Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 31st May 2008
4 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Doing nothing and getting more traffic sounds like a typical spam promise, right? Well, most of the times it is. But now I need you to get past this prejudice for once – just for once! – to look with me at Scoutle. This Dutch start-up helps you to attract more visitors by just installing a simple widget – a so-called Stage – on your blog. And the best thing is.., these new visitors are probably really interested in what you have to say. Sounds almost too good to be true, so let’s take a closer look.
A Scoutle Stage
Scoutle works as follows: after you’ve installed the Stage on your blog, the service sends out a Scout – a personal webcrawler. This scout “walks through the Internet”. The more visitors you have, the more sites your scout will cover. Its goal is to find other scouts of which some might come from bloggers who have similar interests and profiles. If this happens, you’ll be notified so that you can get in touch with them. When both parties agree on a connection, they can see each others contacts. The result is a new network of bloggers who all have similar interests. They’ll probably start reading each others blogs and send out some trackbacks. So eventually, everybody gets more traffic.
The idea is really good, particularly because bloggers can just focus on creating content while some automatic Scout is looking for possible blog soul mates. When a match is made, they can enjoy each others readings. Almost a perfect execution of modern social networking.
But there’s one danger to it. Bloggers might install the Stage and send out a scout just to gain more traffic. This is not the best attitude for your users. They install the service and wait for their number of visitors to skyrocket. If this doesn’t happen quickly, they might quit the service. That’s why Scoutle may be better off with promoting itself as a service to find valuable blog contacts.
I’m going to give Scoutle a shot, and see if I’ll meet some interesting people these coming weeks. Founder Godfried van Loo told me he is eager for some feedback, so leave a comment if you have anything to add. If you’d excuse me now, I have to instruct a scout to find me some new blog friends.
Written on 7th May 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Next Webtipr David Petherick advised me to start using Naked a few weeks ago. That’s a small British start-up in private beta, which aims to give users a better way to communicate with people they really care about than the dozens of other social networks do. It allows you to communicate more freely, in private. Tools are status-updates, private messages and group messages. To me it looks like they’re trying to be a combination between Twitter and e-mail, aimed at a crowd who doesn’t know what Twitter is.
So Naked is into communication and you can tell by the way the team communicates with its users: friendly, open and no-nonsense. They know how to create the feeling of a connection with the service, sort of bonding 2.0. The ultimate example would be the email I found in my inbox a few minutes ago:
The Naked team
Being Naked is all about being open, even if that means sharing not-so-good news. Our start-up has run out of cash. Just weeks before opening up the service more broadly and igniting the buzz…
However, we haven’t given up the faith. We will need to regroup, see who’s still on board, and work out a way forward. In the meantime we’ll do everything possible to keep the service going.
We’ll update you when we have more news.
That’s what I call REAL transparency. And why wouldn’t they be? There are plenty of start-ups that keep their mouth shut while they slowly sink in the deadpool. How is that helping them? By sending out this email they get (1) attention from the press, (2) sympathy from their users, and (3) street credibility – because this really is pr 2.0.
Update: David has ten invites for you to see whether Naked works for you. Drop him a line: david@thenextweb.org
Written on 2nd May 2008
3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Sometimes you just need a break. So do I. Then I either persuade a colleague to play some soccer in the hallway, or press the Stumble button. This afternoon I chose the latter and ended up at TwittEarth, a rather smashing visualization of the Twitter public timeline.
It’s a mash-up by Digitas France SA, who created this Twittearth for fun. Although I don’t question their motives, creating a Twitter mash-up seems like the perfect free publicity PR tool these days.
Just ask somebody to develop a 3D engine (Papervision), use an API for the geolocalization service (Yahoo!) and find some fancy icons (Fasticon). The result? Some heavy coverage on world’s largest tech blogs:
Keep that in mind, all you web design agencies out there. Don’t spend your money on ads, just go creative with Twitter and let the blogosphere do the rest.
Written on 4th February 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
More than fifty Israeli start-ups will travel to Barcelona next week to present their products on the upcoming Mobile World Congress. Ok, it’s an impressing number yet not spectacular news. Though what surprised me is the way they cooperate at the conference. 
The companies have invested a total of 600,000 euros to build an Israeli lounge. Our WebTipr in Israel Yaniv Solnik emailed me why the start-ups are doing this: “They want to utilize the power of the togetherness in the Israeli mobile scene”.
The Israeli-get-together is organized by the Israel Mobile and Communications Association (IMA). On their site, they invite us all to show up at the lounge where ‘one of the world’s most innovative countries’ presents ‘the most creative companies’.
They want to utilize the power of the togetherness in the Israeli mobile scene
Sounds like the Israeli mobile scene is not afraid to invest in the image of their country. Smart move, especially since the image of the Israeli start-up culture is likely to get hurt by the rumors about Knocka’s problems to find funding. Knocka is an Internet television network that was started by the legendary founders of ICQ, who hyped their product to extreme proportions. Last week an article about Knocka employees leaving the company was published on the Israeli news site The Marker. If Israel’s to-watch start-up of 2008 is really going into a quiet death, an image boost for the country wouldn’t hurt.
Aside from the remark that it probably compensates the bad publicity around Knocka, it still might be a good idea to promote your country’s start-up culture. Could European countries learn from this campaign? If you’re able to hype your homeland, investors and users are likely get a positive association with any start-up coming from your country. Just like start-ups from the Valley have some sort of instant credibility. Nationalism 2.0 might actually work.
[WebTipr: Yaniv Solnik, Israel]
Written on 28th January 2008
2 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
A few minutes ago Valley Insider reported that Helio ‘founding CEO Sky Dayton is stepping down’ and ‘President/COO Wonhee Sull is being promoted to CEO’ and ended a very short blog with ‘More details coming’. I decided to mail Helio PR and ask them ‘Is it true? Sky Dayton steps down as CEO?’. Within 1 minute I received a reply:
No that is not correct. Sky has been promoted to the chairman of Helio’s board of directors. Our current President & COO has been promoted to the CEO role.
Nobody is stepping down, everybody is moving up! No news here folks, move along. So is Valley Insider making things seem worse then they are or is is Helio turning 1 negative (Dayton stepping down) into 2 positives (Dayton moving up, Sull too!).
I guess we will never know…
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