CandidCapital

Why is it so much harder for UK web start-ups to get massive attention from the media & blogosphere than start-ups in Silicon Valley?

Rory Cellan-Jones' blog post yesterday about the challenges that UK tech start-ups face getting attention, relative to those in Silicon Valley, got me thinking about the differences between the UK and US.

Technorati Tags: start-ups Silicon Valley Robert Scoble Rory Cellan-Jones dot.Rory foursquare

Re-posted from Tom Foremski in Silicon Valley Watcher:

Georges van Hoegaerden from The Venture Company pokes some fun at venture capitalists trying to look good while industry tackles some hard truths...

The following extracts are from: VC roast; how to take Venture for a ride:

Technorati Tags: VC venture credit crunch financial services technology

The music industry needs innovative business and service models to meet the needs of consumers who are fickle, demanding and, unfortunately, used to content that's free - including digital music. Shouldn't the industry be speaking with one voice as legislators tussle over the Digital Economy Bill?

All music free?

Technorati Tags: Music 4.5 Digital Economy Bill TechCrunch Mike Butcher copyright Psonar

David Sainsbury, the former Science & Innovation Minister, visited the Design Council earlier this month to attend a seminar looking at the impact of design on technology businesses. Blimp considers the lessons that Lord Sainsbury might take away from the seminar.

Technorati Tags: innovation design investment David Sainsbury Design Council technology

I was lucky to spend five days last week at MIDEM, the international music conference held in Cannes.

Apparently, the state of the conference reflected that of the industry - 8,000 delegates this year compared 12,000 last.

The overriding concerns expressed in all the keynotes and panel sessions were:

• How to monetize digital distribution of music (or what to do if this is not longer, or is less, possible).
• How to engage fans and persuade them to spend money on other music services to compensate for the decline in recorded music revenues.
• In this new landscape how the "food chain" (especially the labyrinthine rights structure) can adapt to enable new revenue streams to grow.
  
  
  Technorati Tags: MIDEM music copyright file sharing digital labels

UK venture capital investment activity - investment in early-stage companies - fell in 2008 to its lowest level for three years. Despite the Government's announcement of the £150M UK Innovation Fund in June this year, it is the culmination of a process in which investors have become increasingly disillusioned with UK venture investment. This three part post seeks to expose the factors that have led to this disillusionment and to ask whether there is a credible future for commercial, early-stage venture investment or is it destined to remain a public sector activity. Part 1 looks at the role and legacy of 3i in UK venture capital.

From the Foundation of ICFC to Present Day 3i

Technorati Tags: UK venture capital technology investment 3i

It's a nerve-wracking business; waiting to see whether a new web service can grow virally!

We started to open up the Psonar website to users from the wild last week (perhaps not-so-wild, since most had come via mailing to our own and friends' Facebook contacts). Nonetheless, the majority are users whom we don't know directly and who haven't been aware of Psonar previously.

We've been letting them in in batches, typically 50 at a time, to make sure that we don't overwhelm the system and can identify and rectify any problems without a catastrophic loss of service. The data looks encouraging:

Technorati Tags: Psonar Amazon EC2 Friendster Skype Web 2.0 Sarah Lacy

Is the digital divide really about access to the internet or is it more about what you do when you get there?

I had a week's holiday on South Uist (one of the Scottish Western Isles) earlier this month.

Alice, my 16 year old daughter, was vocal in her fear of finding no internet access when we arrived. Fortunately our hosts turned out to be subscribers to Hebrides.Net - the ISP for the Western Isles that uses fixed wireless links to provide a 2Mbps DSL-like broadband service. I also was relieved to find that we would be connected.

Technorati Tags: Facebook Twitter Psonar Perez Hilton

Every Web 2.0 start-up needs to get user traction - after all building a website built on user generated content, needs users who want to contribute.

Technorati Tags: Web2.0 Touching the Void Twitter Facebook MySpace

Blimp reveals all - starting the ultimate music management service.

In my last post Gamekeeper to Poacher, I promised to reveal the start-up that I'm doing. It's called Psonar and it's the ultimate personal music management service.

Technorati Tags: music management iTunes discover save