Gogelmogel

Congrats to Yedda.com - Sold to AOL (undisclosed price)

Yaron has just reported about it - and it's great news, since Yedda (Questions & Answers service with a strong differentiating natural language technology) was one of the veteran Israeli web stratups of the web2.0 era.
Over the last year they have extended their original Q&A service into a platform that can be plugged to partner websites. This was an essential part of their latest growth.

Besides that, good people + strong tech skills + deep understanding of the anatomy of a web service + belief = success.

I've been using Yedda myself over the last year - starting as a replacement to my previous "Experts Exchange" account and later on as a daily tool for finding answers about software and tech tips.

(Tags: yedda, m&a, israel web2.0, aol, questions & answers)

TWS 2007 - Israeli Web Startups Roundup - this week

Stuffed from Passover cakes and foods, many of us will go this Tuesday (10.4) to the TWS 2007 event in Tel Aviv, which will headline a contest round of 10 selected web startups and a typical networking cocktail.

It's organised by the nice lads at The Co.ils (the Israeli equivalent of Techcrunch and Vecosys), and according to the email invitation, almost 100 investors supposed to be there. The Co.ils honchos Yaron and Yami worked hard on this event in the last 3 months, interviewing dozens of projects and focusing the show on practical tech/biz talk, with the broadest lineup of relevant attendees. That's basically the first real comprehensive Web 2.0 Startups conference in Israel (as much as i know:).

The 10 finalists include some quite known names in the scene alongside new projects, and were chosen off 60 candidates.
They are:

• iGiza - web 2.0 solutions for MLM. I don't really like MLM, but will be interesting to see their product.
• The Weebz Family - stealth...no site, no idea what is it, but sounds like some avatar/IM/second life thing.
• G.ho.st - Virtual computer, Online OS (like YouOS). The site has a working demo, so go check out.
• Hingi - audio recognition engine to drive impulse purchase of music from TV/Radio broadcasts . Like Shazam, supposed to have a better engine.
• MatchMyPet - social network for pet lovers. Well...Dogster was a success, so this vertical has a potential. The site design has to be upgraded though..
• Double Trump - stealth...sounds like something with finance/investments.
• Telecut - no site. Yet another voip service?
• Urbanseeder - Offline/online flirting experience, see my past overview . Actually I had an idea recently how it can become even useful for indecent proposals...might write on this later on.
• ClickTale - web metrics with deep user behaviour analysis.  I just wrote about them some days ago. Good product concept.
• The Flat Panel Phone Co. - Web based IP telephony solution for SMB's. Something like a self managed IP PBX, with added web features and simplicity for SMB's. It's SIP based, using Asterix.

Interesting list, but to be honest I was a bit surprised not to find there names like Desktopize (which I find a great concept), Ceedo (portable personal desktop) or Semantinet (semantic frameworks for data) - all are startups with profound horizontality and good potential, in my view. But maybe it was open only to non-funded projects.

(Update - They actually didn't apply for the event, and it was open for everyone. See Yaron's comment below).

Giza VC are prime sponsors, but the coolest are probably the guy(s) from Eurekamp...also Deb Schultz, whom I met in Kinnernet, will head the judges panel.

 

	Freeland - Mind Killer
	"Now and Them" album
avalanching guitars and breaks

(Tags: tws2007, thecoils, israel, web2.0, startup, giza vc, deborah schultz)

ClickTale Heatmaps on TechMeme - Nice!

Was cool to see that the news from ClickTale lads about their new Heatmaps service reached the first page of TechMeme on April 3rd.

I was anxious to sign to their beta phase after hearing 2 insightful discussion at Eurekamp, and it looks like one of the most promising tools for webmasters.
Kudos to Tal and Arik.

(Tags: clicktale, heatmaps,  web stats, web metrics, google analytics, eurekamp, techmeme)

Fleck goes live

So Fleck is now finally launched, following the TechCrunch post.

See it in action now -> just click this button  - to add a stylish note for this page.

As I've written before, I see the main "killer" aspect that can drive adoption in the Fleckroll list (which is currently called "examples" list, but could really be developed into something more central).

People who Fleck pages would do it again if they know their flecks get the headlines, even if for just 30 secs. That's the Digg factor that drives users to keep generating content, resulting in stickiness.

And Fleck does it very nicely, with a great creative UI. Boris tells me that a "most recent " filter will be added shortly, so you can see the latest flecks  around the web.

Read more:
TechCrunch
Chimney - with Video tour

Fleck this post

(Tags: fleck, digg, stickiness, web2.0)

	Kelley Polar - The Rooms in My House Have Many Parties
	Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens
Magnificent bleepy tech house with violin stabs

Fleck echoes the Digg stickiness factor

Fleck is officially launching tomorrow, but meanwhile It’s the 2nd day I’m playing with the beta, and I found myself excited to keep “pumping” it
(or in a naughtier expression - Flecking on URLs butts :)

Just like with Digg, Fleck got that elusive “stickiness” factor, which tickles your urge to feed content.

They are different services, each has its own focus, but I feel that Fleck is following Digg with the ability to tap precisely on the emotional element behind “commenting” , “annotating” or “voting” :

Give people a great way to express themselves and to immediately see how others are reacting.

When you manage to crystallize this experience, people usually come again and again, since we all want to voice ourselves when we know others will see it, even if it’s for 1 min. We all want a headline with our name...And here Fleck is even going further than Digg – check it out tomorrow when it goes live - I'll post here a link.

2 more cool features in Fleck are hinted in my previous post as well (one of my fav Blog Sonics there...).

(Tags: fleck, digg, stickiness, web2.0)

	Playgroup - Number One (Blackstrobe instrumental)
	Doin' It After Dark Vol. 1
Marschmellow electro-house glitter!

Fleck beta rocks - launching on the 16th

Just got invited to jiggle with Fleck - a new wicked service from the Dutch Web 2.0 incubator Meganova. I had a chance to meet with the founders Patrick and Boris some time ago - cool and creative guys, with a deep understanding of the web experience.

The official launch will be on the 16th, at the Techcrunch New York fest (I guess) - and in the meantime the project is in semi-stealth mode.

But here are some first thoughts after playing with it:

• It has a very cool "horizontality" feel - Fleck wraps around your web browsing very smoothly and simply.
• Great UI - I think these guys really managed to pioneer a new concept in web 2.0 UI. It's not totally brand new, but the implementation is exceptional in my opinion.
• Home page has stickyness - it's not trivial to make the first page sticky, but it can be a huge factor. There's more to improve later, but the "urge to check" is there.

Business model? hmm...not sure if I got it, but hey - we're here for fun :)

(Tags: fleck, horizontal web2.0, horizontal web, innovative UI)

	Inner City - Big Fun (Agoria Mix)
	Big Fun - The Remixes
Bubbling techno splashed with retro warmth

Starting to post short bytes on Horizontal Web 2.0

Wait.

It's not going to be another Web 2.0 reporting session on every new fledgling slogan website with a nice water mirror effect logo and serious declarations. There are so many others that do it better and even like it apparently.

But one day when I was thinking to myself "do I have anything to say on Web 2.0?", I kinda figured out it would be related to horizontal services one way or ther other. The reason? simple:

• Too much vertical websites are being spawned each minute.
• Too many of them don't renew anything, except for the UI sometimes.
• Too many are boring.

So horizontal isn't the new magic buzz word to wear for trendy tech discussions, it rather captures my interest more than the usual stuff. 

Ah, another thing - Mashups are cool, but they aren't the focus here. Unless something really cool will come.

What's on the pipe, then?

Well, I'll start with some notes I had on the lost unsefulness behind mega aggregators like Popurls.com, then put some highlight on a very cool local project called Bubbles, which I find to be a very refreshing and extremely usable idea. Then more little thingies I hope to find :)

(Tags: horizontal web2.0, web2.0, web 2.0, horizontal web)