DISQUS

We7.com is already live and serving a catalogue of free downloads which are ad-funded. Must have been a gap in your radar, as this one got lots of publicity with Peter Gabriel being one of the early investors.

Andrew, I confess I haven't yet read the whole series above. However, I believe your premise is screwed up which may I paraphrase to - "Here's how to cheat your investors". Perhaps you could introduce a few false accounts too, or would that be too easily spotted.

Unless one is trying to commit a fraud/scam, it's hard to see getting funding under such circumstances as a positive thing.

In a Barcamp presentation I did (http://www.slideshare.net/johndwilson/sex-the-investor/) I likened the entrepreneur/investor relationship to one of sex,dating, & marriage. If you begin the relationship by cheating, it doesn't bode well for the long term. Turn it around and if you get screwed via cunningly worded funding terms, how are you going to react?

Paul - the good news is that Open Coffee seems to be able to support both requirements at present. I am meeting many entrepreneurs that want to talk to investors (and I know other investors are getting the same experience) so they are happy with the arrangement. At the same time it's evident that there is a set of people who are simply there to hang out.

BTW - you made a comment to Phil Wilkinson on his blog about turning on email/rss for comments. Even easier - try coComment which is a personal comment aggregator that will track any comments you specify for review at your own convenience.

Paul, enjoyed meeting you today. As I've just posted on my blog, I don't think we need wifi at the event - this is about "talent" introducing themselves to "money". This means a brief 5 mins explanation of what you do and what you are looking for. If the investor is interested and you fit their investment profile (sector, size etc) then you can do a follow up meeting.

If people do think their site is the best communicator, then after doing an intro simply invite the investor to look at your site after the event and get agreement you can follow up.

Remember, the investor is there to meet lots of people as well.

Compensation plans that are binary are a failure from the outset - unlikely to make your target, then give up; already made your target, then ease back. So I've always believed that graded rewards are important.

The more interesting element is the transparent targets up front. Readers coming from a City background will know that most bonuses are discretionary in our environment (some even feel arbitrary).

A colossal worry is that targets can distort behaviour and people work to meet them, regardless of whether they actually make sense for the business. This is one of the key reasons I've heard advanced by board colleagues why specific targets aren't set in City firms.

Given the uncertainty with startups, it's such a tough call to determine upfront what success may look like and over what time period. Furthermore, how much is will be a factor of environment v management skill. Hence, the ability to flex targets remains key and that is where you make a great point about trust between the board and management.

As an aside, outside observers may find it strange, but many City traders/brokers will have been delighted by this week's volatility and resultant flow, making great returns in the process. For some, next year's bonus made have just been secured!

Roger, I forgot to mention that meebome is only suited for one person to monitor the embedded widget since it is linked to a single meebo account login.

If you receive multiple visitors on a site that you want several people/staff to converse with, then presently you would struggle.

Zoho chat is another solution to having an embedded chat widget but it lacks that IM aggregation feature, which is why meebome still has the edge.

Nick, I too am fascinated by what I called "crowd dependent" sites i.e. those whose value to the customer increases as the crowd increase and the challenge in attracting early pioneers when little or no value exists e.g skype, Exchanges.

http://www.greatapps.blogspot.com/2007/01/ill-u...

From an investor point of view it's a heck of a bet if you can get it right, but we all know how many more casualties this route has versus those solely focussed on personal value, where the rewards may be lower.

This looks to be a copycat of www.Springdoo.com which launched out of NZ about 6 months ago, albeit without their humour. They also offer the ability to create springcasts which are video messages that you can embedd in webpages including your own blog.

Bizarre that eyejot home page gives no explanation as to what exactly they offer/do.

Robert, I made the same comment as Ivan above when I saw the post on Techcrunch. It's astonishing to read Mike's comment above "you’ll understand how this is a completely different situation." Does he mean because he's not close friends with the Demo organisers, then its ok to operate in this manner? He certainly appears to be both trashing a competitor whilst promoting his own event.

Very many congratulations on the birth.

Nic

I think there is an important sub-division in your "wisdom of crowds" category, between trust networks like LinkedIn and crowd sites which give you data on which you may or may not rely like Toptable reviews. Clearly the former is much stronger since you can rely on the information based on your assessment of the source. In the latter, popularity is your main guide, which doesn't necessarily equate to wisdom. Sam Sethi and I recently chatted about this and its impact on the long-term success of "social networks".

As regards machine recommendations, the ability of computers to spot correlations in behaviour to help make "insightful" suggestions I believe is a very powerful force but only to the extent that the dataset and population on which it draws is sufficiently sizeable to allow meaningful conclusions to be drawn. Too often social networks have/use insufficient data points in making comparisons to allow them to identify genuine correlations e.g. male & works in capital markets as our shared points isn't sufficient to guess our interest/tastes will overlap. Add on music, hobbies, education..... At which point we start to use something akin to "dating service" algorythms to identify people we "correspond" with and hence have increased likelihood that the machine recommendations will reasonate.

Mathew, I can only presume that you weren't a reader of Techcrunch UK (and evidently neither is Mr A) because these events have been trailed for several weeks on the TCUK blog. They were planned as platforms for Startups to promote themselves to investors like myself (rather than for prospective French Presidential Candidates to pursue their electoral ambitions). In my book, that hardly counts as competing with Le Web and was also a widely praised initiative by most of the UK community.

As regards profiteering - to my knowledge, the blog posts on TCUK made no reference to these events being "paid for" events or otherwise. Many UK events like Mashup, GeekDinners, LondonGirlGeekDinners, Minibar and NMK run to cover costs, organised by enthusiastic community members. So unless Mr A was simply presuming that scalping the audience would obviously be part of the game, I'm also not sure how an unethical position had been taken.

Given Mr A's reported chummy relationship with Le Web event organiser and that of the staff of Techcrunch France, was it TCUK stepping away from the party line that is the real issue prompting the split?

A truly excellent way to spend a Friday afternoon - Drinking with a large group, most of whom you've not met before, but who made excellent company. My notable "mentions" for excellent beer buddies have to include Ivan Pope, the Martin Davies, Martin Judd, Sam Sethi and Hugh Macloud, as well as Robert. PS Robert, don't forget about making use of veotags on podtech or at the very least asking Guy Kawasaki about them when you see him next.

Robert

Would be fun if you'd be up for doing another London Geek Dinner organised by Ian Forrestor (cubicgarden.com) or London Girl Geek Dinner organised by Sarah Blow (sarahblow.com). Perhaps a talk on the subject of podtech etc & the challenges of delivering audio visual content / IPTV. Sadly, the big geek Xmas bash which is being organised by BBC Backstage (which Ian Forrestor is also involved with) isn't until 9 December, by when you may have skipped town.

Aside from www.mapbuilder.net, which doesn't yet support UK addresses albeit google maps can, does anyone know of an online app that allows the batch upload of UK postcodes which are then auto geotagged and displayed in a google map?

I'm a Partner in a private equity firm in London, and we regular encounter the "secret squirrels", terrified of revealing details of their project in case its' copied. I always point out to these people a few realities

- ideas are easy and free to generate, its the execution of them that is hard. So even if people learn of the idea, few will be able to actually do anything with it either through a) lack of ability b) lack of time c) inertia

- if people are able to easily copy your idea, it may not be such a great business and the only thing you are gaining is a brief time advantage until you launch, after which point your idea is "out there" anyway. More importantly, that time advantage is often an illusion, because if your idea is new (very rare) it will take time to be widely understood and so you've got to educate the market. Moreover the copy can avoid your implementation flaws and if that "copy" is better, people will normally migrate to it.

- discussing your idea with people outside your inner circle usually results in great input, as they often approach your idea from a different angle. This input may suggest new features or uses, or reveal benefits you'd not considered. Such free "soundings/consultancy" can be invaluable in refining your killer app.

Agree that meembome excellent and like you, I easily embedded into my blog about 2 months ago.

Re the widget to alert you to a conversation opening, I haven't located one either but, when minimised, my Firefox app tab automatically flashes up the first few characters of a conversation. Not perfect, but I usually spot it.

Oddly enough, I'd prefer such a widget to tell me when someone has landed on my blog to give me the option to initiate a conversation. Too often, people have dropped in and I failed to spot them in time.

It would also be handy if meembome could log visitors by the identity they give i.e. not the default one assigned. Whilst tools like google analytics provide the stats, I'd like to know who dropped by.

You can change the colours of your meebome widget to suit your preferences (see mine). You change them from within meembome.com account and it updates in realtime.

Meant to add, do you think Apple got the idea from Mike Arrington ;-)

Re Apple, just you imagine who is on the list for the legal dept
- NASA, who have escape "pods" on their rockets & shuttles, as well as George Lucas for having the same in the original Star Wars
- Any musician that plays Tunes
- anyone that refers to themselves as "I"

This is truely a capital value play of immense proportions.

Odd, some companies would be delighted to have a verb & noun reminding us of their products (especially after already having a very popular fruit!). I guess flattery just doesn't pay the bills, which must be a worry in the Jobs household.

Perhaps Mike Arrington will be able to recommend a good "cease & desist" lawyer to del.icio.us for trademark infringement http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/09/21/mik...

Perhaps Mike should offer to put techcrush under his wing - that way the trademark issue goes away and there can be an honesty about the outcomes of the firms covered 6 months down the line v the opinions proferred. As it stands, it could be taken as a sad attempt to cover up embarassing editorials on ventures that subsequently flop. Likewise, how many brands in the web2.0 space are near misses on existing brands (flickr, flockr) with far less fuss. Mike should take it as a complement that people care enough what he & his colleagues think to track it - is its' existence reallly going to diminish his brand value or will that be simply the result of their "outing" of the results.

This will be a text book tale of key personnel risk (online or offline) - When the "star" becomes as big or bigger than the brand, what happens when the star walks voluntarily or otherwise?

Amanda was Rocketboom to its viewing public. Whilst the rocketboom brand has high recognition in the online space, repeating its formula (similar to a band finding a new front person) will be incredibly difficult with a new face - in contrast more front people tend to have successful solo careers.

Unlike some other recent departures in the online hall of fame to pastures new, she is probably one of the few "online" names that could cause a collapse of the underlying business.

Whilst few really know what's actually happened as yet, I suspect that this will prove an excellent prompt for many companies to put in place mitigating measure against being similarly caught out.

Amanda - thanks for being so entertaining.