True Knowledge, the natural language search company, has announced a milestone today.

In the month of August, its site, where users get answers to questions asked in plain English, surpassed three million unique visitors, 26 times what it was a year ago, apparently. While its database has grown to 300 million facts or 31% in 2010. Many of those facts come from existing structured data, but users can also contribute their own.

eBuddy, the swiss army knife of web and mobile instant messaging services, this morning announced that it has achieved over 100 million downloads of its mobile applications since its 2007 debut, thus stepping in the footsteps of the likes of Facebook, Google (Maps), and Opera (Mini) when it comes to the number of app downloads reached.

In case you’re not familiar with eBuddy, the service basically enables users around the world to chat for free in one, aggregated interface across most major IM networks, including AIM, Facebook Chat, Google Talk, ICQ, MySpace, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

Turkish courts have famously banned video sharing juggernaut YouTube several times since March 2007. The site still isn’t accessible, despite the fact that Turkey’s president Abdullah Gül used his Twitter account last June to express disapproval of the country’s blocking of YouTube. Gül at the time said he had instructed officials to find legal ways of allowing access.

But now we’re getting multiple tips about Turkey imposing a new ban on video sharing site Vimeo (an IAC company), and chatter on Twitter suggests this is in fact the case – see #censorshipinturkey and #vimeo for more.

By now you probably know the format: Bring together entrepreneurs, designers and developers, put them in teams, and in a caffeine-fueled frantic 48 hours they’re charged with creating a potential new Internet startup each, from the initial pitch to a working prototype. Some, if not all, of which will then go on to become actual long term businesses. At least that’s the idea.

The latest Launch48 Weekend, sponsored by PayPal and Yahoo, took place last weekend at PayPal’s London HQ, producing four startup ideas, my favourite of which is probably MatchFounders, a sort of online dating site for entrepreneurs, without the dating bit. Never sleep with your co-founder, remember, unless it’s for charity.

Read on for full details of all four.

E-commerce platform eSellerPro has raised £2m from Notion Capital. It says it will use the new funds to invest in sales, marketing and customer service to “further drive and support huge demand” across the UK, European and U.S. markets, which has already seen the company processes more than £150m in annual sales.

For Notion Capital, which invests in early to mid-stage Internet-based startups, it represents the 8th fund investment since being founded in late 2009.

You guys need to sleep with eachother. Actually, let’s clarify that. You can “sleep rough” for one night to raise money for homeless kids. Plus it’s an awesome way to make contacts. Did we say that? Yes.

Let’s be cynical for a moment. Byte Night is a UK-wide charity event from the technology industry – more the corporate “I.T.” world than startups – which has been going for 10 years. Every year mostly corporate technology CEOs and executives bed down in sleeping bags to support and raise awareness for the charity Action for Children, raising over £550,000. This year there will be 700 sleepers across all Byte Night locations, including London, Reading, Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh, all on 8th October.

But frankly let’s cut to the chase here.

Roaming the Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt I came across Teamly, a new web app designed to help businesses manage their employees better. Yes, I know that sounds familiar, but what I liked about it was that this was a super, super simple app compared to a lot of the feature-crammed companies out there in this space.

The issue here is that a lot of corporate systems for managing people are really not designed for small businesses. They are just too complex, being packed full of to-do’s, tasks and projects. So Teamly is out to try and makes all that performance monitoring way easier.

EngageSciences, exhibiting in the Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt this week, has revealed it’s closed an angel investment of $750,000 from private European investors. Terms were not disclosed but we understand the round came from some UK and European angels.

The startup has been developing its application since December, focusing the concept of “social nurturing” – a fancy way of saying its about getting more fans for brand brands and companies. The startup is slightly different form the the current crop of U.S. social media marketing vendors, in that too many of these companies just focus on just getting more “Likes” for brands or increasing their fan count or simply running a one-off contest. This is rather tactical and avoids the issue of user retention in the longer term.

Let’s see now, exactly how did Silicon Valley become Silicon Valley? Well, there was decades of history from the 1930s onwards. Hewlett and Packard in their garage; World War 2 and the development of the military industrial complex in the Bay Area; and of course the creation of the technology industry. That’s not all, but those were some of the crucial elements.

But what really helped create the Valley was an almost zero barrier to entry and an open environment committed to sharing information and a huge tolerance of risk. Companies clustered in geography, but also hung out with eachother in a random, serendipitous manner which created sparks of ideas and innovation. In other words, the Valley was not really built on formality in the way that too many things in Europe are for it’s own good.

Which is why we’re supporting the new #TechHubFriday events in London at the new work space for the tech community in London TechHub, and especially this Friday which will be a free demo night for entrepreneurs and startups (interest disclosed). You can come along, meet other tech entrepreneurs, have a drink and show people what you’re working on.

Looks like Jaiku founder and former Googler Jyri Engeström is up to something new. According to an SEC filing, a startup listing Engeström as chief executive officer called Pingpin has just raised $775,000 in financing.

Backers are BetaWorks (the startup’s address matches that of the early-stage investment firm) and True Ventures, as founder and managing partner Jon Callaghan is listed as a director as well.

Dawn Capital has invested a “substantial” but undisclosed amount in Optimalprint, the European online printing company. Optimalprint says it will use the new capital to expand its existing technology and distribution platform, initially in Europe but eventually globally.

The company, founded in 2007, offers premium quality, low cost printed materials for residential and business customers, such as greeting and business cards, office stationery, invitations and calendars, targeting 50 countries worldwide.

Geomium, a new location-based social network, gets its official launch today, in London first but with other UK cites and then Europe and the U.S. to follow.

As with other such services, it lets users connect with friends, but it also emphasises meeting new people and throws in venue data such as bars, restaurants, etc., as well as local deals and events — all with a focus on real time. If anything the service is in danger of overwhelming the user while also coming across as another me-too offering: How is Geomium different to the likes of Facebook Places, Foursquare, Rummble, Yelp etc.? But actually, that’s why it might just work.

For anyone that has ever struggled to string together a music playlist – whether it be for listening to at the gym, a party, at work or just casually – you may want to listen up. Playlistnow.fm, a brand new startup coming out of Paris, recently launched a microblogging platform that allows users to discover new music by sharing playlists.

When we covered the startup in TechCrunch France, it was nothing shy of a hit with our readers. Perhaps that’s because the platform also managed to do what Apple’s Ping does not do so well: integrate social.

Citing a change in the “political landscape”, The Difference Engine, a publicly-funded Ycombinator-style acceleration programme for early-stage tech businesses, is making cuts to its investment budget.

As a result, they’ve reduced the overall funding from £20k per team to £5k for the idea plus £3,200 per founder (max 3 founders) for which they have also reduced the shareholding from 8% to 6%. The Different Engine, funded in part by One North East, is keen, however, to stress that there have been no cutbacks in the programme itself, which along with investment, offers mentoring and free accommodation for 16 weeks.

Germany’s leading online private shopping club, Brands4friends, has hit somewhat of a milestone this week, ratcheting up €1 million worth of sales in a single day. Just in time for its third birthday, apparently.

Video advertising startup Brainient has secured $800,000 in financing, led by venture investor Arts Alliance, best known for backing DVD/Video on demand startup LoveFilm, Opera Software and Lastminute. More interestingly the round includes Silicon Valley maven investor Dave McClure as well as Alex Hoye, Algy Williams and Cambridge set alumni Sherry Coutu.

Brainient’s enhanced video advertising lets publishers and agencies place ads inside videos using a drag and drop interface

Video advertising is expected to hit $3.3 billion globally by 2012, but with competition, video pre-roll ad rates have fallen since the first half of 2010 versus 2009.

According to eMarketer, 36% of online video viewers click away on pre-roll ads. So Briainient’s technology concentrates on creating actionable banner ads in the video, such as booking a test-drive while watching a video advert for a new car.

Masabi, which develops mobile ticketing technology for the transport sector, has secured $2 million from London-based m8 Capital, the majority-owned affiliate of AGC Equity Partners that targets mobile startups and technology.

In June, m8 invested $800k in the location-based startup Rummble.

Masabi says the new funding will be used to support “commercial deployments” of the company’s mobile ticketing systems with UK rail companies and for international expansion.

The Future of Web Apps conference in London heads to what I think is a natural home for the event next week: the area around the Shoreditch area of London where so many tech companies are now located. And not just UK tech companies. I’m observing plenty of startups from continental Europe now either looking at, or actually locating themselves in this area because of the natural tech cluster and the UK’s business-friendly jurisdiction.

CalendarGod, part of the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley this week, is a new take – incredible as it sounds – on the concept of the calendar. Instead of trying to integrate random calendars as many other startups have tried in the past (but failed to find a model) CalendarGod attaches location to the calendar. In other words, injecting the crucial element of location and making it social.

Here’s how it works: Just like on Twitter, users follow calendars and get a realtime feed of events and activity. So you can broadcast a calendar and get followers. So far the startup has integrated 10,000 local calendars ranging from shopping calendars such as One Kings Lane, Ideeli, and Sak’s Fifth Avenue through to technology, music and community calendars. So in some respects it’s a little like Plancast, but instead of following events put up by members, you follow the calendars from venues and event organisers.

It’s clear there are plenty of Europeans in Silicon Valley already but plenty more are in town for TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco this week.

Here at TechCrunch Europe we though it appropriate to hold a little networking meetup/party in downtown San Francisco for our readers, where Europeans like us can say hi to each other and interface with people from the Valley, over a glass of absynth (or vodka, or warm British ale – whatever your national drink).

So please join us at a beautiful San Francisco location (see picture) from 7.30pm-ish to 10pm this Wednesday evening after the end of TC Disrupt, for drinks and food. If you are able, please bring a bottle of wine to contribute. We are hosted by the awesome Susan MacTavish Best of BestPR.