Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 15th September 2008
10 COMMENTS 
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Online network for frequent business travellers Dopplr has raised new funding from a group of angel investors in a second financing round. The undisclosed round makes the list of Dopplr backers even more impressive than it already was: Martin Varsavsky, Reid Hoffman and Joichi Ito were some of the initial seed investors, while Saul Klein from The Accelerator Group invested in both rounds.
Now you can add the following familiar names to that list: Esther Dyson, Tyler Brûlé, Thomas Glocer, Yat Siu,Aditya dev Sood, Lars Hinrichs, Joshua Schachter, Brian Behlendorf, Ami Hasan, Daniel Sachs, Joshua Cooper Ramo, Kim Weckström, and Azeem Azhar.
Dopplr helps you make the most of your trips by sharing your travel plans with people and brands you trust.
The service then highlights coincidences, for example, telling you that three people you know will be in Tokyo when you will be there too. You can use Dopplr on your PC or on the go, and links with many popular online calendars and social networks.
Dopplr expects to use this new round of financing to expand its business globally. Currently, Dopplr’s user base is mostly in Europe and the U.S.
(Hat tip to ReadWriteWeb)
Written on 16th June 2008
0 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Sometimes it’s frustrating being an Internet entrepreneur in Europe. It has all kind of advantages – such as the localization, small and easily accessible communities, and more that I probably don’t have to tell you about. But there’s one thing missing, the magical vibe of San Francisco and the Valley – the “we’re changing the world” kind of thing. As the European industry is fragmented in a dozen cities or more, yet in the Valley everybody’s gathered in one creative focal point. So for us, Europeans, there’s a limited community experience going on.
Esther Dyson talking to Clay Shirky (photo by
Geodog)
And now I’m in San Francisco at Supernova 2008, where “CEOs and bloggers, entrepreneurs and academics, practitioners and visionaries, policy experts and industry thought leaders share insights and build relationships.” See? That’s the “we’re changing the world”-mentality I was talking about. I’m surrounded by influentials and leaders like Esther Dyson, Hugh MacLeod, Clay Shirky, Bob Iannucci, Scott Beale and Jeff Clavier who are shaping and defining the future of our beloved industry.
I think we – meaning European web professionals – can learn a lot from conferences like these and I’m looking forward to the day we can welcome such a conference in Europe. For now, I’ll live blog the key notes I think are particularly interesting for you. Would you like me to cover a certain speaker? Go ahead and ask me in the comments or on my Twitter account.
By the way, you might also want to follow Hugh MacLeod’s Twitter feed.
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 
