Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 3rd July 2009
122 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Until two years ago, DEMO, a conference franchise owned by technology publisher IDG, ruled the roost when it came to ‘company demonstration’ conferences. It took Techcrunch’s TC50 to really ruffle some feathers before the 17-year-old conference finally had some real competition.
The core differences between the two conferences? Well DEMO charges companies for the privilege of attending (the fee is now more than $18,000), whist TC50 primarily charges its sponsors (as well as companies presenting in their ‘demo pit’). DEMO tends to have larger, well funded companies promoting their goods. TC50 is a less glitzy affair, bringing unfunded companies often (more…)
Written on 21st April 2009
7 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Heat Map of Wi-Fi strength
People expect a wireless network and connectivity at a web conference. And they expect it to work too. unfortunately it usually doesn’t. Every edition of The Next Web Conference suffered from some problems. This year, it was almost perfect.
It was so perfect that I publicly offered to make the Wi-Fi work at leWeb in paris next year. It famously didn’t work last year even though Loïc reportedly spent over 100.000 Euros on it. We spent a little more than 5.000 so I offered to provide working Wi-Fi for 50.000 in Paris.
This is what the setup looked like last week:
- We provided almost 50 workplaces with fixed ethernet and power connections. We also provided ethernet cables for everyone to use. This means that the heaviest users switched to cable.
- Average number of simultaneous WiFi users was an average 130 (all day) with peaks of more than 150 users.
- WiFi limits were set at 10Mbps down and 5Mbps up – no limits on fixed ethernet
- Around 50GB of data was transferred over wireless in the main hall
- Wireless was provided with a managed WiFi setup (Ruckus) and 8 APs in the main hall
- Wireless in the nearby rooms was provided with 3 extra APs
- Average signal strength per client was 75%
- Bandwidth usage peaks were at 80Mbps
- There were about 20-30 rogue WiFi devices visible at any given other than our managed WiFi setup (other APs, phones, ad-hoc networks etcetera)
Early in the morning on Thursday the technicians (@eventengineers and @mdbraber!) found a small error in the DHCP settings which they were eager to fix. As they rebooted the system the company handling the Fibre optic cables decided to unplug a bunch of cables to clean things up. It took a while to find out that the DHCP settings were fine and to persuade the Internet provider to reconnect the cables. Fortunately the downtime was short and easily fixed. (more…)
Written on 15th March 2009
3 COMMENTS
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
Loads of startups have signed up for The Next Web Rising Sun Startup Rally already. This makes a lot of sense since it is a great opportunity to present your startup (at no costs) to the most influential European Internet crowd out there. This will boost buzz around your company, you’ll meet very interesting people (bloggers, journalists, peers, investors, decisions makers of big companies).
Joining the rally means that we (the jury) will review your submission and 50 – 60 startups will be interviewed (via phone and skype) to end up with the 24 best and most promising startups that will present on main stage during The Next Web Conference. Even if you don’t make it to the final, we’ll show our appreciation to you for taking the time and energy to sign up. It takes only 10 minutes of your time and did I already mention that it is free….
Submit your startup now. Today it is the last day we take on submissions.
If you’ve a cool twitter app / company, make sure you check the special Twitter ecosystem session.
Written on 12th March 2009
1 COMMENT
Nicolas Mertens,
After meeting some great people and hearing some good talks on stage,
it was time for the startups to do their elevator pitches. I love startups and I love to hear them pitch! A good pitch should be brief and to the point but without losing sight of your companies message and with a hint of mystery.
It was moderated today by Sien Luyten, Founder & Managing Partner Oraura.
The jury and audience selected 3 startups from the group of 20 finalists :
Jinni (Israel)
Mendeley (UK)
Myngle (The Netherlands)
The overall winner was Mendeley, based in London. They described themselves as the “Last.fm for research”. The startup essentially aims to enable academics to manage and sharing their research paper inventory and at the same time discover like- minded people and papers thanks to a recommendation and matching algorithm.
The People’s Choice Award went to Myngle, based in The Netherlands, pitched itself as a ‘new way to learn languages’. Myngle was founded by ex-eBay employees and operates a platform for online language education where teachers and students can virtually connect and determine if there’s a match for an online course to start between the parties (from both sides).
We have The Next Web Rising Sun Startup Rally coming up in April, sign up closes the 15th of March… So hurry up!
Written on 30th May 2008
7 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Take a look at your desk, chances are high you’ll see a huge stack of business cards. All collected at conferences, meet-ups, and Open Coffee’s. It’s actually a bit absurd: while we’re digitalizing our lives, we still use paper to create the foundation for a new contact. Project E is one of the first initiatives that strives to change this contradiction. They’ll allow you to get connected in seconds with a newly developed portable device.
Renato Valdés Olmos at the Next Web
E is a small, slick-looking, curvy white device. It’s just a matter of pressing two of these devices against each other to get connected on services like LinkedIn. Sync it to a PC or mobile device once you’re done with a conference or meeting, and all of your social networks are up to date with new contacts you’ve made.
Three Dutch designers came up with their idea during their graduate master year at the academy for art and media technology in Hilversum. I’ve talked to one of these innovative guys, director Renato Valdés Olmos. He explains the thoughts behind this new approach to social networking: “What we, and everybody else for that matter basically observed is that the Internet has made our world very small. We can connect with anyone, at anytime, anywhere. This has changed our world thoroughly. Especially at a social level. Quantity of contact has taken over quality of contact. So we figured, ‘Hey, can’t we get the benefits of all these great online services and communities to real-life situations?’ ‘How can we translate these benefits and getting people closer together in physical reality at the same time?’ We still believe in face-to-face contact.”
The next step for Renato and his two partners was thinking about how to do this: “We researched connectivity between cellphones and smart phones. We came to the conclusion that there must be a faster way to exchange information.” Renato wanted to get people connected with “a device operated by a single gesture. “Exchanging contact info and social networking info with E takes as long as a formal handshake.” (more…)
Written on 30th December 2007
17 COMMENTS
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
After the post about the need for a female Steve Jobs and in search for a female role model I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at technology conferences.
Go to any web conference (LeWeb3, TechCrunch40, The Next Web, FOWA, you name it..) and one thing that cannot go by unnoticed is that almost all speakers are men. There are a few simple explanations for this (apart from the standard explanations), one of them is that men tend to be more passionate about technology and the web then women do. Another can be that men are at higher or at least more ‘visible’ positions. Also it may be that men are more experienced speakers. But the web is new, it transforms things, it changes the way we do business and it shouldn’t make any difference between men and women. As it is a fairly new sector, it exists only 5000 days, this is THE opportunity for talented women to take the lead over men (not that it should be like a kind of war).
I believe there is a huge opportunity for talented women to become the most wanted speakers in the tech scene. Conferences are more then willing to invite women to their stage (they have to be really good though). So who are the women we all should watch? Some of the women I’m following are:
To get Web 2.0 to the next level we need a female Steve Jobs. A woman with passion for the web, amazing presentation skills and humor.
I’m looking forward to see more women speaking at events (also at The Next Web conference, to write about startups founded by women, to know what is going on on the female side of the web (so if there are women who like to write for The Next Web, please let us know).
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
