ArcticIndex – Database of Nordic startups Launches into Beta
ArcticIndex is the name of the Nordic Crunchbase that the guys at Arctic Startup have been working on. The site has now launched into public beta.
Right now anyone can register to add companies and people. The AS team with their development partner Kisko Labs have a good roadmap for future services, they are launching slowly.
I think ArcticIndex is a really great service that I will definitely use. I’m looking forward to two features that will make the service a whole lot useful.
- sorting of companies (and people) by type of business and geographically (which would mean no more updating of the List of Finnish Startups for me, Yay!)
- embedding of profiles open for anybody. They are now only using them on Arctic Startup, but it would make the service even more attractive if other sites could do this as well.
Every Nordic startup should right now go and add their data to ArcticIndex. But that doesn’t mean that they should neglect CrunchBase or TradeVibes.
Finnish Muxlim Launches World’s First Virtual World for Muslims
Muxlim, the world’s largest online community, and is based in Finland, has launched the world’s first virtual world for muslims, Muxlim Pal. As the name implies, the virtual world wants to be the user’s virtual friend instead of a virtual representation of the user.
Muxlim Pal, which is “currently in prototype for testing purposes” was designed by Finnish digital agency FWD Helsinki and developed by Muxlim and Mahtava Development. The world is a browser based flash application with a 3D-illusion environment, i.e gives an impression of being a 3D-application without really being one. I have to agree that the technical implementation was a wise choice as 3D in flash is really primitive at the moment.
As far as can be seen from the screenshots, Muxlim Pal reminds me of Habbo, but with some uniquely muslim features. The characters are not as pixel-perfect as the surroundings, furniture and other items. But the isometric view gives a very Habbo-like feeling. From the screenshots i gather that Muxlim will make their money from virtual goods: clothers and furniture for the user’s to decorate their pal’s rooms.
From their press release:
Muxlim Pal allows users to create their own virtual friend who has a personal room within the world. Both can be customised, enhanced, decorated and developed by following certain actions or purchasing accessories and items. Muxlim Pal also permits brands to advertise their own products, as well as interact with users in different parts of the world.
Finnish startups: Add Yourself To CrunchBase, Now
I know that the ArcticStartup guys are developing their own version of CrunchBase to cover Nordic and Baltic companies, but Finnish startups can and should add their information to CrunchBase right now.
CrunchBase is a free database of startup information developed by TechCrunch. CrunchBase is propably the best database available for public information on startup and it’s a shame that most Finnish startups have neglected the service.One of the features they have is the ability to grab company information in widget form that I would like to use on this blog, if there only would be more Finnish startups listed there.
So, Finnish startups, if you haven’t done anything to increase your visibility today, go and add your company to CrunchBase right now. And then add yourselves to another similar service, TradeVibes too. No excuses, just do it! You’ll thank yourself later.
TechCrunch Brunch: Two Important Lessons
Yesterday I attended the TechCrunchBrunch which was organized as a side-event for the Slush conference. The event consisted of two panel discussions hosted by TechCrunch UK‘s Mike Butcher and networking. All in all the event was really good – well organized and the content was excellent.
A live video of the event was streamed by Floobs to Techcrunch. They now have a 30minute video of the highlights. If you want a full description of the discussion, Arctic Startup’s Miikka did a good job in liveblogging the event.
Below are two of the most important topics that came up in the discussions.
Business location is not important, focusing to the global market is
You can create a startup anywhere nowadays. No VC will anymore demand you to move to Silicon Valley, but it is important for startups to have a foothold in a place such as London, where startups and VC:s can easily come together.
Startups in general have not been really good at aquiring new users. One should not rely on a viral effect that comes from your product being really good. Finnish startups would need help in their marketing efforts for 1) gaining more users 2) developing their business.
A solid business plan will make life in a startup much easier. Companies should try to avoid getting funding as long as possible, so that when they do need it they are in a better position to negotiate with vc’s.
The government in Finland, as in many European countries, is very helpful for early stage startups by providing funding. However they usually demand that a startup proves themselves in the Finnish market first and later try to take over the world. This logic guides Finnish startups into the wring direction. Many panelists agreed that startups must be created to the global market from the beginning in order for them to succeed there.
The team is really important in getting funded
The problem in Finnish startups have, is that their management is too junior. The VC’s put their money on the team. They must believe, that the team is capable and experienced enough to succeed in any situation. This is even more true in these depressing times we live in.
Startups can be founded by young people, but they should try to recruit experienced people before they try to get funding. This is something Finnish startups have not realized yet.
Fruugo coming out today at Sime
Fruugo, the secretive and ambitious Finnish startup that I was the first one to blog about a year ago, is finally today revealing more details of their offering at the SIME08 conference in Stockholm. Arctic Startup already got some information from Fruugo beforehand. Apparently the rumors of their huge layoffs are pretty much exaggerated.
I’m looking forward into seeing some screenshots of the service later today or hopefully testing the service myself in the near future.
For background information on the company, see my extensive previous coverage on Fruugo.
Google’s Margin On AdSense Clicks: 21%
Google announced their third quarter results yesterday. (more on the subject on Techmeme) From the information in the press release everyone can count the margin they are making from AdSense, their advertising platform for external sites (such as this one).
Adsense revenue for Q3 was $1.45 billion. From this amount, Google paid to AdSense partners $1.33Billion. Thus their (average) margin for AdSense is 20.83%, which is slightly higher than the Q2 margin 20.48%.
The increase in the margin comes from either: 1) they charge more from advertisers or 2) pay less to the AdSense partners. Which is it? As my Adsense revenue is marginal, I cannot tell fro myself. Do you have any further information on this? Please comment below.
The List Of Finnish Web Startups
Ever since I started blogging about Finnish web startups, I’ve wanted to get my hands on a list of all of them. That obviously didn’t exist, so I had to compile it myself. I’ve compiled the list from various sources, mainly this blog and Arctic Startup. At this point the list will of course not contain all of the finnish web startups, just the ones I’m aware of. If you know a startup missing from the list, please leave a note in the comments or by using this form.
Also, if you can come up with an easy, but efficient way to bring the updating of the list into the public domain, please comment below.
The List of Finnish Web Startups
Read more…
Floobs Integrates With Kotisivukone
Floobs, the Finnish startup that enables users to create their own live TV channels on the web or mobile has integrated its services into Kotisivukone. Kotisivukone is another Finnish startup who make creating websites really easy (Their name is Finnish for Home Page Machine). Their users can now easily add Floobs channels to their pages through a component.
The integration is done through Floobs’s API that is designed to make the integrations easy. Earlier the API has been used to integrate with Petsie, a social network for pets. Floobs will continue to focus in integrating their service to other sites. The API is open to the public and so far has also a custom module for Content Management System Joomla.
100000 Visits To Google Minus Google
Six weeks ago I read an article in the NYT about Google becoming a media company. I wanted to contribute to the discussion about Google emphasizing their own sites in search results. So I created Google minus Google, a search engine that uses Google to get the search results, but filters out all links to Google-owned sites.
The site has found quite an audience and yesterday Google minus Google reached 100000 visits, which is a whole lot more than I thought of when creating the service.
The visits come from around 80 thousand or so unique users and in total there has been more than 128 thousand searches. After all of the huge PR the service got (NYT, Lifehacker, CNET, the Register, Nu.nl and more than 300 blogs), the daily number of visitors has declined, but the usage per user has been increasing all the way.
It’s not a surprise that many people who enter the site for the first time have tried it if the service really works, therefore most of the top searches relate to Google. In total there have been 55 000 different queries. It’s interesting that a huge portion of those are names, which could mean that people are really interested only in themselves.
20 most popular queries on Google minus Google
| 3652 | |
| youtube | 3182 |
| test | 1140 |
| knol | 615 |
| lol | 325 |
| gmail | 231 |
| porn | 211 |
| you tube | 164 |
| orkut | 163 |
| riemurasia | 155 |
| video | 126 |
| sex | 124 |
| diet coke and mentos | 120 |
| blogger | 119 |
| novophone | 106 |
| miseta.net | 91 |
| nu | 87 |
| “armeense genocide” | 86 |
| maps | 83 |
| asd | 80 |
Please try Google minus Google, if you haven’t tried it before.
SIME Finland: A Short Review And Photos
SIME Finland that was held yesterday was really well organized and the atmosphere was great. However, the actual content of the presentations could have been better. I’ve had the chance to hear most of the Finnish speakers already, but the non-Finns were interesting.
I’m not quite sure if anyone got anything concrete out of Scandinavia’s top internet conference’s endeavour into Finland as the presentations were quite general. But if they’re organizing it again next year, I’ll definitely be there. As I will be in Stockholm in November, too.
A recap of the presentations can be found at the SIME Blog.
P.S I was supposed to do some semi-live-blogging from the conference, but the curse of all conferences, crappy wifi ruined my plans.
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