An Irish women’s charity, Women’s Aid, linked to some articles on the Irish Examiner (like this, this, and this) and thought that all was right with the world. Heck, that’s how the Internet works, right?
It turns out that according to the Irish Newspaper Licensing organization, you need to pay to link to the newspapers. And there the troubles begin. → Read More
Plakatt is a new free service launching today out of Serbia which allows users to share and find events in their own city or in the region. In other words it’s an online event manager meets social network. The startup is joint venture of two companies from Novi Sad — Rendered Text and Sprawsm. Plakatt users are able to post events they are interested in, browse existing ones and have an… → Read More
How can you engage employees to come up with ideas and take ownership of corporate innovation? Usually startups don’t have that problem because ‘employees’ are part of the innovation engine. But plenty of other companies would like that mojo. So Nosco has built an online suggestion box to support Idea Exchange management within a company, and hopefully answer that question. → Read More
Meet MuZoid. She’s a very clever bot created by some even cleverer people; she’s all about killing all humans helping you find more music to love, CDs to buy and gigs to attend, and she does it all through Twitter, naturally. Twitter users sending a tweet with the name of a band or artist to MuZoid receive a reply in less than 2.5 seconds with a link to a bespoke webpage containing gig… → Read More
SellaBand, the social music startup which encourages music fans to invest in up-and-coming artists, is expanding its offering to the US in a deal with Amazon.com company CreateSpace. The deal relies on CreateSpace’s Disc on Demand service, an inventory-free solution in which discs are manufactured only after a customer places an order. It’s an elegant and affordable solution to a… → Read More
The mobile content service which Yahoo previewed at Mobile World Congress in February launched today across eight countries, available both as an iPhone app and a mobile content site optimised for 300 devices ‘with HTML-enabled mobile browsers’. Yahoo Mobile, available at http://new.m.yahoo.com or from the App Store, combines what you’d expect from Yahoo’s services —… → Read More
Picli.com, a photo sharing community site launched in private beta in March 2007, has relaunched with a slew of new features and a more clearly defined business model. Two years seems like a long time for a site to be in beta, and Picli’s developer/designer founder duo of Sam Street and Sean Miller acknowledge this in the FAQ, referring to 2008 as ‘the dark age’ in which, well… → Read More
Here’s something from the department of Quelle Surprise: Bango (AIM: BGO) reckons the iPhone lags behind the top 20 mobile handsets most used in browsing and buying on the mobile web. The Bango Top 20 handset list, based on Bango’s February statistics, puts the Nokia 3110c on top, followed by the Samsung M800 in 2nd and the Nokia 6300 in 3rd place. On the whole, smartphones account for… → Read More
AudioBoo, the audio blogging platform and iPhone app that was launched in private beta in January, is now freely available at the App Store. It’s one of 4iP’s first investments – backing Best Before Media’s development of AudioBoo, which lets users create and tag recordings which in effect produce a map of the world tagged with evocative sounds of each place. Knocking about… → Read More
UPDATE: This event is now sold out. I recently heard that Scott Rafer would be in town next week. Scott is a Silicon Valley Internet entrepreneur, CEO of Lookery (CrunchBase info), and former CEO of MyBlogLog, which was acquired by Yahoo! last year for $10 million. So I thought I’d throw a quick dinner to get some startups together and chat. Scott will be talking informally about the scene… → Read More
Tuesday/Wednesday next week sees the launch of the grand-sounding World Biz Online, and my Spidey Sense is already tingling. Big London launch in a Mayfair hotel? Check. “Global internet portal”? Check. “The first functioning Web 3.0 site on the internet”? Check. Poised to “change the way that business is currently done on the internet”? Check. So I just got off… → Read More
Pikum has gone into an invite only beta. The site lets anyone create and play games called Pikums where they can see who’s better at predicting the outcomes of future events/sports fixtures. Pikums can be played for bragging rights, or users can compete for real cash, capitalising on the attention and engagement of fans. Think gambling social network. Technically an e-gambling site, its… → Read More
Pixsta is a London-based startup with an image search technology which allows you to browse and search visually. Since launching trials with a handful of partners including Elle’s browse&buy as well as others like the News of The World, it’s now going on the warpath with an image-based advertising network for the online fashion retail market, similar to Google’s adwords model… → Read More
On March 31st this year Google and Virgin announced a joint venture: to create a human settlement on Mars. Sir Richard Branson penned a passionate statement on the Google Blog, saying: “Larry Page, Sergey Brin and I feel strongly that contemporary technology is sufficiently advanced to make such an effort both successful and economical…” Virgle, the name of the joint project… → Read More
Hobnox is a video and audio tools platform in closed beta coming out of Cologne, Germany. It’s aimed – mainly – at users who’d like to use rich tools to create and collaborate over video and audio. And I must say, what they have done with Flash tools is amazing. The idea is to unite broadcast quality media with community tools. So the Hobnox Audio Teaser audio engine is a… → Read More
MySpace thought it was all over when it secured the MySpace.co.uk domain in February this year. A decision by Nominet’s dispute resolution service handed over the address, which previously had been owned by a small UK ISP since 1997, two years before MySpace.com launched. But an appeals panel has today handed the domain back to Total Web Solutions (TWS), a company in Stockport, near Manchester. → Read More
Last.FM has got in touch to say that since the new Coldplay single ‘Violet Hill’ was released for free on Coldplay’s website this morning, Last.FM has been tracking the number of times it’s been listened to. And it’s a lot: 10,000 times in the 5 hours since the track was released. That’s 1 play every 2 seconds. Apparently the last time a track was listened to this… → Read More
Lycos Europe, the forgotten portal site which left the tent and said “I am just going outside and may be some time” a few hundred years back, is up for sale (via PaidContent). Owned 32.1 percent by Telefonica and 20 percent by Bertelsmann, it’s now appointed Dresdner Kleinwort as its advisor following the inevitable “strategic review to evaluate its options”. First… → Read More
The venerable FriendsReunited, one of the the oldest social networks in the UK, has relaunched as a free social network containing features which will have a direct impact on several niche social startups, specifically Miomi and Rememble, which are both pushing the “digital lifestyle aggregation” as a feature. Rememble is a bootstrapped startup but Miomi is a larger venture backed by… → Read More
TechCrunch UK & Ireland has learned that Wubud will be the next venture of UK-based entrepreneur, Paul Walsh, who already runs Segala, a usability and certification agency (though he is possibly better known as a blogger and UK Internet scene networker). Wubud – yet to launch – will be a mobile social network pre-installed as an application on a SIM card belonging to an as yet… → Read More
Kenshoo, an Israel-HQ’d startup which automates search engine marketing techniques performed by SEM agencies, has launched a UK office, following its recent round of funding. The company, which competes with bid-management software from the likes of DoubleClick, aQuantive’s Atlas Solutions, and Omniture, automates the creation and management of labour intensive search marketing campaigns… → Read More
Accosted by a man with a video camera who asks you what Web 2.0 is all about during Web 2 Expo, I had a crack a the subject in a few pithy sentences. The video by SocialTNT is below, but if you don’t have 5 minutes (for the whole video) then here’s the short version. I think the Web has gone through three stages, or what I call the “Three Ps” : 1. Pages (“dumb”… → Read More
I’ve decided to go the whole hog and pull out the whole of 2007′s list of VC investments in tech companies, as compiled by CalibreOne recently. Over the next few days and weeks I’m going to delve into what happened to a few of these firms, a large number of which are the kinds of companies TechCrunch would take an interest in. But for now, feast your eyes on a year’s worth… → Read More
In case you haven’t noticed, we are still running a special launch offer of £20 a job on CrunchBoard. Here are some of the latest jobs: Senior Systems Administrator – Linux – VC Backed Internet Startup Technology Associate – University of the Arts User Interface Engineer – Jiglu.com Developer – School of Everything → Read More
James Brocket of Headhunters CallibreOne has been busy compiling a great list of VC investments in tech companies (PDF). Why? Because they do a lot of work for VC backed companies. The number are encouraging – surprising, even, given the doom and gloom in the wider economy. Nic Brisbourne DFJ Espirit pulled out some good points: More venture capital appeared in Europe in Q1 than ever before… → Read More
Rummble, the mobile and location-based ‘social discovery’ tool, has added a basic integration of Yahoo’s Fire Eagle location data to its service. If you have a Fire Eagle account (it’s in invite-only beta right now) you can allow Rummble to set your Fire Eagle location when you set your location on the Rummble web service. You can also update your location manually from… → Read More
Coming out of Europe, Wolpy is a new social network for travellers to share their travel experiences. The basic idea is to create a map of the places you have visited and preview the places mentioned. You can share these places with your friends view their trips. You can view the map in full screen mode. It’s a nice clean design and has simple features, but other than a Google Mashup map… → Read More
Zattoo, the live TV to PC platform, has extended its channel line-up to include BBC 1 & 2, ITV 1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 via its online streaming media player. Zattoo will also carry financial news from Bloomberg, children’s programming from the BBC’s Cbeebies and special interest channels such as AutoMoto TV and The Poker Channel. Zattoo completely replicates the traditional TV… → Read More
Over 500,000 tracks from Sony BMG goes live on We7’s site today, following their first deal with the major label in March. Sony BMG manages act including Take That, Mark Ronson, The Hoosiers and Leona Lewis. We7 gives fans access to music for free by grafting a short audio advert onto the front of each track, with revenue going to artists and labels. Due to a registration system, We7 builds a… → Read More
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