Courtesy of TechCrunch UK, starting from this week I’ll be giving you a run-down of what’s been happening in the UK, Ireland and – where possible – a little of what’s going on in the rest of the European startup scene. Hopefully you’ll find this useful.
Last.fm, the UK startup CBS bought, said it was getting a lot of traffic from its widgets. On March 14 Ireland finally gets the iPhone about three months after the UK, courtesy of UK-based carrier O2, which has the exclusive contract. Meanwhile Ireland-based voice apps startup VoiceSage closed a €3m round. The UK’s Squa.re launched a so-so video portal, but at least it had great video of Keira Knightley. The etsy-like ShopWindoz launched a strike into the UK from its Berlin base. TwitPlus arrived as another file-sharing service for Twitter users. Hot startup Dopplr continued to add new features. Fav.or.it, the RSS reader with integrated commenting (a story TCUK broke), launched its beta to an invite-only crowd. Mobile outfit 3Bill acquired ProfileHeaven. Behavioural targeting company Phorm launched its service with a bunch of UK ISPs and publishers (this is quite a new field for the UK). The number of German start-ups tripled in 2007. UK startups tried to figure out if we had the equivalent of Bucks of Woodside, and fretted about the price of office space, their exit strategy and VCs leaving early stage. Ireland-based reviews aggregator LouderVoice prepped a new version. Badoo, the international social network, hit 13 million users. Kublax, which syncs bank accounts, utilities, and loyalty schemes, won funding, as did Bragster. Buzzspotr, which mashes Twitter users with Google maps, launched a beta. UK broadcasters leant on startups steaming video of their shows. We reviewed the Pixenate image editor, MyMapTracks, FreewireTV, Tipped and FreeAgentCentral.
Mike – just wanted to say great job. Its great that TCUK is able to use TC as a platform. I like it : )
It would be nice if there were Paragraphs… I’m sorry but I can’t really read with that formatting.
wow, a bit liberal on the tagging there…looks very amateurish in presentation.
Jono – Ok then, how would you like it presented?
Hi Mike,
Although I wouldn’t phrase it quite as Jono did I think the point is valid. Bulletpoints ftw.
looks fine to me … says what it does on the tin.
Mike,
generally a weekly summary of TechCrunch UK is a good idea.
But help us skimming by using item lists: *start* the item with the (bold)company name, and rather than “normal” blog links have a green “More…” link at the end of each item. It will look longer, but shouldn’t have more words than today.
And posting on Saturday around 5pm (UK) will help getting more attention, since you are moving it away from Mike Arrington’s drunken Friday night rants. With the current timing you’re still in the middle of the West Coast news cycle.
Love the list. Good to see what’s taking off overseas… weekly reports of this IS a good idea as mentioned above.
I cant read it, I read TechCrunchUK every day anyway, but thats just a mess
I was just gonna say that a Carriage Return + Line Feed per item would be better.
Thanks for the info! Great content!
I second those suggesting an easier to read UK news overview (great idea btw, love learning what goes on in my old home country). Don’t agree that always starting with a company name is a good idea. That won’t help with the reading experience.
How about the below (hope the formatting sticks):
- Last.fm, the UK startup CBS bought, said it was getting a lot of traffic from its widgets.
- On March 14 Ireland finally gets the iPhone about three months after the UK, courtesy of UK-based carrier O2, which has the exclusive contract.
- Ireland-based voice apps startup VoiceSage closed a €3m round.
- The UK’s Squa.re launched a so-so video portal, but at least it had great video of Keira Knightley.
- The etsy-like ShopWindoz launched a strike into the UK from its Berlin base.
Yes, great to have this regular update.
But as already commented by others: a bit hard to read… fix the format (paragraphs, no bolding, maybe less topics but more juice) and we’re set
Thanks for the feedback people, I will improve the look on next week’s edition. Right now it’s the weekend in London and the pub is calling us…
Excellent idea. I’m a UK web developer and love reading Techcrunch – I think this is a great idea!
Good move guys!
Matt
Agree about the bullet points. Great to see news from both sides of the pond here on TC. Enjoy a few for us Mike.
Thanks Mike B for calling me a troll when I suggested this on TCUK and saying it was pointless etc. Now you are doing it without giving credit to someone else for the idea. Why am I not surprised. Techcrunch is about not giving others credit.
Mike Arrington calls us entrepreneurs pirates and mocks the community that makes him.
http://www.port...chael-Arrington
Here is my final question when Arrington tries to sell TC. (i.e why heather has come on board) will we the so alleged 600k+ subscribers get a share of the value. Hell no.
He will pocket it all like the founders of YouTube. Think about it TC is only worth any value due to the UGC comments and the people who read, subscribe and create pageviews but will we see a penny.
I am pleased to see TCUK covered on TC as it was my idea but does anyone care about the UK in the Valley?
Question for the US readers name 5 hot startups in the UK worth £100m+ ?
“Not your idea”: Chill out man. As it happens Mike A. and I discussed doing a weekly round-up here in August last year, just before TCUK was re-launched, but it hasn’t felt like the ‘right time’ until now. So, no, sorry, it wasn’t your idea. If it was your idea I’d be happy to credit you but since you’re an anonymous troll, it’s a bit hard. Your views on TC are your own, but you ought to know that startup valuations in the UK tend to be smaller, although AOL did get buy.at for $150m recently
http://uk.techc...iliate-network/
“Not your idea” -
What i said was “”I look at entrepreneurs as, in a sense, modern-day pirates,” Arrington told Portfolio.com this week in an exclusive interview.”
I’ve said this many times, and it is squarely meant as a compliment. entrepreneurs are risk takers to the extreme, forging new territory, trying to create something brand new. They were explorers in past centuries, now they are entrepreneurs.
How in the world you can spin that into something negative is beyond me. You certainly are no entrepreneur.
Did you ever read this?
http://www.tech...n-in-the-arena/
@not your idea :-S
“Think about it TC is only worth any value due to the UGC comments and the people who read, subscribe and create pageviews but will we see a penny.”
True, but why are the users there in the first place? Thanks to Michael’s hard work and great posts. He deserves everything he gets IF he decides to sell… you won’t receive anything as a user, you already receive the value of his (and the TC teams) hard work.
After all, Techcrunch isn’t your idea…
I’m glad to see the feedback taken on-board.
Are there any plans for summaries from the other TC properties?
Scratch that. I hadn’t looked at them before. I didn’t realise they were just translations of the main TC site.
Finding the Microsoft ATM story on fr.techcrunch cracks me up.