartily thank the sponsors that have supported us this year at TechCrunch Europe. Without these guys, we would never be able to afford to create the kind of events and content around Europe and showcase the startups scene here. These companies all provide value for the tech startup community in their own way. Please visit their sites, contact them, follow themon Twitter and use their services. They are awesome. And if you’d like to join their ranks please contact our events and sponsor managers 2 Pears. So, in no particular order:
We break out normal coverage today to bring you a highly unusual video of the unboxing of a new Nokia N900. The handset comes in what is called a “hack box” which is a shiny black cube. The only way to open it is to hack your way via a mini USB port attached to a computer which brings up an interface, as gadget blog TracyAndMatt found out. The video shows them entering an unlock command, which pops open the lid in a cloud of smoke. Inside is the normal mobile phone gear, but also mysterious a small plastic fox… Check this out:
Kublax, the first UK startup to appear resembling Mint in the US, now has new competition in the shape of Money Dashboard, a free online personal finance service for UK consumers. The invite-only beta launch of the service brings an individual’s bank accounts, credit cards, store cards and loans together on one screen to give the user a picture of their personal finances. It plans to launch in Spring 2010. It’s understood to now have in the region of £1.5m in venture investment backing.
Users can aggregate bank accounts, tag transactions and use budgeting tools provided and It will be independent of financial institutions. Founded by Gavin Littlejohn in 2006, the site has on its management team Non Executive Chairman Stuart Sinclair, former CEO of Tesco Personal Finance and David Robinson, founder and former CEO of Bright Grey.
It’s good timing. Some 75 percent of UK consumers are using online banking, up from 54 percent in 2005 according to the British Banking Assiciation.
However, Money Dashboard, although it will be different from Kublax, is in fact powered by the same underlying financial tools provider, Yodlee, a US-based provider of personal finance management and payments solutions.
[Denmark] Danish telco TDC’s Play service, which provides unlimited music downloads for its broadband and mobile customers, has extended its offering to include unlimited streaming, reports Music Ally.
This makes Play even more comparable to Spotify, which although yet to launch in Denmark, does operate in neighboring Sweden and Norway. There are other similarities too.
Spotify clearly sees deals with ISPs and mobile broadband providers as a big part of its future. The startup already has two such arrangements in place. Swedish telco Telia has signed a two year deal to offers Spotify to its subscribers – desktop, mobile and TV – while 3 in the UK have begun bundling the service with a 24-month contract and the Android-powered HTC Hero handset.
Whoever is in charge of European tax governance, whether it is by the countries themselves or the European Union, is, well, crazy. They’ve made it entirely possible for pan-European companies to funnel back profits into EU jurisdictions which have a low corporation tax regime. And yet the press in each country bleats like a sheep, every time someone points this fact out.
Today’s controversey was that Google, which has around 90% market share of the UK search market and a large share across other European countries, will not pay any corporation tax on its £1.6bn advertising revenues in Britain. It has a network of subsidiares across Europe, all of them feeding back to its European HQ in Ireland where it does pay corporation tax. In Britain, corporation tax is levied at between 28% and 30%. Guess what? In Ireland it’s between 10%-25%. Had Google paid corporation tax in the UK it would be down £450 million. So, pray tell, why would they not work the system, legally, to pay the tax in Ireland?
This is basically the procedure for paying investors off in a sale or winding up of the company. It’s the ‘protection’ VCs or Angels expect to have as a baseline of any equity investment.
What he’s found out is this: that it is possible to give investors Enterprise Investment Scheme tax relief *and* liquidation preferences.
[France] Paris-based video sharing site Dailymotion has released an iPhone app. In fact, two versions exist. A free to download version (iTunes link) that is supported by ads and a premium ad-free version that costs €4.99, which seems a little on the high side, although that depends on how intrusive those ads are to you.
Like the plethora of competing iPhone video offerings, Dailymotion, which as been called the French YouTube but has much wider reach across continental Europe and elsewhere, is at a significant disadvantage compared to the Google-owned video sharing site, which comes pre-installed on the iPhone. That said, the functionality provided by Dailymotion’s iPhone app at least matches YouTube’s offering.
[Ireland] Ireland-based LouderVoice, the reviews service and aggregator, has bagged its first US customer, audio specialist Klipsch.
The American company is using LouderVoice’s widget to add user reviews to its site, the first time that they’ve moved away from relying solely on “professional reviews” written in the home audio and gadget press to provide feedback and recommendations.
User reviews don’t just appear on Klipsch’s own site but are also aggregated on LouderVoice.com, which helps with SEO, and accessible through the Irish startup’s Android app.
LouderVoice thinks it’s seeing a trend here too. The recession is forcing businesses to focus on listening to their customers more, says the startup, and to seek out cost effective ways to drive direct sales to their respective sites and cut out any middle person in the process.
[UK] Vodafone will bring the iPhone 3G and 3GS to its UK network from January 14. You can pre-order the iPhone from today, with the 8GB iPhone 3G free on a £35 post paid plan. There will be unlimited texts on consumer price plans or unlimited calls to landlines for businesses.
Vodafone says it’s been preparing its network for “over a year” for the likely assault on its data networks.
However, iPhone customers will be offered up to 1GB of mobile data as part of their price plans – which contrasts with O2′s unlimited data plans.
Customers will also be able to use BT Openzone Wi-Fi networks.
“So that’s your advice is it? As my agent? On the week my book comes out in paperback, I should produce my own pirated version and give it away free? Why don’t I just punch my publisher in the face? That would be less work.”
My agent rocked back in his chair (a chair paid for, with 15% of my earnings) and laughed. “I didn’t say it was my advice, I just said there’s nothing they can do to stop you.”
Before our meeting had taken its subversive turn, we had been talking about ebooks: a subject that’s on every publisher and agent’s mind this week after the decision by Stephen R. Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, to make his books available exclusively on the Amazon Kindle. Covey’s move has caused a highly effective shit-storm because he made it in direct defiance of his paymasters at Simon & Schuster who won’t see a penny from the deal.
Last night I saw a couple of tweets from people saying they were waiting for friends to arrive in London from Paris on a Eurostar train. I thought nothing of it. But gradually it emerged that the train had become stuck in the tunnel underneath the Channel, trapping 2,000 passengers.
This morning it appears hundreds of passengers are still trapped, languishing on a siding, even after the train had been pulled from the tunnel. It is a failure of monumental proportions. Some passengers were evacuated by a filthy car transport train, but many more still remain on the original Eurostar train.
Reading tweets this morning I was struck at how many people felt like they had no idea what was going on. The lack of information on suck a big accident was staggering.
Rummble, the social ratings mobile startup, has released a new version of its iPhone app containing what is effectively it’s answer to Foursquare.
The feature is called “Local Heroes” and is billed as “the fun side of Rummbling” but it is quite obviously going to be Rumbble’s way of attacking the buzz surrounding the game of checking-in and becoming a “Mayor” of a location as propogated by the New York-based Foursquare. Local Heroes is a feature listed under “Empire” which suggests that there will be yet more gaming elements introduced.
Rummble has until now relied on its users to create content about places they visit and rate their friends’ ability to do so – what it calls the Rummble trust network. But clearly that’s not quite enough in the face of big players like Qype, dominant in Europe for local reviews, and Yelp in the US.
So Rummble is entering the social location gaming pushed by the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla.
We recently ran with the news that a suite of investment funds to the value of £125m ($200m) is coming the North East of England. A substantial proportion are dedicated for technology investments.
At the same time The Difference Engine is arriving as a new acceleration programme for early stage tech businesses supported by various local organisations and mentors. This is going to be a “more Techstars than Seedcamp” kind of programme aimed at hackers producing products quite fast.
Teams get £20,000 for 8% of common stock, mentoring and free accommodation for 16 weeks. This contrasts with Seedcamp, which takes between 5-10% (it varies) for 50,000 Euros. Some might say 8% is a bit high, but Programme co-ordinator Jon Bradford says they are “aiming for earlier stage businesses” than Seedcamp as TDE is “more comparable to YC and TechStars. Our valuations sit somewhere between these programmes and Seedcamp.”
A weary hello from O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois – the world’s coldest and most inhospitable airport, right in the frozen heart of the world’s coldest and most inhospitable city. That a community organizer from this city would dream of becoming President is no surprise. Chicago is, after all, the only place in the world capable of making Washington DC look like a step up.
“So that’s your advice is it? As my agent? On the week my book comes out in paperback, I should produce my own pirated version and give it away free? Why don’t I just punch my publisher in the face? That would be less work.”
