TheStartup.eu

Out of the many companies that launched at The Next Web, one that particularly got my attention is yellowBird.
They promise to “rock the movie industry world” and they may actually do it. They have a really cool technology, inspired by Google Streetview, that creates a complete 360° video that can be watched in any flash capable computer, and shared easily on the internet with their proprietary flash player.
“The viewer becomes the Director, who can choose what he wants to see from his position”, says co-founder Rafaël Redczus of yellowBird. He started working on this technology almost 10 years ago, but now all the pieces of the jigsaw are in place. “There are unbelievable opportunities for this new dimension in online experiences. Film producers can use it for their trailers on the Internet, city marketeers can use it to attract tourists, dance events become virtually
physically accessible for millions of visitors, documentaries and sports events become probing experiences, whilst this technology will bring about a
revolution in the world of advertising.” Redczus comments “Advertisers are looking more and more to the Internet. This offers them unrivalled opportunities
to present themselves.”

The Groningen-based startup may have actually created something that will change media distribution, not a minor funny technology.
Pictures, video, color video, live video, live internet streaming.. what’s next? This sounds like a good candidate. We will see how these guys do very soon.

According to Marc Groothelm, Managing Director of yellowBird, they are still the only company in the world that makes this concept accessible and available to
businesses. Keep in mind this is not intended at all to go mainstream for consumers, as the “stitching” process of the 6 video streams requires lengthy calculations by extremely powerful computers.

It is great to see such innovative startups in Europe reminding everyone that we aren’t just the artistic continent but we can have a major role in business and technology innovation.

Thanks to the guys of Creating Inspiration you can watch the video of their presentation at The Next Web:

This is E, an Amsterdam startup that launched today at The Next Web. The company promises to join all your online profiles and let you share them with any internet-capable mobile phone or using a specific usb-dongle called Connector, thus replacing business cards.

With E, you can create many different virtual cards and share the most appropriate depending on the situation you’re in (party, conference, meeting). Not only will you get all of the person’s details without having to keep  their business card, but if they change their email address or phone number the changes will get automatically pushed to your contact information.

The european internet startup scene has gathered in Amsterdam for this 3-days amazing conference.

Technology entrepreneurs, start-ups, innovators, venture capitalists, industry journalist, bloggers and simple geeks will attend keynotes and speeches given by internet celebrities such as Matt Mullenweg, Eric Meyer and Jeff Jarvis. Speakers include high level executives from Google, Yahoo! and Level 3 as well as entrepreneurs (SoundCloud, Imeem), venture capitalist and writers.

The agenda is really interesting. While today was the “unconference”, with Mobile DevCamp and “The Current Web”, tomorrow the real show begins.

The agenda includes a “Rising Sun Start-up Rally” that will surely have an important role in the event. The 19 companies that will have the chance to pitch to VCs and bloggers have been selected out of 200 with the help of twitter and a special voting system.

Take a look at their agenda, speakers and startup finalists.

We will be back with more posts regarding the event and hopefully with videos of the keynotes!

“Are you crazy?” “Are you starting your blog with a post linking to competitors?” That’s the first question that someone may ask me after reading this post.
Well, the main goal is to help startups, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts providing news, interviews, articles and other resources. I can only be glad there are such sites around already doing this job.
In the past few years I have seen some great companies launch in Europe but no one ever had the kind of media exposure that valley’s startups get, and I think we have to (and we can) change that.
Here is a list of the best blogs and sites that currently cover european startups, I read them every day and I think everyone should.

• Techcrunch Europe

You all know Techcrunch, the most important startup blog in the world, founded and edited by Michael Arrington. This is the continent-specific blog dedicated to europe, it is edited by Mike Butcher. They cover startups and organize  major entrepreneurship events around Europe.

• Techcrunch France (French)

Techcrunch France was founded in 2006 for the fracophone community according to technorati it soon grew to be one of the most influential blogs in France.

• Arctic Startup

ArcticStartup is one of my favorite blogs, it covers all the startups in the scandinavian countries. It was founded by Ville Vesterinen, Antti Vilpponen, Miikka Kukkosuo and Karri Saarinen. If you live in any of the nordic countries this blog should be a daily read.

• The Next Web

TheNextWeb was started in 2006 by the founders of The Next Web conference (which will be held again this year in Amsterdam starting April 15). They cover “everything that influences the future of the Web, in any way“.

• Dutch Cowboys (Dutch)

Too bad I can’t read dutch, because this blog looks interesting and the dutch startup scene is one of the most active around Europe. There are also German Cowboys and Belgian Cowboys.

• Loogic (Spanish, Italian, English)

Loogic is the most influential web2.0 blog in Spain, it is available in spanish, italian and english.

• theStartup

This one, of course. We are aiming high, and we’d like to make it to the top, providing great and useful content every day!

Please feel free to add some others I forgot in the comments, and I’ll update the post.