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    FOWA rocks London, while startups pitch to TechCrunch

    Mike Butcher

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    Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

    Thursday, October 9th, 2008
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    The Future of Web Apps conference kicked off in London today and almost 2,000 startups and developers hit the East of London for the event. Highlights from the day included Kevin Rose from Digg and a bunch of great speakers. Every year the event changes and there is an interesting pivot point going on as the European scene develops. In his opening keynote Kevin who seemed to imply that the site needs to grow up beyond fanboys, but then I guess we all knew that.

    Stephan from Soocial (One address book syncs across all devices) is always good to watch, and his general pitch seemed to imply that the future of mobile is really to enable ubiquitous computing. His opening slide” “This presentation contains no bulletpoints”. Nice.

    One FOWA back-channel was being run on a Google app engine, but fell over at one point, showing: “This Google App Engine application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.”

    An interesting aspect of the event was the way big companies are really now trying to woo developers here in London. MySpace, for instance, launched a developer competition and brought along a MySpace double-decker bus to the Expo. Unfortunately their sponsorship of the rather flaky WiFi didn’t do them any favours. At least Ben Huh’s ICanHasCheezburger talk was a crowd-pleaser. And Kevin Marks from Google Code put in a great great presentation.

    As part of FOWA we ran a TechCrunch Pitch! competition and below are the entrants who were selected. On the panel was Jason Calacanis, Brent Hoberman, Ryan Carson and Mike Butcher (myself). E-Republik was the winner. As for the presentations? Well, aside from E-Republic, all I can say is we need some practise here in Europe, and some Calacanis pitch advice lurve…

    The iPlatform.com

    The iPlatform is a little like Facebook Connect, but this integrates multiple community sites into multiple social networks, not just Facebook. A client integrates their website with the iPlatform API, and iPlatform then allows that site to be accessed from within an application on Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. Their API allows the site to pull in all of the social network user data, including profile information, photos and friend lists, and to push out a newsfeed. Plus, a user of the site within one social network can interact with other users. The business model is to charge a build and license fee, either direct to clients or through the agencies building the primary sites.

    E-Republik

    e-republik is a Massive Online Social Strategy Game, half strategy game, half social network. So far it has 19,000 citizens who visit the site daily, after launching 6 months ago. A a result, it turns out they already raised cash form AGF Private equity (one of the leading French Venture Capitalists), the Bonte family fund and a network of angels. Not bad for a startup coming out of Romania.

    PhoneFromHere.com

    PhoneFromHere offers a white label service that enables site owners to speak directly with visitors from inside the site. There’s no requirement for the end-user to enter their details, use a phone or download software. It’s all done through the browser.

    Raffleit

    The idea here is that compatitions are not transparent. You have to give over your information. But with Raflit you just pick a number and that’s all a company knows about you. Every person that participates in a raffle receives a reward from the company running that raffle. This reward will be a money off voucher or discount code, possibly worth more than the ticket itself.

    Diary.com

    I couldn’t find their video pitch but we wrote about it here already. This is a bit like the diary for the Twitter generation. Diary.com has a clean interface, a little like Twitter, but instead of 140 characters you plug in 1000. As well as text, users can plug in URLs for images and videos which will pull those into your diary. Diaries can be private or shared on the site which is closer to a private or closely shared Tumblr blog (with privacy controls) than Twitter. So this is not really micro-blogging as such since Diary users can find eachother on the system and spin out wider conversations.

    • http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com sonofballmer

      Not impressed at all!

    • http://buzzpal.com Chris Comella

      Cool (except you guys should have had me pitch, not sure what you’re waiting for):

      (yes, needs work too, but hey, you gotta start somewhere)

      • idont

        I do not see progress. I do not see revolution. I only see evolution. :(

    • TK

      Not as good as last year, and Lots repetitive stuff. :(

    • http://deanwhitney.com Dean Whitney

      FOWA rocks! Best tech conference by far for the money. Can’t wait for the next FOWA Miami.

    • http://ollieparsley.com Ollie Parsley

      there is no pleasing some people :p. I am having a great time! Lots of free T-shirts and pens. Had a good talk to the CTO of Zembly.

    • Mark

      IPlatform sounds like it just repackages all the API’s from a few big social networks. Useful, yes, but to charge for something which developers should be able to implement for themselves doesn’t seem like a business model. Maybe for the lazy ones :)

      • http://ollieparsley.com Ollie Parsley

        I agree to me it sounds like repackaging other API’s and putting them in an iframe on other social networks etc. Not quite convinced by the idea.

        • http://www.boalt.com Adam Boalt

          I agree with Ollie and Mark. Not very compelling. btw, the girl in the background is annoying!

      • http://joshuamarch.co.uk Joshua March

        Hey Mark,

        Cheers for your comment. The iPlatform’s core technology gives agencies and website owners a single, fixed API they integrate with their site. Our technology then converts this to the different social network APIs depending on where the user is. This allows us to iFrame in versions of the site into the different social networks, whilst allowing full use of the social network APIs in the different sites. Most agencies and sites don’t have the knowledge or capability to integrate their site with multiple social network platforms, all with different APIs, and then to constantly update these as the APIs change (which they do frequently). We solve this problem.

        This system negates the downside of using the iFrame by still having all the API integration. And, by using the iFrame, a user from one social network – like Facebook – can interact with other users in the client site, even if they’re accessing it from other social networks like MySpace or Bebo, or on the separate website. For a niche community site this is much more compelling than having separate applications or groups in the different sites.

        Feel free to email me – joshATtheiplatform.com – if you want to discuss further.

        Josh
        iPlatform

    • anon

      Rigged,

      I am very disappointed with this, the competition was posted on the 24th September and the winning pitch was posted on Elevator Pitches Posted: June 28, 2008 and had received financial backing from one of the dragons!

      Either Diary.com or Raffle.it should have won.

      I don’t usually cry foul play, but the facts are here.

      • anon

        …even phonefromhere was a FOWA sponsor!

        • disappointed

          I was looking forward to this part of the event..
          there were some great startups sounding startups and was really interested in who what going to get the chance to pitch.

          not impressed at all with those chosen. there was much better choices out there (IMO). hopefully next year the competition will be a bit better organised, and have a better choice of startups to pitch.

          n next time it would be great if you guys could mail those people who entered but didn’t win to let them know. we were all in the dark till one of us asked what was happening.

        • http://dis.cuss.it/ Nigel

          I think the eRepublic pitch was the best of the lot and was the only one that left me thinking I would investigate further. Diary.com didn’t give a good pitch. PhoneFromHere was again a poor pitch for a technology that didn’t personally interest me. Raffle.it was nice and I’d feel a little hard done by if I was them as at the start Carson said about the financial backing resulting in eRepublic only having three voters. It was never stated if the three voters would be averaged or totalled until Carson decided on-the-fly at the end. Probably the right verdict though.

          This was my first FOWA and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

    • jc

      any lives feeds/video streaming of these events?
      Will they post videos of the speakers after the conference is over?
      I’d really like to see some of this stuff.

    • http://www.emailcenterpro.com Sabrina Parsons

      Great 60 second Pitch submitted for Email Center Pro from our UK office for FOWA:

      There is NO better email collaboration tool for your business. PERIOD. This pitch is definitely better than the ones posted above.

    • Jack Black

      I leave comments for fun

    • http://tEarn.com/ djc8080

      Anyone up for a London, Silicon Valley tech meet-up? Half way would be in the Atlantic.

      -Dash
      http://adEcon101.blogspot.com/

    • Mark

      It would also be good to see a more varied range of speakers. It seems to be the same people speaking at all events IE someone from Digg. Sure they are a good company, but come on. Theres so many more intelligent people whose views & ideas would be worth hearing. For an event held in London, I’d like to see more Europeans.

    • http://www.webmob-ad.com Carlos

      New start up Webmob-ad, really offer highly behavioral and geographical targeting for web and mobile advertising, Their marketplace is fully automated and it supports all formats and sizes of advertising. Publishers earn 80% of all the ad revenue. Register is FREE. Please check it out :
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    • http://www.insicdesigns.com insic2.0

      all sounds really cool.

    • http://startupmeme.com/fowa-conference-attracts-startups-developers/ FOWA Conference attracts Startups & Developers | Startup Meme

      [...] has started to become a norm as more and more gatherings like these are taking place each year, which is good for bloggers as [...]

    • http://www.erepublik.com alexis

      @anon we fully disclosed to Ryan Carson that Brent had invested in Erepublik as soon as we found that our pitch had been selected and that he was one of the judges. Brent was not part of the selection process for the five finalists and was not allowed to give us a score.

    • http://www.flashcomguru.com Stefan Richter

      I was at FOWA yesterday and I think Erepublik was definitely the best startup on stage. However having heard that they had received investment already, and that it was actually one of the Dragons who invested it would have been fair for them (Erepublik) to pull out and give someone else a chance.

      As for the rest, I thought most ideas were average to pointless. Raffle.it was ok, but shows how even a good idea can be badly presented.

    • http://www.webjam.com Marcus Greenwood

      Was at FOWA and thought it was absolutely WICKED!

      All of the presentations I saw were of a very high standard and some real stand outs including (imho) Alvin Woon, Tim Bray and Ben Huh. My only complaint would be the fact that about 75% of the presenters were from Silicon Valley – though I suppose this is just a reflection of the industry we are in.

    • http://dis.cuss.it Charlie Brook

      This was my 3rd FOWA, and whilst I still think that Ryan and Co still put on the best shows for UK based web developers, this last one had less of an impact on me than previous ones.

      I suspect that some of the speakers, have decided to give away far fewer state secrets. But maybe it’s just because the more of these events you go to the less likely you are going to hear things that make you think, my goodness that’s an amazing idea/solution.

      This year the highlight for me was probably Blaine Cook & Joe Stump on “Languages Don’t Scale” (I’m going to bookmark that video for every time that argument comes up). Great also to see tangible evidence on the adoption of OAuth and OpenID.

    • http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com steveballmer

      Techcrunch?
      They sound desperate to me!

    • http://krakspot.pl/2008/12/02/kses-na-krakspot3-konkurs-startupow/ KrakSpot » KSES na KrakSpot#3 – konkurs startupów

      [...] do powiedzenia. Na blogu TechCrunch możecie zobaczyć, jak wyglądają takie filmiki (na przykład tutaj). Na prezentację przed jury na KSESie będziecie mieć dokładnie 5 minut, dlatego maksymalna [...]

    • http://blog.kurasinski.com/2008/12/02/krakspot-kolejna-szansa-dla-startupow/ KrakSpot – kolejna szansa dla startup’ów! | AK74 – blog Artura Kurasińskiego (cc) 2007

      [...] Długo zastanawialiśmy się nad formą zgłoszenia i doszliśmy do wniosku, że najlepszą będzie przysłanie nam linka do filmu promującego startup (czyli po prostu zarysu prezentacji, jaką chcielibyście wygłosić przed jury). Dlaczego tak? Forma jest najbardziej miarodajna – prezentacja to nie Power Point ale całość przekazu, czyli przede wszystkim to, co macie do powiedzenia. Na blogu TechCrunch możecie zobaczyć, jak wyglądają takie filmiki (na przykład tutaj). [...]

    • http://webfan.pl/krakspot-i-konkurs-startupow.html KrakSpot i konkurs Startupów – WebFan

      [...] do powiedzenia. Na blogu TechCrunch możecie zobaczyć, jak wyglądają takie filmiki (na przykład tutaj). Na prezentację przed jury na KSESie będziecie mieć dokładnie 5 minut, dlatego maksymalna [...]

    • billybobborat

      E-Republic sucks. This is one of the worst games ever. It starts off really boring, with almost nothing to do and limited information. The only way I found to make it interesting is to set up multiple users accounts to get to know the game better & see how different countries work. However, they permanently ban you for this – it happened to me.

      The only interesting way to use the game & the ban you for it with no warning – stupid, stupid stupid.

      You’ll end up wasting you time, and possibly lose any money. It’s probably just a Romanian scam to get your credit card in the end

      Stay away at your peril. I’m now going out of my way to tell anyone who will listen about this highly suspect waste of time (and potentially money)

    • http://press.erepublik.com/fowa-rocks-london-while-startups-pitch-to-techcrunch/ FOWA rocks London, while startups pitch to TechCrunch | eRepublik

      [...] On the panel was Jason Calacanis, Brent Hoberman, Ryan Carson and Mike Butcher (myself). eRepublik was the winner. Not bad for a startup coming out of Romania. Read article [...]

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