The seventh edition of The Next Web Conference takes place from 25 to 27 April 2012, and we’re more excited about it than ever. Over the years the conference has grown from a tiny, cozy one-day event to a full-blown industry leading conference (still cozy with that personal touch) with a packed agenda for three days.

Every year we raise the bar and come up with new things, adjust the format with new ideas and improve stuff (thanks for the feedback). This year is no different, we’re going to top last year’s conference big-time. Take my word for it.

We’ve made some changes to the format and we’re confident it will help to improve the overall experience and business opportunities for all attendees. At TNW2012 all layers within the tech industry will be represented by the most talented and leading personas in their respective layer.

Developers, entrepreneurs, marketeers, SEO specialists, investors, business leaders, thought leaders and decision makers from large corporations will be there together with people who serve the tech scene (hosting platforms, interactive agencies, outsourcing agencies, lawyers, banks, etc.).

Multi-track

Last year we experimented with a second track. It was a small extra venue with more hands-on content. It was okay, but could be a factor hundred better. We knew we needed multiple tracks to diversify the content for our attendees (some of you love hands on educational talks, others might prefer more inspirational talks and there are those that want a bit of both).

Adding more tracks doesn’t necessarily add value to a conference. I have seen many examples where it actually had a negative effect on the overall value and experience of a conference. We started thinking about how it should be done and what the key factors are of a successful multi track conference that adds more than proportional value (where 1 + 1 = 2.3). We came up with four key factors:

Programming: Program talks and keynotes in such a way that there is a minimal overlap in interest from an attendee’s point of view. Make sure the program rocks on both stages. There should be no difference in quality of the content between the stages, only a difference in topics of interest.
Production: Make sure you treat both tracks as equal. Invest in the technical setup of the stages, the look and feel etc. Each stage should be impressive on its own. Don’t call it main stage and second stage, that devalues the perception of the quality of the other stage.
Interaction between the stages: Find ways to create interaction between the stages, so people get an idea of what is happening on the other track.
Communication: Make it very clear and easy to see what is where and when.

Following our own advice, it won’t surprise you that we decided to create two full-fledged stages filled with equally awesome content addressing different topics and types of crowd and that we have found ways to create interaction between the tracks.

This allows us to program content that is of interest to Startups and big corporations, for developers and marketeers, for investors and buyers. Well… you get the point.

CxO Summit

Many large companies have asked us for advice or help over the last year. Although we’re not in the consulting business we could easily identify that the Fortune 500 companies are eager to understand more about the online opportunities that lie ahead of all businesses (in any sector), and that inspired us to come up with TNW CxO Summit.

The CxO Summit is an invite only, 4-hour high-level event where we ask some of our conference speakers to address this special crowd with 15-minute keynotes. At the CxO Summit you can expect to bump into board-level people from the leading European corporations (not necessarily tech), CEOs from the fastest growing companies in the world and maybe even members of the Royal family. With 150 attendees it is a very exclusive and intimate setting.

You can request an invite or check out the opportunities to partner with TNW CxO Summit.

Kings of Code – Hack Battle

Last year we started with a hackathon right before the conference. It was a success and there was plenty of room for improvement. This year we’re inviting 100 developers (back-end, front-end -web and mobile- and some designers) to hack brilliant stuff in 30 hours. We have a dedicated venue next to the conference.

The Hack Battle starts on Wednesday, and on Thursday the final presentations of all hacks will be held on stage at the conference! This is a world first and we do this not only to emphasize how important and fun the Hack Battle is, but also to show attendees what can be achieved in just thirty hours nowadays.

If you’re a talented developer, check out how you can get into the hack battle (free), show your skills to a worldwide audience and win awesome prizes.

Join us now and grab a steep discount

Join us and 1800 online professionals, meet the whole TNW team, new business contacts, old friends, potential investors, exit partners and inspiring industry leaders and secure business at The Next Web Conference 2012. We still have 25 Super Early Bird tickets available at a 41% discounted rate. Get them now (pay online or get an invoice first and pay later via bank transfer) via our online event ticketing shop, powered by Paydro.

There’s a lot more information to come over the next few weeks. Stay tuned, and see you in Amsterdam!

➤ The Next Web Conference 2012

As the year comes to an end, good memories come to mind when thinking back to The Next Web Conference 2011. With 1193 attendees and almost 40,000 on the live stream we had our largest and best edition ever.

I’d like to thank everybody who joined the ‘party’ and I hope to see you all back for TNW2012!

We made an infographic so we won’t forget the awesome times we shared, the great speakers, the parties and of course QueensDay!

We’re working hard behind the screens to produce an even better event than last year. The dates are April 25-27 2012. More info on the conference will follow in January, for now you can take a sneak peek at the TNW2012 site and grab the early bird ticket price.

Click here to download the infographic as a PDF.

If you’re a football fan, have we got a treat for you.

We’d like to officially introduce our latest TNW Labs graduate, SquadCoach. What’s TNW Labs? It’s our recently launched ‘in-house projects’ centre. It’s where all the crazy ideas we come up with, however bizarre, find a home. Twitter Counter is one, Social Statistics another and now SquadCoach, eclectic right?

SquadCoach is an online fantasy football league sprouted from the deepest rooted mind cells of yours truly. It launches in public beta today and focuses initially exclusively on the Champions League. If you’ve played Fantasy Football in the past you should be able to grasp how the game works instantly, what makes this different? Deep social integration that’s only going to get deeper.

SquadCoach also comes with a delicious iPad and iPhone UI for when you’re on the go.

For those who haven’t tried Fantasy Football, this is how it works on SquadCoach:

The Goal: Pun intended, is to have as many points as possible by the end of the Champions League season.

How to Play:

1. Sign up and join or create a league to compete with your football friends. We’ve created one specifically for TNW Readers, join the TNW readers league here.
2. Ok now you’re all signed up, have you checked your bank account? You’re loaded! You have a cool 225 million euros to play with. Who are you going to buy? Time to pick your players.
3. Pick your players wisely, you only have 225 million and it’s depressing how un-far that will get you these days. Each player has a starting value at the beginning of the competition which can increase over the course of the competition based on the players results in the competition. You can buy and sell players after each game week and show your coaching skills.

How do you win?

By earning points! And you earn (or lose) points based on how your players perform. For example if your defend or goalie plays, you get 1 point. If a forward scored a goal, you get 3 points. If your player gets a red card, you get 5 points deducted. The full list can be found here.

Join!

Make sense? What are you waiting for? It’s free and the Champions League begins today. Join our TNW Readers league here and the winners of the TNW readers league win a dinner with The Next Web founders and two tickets to TNW Conference 2012 in Amsterdam!

Outside of our annual TNW conference which is scheduled for April 25-27, 2012 (save that date!), The Next Web organises an intimate event for developers in Amsterdam called Kings of Code.

Kings of Code is in just 12 days, so it’s about time we gave you some insight into the event. At Kings of Code speakers and attendees gather to explore and discuss the latest trends, developments and best practices in web and mobile development technologies.

Here are five reasons why you or your developers should attend:

Great line up
Learn about Node.js, scaling, NOSQL, API’s, Varnish, Redis, HTML 5 and big data from top tech speakers, including Tim Anglade, Bert Belder, Chris Heilmann, Stephen Nelson-Smith and many others.

The Hack Battle
The weekend preceding the conference is time for the Hack Battle, the ultimate show off for coders. In 36 hours, coders hack new services from scratch and present their hacks on Sunday night to the jury and the audience. If you have an API, you can add yours to the Hack Battle wiki.

Startups & Code
5 startups will be selected to present a piece of code or technology that they’re really proud of, during the Startups & Code session. The board of geeks will pick five startups from the startups that sign up for it via this short form.

Network with peers
Talk with peers and speakers, share best practices while having fun at one of the parties (thanks TRUE and Mediamonks).

Great deal
We keep the costs low, a full conference pass including hack battle is just under 200 euros and for teams there is an extra 20% discount when 3 people or more register.

In case you need to convince your boss to let you attend Kings of Code… put this ‘convince your boss‘ sheet on his/her desk.

Microsoft BizSpark teamed up with The Next Web to make this happen (Thank you!)
The editorial team of TNW has been reviewing startups for weeks, watched secret video presentations of the startups and did interviews with the semi finalists to go from 203 submissions to the final 18 that will launch new stuff next week. The quality of the competing startups goes up each year, it was never so difficult to make a selection.

We’re very excited to present the 18 finalists of The Next Web Startup Rally powered by BizSpark (in no particular order):

Bossa Studios
Pitch: Making the ‘social networking games are not really games’ debate totally irrelevant.
Tag: Social Gaming
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Moqee
Pitch: Taking social video curation to the next level.
Tag: Video
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

Createplaceads
Pitch: The easiest way to create and place ads in tomorrow’s newspaper or magazine.
Tag: Print
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Openmargin
Pitch: The margin of a book made public domain for readers to exchange annotations and engage in a meaningful dialogue.
Tag: eReading
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Squeeqly
Pitch: Identify top influencers and reward them with discounts for generating word of mouth about you!
Tag: Social commerce
Remark: International launch at TNW Conference

Flockler
Pitch: Topic based curation platform for publishers.
Tag: Media
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Zmazz

Pitch: Mobile payments free of charge, fun and social
Tag: Mobile payments
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Wosju
Pitch: It’s not about who you know – but how well you know them #socialgraph #trust #curatedsearch
Tag: Social Networking
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Cleeng
Pitch: Publisher generate incremental revenues on top of advertising and subscriptions with Cleeng
Tag: Media
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

Silk
Pitch: Silk lets you easily add meaning to content while creating it, allowing people to search, aggregate and visualize it in powerful new ways.
Tag: Semantic web
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Hitchie
Pitch: Online Speed Networking platform.
Tag: Social Networking
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Foodzy
Pitch: Foursquare for Food: Keep track of what you eat and earn badges for fun and healthy eating habits.
Tag: Social Networking
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Qubulus
Pitch: Crowd Sourced Indoor Positioning
Tag: LBS
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

OneDrum

Pitch: All apps will be collaborative.
Tag: Collaboration
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

The Charity Engine
Pitch: World computing
Tag: Collaborative computing power
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Soup.me

Pitch: All your digital life visualized just the way you want it, nicer and easier than ever before.
Tag: Social Networking
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

Onavo
Pitch: Helps smartphone users regain control of mobile data usage. Save money on data charges.
Tag: Mobile
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Kuvva
Pitch: Connecting fans to brands
Tag: Online advertising
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

We’re looking forward to all presentations!

Well over a thousand people from all over the world that share a passion for the mobile and Internet scene will attend The Next Web Conference next week. For 3 days, and right before the famous Dutch national holiday Queensday, Amsterdam is the place to be for people and businesses that shape the future of the web. Grab a ticket, while they last.

Reserve your ticket today so you can meet all these startups.

The Next Web Startup Rally is an incredible platform to showcase the hottest and most promising startups and we want you there.

The Startup Rally is something our audience particularly look out for. Super fast presentations bring them an overview of what the new hot startups are working on and what the trends are. Many C level attendees love this and for investors the Startup Rally is a great source to source new investments. The overall level of the startups is increasing each year, so for the 6th edition we expect to see great teams, apps and services.

More about The Next Web Conference 2011 on our conference website.

Reserve your ticket today & join hundreds of Internet companies, experts, entrepreneurs and bloggers!

How to submit your startup

This year we will give the opportunity to 20 companies in the web and mobile sphere to launch new apps and services on main stage for FREE. It will be harder than ever to make it to the final 20. The 6th edition of the TNW Startup Rally will showcase only the best and most talented teams and companies, with great apps and a bright future ahead of them.

The procedure

1st round: Submissions (deadline March 17 at noon CET) – 60 companies selected for the 2nd round
2nd round: Video pitch (March 17 – March 28) – 35 companies selected for 3rd round
3rd round: Interview round March 22 – April 5th) 18 companies selected for the finals
Announcement finalists: April 7th
Final round: April 28-29, At The Next Web Conference 2011

Startups number 19 and 20 will be selected by the Jury during the conference from startups that have a booth (get more info on how to get a booth)

Selection criteria:

• You have to be a company (no side-projects).
• You have to launch something (your service or a new version of your service). The idea is that journalists and bloggers write about you so you have to bring news to the table.
• Web/mobile/gaming services, products and new technologies are welcome
• International focus or aspirations.

Do you want to rock the stage? Submit your startup now!

Often, the focus is on what’s happening in the US and that is interesting because a lot of stuff is happening there, but as TNW Conference is taking place in Amsterdam we decided to arrange a special block on innovation on the web and mobile sphere specifically from Europe. A lot of things are happening in Europe and many companies show that European companies can be truly successful on a global scale. Take mobile gaming companies like Rovio and Outfit7, or successful companies like SoundCloud and Spotify that disrupt the way we consume music, the biggest IM company in the world sending over 18 billion messages a month eBuddy, Spil Games, eCommerce powerhouse Vente Privee, the hot mobile app Viber and I can continue for a while.

Starting your company in Europe is not the easiest task with different cultures, many countries, regulations, different languages and often a less lively ecosystem of investors and exit partners when compared to the US, but that background gives these entrepreneurs something special, something we all can learn from. That is why we’re building a Europe’s innovators block into the schedule of TNW Conference. In 20 minute talks you’ll get the ins and outs, the do’s and don’ts and the expectations for the markets the leading entrepreneurs from europe operate in.

We already have 80% of this special block confirmed, but we’d love to hear which European company you want to see at TNW Conference. Let us know in the comments or via the social platforms (FB, Twitter)

See you in Amsterdam!

Reserve your ticket today and join hundreds of interesting Internet professionals!

TNW Conference brings together the leading startups and companies from the web and mobile scene from many countries around the world. Every year we invite the most inspiring speakers from the US, Europe and Asia to share their thoughts on the near future of the ever growing connectedness of people, companies and everything in between.

Often, the focus is on what’s happening in the US and that is interesting because a lot of stuff is happening there, but as TNW Conference is taking place in Amsterdam we decided to arrange a special block on innovation on the web and mobile sphere specifically from Europe. A lot of things are happening in Europe and many companies show that European companies can be truly successful on a global scale. Take mobile gaming companies like Rovio and Outfit7, or successful companies like SoundCloud and Spotify that disrupt the way we consume music, the biggest IM company in the world sending over 18 billion messages a month eBuddy, Spil Games, eCommerce powerhouse Vente Privee, the hot mobile app Viber and I can continue for a while.

Starting your company in Europe is not the easiest task with different cultures, many countries, regulations, different languages and often a less lively ecosystem of investors and exit partners when compared to the US, but that background gives these entrepreneurs something special, something we all can learn from. That is why we’re building a Europe’s innovators block into the schedule of TNW Conference. In 20 minute talks you’ll get the ins and outs, the do’s and don’ts and the expectations for the markets the leading entrepreneurs from europe operate in.

We already have 80% of this special block confirmed, but we’d love to hear which European company you want to see at TNW Conference. Let us know in the comments or via the social platforms (FB, Twitter)

See you in Amsterdam!

Reserve your ticket today and join hundreds of interesting Internet professionals!

Een verwachte omzet van 20 miljoen in 2010, 9 miljoen geregistreerde gebruikers, wat kost die tent? Laten we dat samen eens uitrekenen.

Facebook heeft een geschatte waarde van $35 miljard voor 500 miljoen gebruikers wat neerkomt op $70 per gebruiker. Dat zou Hyves $630 miljoen waard maken. Dat is natuurlijk wel een beetje appels met peren vergelijken want facebook verwacht in 2010 2 miljard revenue te doen.

Als je het zo bekijkt kun je dus beter 17 keer de omzet doen. Dan kom je op een waardering van €340 miljoen. Maar hoeveel van die 20 miljoen in omzet is nou eigenlijk winst? Met 140 full time employees zit je al snel op een ton per persoon per jaar en dus tegen de 14 miljoen aan kosten. Nog wat servers er bij en er blijft niet al te veel over van die 20 miljoen in revenue. Maar laten we er even vanuit gaan dat ze 5 miljoen winst maken. Dan is 10 keer de winst dus 50 miljoen. Of doen we eens gek en hanteren we internet waarderingen dan komen we al op 100 miljoen.

Met andere woorden: op basis van bovenstaande berekeningen zijn we nog geen steek verder. Tijd om de community een kans te geven!

Je kunt er gif op innemen dat die overname prijs natuurlijk binnenkort uitlekt. Ik ga NU naar de persconferentie en zal flink wat bier en champagne investeren om de oprichters dronken te krijgen en me alles te laten vertellen. Maar wat denk jij?

Laat hier een comment achter met jouw gok en degene die er het dichts bij zit krijgt een fles champagne van me.

Hyves is a local player in the Netherlands and is still the number one social network in terms of users and unique logins per month. It’s one of the very few local networks that is still able to keep facebook off their back. Their strategy? Go local.

Earlier this year Hyves was the first social network to team up with the national soccer team for the Worldcup as an official partner, they also launched a mobile payment platform and now they introduced Hyves Mobile.

Hyves Mobile lets you call and text other Hyves Mobile users for free (up to a thousand minutes) and all plans have an unlimited data plan. SIM only plans start as of 8,75 EUR (about 12 USD).

Hyves Mobile comes with with a 2-year contract, unlimited data and a free Android or Blackberry phone. I talked to Yme Bosma from Hyves about the very first results. In the first 36 hours over 21.000 people entered their personal data combined with the end date of their mobile contract. Over 120.000 people opted in for the ‘keep me posted’ newsletter. The first real order came in after the service was live for 5 minutes.