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Weekly Newsletter - Tech StartUps and Digital Advocates

Posted by Admin
at June 17, 2009

This newsletter covers:

1. Next Event: Tech StartUps and Digital Advocates - UMIC, Manchester on 22nd July
2. Membership
3. Sponsor an Administrator
4. Your Feedback
5. Partner Events (The Insider, Chinwag and Technology World 2009)
6. Contact Details
7. Our Partners

1. Next Event: Tech StartUps and Digital Advocates

Programme: 22nd July 2009 - 6 to 9pm
Venue: UMIC, Grafton Street, Manchester

Two sessions, each with four early stage technology companies pitching to a panel of digital marketing agencies with the hope of convincing their account directors (digital advocates) to introduce the companies to their clients. 5 mins pitch followed by 10 minutes grilling.

It became clear recently (at Futuresonic09 in May 09, Craig McGinty et al) that marketing agencies lacked knowledge about the innovative digital products launched by UK based tech companies, and especially those based in the North. As early stage tech companies lack commercial credibility necessary for securing medium to large customers, many have not explored the commercial opportunities presented through working with media agencies. This event intends to explore and build partnerships between the tech startups and digital media agencies.

For more information: http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk/jul09

Current Needs:

- Panelists
- Pitching companies
- Sponsors

Costs for attendance:

- Members: £15+VAT
- Non Members: from £25 to £30+VAT
- At door: £40

Costs for pitching:

- Members: £60+VAT
- Non Members: £80+VAT

Includes free entry for two employees including the presenter

2. Northern StartUp 2.0 Membership

Cost: £10+VAT per month and pay £15+VAT per event

NS20 was created to support startups across the north with an ecosystem of peers, investors, service providers and support organisations. With your support the group has grown significantly over the last two and a half years to over 1500 like minded individuals. We hope that you have found it valuable and will continue to do so by becoming a Member. In return for your membership we are offering a range of additional services and benefits:

- Service Discounts: e.g. Accountancy (2 startups signed up) and legal services
- Product Deals: free software for startups through Microsoft BizSpark Programme (4 startups signed up). More deals in discussion
- Digital Content: coming soon
- Training and Workshops: coming soon
- Investment readiness: coming soon
- Corporate finance: coming soon

For more information: http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk/membership

3. Sponsor an Administrator

NS20 has evolved in to one of the key organisations promoting tech entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom. We now need a full time Administrator to help us deliver a consistent service. The revenues we collect from event attendance and odd sponsorsorship are hardly sufficient to cover our costs let alone pay a full-time employee. Therefore we have no choice but to seek new sponsorship towards financing our first employee. We believe we can recruit a young graduate for about £20,000. We are interested in hearing from organisations who might be interested in supporting this initiative.

For more information: http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk/recruitment

4. Feedback

Nick Rhind has come on board to help us improve your on-line experience. Both Nick and I are very much interested in hearing your thoughts on how to improve the website, and appreciate if you could add your thoughts at http://startup20.uservoice.com

5. Partner Events

Business Finance Conference 2009

Date: 29th June 2009
Event registration: http://www.insidermedia.com/event/business_finance_conference_2009/index

The Insider Business Finance Conference will bring together funders with businesses. The Northwest Regional Development Agency will be discussing its new publicly funded Venture Capital and Loan Fund and wider access to finance services at this event. And we want this positive event to introduce businesses and advisers to the wide range of funds available from banks and other financiers in the present market. We will be presenting a day packed with opportunities for banks, the public sector, private businesses, angel investors and leading business figures to meet and learn about the new landscape for business finance in the North West. This is a must-attend event for anyone looking to raise finance for businesses or to stimulate growth. It is also at the centre of a major debate about the future of finance and business in the North West.

Chinwag - Digital Mission UK Tour: Manchester

Date: 1st July 2009
Event registration: http://dmmanchester.eventbrite.com/

As part of a series of regional workshops to publicise the Digital Mission trips to the USA in 2009/2010, the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and Chinwag will be visiting Manchester on Wednesday,1st July. Digital Missions are a series of trade missions organised by Chinwag and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI). They are specifically designed to help UK-headquartered digital SME’s expand internationally, understand foreign markets, attract investment, find partners and develop business relationships. The seminar will be followed by an informal networking session with drinks and nibbles, providing the opportunity to grill any of the speakers or previous attendees that you didn’t catch in the Q&A session.

Technology World 2009

Date: 23rd and 24th November 2009
Conference Site: http://www.technologyworld09.com/

We have negotiated with UKTI for ten stands at heavily discounted prices for our Members. edocr.com will be taking one stand. Stands must be secured before 1st September 2009

As one of the largest technology ’speed meeting’ events in the UK, Technology World has helped over 500 buyers and sellers to do business each year. The event provides a highly effective platform for companies to identify and build new international business and partnership opportunities. It brings together UK and non-UK based companies from across the globe to do business via a 2 day, focused ’speed meeting’ event.

+ Stand shell scheme (3X3), including name plate with 3 exhibitor passes. Full price: £800. Our price: £350
+ Pod, one of the three compartments, shared with two other businesses. Full price: £600. Our price: £200
+ Day Delegate, Full Price – 1 Day £100; 2 Day £170. Our price: 1 Day £60; 2 Day £80

As part of the partnership, edocr.com will provide a virtual exhibition (visit http://www.edocr.com/organisation and select Technology > Tech Events > TechnologyWorld09) where you could access marketing collateral of exhibitors before, during and after the conference.

6. Contact Details

Email: Manoj Ranaweera
Mobile: +44 7769734491
Skype: ranaweeram
Twitter: @manojranaweera

Team:

+ Business Development - Phil Tapsell - TechVenture Solutions
+ Marketing - Tom Cheesewright - And Digital
+ Public Relations - Fiona Barker - BarkerPR
+ Website - Nick Rhind - CTI Support Network

7. Our Partners

Do contact if you wish to explore partnering with us either on annual or event basis.

northern startup 2.0
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Tech Mission London according to Telegraph

Posted by Admin
at June 10, 2009

This article was written in response to the story appeared on Telegraph

FACTS:

1.  I organised an event titled "Tech Mission London 09" on 8th June 2009 hosted by Stewart Townsend of Sun Microsystems in London. If there were any deficiencies of the event, then I am the one who should be blamed for such an outcome. I am yet to hear a single negative comment from startups and investors who attended the event.

2. This was the first time that Northern StartUp 2.0 held an event outside the North West, and it formed a critical part of its geographical expansion. After all, eveo Ltd which runs Northern StartUp 2.0 is a commercial entity, setup to develop an ecosystem for early stage tech companies, a wholly owned effort by me, but now supported by the growing community of over 1500, partners and the team. It is also going through a period of transition from a hobby to a commercial organisation. Still at it’s infancy, having run the first event in November 2006, it is perhaps one of the few organisations in the UK, trully committed to developing an environment for tech entrepreneurs to succeed.

3. The key objective of this event was to provide an environment for tech companies and investors from both the north and the south to share knowledge and best practise and explore partnership and investment opportunities. The event featured a keynote speech by Michael Birch, a free-flow workshop (3 break-out groups) and Dragons Lair.

ARTICLE:

According to Milo Yiannopoulos, "Point was to stimulate debate, but I genuinely believe northern companies are crippled by lack of good quality connections and advice. It was a supportive article! Conclusion was that we need to give more support to the North."

PERSONAL OPINIONS:

1. Irrespective of personal emotions, there is a north and south divide in terms of econmic transactions. This is largely due to London been the capital city with superb infrastructure and a very large population living in close proximity. This does not in anyway imply that Southerners are cleverer than the Northerners. The South has produced more startups as well as more successful exits, simply due to the sheer size of the cosmopoliton city, its infrastructure, etc.

2. Northern StartUp 2.0 have drawn speakers from the West and East coasts of America, Europe and London to the North West. We have attracted tier 1 VCs from Internet Capital (New York), Advent Ventures, DFJ Esprit et al to the North West. Michael Birch flew one day before to be part of Tech Mission London and spent well over 8 hours without knowing who would be there. He gave time, because he wants the community to cherish and create successful exits. Having contacted Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce.com), within 48 hours Tim Barker was confirmed as a speaker for our Cloud Computing event held in April 09. We may not be from the South, but we can equally build relationships with exceptional individuals.

3. Tech Mission London 09 was represented by Mark Blackburn, Marketing Manager of Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus (DSIC). DSIC is key part of the north west ecosystem for tech entrepreneurs. Their aspirations are to create a culture closer to Silicon Valley. And I for one, has been key part of this strategy.

4. In terms of exits, we have number of key successes: Freeserve/Ajaz Ahmed (£1.6 billion to Wanadoo/Orange), Moneysupermarket.com/Simon Nixon (£760 million IPO), Surf Control/Steve Purdham (£204 million to Websense), Transitive/Alasdair Rawsthorne (£’000s million to IBM), Laterooms.com/Chris Allen (£120 million First Choice), plus.net/Lee Strafford (£63 million to BT) to name a few. Some of these individuals are engaging with the tech entrepreneurship community, e.g. Chris Allen is mentoring me with respect to edocr.com, a webmisson08 company.

5. In terms of history, the first computer was invented in Manchester. There is significant wealth in the North West, in particular, once trapped could help accelerate the growth of the tech entrepreneurship community. Others are better qualified to speak about the richness of the North and the hospitability of the people.

RESPONDING TO MILO

1. Northern tech entrepreneurs do not need saving. The event was about exploring mutual opportunities. e.g. It is likely that one of the London based tech startup who attended the event may be funded by one or more investors who attended the event. If I am flippant as Milo, I could argue that humble Northerners came to London to save London tech startups.  Both arguments are absurd to say the least.

2. I am the first one to admit that London is a great environment for tech startups. But if that’s the case, why do we keep seing the same tech startups at event after event? In this respect, London has not quite got it’s act right either. Just because you are based in London, does not automatically warrant success.

OPPORTUNITIES LOST

1. In one respect, being in London is a handicap in terms of competition, as clearly indicated by one of the guest comments. The mobility and willingness of the northern tech entrepreneurs allow them to not just trade in the north, but also be key players in the south without having to be based in the south. As many Southern companies do not venture out, they become the loosing side in terms of competition.

CONCLUSION

As a journalist, Milo is paid on publishing contraversy, as truth is considered boring by the media. Whilst we need the media to promote our activities, we should not be disheartened by such efforts. Thanks to Northern StartUp 2.0 and its partners, the team and growing community, we now have a trully compelling opportunity to create a sustainable ecosystem that any tech entrepreneur can benefit from without having to worry about where s/he is located. If Milo wishes to find out more about regional and national co-operations, there is nothing better than taking part in some of these activities before he brush us with "grim up North".

northern startup 2.0
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Fierce On Going Battle in Sri Lanka against LTTE - The real battle begins once Prabhakaran is defeated

Posted by Admin
at May 17, 2009

I have been glued to internet media channels and Twitter since yesterday morning to hear the end of LTTE and Prabhakaran. As the media was regugitating the same story over and over combining it with propaganda from pro-LTTE websites and old information from the UN and others, my frustration continued to grow. I came to the conclusion that the only way to get to the bottom of this story is to actually speak to the Sri Lankan Army.

Around 12:30 hrs UK time on Sunday the 17th May 2009, I telephoned one of my school friends from Sri Lanka, an Army Commanding Officer. He spoke to me about 2kms from the current battle zone. We spoke about the on-going battle and I shared with him how it is viewed by the British poiliticians and the media.

Fighting has not stopped as reported by the media. Yes, the coast line has been liberated as reported. He reckon that there are still about 1000 hardcore fighters left. The cornered group has fought fiercedly yesterday resulting in breaking the group to two, one headed by Prabhakaran’s son, Charles Anthony closer to the coast line and the other near to the lagoon.

He was not able to confirm whether Prabhakaran has been captured or killed. He reported about the diffcult terrain they are facing and seems to have great respect for LTTE’s ability to continue fighting against a well trained and supplied armed force. Just finding way around seems to be difficult due to the land full of shrubs, marshi lands and trees.

Whilst there was so much to speak, I did not really want to take too much of his time, as he has a battle to win. He could not also understand why the media and British politicians are so against eradicating terrorism from Sri Lanka. The only conclusion I can draw is that Labour MPs are scared of loosing votes due to the large Tamil population in the UK.

So what is next? The belief is that the remaining land will be liberated over the next couple of days, as almost all civilians have now been rescued by the Armed forces. I asked about the Channel 4 allegations about the rapes and killings. And this is what he had to say:

Sri Lankan army is a professional army. We are all Sri Lankans. The devastation caused by LTTE over the years is very hard to take in. The Army genuinely been active in saving everyone they could. People rescued by the Army include women and children and the sick and some of them walking with very severe wounds with infestations. Soldiers just want to help them.

Whilst my thoughts were similar, he was the first to say that the real battle starts after defeating the LTTE. Everything has to be rebuilt requiring a mammoth investment. Whilst Tamils, Sinhalease and Muslims live peacefully in the rest of the country, first the land has to be de-mined, infrastructre and houses built, before civilians can be allowed to return to their towns and villages.

The sooner we finish with Prabhakaran and his LTTE, the better for Sri Lankans and the humanity.

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I collect people - he collect awards - Imran Hakim (aka Mr. iTeddy) - Another day of Northern StartUp 2.0

Posted by Admin
at April 3, 2009

Northern StartUp 2.0 is becoming a much discussed topic these days within the tech entrepreneur community in the North of England. Among those who have spent few hours trying to understand, why a 41 year old man is so excited about Manchester and the tech scene is none other than Mr. Imran Hakim who is perhaps best known as Mr. iTeddy, since he appeared on our TV screen requesting funding for a startup from a tough looking bunch of business angels, known as BBC Dragons.

Whilst these two characters are trying to work out the next steps in collaboration, it is interesting to note their three key differences, these being:

  1. 31 years vs. 41 years (both yet to hit these later this year)
  2. Over achiever vs. under achiever (very subjective, of course)
  3. Twitter amateur vs. Twitter savvy (this may have something to do with selection of mobile phones used)

Here are three common traits observed by the older chap:

  1. Unlimited energy (what is he thinking at 41?)
  2. Asian (the young guy keep saying, are you not Indian then? Yes, I know it is shocking)
  3. Passionate about Manchester (according to a recent Twitter poll, the older chap has no chance of becoming a Mancunian after living in Manchester for nearly 9 years)

On the 3rd note, the older chap has not yet decided on which football team to support since earlier days of supporting Newcasle United when it was promoted to premiership in mid 90s, whilst living and working in there.

So here is an extract of what Smarta is saying about this young lad from Bolton:

Imran Hakim

Imran controls a diverse business portfolio which includes a lens laboratory, spectacle frame distribution, optical retailing, management, recruitment and most recently a toy company with the development of iTeddy. His business experience ranges from restructuring existing loss-making businesses out of administration to become successful and profitable operations - to successfully negotiating licensing arrangements with global brands including Reebok, Longines and Revlon in order to secure distribution rights within given territories.

In 2007, after securing investment on Dragons’ Den, Imran worked with prolific businessmen Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones to launch the award-winning iTeddy and associated licence platform, www.iteddy.com. Billed as the Teddy Bear brand for the 21st century. This year Imran has put together a distribution deal with Vivid Imaginations UK’s biggest toy company, and the product is now retailing in more than 40 countries world-wide, including every major UK toy retailer (including Tesco, Asda, Argos, Woolworths, Costco, Makro, John Lewis, Littlewoods, Harrods, Hamleys etc) with an extensive global TV campaign.

Imran has won several business awards over the years in recognition of his numerous endeavours, including: Best Newcomer to Vision Express 2005, the North West Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006, and Fusion Entrepreneur of the Year 2007. His work growing the iTeddy brand has earned him awards for Design, Innovation and Technology 07, Toy Inventor of the Year 07 and World Toy Innovation 08, Startup Business of the year 08, IoD Northwest Young Director of the year 08, Young emerging talent 08, as well as a string of International product awards. In Dec 08, Imran was awarded the Mosaic award for Science and Technology by HRH The prince of Wales. In addition to numerous radio and press interviews, in 2008 Imran was featured in The Sunday Times as an Entrepreneur to watch out for in the next few years.

In his spare time, Imran works to encourage entrepreneurship, through speaking engagements and mentoring young entrepreneurs. He is now an active member of TIE, UKIBC, NWIDF and Bolton Primary Care Trust. He has also teamed up with fellow entrepreneur Ben Way, incubating and investing in start-up companies through ‘The Rainmakers’.

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northern startup 2.0
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Rationale for TwiCRM

Posted by Admin
at March 17, 2009

My analysis of Twitter is:

I have lately been frustrated by:

For most of you, it is not a surprise that I use Twitter exclusively for business. I am not on Twitter just because it is cool or trendy. Therefore, I need a tool that could help me structure my Twitter time as well as analyse my Twitter spend.

I see the first cut of TwiCRM as:

I prefer taking incremental steps instead of blue sky thinking (used to be!). That’s how edocr was setup. ebdex, my first startup was blue-sky thinking. If anyone is interested in following this further, please add a comment with twitter username.

Hope there would be sufficient interest to pursue this further.

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Vision, Mission and Strategy of Northern StartUp 2.0

Posted by Admin
at March 4, 2009

In Feb 09, Phil Tapsell of TechVenture Solutions Ltd and Tom Cheesewright of The Lever Ltd joined Manoj on voluntary basis to steer NS20 forward, especially with respect to marketing and business development activities respectively. As you would have expected, one of the first activities of the team was to refine the vision, mission and strategy of Northern StartUp 2.0. Your comments and thoughts are most welcomed.

Our Vision

A thriving community of technology startups in Northern England, with access to all of the knowledge, services and capital that they need to grow rapidly. National and international recognition of the North as one of the most creative and supportive environments for technology business development.

Our Mission

To create the right ecosystem for entrepreneurship and business growth in the technology sector in Northern England, assembling all of the key stakeholders in an active community where knowledge is shared and deals are done. Stakeholders include entrepreneurs and startups, investors and financiers, technologists, service providers, and enablers from the public and private sectors, including government agencies and educational establishments.

Our Strategy

To build a programme of offline events to enable startups to learn, stakeholders to connect, and partnerships to form. To support this with a dedicated online community that leverages the latest in social and media technology to streamline access to valuable knowledge and best practice.

eveo
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You do not need to buy A Silicon Valley? A response to Paul Graham

Posted by Admin
at March 2, 2009

Imran Ali just pointed me to a blog post by Paul Graham of Y-Combinator titled "Can You Buy a Silicon Valley? Maybe". Even before I finished reading the second paragraph I knew I had to respond to it. So here I am reading and responding to Paul Graham. If you agree or disagree with what is written below, please do not hesitate to leave a comment. 

I do not buy Paul’s argument that having a first-rate university in a place where rich people want to live will create a Silicon Valley. If you take Manchester (UK) as an example, University of Manchester is a first-rate university (23 Nobel Laureates) and there are plenty of rich people living in the suburbs of Greater Manchester and Cheshire. As far as I am concerned, Silicon Valley is a one-off, and whilst we all aspire to create Silicon Valleys, what is important is to create ecosystems for sustainable economic activities through innovation and enterprise. This is exactly the vision of Northern StartUp 2.0 (NS20).

Y-Combinator’s equivalent in Europe is SeedCamp founded by Saul Klein of Index Ventures. It concentrated on UK startups in the first year, but second year saw significantly higher proportion of European startups participating in the competition.  In the UK, the hotspot for tech startups continues to be London, especially for internet and mobile related startups. If you compare London vs. key regions of the UK, you will find that most startups in regions are funded by regional VCs whose capital originates from European and UK Government funds channelled through the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). This is not true with respect to London, due to a large number of private equity and venture capital firms based there. How do you draw London based private equity and venture capital firms to places like Manchester? The answer is through NS20, which has so far brought Internet Capital from NYC, and DFJ Esprit, SeedCamp and Advent Ventures from London. We are showcasing the best of northern talent through Dragon’s Lair events, the next one scheduled for 26th March 09. 

Paul argues that the only way to retain best startups in a city is to ensure sufficient funding for number of rounds. The regional funds in the UK are reliant on conditions such that the funds have to be invested in 3 years. In addition, most funds are run by very conservative investment managers resulting in startups seeking funding from London and elsewhere. Therefore, I can only conclude that no single city outside London and perhaps the exception of Cambridge and Oxford have sufficient funds to retain quality startups. A number of Oxford startups have moved to Silicon Valley looking for warmer pastures in terms of funding. Two such companies are YouNoodle and Auctomatic. I had the privileage to meet founders of both companies whilst taking part in Webmission08. These companies prove the point Graham was making.

We do not see Silicon Valley as a competitor unlike perhaps Oxford. If we see a competitive city, it would have to be London. One of the issues I am trying to address is to allow local startups to meet locally instead of meeting in London through events organised in London, which happened before the birth of NS20. Lot more greater awareness is needed to multiply local activities.

Graham speaks about self-sustaining chain reaction. I call this developing an ecosystem, and this has become the mission of NS20. I did not start NS20 to develop an ecosystem for tech startups. The first event in Nov 06 was organised with few aims in mind:

  1. Find few fellow tech entrepreneurs I could speak to for knowledge share
  2. Find few stories outside London for TechCrunch UK to blog about

From humble beginnings, NS20 grew to be a community of more than 1400 people today. Until last week, it was a one man’s mission. Both Phil Tapsell of TechVenture Solutions and Tom Cheesewright of The-Lever are volunteering to help me drive NS20 forward.

NS20 activities directly help Manchester more than any other city, yet there is no public sector support to help fund its activities. NS20 can deliver a much improved service to accelerate the growth of the ecosystem, but to achieve this, it is fundamental it has either public sector funding or significant sponsorship from the private sector. However, I am glad to confirm that lack of funding will not result in the death of NS20 - it will only slow down its ability to infulence.

Buying startups as Paul suggests might work for another US city, but I doubt it will ever work in the UK, nor any UK city will ever dream of it. Eventhough that NS20 is over two years old, it is only since Jan 09 that I have decided to treat it as a business instead of just a hobby. With the help of Phil and Tom, I am hoping to draw a strategic plan of how we could help startups in a better way than I have done in the past two years. Some of the work I have initiated since the start of 2009 includes:

  1. Introducing funding through Non Executive Directors - The partnership with First Flight Placements is helping to achieve this. A number of NS20 startups are going through this process as we speak
  2. Introducing a top 20 services such as accountancy and audit services at a heavily discounted price. We will soon be in a position to announce this through Horwath Clark Whitehill. I am hoping that it will extend to other essential services such as legal, etc

Graham also mentions about startups doing disreputable things, especially around pronography. I think he is speaking about one of his greatest Y-Cominator funded startups called Scribd which used pornography to drive initial traffic and then ban pornography once it achieved critical mass. A strategy I would not be interested in associating with, but it worked for Scribd, and I personally have no issue about it.

What above also shows is that ecosystems also need brilliant marketers. In Manchester, the RDA take pride in supporting new media businesses. At present, other than funding innovation centres, the RDA does not seem to have a strategy of supporting tech startups. This is creating even a greater need for NS20 to deliver support for tech startups. In addition, NS20 also intends to glue the various public sector providers and innovation centres including key universities in order to fulfill it’s self-impose remit of building an ecosystem. The Dragon’s Lair series of events is seen as a catalyst for this activity.

To conclude, I do not believe we need to build a Silicon Valley, but do have a need to create a sustainable ecosystem, where not just the knowledge transfers take place, but proven entrepreneurs such as founders of Plus.net, Freeserve, Late Rooms and Moneysupermaket.com et al continue to invest locally. In terms of NS20, the work has only just begun. It is your duty to be part of this community if you wish to bring economic sucess to North.

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northern startup 2.0
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StartUp4Slaughter - DistinctID

Posted by Admin
at February 24, 2009

Tonight’s StartUp4Slaughter is Ash Mokhberi of DistinctID

Since the launch of the internet users have had to repeatedly submit registration information to websites and create multiple usernames and passwords. With the launch of social networking sites and sites such as ebay, we have all started to build profiles of our identity on the internet. Whether it be a profile of personality and life experience or a profile used to identify credibility and trust among others. To this day the profiles or identity’s we build about ourselves online are restricted to their website of origin, forcing us as users to rebuild the same identity from scratch when we use a new website.

Our mission is to create an open and transportable online identity management system that allows users to have a single entry point to access internet services, along with backend open integration for web developers to utilise current services and develop new services to meet their own requirements. Allowing users to manage share and distribute online credentials to any source they wish. While at the same time allowing web developers to take advantage of this information to develop converged internet services and marketing.

Questions for audience

1. Where do the audience see the importance of online identity in the delivery of cloud computing and mobile applications including location based services?

2. How do they feel is the best way to attract the critical mass (in terms of users), required to provide mass web proliferation of such a service?

3. Web based tech start-ups view on open id, decentralised identity and control of users information, As an importance to their business and why??

northern startup 2.0
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Twitter Apps #1 - TweetStats

Posted by Admin
at February 10, 2009

Twitter is everywhere these days and I must admit, it is my favourite tool next to e-mail and of course edocr. It is truly a remarkable marketing tool that I use everyday for both edocr and Northern StartUp 2.0. I also use twitter for user/customer engagement, news and collaboration.

What is also amazing is the number of applications that have sprung up using Twitter API. In order to understand twittersphere, you need to understand what is out there. On this regard, I will be making an attempt to publish short articles on interesting Twitter Applications I find. To start with, let’s have a quick look at TweetStats, which I found today for the first time.

tweetstats2

TweetStats is developed by Damon Cortesi aka @dacort using Twitter Trends API (which gives me another idea for edocr). You can get the following graphs from TweetStats:

  1. Most tweets sent today. @Schofe, @Stephenfry and @listensto tops the charts with 1,195, 1,064 and 667 tweets today. Well, I never thought one could tweet that much. Twitter is becoming a hotspot for celebrities.
  2. Top 10 Twitter Apps today. Over 50% of the traffic comes through the web, followed by Twitterfeed, TweetDeck, TwitterFox and Twhirl being the other popular channels.
  3. Today’s Top 10 Trends and Currently Trending graphs are also useful to understand what is hot.

That’s all fine, but what does TweetStats say about my Twitter activity?

  1. It shows how many tweets I generated over the last 10 months (see image below)
  2. The density of my tweets. I seem to be tweeting more during noon
  3. Aggregate daily tweets
  4. Aggregate hourly tweets
  5. No. of replies to - seems to be tweeting a lot with @startupuk (now @stewarttownsend), @simongrice, @prawlings, @markstrefford, @dahowlett, @paul_robinson, @mbites, @edFrench and @paulkinlan.
  6. Twitter applications/interfaces I used - TweetDeck, twhirl, the web and the Power Twitter are the most popular
  7. Tweet Clouds - always useful. Shows lot of tweets on edocr

So how could all this help me:

  1. Based on the stats, I should be able to change my Twittering behaviour - this could well be increase, decrease or continue as usual. I am yet to decide on this one.
  2. Replies To analysis is helpful in determing Objectives vs. Activities, i.e. the level of productivity with respect to Tweetering, e.g. What was the overall outcome of my twittering with @mbites. A positive outcome is Mike Butcher’s visit to Northern StartUp 2.0 last month.

We never had this level of analysis available for e-mails, one of the most used technologies today. As soon as you start to analyse, you realise that you require more details. The assumption is that more detailed statistics will give more value. Twitter made us contest this view point. Twitter restrained us to 140 characters. On the same token, perhaps we do not need full detail statictis to understand our Twitter behaviour. This is a hard one to swallow as we are conditioned for wanting more and more information. And there is significant value in the Long Tail. But for now, TweetStats only provide limited analysis and therefore we ought to be satisfied with this level of information.

Will I be using TweetStats everyday? I am afraid not, but a monthly visit could well be useful.

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Testing out Zemanta

Posted by Admin
at February 6, 2009
Image representing edocr as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Just came across Zemanta through Twitter and thought of trying it out quickly. So far I configured Zemanta for flickr and twitter. It failed to initiate the Facebook connectivity. I am writing this from Wordpress Editor. As you would expect, I searched for edocr, and found two images through flickr.

Here is a list of articles I could find which might not have relevance to the search term “edocr”

Manoj & edocr
Image by jacurutu via Flickr
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