Archive for September, 2010

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To all my haters; Now you can hate me in real time in the world’s first reality video TV game show, The Prank House! By hermione on Thursday September 30th, 2010   13 comments

From the 18th -24th October I’ll be heading to LA to take part in the world’s first ever reality video game played through an app, called The Prank House.

Once you’ve downloaded the app you will be able to shoot me with real paintball guns, drive remote control cars, release animals, drop water bombs and also shock me, plus an impressive lineup of YouTube celebs including; Charles Trippy, Shay Carl, Onision, Mr. Safety, Peter Chao, and Wheezy Waiter, who will debut the game’s first season.

You will be able to do this from the comfort your home computer wherever in the world that may be, seeing us suffer at all times as ten different rooms in the house can be viewed 24/7 on 35 live cameras.

The Game is a live streaming reality show similar to Big Brother with one major twist: the audience controls the show. Anyone with an internet connection can literally manipulate robotic devices planted all over the house and compete alongside the YouTube Celebrities.This isn’t a type of reality show you watch, it’s a reality show you play.

Prank House’s “Freemium” monetization model takes a page out of the Farmville playbook – users can download the game for free and then buy tokens to control different types of robotic pranks in the house. The Prank House is a new concept designed to allow you as the viewer to interact with — and influence — the outcome of the daily competitions, making it the world’s first reality video game. Taran Chadha and Brigham White, the game’s creators, have a goal of taking the internet’s virtual world and making it real.

“I think everyone has always known that this is where the internet’s going.” says  the show’s producer Brig White “It’s like mixing Survivor and Halo up together.”

The self made stars will be under constant surveillance and be completely subject to the whims of the internet. The game introduces an entirely new way for YouTube fans to interact with their favorite YouTubers. In all, over 40 different “web-leberties” will make appearances in the house over the course of Season One. The contestants compete in various competitions, all the while being “pranked” by people at home over 35 live streaming cameras.

Prank House launches October 4th of this year with an all-star lineup of YouTube celebrities who will actually live and compete in a 10,000 square foot house in California.

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The iPhone4 gets a new stylish eco-friendly cover, exclusively made by Prophetik + Griffin Technology at London Fashion Week! By Chloe on Wednesday September 29th, 2010   5 comments

At this year’s London Fashion Week we were lucky enough catch Prophetik’s show where Griffin Technology has partnered up with designer Jeff Garner to produce an exclusive iPhone4 cover made entirely out of leather off-cuts and natural dyes.

It was great to see how the fusion of fashion, technology and design can create something effortlessly stylish, yet still remain ethically branded and encourage other designers, from all creative industries, to use sustainable materials in the future. You can watch the full video report below:

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Facebook developers check into Places in London By Chloe on Tuesday September 28th, 2010   8 comments

Last week saw London’s developer community gather for the September edition of the London Facebook Developers Garage. With the launch of Facebook Places in the UK there was lots of chatter around location and gaming. Best to follow their Facebook group for latest news.

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Think it all happens in Silicon Valley? You’re wrong! – Stateless Systems By LaurenBarber on Tuesday September 28th, 2010   3 comments

Australia; it’s not just about sandy beaches, beers and bbqs, Melbourne (and Sydney) have thriving digital and tech communities and this month, entrepreneur and technology journalist Hermione Way and her team at Techflufftv will be exploring the startup scene interviewing the hottest startups for The Next Web Australia’s Melbourne Silicon Beach Series.

Sponsored by Kodak, Silicon Beach Australia and The Next Web, Techfluff.tv decided to delve a little deeper into Melbourne’s startup scene and video interviewed ten of these companies.

This week we caught up with Robert Barnes from Stateless Systems.

Robert talk to us about their world renown products RetailMeNot, BugMeNot and Trendsmap, and what its like working in the Melbourne tech community.

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Video: Silly idea or clever way to make $3m? Million Dollar Homepage founder on his new idea By LaurenBarber on Tuesday September 28th, 2010   1 comment

Hermione Way caught up with Alex Tew this week, who has just launched his new project. Watch the interview below:

This weekend I caught up with serial entrepreneur Alex Tew, founder of Million Dollar Homepage, the site that gained world-wide attraction in 2005 and made him $1million, who last week launched his latest project One Million People - a site where, for $3 people can add their profile to the virtual book which, once full at a million faces, will be printed for you to buy as a real coffee-table book for people to keep as a slice of digital history.

Since Million Dollar Homepage, Alex has launched a number of projects including PopJam, The Facebook Conga and a version of ChatRoulette called Internet Conga Line.

In this candid interview I ask him what his response is to people who are quick to call his ideas silly and what his plans are for the future.

Alex Tew launches new project from The Next Web on Vimeo.

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Get your head out of ‘the cloud’ because FOWA is back and better than ever! By Chloe on Monday September 27th, 2010   1 comment

In case you’ve had your head in ‘the cloud’ recently, Future of Web Apps is back next week!

This year FOWA 2010, produced by the lovely folks over at Carsonified, promises to to be even bigger and better than ever, with three full days dedicated to essential web learning. Hot topics include developing for the cloud, geolocation and you can hear from some of the web’s giants including Google, Facebook, PayPal, Playfish and Mozilla.

Get your tickets here.

Last year, The Kevin and Gary Show made its first appearance and our very own Hermione Way took part in a unique dating experience, when ”Kanye” managed to show up at the last minute and interrupt. Watch the video below:

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Think it all happens in Silicon Valley? You’re wrong! – Adioso By LaurenBarber on Thursday September 23rd, 2010   3 comments

Australia; it’s not just about sandy beaches, beers and bbqs, Melbourne (and Sydney) have thriving digital and tech communities and this month, entrepreneur and technology journalist Hermione Way and her team at Techflufftv will be exploring the startup scene interviewing the hottest startups for The Next Web Australia’s Melbourne Silicon Beach Series.

Sponsored by Kodak, Silicon Beach Australia and The Next Web,Techfluff.tv decided to delve a little deeper into Melbourne’s startup scene and video interviewed ten of these companies.

This week we caught up with Tom Howard and Fenn Bailey from Adioso.

Adioso is an ex Y Combinator company and was a runner up in the 2009 The Next Web Australia “Plain Cool” Award!

Tom and Fenn talk to us about what makes their flight and price search engine different and how they were able to get funding for their great concept.

Stay tuned for next week as we will bring you an interview from Stateless Systems.

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Newspepper is proud to be media partners of media140! Get your tickets for their great event now! By LaurenBarber on Thursday September 23rd, 2010   5 comments

Our sister company, Newspepper.com, is now proud to be media partners of media140! media140 is a worldwide social media community that tries to help other organizations understand the potential of social technologies by offering conferences, workshops, hands on training and consultancy. They try to stay one step ahead of the ever evolving technology world by having a team of well-networked individuals from leading media outlets, universities, agencies and brands who link together to have real discussions. A really cool thing about media140 is their philanthropic nature – they donate a percentage of their profits from each regional conference to a local charity.

Their event calendar can be found here, where you can also purchase tickets to some of their upcoming events. On the 21st of October, they are hosting a conference called “Dataconomy – exploring how you make data work for you” in London, where you can learn how to combat the challenge of turning data into commercial gain legally and ethically. Engage in a discussion with developers, designers and journalists to really discover how to make data work best for you!

Check out this video interview with media140′s founder Ande Gregson:

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The FT gets serious about online video with the launch of a new video studio By hermione on Thursday September 23rd, 2010   5 comments

On Tuesday I went to the FT video bloggers meetup to see the new TV studio the FT have built to ramp up their online video content. Why, you might ask, have they built an entire TV studio for the delivery of online video when online video is supposed to have low production costs?

Well they want a dedicated space to produce high end, quality content, to deliver to their video demographic, who are often consuming news on iPads and are non-surprisingly younger than for the paper .

The 147 year-old newspaper, now calls itself a ‘news organization’, having delved heavily into the medium of the Internet, and now, after three years of delivering online video, the FT is serious about taking it to the next level with the iPhone app which plays video, on it’s way. Although they are quite a walled garden when it comes to sharing their content (you can not embed their videos), Impressively they are experimenting with Flip-type cameras if a camera crew cannot be supplied to the journalist on the ground. #ftmeetups This was shot on my iPhone4.

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Seedcamp 2010 – Words with the winners! By LaurenBarber on Tuesday September 21st, 2010   4 comments

The 12 winners of Europe’s biggest startup competition, Seedcamp, were announced in London at the UCL on Friday. Each winner will get an investment of €50,000 (£41,800) in return for a stake of up to 10% of their company and will now move to London for a three to four month incubation program.

This year’s Seedcamp, now in it’s third year, was bigger than ever with 900 applicants from all over Europe and even further afield in Tel Aviv and South Africa who battled it out in a localized mini Seedcamp with the chance to make it to London for the week long investor showdown just gone.

2010 winners:

• FinanceACar.co.uk: “the world’s first car finance comparison website”
• Editd: “We forecast trends accurately, quickly and visually”
• Nuji: “Social shopping platform allowing mobile interaction”
• Trebax: “Pairing brands with games and other media for advertising”
• Garmz: “Platform for upcoming fashion designers”
• Wordy: “Web application for professional copy-editing”
• GIS Cloud: “World’s first freemium geographic information system”
• Ineze: “Finds best-matching products using structured decision engine”
• Profitero: “Sales analytics monitoring competitors’ information”
• Sparkeo: “Enables businesses to makes sales of expert video”
• Uberblic: “Data integration service for web and enterprise data”
• Albia: “Delivers a range of software for business solutions

Interviews with some of this year’s winners:Garmz and Nadim Saad from FinanceACar.co.uk

Seedcamp 2010 Winners: Garmz.com – Finance a car from The Next Web on Vimeo.

Alexander Wheldon of Trebax Innovations, followed by Dean and Vincent of Nuji.

Seedcamp 2010 Winners: Trebax – Nuji from The Next Web on Vimeo.

Dino Ravnic and Marco Santic of Omnisdata (the people behind GIS CLoud) followed by Alex Sevastianov of Albia.

Seedcamp 2010 Winners: Omnisdata – Albia from The Next Web on Vimeo.

Gil Rozenborg of Ineze, followed by Frederich Aknin of Sparkeo (apologies to Sparkeo for the incorrect spelling of their name in the video).

Seedcamp 2010 Winners: Sparkia.com – Ineze from The Next Web on Vimeo.

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