Digital Mission Blog
The Digital Mission series is run by Chinwag to support UK-based digital companies expand into new markets and attract overseas investment.
Make A Crunchie Nomination, It's Almost Friday
The Crunchies are to technology what the Oscars are to Hollywood and January 2010 will be the third incarnation of the start-up and technology sector's annual awards ceremony hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat.
Last year's winners included Google Reader (best service), Cooliris (best design), Shop Savvy (best application) and Facebook (best overall start up).
TechCrunch Europe's grand fromage, Mike Butcher, offers the following advice,
"...it will be of interest to European startups that they have a good chance if they nominate themselves in Best International StartUp
You have until December 4th, 2009 (this Fri, so get your skates on) to get your nominations in for the companies/ products you think deserve recognition. Plus, you can even vote for yourself! For the full nomination criteria hit up the Crunchies rules page.
The Crunchies staff choose five finalist per category based on accomplishments over the past year. Voting will be open to the public from Monday, December 21 and run through midnight PST, Wednesday January 6, 2010.
Picture courtesy of Scott Beale/Laughing Squid. Some rights reserved.
SXSWi BizSpark Accelerator deadline - Friday, 4th Dec
SXSW Interactive festival is the digital conference to attend. Yes, it helps that it's based in sunny Austin, Texas and that the BBQ food is *awesome*, but it's also packed full to bursting with top notch panels from the brightest minds in tech
There are hundreds of networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer - all happening over 5 days!
Along with the Digital Mission to SXSWi, one of the pivotal events in the SXSW interactive calendar is the BizSpark Accelerator pitch event. Applications for this pitch-fest are now being received until Friday, 4th December so not long left to get your submission in.
Finalists are given the opportunity to showcase their product or company in front of a panel of professional industry expert judges and a live audience. The lucky few are in the perfect position to attract venture capitalist investment, polish their pitches, refine their products, and create greater market awareness for the organisation in front of a very knowledgeable, relevant and responsive audience.
Last year's winners, weardrobe.com, a website that's not just about what you wear but how you wear it, not only attracted a whole load of press attention for themselves but were matched up with Like.com; the world's first visual search engine. Weardrobe's users are now able to match pieces of clothing posted by the fashion community to items for sale on Like.com, all using visual search.
The event takes place on 15th & 16th March 2010 and applications are being accepted until Friday, 4th December 2009. To be eligible, companies must have launched in the last year or plan to launch by May 2010. For more info and to register for the event head on over to BizSpark's application page.
If you fancy heading to SXSWi and taking advantage of events like this, applications for Digital Mission to SXSWi '10 are open until Friday, 4th December - as they say; you need to be in it to win it.
Picture courtesy of Mike Rohde. Some rights reserved.
ipadio and Sport England Bring Community Sports Hub to Facebook
ipadio have joined forces with Sport England and Facebook to encourage more young people to get
involved with sport with the announcement of the Community Sports Hub. The initiative will produce a beefed-up fan page on the social network which will integrate with ipadio's phone-to-web technology to encourage participation. Facebook are putting up in-kind advertising valued at £5m/year until 2013. Facebook users will be able to challenge
other people in their area to a sporting tryst,
this could be a judo match, squash showdown or a 100m sprint. As is
the way with Facebook, users will then be able to share the news (good
or bad) with their network. The potential of the partnership is
massive; sports governing bodies will have grass roots access to over
20 million UK Facebook users. 
More great news from companies who've taken part in the Digital Mission series, with an announcement from live phonecasting service ipadio, who recently returned from the Digital Mission to New York.
The technology was showcased by ipadio founder, Dr Mark Smith and official Digital Mission blogger, Benjamin Ellis on the recent Digital Mission to New York. [Ed - Applications for the Digital Mission to South by South West close, this Fri (4th Dec), for any companies interested in understanding and expanding to the USA] Picture courtesy of Sport England. All rights reserved.
ipadio's
role in all this will be to deliver live commentary,
opinion, interviews and a rich media experience directly into the Hub.
Users will be able to broadcast live from any phone and upload clips
and steam content via iPhone and Android applications.
BAFTA Win For Digital Mission Alumnus Plug-in Media
Congratulations to Dom, Seb and Juliet and the crew at Plug-in Media on their win at last night's Children's BAFTA awards held at London's Park Lane Hilton.
Juliet joined the Digital Mission to LA & San Francisco earlier this year as part of the group of 14 companies showcasing the best of the UK's digital talent. Applications for the South by South West interactive trip are still open.
Hosted by favoured kids presenters, Dick'n'Dom the team picked up the Interactive BAFTA, a hefty golden visage, for Big and Small Online produced with Kindle Entertainment for CBeebies. Check out the post-award interview with the winners.
Coming from the digital sector rather than TV, what struck me, was the number of familiar faces dotted around the room from what might previously have been deemed the 'digital' world. Clearly, the worlds of the Internet, mobile and TV are beginning to converge earlier or at the very start of the creative process.
The reluctance of senior TV execs to see the digital world as anything but a bolt on to existing production processes, didn't seem much in evidence amongst last night's crowd, but it wasn't a scientific (or by the end of the evening, necessarily entirely sober) sample.
Perhaps the heavy use of animation in children's programming and the natural aptitude towards new-fangled Interweb technologies is proving an ideal arena for experimenting at the confluence of the TV and interactive worlds.
Incubators - NYC, You're Doing it Right
There were lots of highlights to this year's Digital Mission to New York, but one that stands out for me was the visit to the NYU:poly Incubator @ 160 Varick Street.
This initiative was announced by New York's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, in February of this year, so it's still in its early days, although you wouldn't know it from looking around.
As the Digital Mission companies were given a tour by Micah Kotch, Operations Director and general making-things-happen guy there, the first thing that struck me was the scale of the facility: 16,500-square-foot, a whole floor of the Varick Street building, with over 20 companies, and even more associated indirectly with the incubator. There is everything a start-up business could want, including a receptionist, meeting rooms, mail facilities and so on.
The incubator houses a broad range of businesses, from information technology and green tech to fashion and film. There are regular structured meetings, where the companies can pitch to each other for practice, and to keep up with what each is doing. The meetings also include opportunities for each business to share what their current needs are, for example a contact they are hoping to make or resource they might need, so that they can support each other and pool resources and prospects. The "we can do more together than we can alone" philosophy echoes that of the Digital Mission, and it is one that I have seen work well over these last few years.
The space is provided at cost by Trinity Real Estate (the land was originally donated by Queen Anne in 1705!) and is leased and managed by the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. They pay just the maintenance and operations costs, and cover them through the rents charged to the companies. It is a self-sustaining model - the incubator will be cash-flow positive when the space is fully occupied.
“We don’t want to be competing with commercial office space providers. Our mission is to help a company here find a market for their product.” Micah Kotch
Business have to submit an application, which requires that they have a locally registered LLC and a 24 month cash-flow plan. Once they are in, the lease is renewed on a 6 monthly basis. This keeps a steady flow of businesses through the incubator, and ensures that each one keeps their eye-on-the-ball: getting funded and getting their product out.
The space was featured in the New York Times and is home to a growing band of start-ups. The businesses there took time out to talk to the Digital Mission visitors as we toured the desks and meeting rooms. It is a very impressive initiative, with an impressive set of people. The rent is incredibly affordable - a fraction of usual commercial rates - and for those that can't afford a permanent desk, "european-style hot desks" (hey, it made me smile :) ) are available at an even lower rate. The businesses clearly benefit from the shared resources and the mutual support and encouragement they get from each other.
I would love to see a model at this level of affordability and structure in the UK, supporting startups here.
