wisequeen.com

#scs09 Swiss startup camp Basel

I promised to take you to the Swiss startup camp in Basel this weekend.
The day kicked off with a really excellent keynote talk/interview of Suhas Gopinath CEO and president of Globals Inc a multi-million dollar international company that he started at the age of fourteen without any money in India and took global.
His truly inspirational story of how he used his pocket money to fund his first proposals in business at his local internet cafe because did not even have access to a computer had everyone enthralled.
Suhas Gopinath born in Bangalore, started his company at 14yrs old in 2000. He founded in San Jose California as the law did not allow him to set up in India. His story was trully inspirational. I asked him in question time where he got the guts from to approach and even take on big business at that young age, and he answered he had the courage of a young man who took the chance because no wasn’t an option.
Mr Gopinath was announced as the Young Global Leader for 2008-2009 by the World Economic Forum Davos. In this position he would be involved in development programs around the world, and would be studying leadership at Harvard University. He is the youngest Young Global leader in WEF history.

WATCH THE VIDEO OF HIS INTERVIEW at #scs09.

Watch FB video Startups networking at the event

Startups then gave their pitches and then presented in sessions on different subjects of which I was one, and I presented on “Personal Branding The face of your company”.
Successful Start-ups from 2008 were present Wuala, Poken and Amazee all of whom I wrote about as startups here, attended the event. Poken did great business selling their poken for eveyone to connect with. Tech Bloggers were in attendance and will no doubt blog on the event. Many Tweets were sent from the event #scs09 on Twitter.

It was a productive day with Nicolas Berg of Red Alpine who I interviewed here on wisequeen.com and other startup Angel investors presenting on what angel investors want from startups. Many meetings and much networking took place. The food and facilities were great, as was the wifi. People came from all over Switzerland, myself from Italy and some from nereby Germany. Thanks to all the sponsors and to Amazee, Sun microsystems and Amiando for the organization.
Leave a comment or ask a question.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.

Swiss start up camp with Amazee

I have been a tweeter for some time now and as anyone who has read my blog much knows, love start ups. I will be attending the Swiss start up camp organised by Amazee who I have written about before here, along with Patrick of Sun microsystems and other sponsors, on the 31st of January. Writing this post on the Cisalpino is proving too tricky, so watch this space..
Twitter dinner in Zurich 19th Jan 2009.

Here’s the FB group if you haven’t registered yet
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.I

The winners at the Crunchies

So here are the results. I voted twitter and they won in the mobile cat. FB did it again

The Crunchies

Have you voted for the best tech company, app or start up, in the annual Crunchies tech awards due to take place on Friday the 9th in California? Today is the last day to vote. Last years winner was Facebook who have revolutionised social media. This year my money is on Twitter that I have written about so often here on www.wisequeen.com, Check out my account. I’m betting that the idea exchange and usefulness of Twitter will see it change the way we communicate interpersonally and within the corporate world. Get a twitter account.
Update: Crunchies
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

2009 this year is mine!

I’m feeling postive about this brand new year. Perhaps it’s because 2008 was the year of suckification for me and many of my nearest and dearest. So despite all the doom and gloom and dire predictions, I’m sending positive vibes your way. This year there will be some great reading to be had here on wisequeen.com on those who innovate in Tech and web 2.0, so don’t miss out.
Donna Jackson
Social communications Specialist

Wuala Swiss Tech success

I first met Wuala and one of the founding partners Dominik Grolimund ( shown here talking to Scoble) at a Techcrunch Bluewin startup event in Zurich that I was blogging live at (yes I can do that, have Swisscom roaming and it works well.) I wrote on wuala at the time and other startups.
I have since written about and interviewed many Swisstech successes

My first hurdle was understanding the name in the striking red and white Wuala logo. It’s the phonetic spelling of Voilà ( French meaning, here it is.) And is pronounced exactly as you see it.
So there you are. I spoke to Dominik presenting his startup there at the Bluewin Swisscom,Techcrunch event and asked him about the competitior box.net and about his startup, a social storage solution too, which he told me was going to be bigger and better than box.com.
Well the Wuala launch party with the friendly team in Zurich of Oona, Sushi Domink and the rest of the team of seven, I missed, as I had broken my leg, but since then the rise of Wuala has seen no end.
30,478,784 files securely stored in Wuala.
A string of start up awards:

The lift08 conf venture award watch wuala presentation video

Recently announced by ReadWriteWeb as one of the
Top 10 International Products of 2008

Finalist in #leweb startups 07 And mentioned as a startup success at 2008 #leweb by TechcrunchUK’s Mike Butcher.

#leweb photo Andre Ribeirinho

So what exactly is Wuala?

Wuala is a mesh/cloud/P2P storage system which harnesses the idle resources of participating users and thus provides a sound solution as there are no file size limits and no bandwidth limits. This is an improvement on other systems that Dominik spoke to me about. This is essentially your own on-line hardisk where you can store photos, files, contacts or whatever, safely and ready to access.

Developed at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). Dominik Grolimund and Luzius Meisser started research and development on Wuala at ETH Zurich in 2004. In alpha mode it was tested for three years with many communities.
In 2007, they founded their company, Caleido Inc.
The BETA Wuala launched in August 2008.

Wuala, the social online storage
Features content from wuala site:

Voilà, here comes Wuala! Securely store and back up files online, access them from anywhere, and share your photos, videos, and music with friends and family.

Join Wuala today and experience a new dimension of storing and sharing files - free, simple, and secure.

Features
Security

Privacy
Like you, we care about privacy. That’s why privacy is a key aspect of Wuala. All files get encrypted on your computer and you control who has access to which folders. Since your password never leaves your computer, no one else - including us - can see your private files.

Unlimited and fast

Lots of storage
You start with 1 GB of storage for free, but you can get much more! You can either trade unused local disk space for more online storage (e.g., trade 50 GBs on your computer to get up to 50 GBs of online storage), or buy additional storage at a really good price. With Wuala, you can easily get as much room as you need for all your photos, documents, and videos.

Unlimited traffic
Wuala does not limit your traffic in any way. You can upload and download as much as you want and downloads are very fast. Amazing? Sure - our novel technology makes it possible.

Any file, any size
You can upload any file of any size. Be it a 100 KB Word file, a 2 MB JPG photo, or a 3 GB video.

Fast downloads
Downloads in Wuala are fast. Why? Thanks to our storage grid technology you can download from multiple sources in parallel, providing you with maximum download speed.

Convenience

Drag and drop
Simply drag and drop the files or folders you want to upload into Wuala. Done. No “choose file” dialogs, no single selections.

Desktop and web
Convenience is important to us. Wuala is not a clumsy website where you need to upload files one by one, but it’s a desktop client where you can drag-and-drop and upload files in the background. Nevertheless, Wuala can be started from the web, making it easy to run anywhere.

Integrated into Windows, Mac, and Linux
Wuala is fully integrated into your system, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux. You can open a file with a double click from Wuala or browse the Wuala disk from the “Open” dialog of any application. You can also edit files directly in Wuala. No copying around, no synchronization.

Upload in the background
That’s another thing a web-based solution just can’t do: Dump your files into Wuala and let it take care of the rest. You need to quit Wuala or shut down your computer while uploading files? No problem! Wuala will continue right where it stopped when you launch it the next time.

Responsiveness
Being an application, Wuala is not bound by the limits of web-based solutions which makes Wuala much more responsive and allows for improved efficiency. The time you need to create a new folder and insert some files is only limited by how fast you can handle the mouse.

Experience

Streaming
Media files such as videos or music can be streamed directly. No waiting until it is downloaded. Just lean back and enjoy.

Slideshow
Wuala has no constraints regarding file size or quality. One of the obvious advantages is that your friends can upload photos in full quality for you to enjoy as a full screen slideshow. Being fully integrated into the operating system, Wuala can make use of the gorgeous slideshow feature of the system itself.

Notifications
Stay on top of what your friends are uploading - you get a notification whenever they share new files with you. That’s like mini-feeds in Facebook, just for files.

Links and more

Share folders
Sharing files with friends could not be simpler: Select a folder in Wuala and choose who of your friends can access it. Or share a folder by password and send a link plus password by email or in an instant message.

Link to your files
After making a file public, everyone can access that file. You can then copy the link of the file and post it anywhere to point people to your latest pictures, scientific paper or freeware application. Or link to your files from MySpace, Facebook, etc.

So I think the coolest things about this are its speed, its ease of use, drag drop-file sharing, and felixibilty across software, and its user-friendliness for social media. Plus the groups, API group, and even a Christmas wallpaper group all of which you can find on the site.

Group: Wuala API

Official Wuala API group

It’s cool! Join today

Got something to say? Want to tell us how your experience of Wuala? Leave us a comment above.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

The year in photos 2008

The most heartstopping and beautiful photos of 2008. Makes me want to get on the road with my camera.
These pictures tell a thousand words
wisequeen

Speed dating

According to the stats dating and social media sites will bring in revenues unheard of in the history of the web, within the next few years.

“Revenues from social networking, dating and personal content delivery services will increase from $572m in 2007 to more than $5.7bn in 2012, with social networking accounting for 50% of the total by the end of the forecast period.” Juniper Research

“Over 800 million people worldwide will be participating in a social network via their mobile phones by 2012, up from 82 million in 2007.” eMarketer

A speed dating site online that’s my startup idea.

watch?v=PJk0FHnmqzA&feature=related

So what do you think then, send us a comment.
Donna Jackson
Social communications Specialist
Wisequeen

#leweb08 caught in a no wi fi web

Photo #leweb Andre Ribeirinho

It seems like the old no wi fi issue rears its ugly head again at #leweb just like at techcrunch50/Berlin tell us what you think about it 16 hours ago from TweetDeck.@wisequeen

I though it would be novel to compose a post based on my tweets on #leweb over the past 24 hours.
The critics have been called harsh and numerous. In particular Paul Carr from the Guardian whose post was I admit, the best of Brit satire, on a subject the English are particularly good at, French bashing. The history books are full of it.
I find this all rather interesting as an intercultural trainer. And something that shouldn’t be taken too seriously. We need to laugh at ourselves more.

Organizing an international web conference is a hard, hard task. So thanks to Loic and his team for bringing us #leweb08. The speakers were fantastic, too many to mention, I loved @garyvees winetalk too. However I think if you have a web conference with no web and icecream-cone sound, then people will complain, and by God they did.
Loren Feldman of @1983media tweeted “how difficult can it be to run the cable or whatever the fuck they do to bring me the internet to my hotel?” Indeed, a good question. My peeps attending were tweeting me that they were freezing, had no food or wifi and envied me.
As I watched the fantastic speakers and web gurus that I normally only talk to on line, come into my warm, food-and-hot-coffee-stocked office via the ustream that Loic was criticised for not monetising via his company Seesmic, I congratulated myself for having had flu and not treking to Paris.
Oh forgot to say! My favorite discussion of which there were many, was right at the end. The Gilmour Gang perched on the couches consuming the eighty dollar Chateauneuf du Pape wine Gary Vee was too polite to carry out with him, and shouting over each other, while picking fights with Arrington and Loic in a sort of American WWF smackdown kinda way. Hilarious

Because as I know so well (I’ve written posts before on this, EU wi fi never works), unless I’m in Switzerland, where I have my own roaming.

@wisequeen tweets.

u had great speakers. I participated livestream cldnt get there.So interesting well done! wifi sit normal .wisequeen.com about 21 hours ago from web in reply to loiclemeur

#leweb c’était SUPER, MERCI about 21 hours ago from web in reply to loiclemeur

Put this down to intercultural rivalry Loic 600 yrs of ENG vs France and USA rejects French fries under George dubbleya. laugh! 27 minutes ago from web in reply to loiclemeur

@garyvee on wiki informal,hyperkinetic disarmingly honeststyle unpretentious,gonzo approach wine appreciation contrast conservative wine ind about 1 hour ago from web in reply to garyvee

I use tweetag and then put in the words you want with #leweb like good, interesting, best, http://tweetag.com/ 19 minutes ago from web in reply to loiclemeur

Loic on Twitter
“About Seesmic: I decided on purpose not to showcase/use Seesmic at all on stage to avoid any possible criticism but now I get it for not…”

So go on speak your mind on#leweb, I know you’re going to under comments.

Wisequeen
Social Communications Specialist

chateauneuf du pape

Monetising Twitter

Ev on Twitter growth video
Twitter world domination video
So have you tweeted yet? Ev CEO of Twitter recently revealed that twitter will soon get the big Guys to make him big money with advertising. We just don’t know how yet.

But do you have a brand?
Do you want to know what’s going on even if you can’t afford that newspaper subscription anymore.
T.V. been repossessed with your house that got taken by the bank? Well you can still go to the internet cafe and twitter away and build your fortune one tweet at a time. No really.
Check it out and get a twitter account today.
The wised-up have one already.
Read our post on how to build a media empire.
The big twitterers have a following of 20 to 30 thousand people who follow their tweets, and they monetise that. That’s right.
Wisequeen
Donna Jackson
Social communications Specialist
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