Friday, March 02, 2007
Nicole Richie's gotten engaged to Joel Madden. That lucky girl
Nicole Richie's gotten engaged to Joel Madden. That lucky girl!
some funny stories form celbs
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy seems to have an ego bigger than...well..The Nutty Professor.
Unless you have spent the last week living under a rock, you will know that the annual festival of glam, glitter, bitchiness and oversized egos, otherwise known as the Oscars took place this week, and Eddie Murphy made a down and out fool of himself, so bad infact that even the biggest of hollywood egos had trouble comprehending what they had just witnessed. The moment came when the award for Best Actor In A Supporting Role was to be announced. While Eddie Murphy was a clear favourite to win, the field was strong. With Djimon Hounsou nominated for his powerful role in Blood Diamond, Mark Wahlberg for his role in The Departed, and Alan Arkin nominated for his role as the quirky grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine, it was always going to be a tough one to pick. However obviously Eddie Murphy had already made up his mind who should win the award. When Alan Arkin was announced as winner, Eddie Murphy and girlfriend Tracey Edmonds stood up and stormed out of the ceremony....much to the shock of onlookers. In the fallout, Eddie Murphy has quite rightly been labelled a sore loser. So angry was Murphy that he didnt even stick around to see fellow Dream Girls co-star Jennifer Hudson pick up her award for Best Supporting Actress. Perhaps Eddie Murphy needs a reality check. Lets face facts. Murphys career has been up the creek without a paddle for several years...perhaps from all they way back to the Beverley Hills Cop series of films. While Murphy has occasionally shown small glimours of hope, for example The Nutty Professor, his career has hardly been stellar for most of the nineties or naughties. Eddie Murphy, you are a downright ****wit of golden proportions. Shame on you.
Avril Lavigne
Whether her music is good or not is always going to be an endless debate. However when it comes to the worlds most insightful people, its fair to say that Avril Lavigne is hardly at the top of the pile. And she once again showed this week why that is the case. With Britney Spears seemingly losing control of herself, music bible Rolling Stone decided to start asking Britneys peers for their thoughts on the life of being a pop star and the challenges it comes with. When asked for a comment on the current situation of Britney, Avril once again dished out a pearl of wisdom.
"I think she (Britney) is having trouble dealing with her fame. Shes gone a little bit cuckoo" says Lavigne.
Thanks Avril, I think the rest of us had already worked that bit out.
Honda Australia
Word coming out from those in the know at the Melbourne International Motorshow is, that unless you are happy to pay a rediculously expensive entry fee to see what amounts to nothing more than an oversized showroom, this years show is set to be a dissapointment. Insiders have commented that there is very little this year in the way of drawcards. Perhaps the biggest disappointment will be the stand belonging to Honda. The highlight of Hondas display this year is said to be the environmentally friendly FCV, which many agree looks hideous, and the all new CRV. Now when it comes to light to medium sized All Wheel Drive vehicles, the CRV is a damn fine car. But its hardly the pinnacle of motoring excitement. If you are looking for something a little more exciting to have a look at, the Sixty Years Of Ferarri display at the Crown Attrium is said to be a highlight...and best of all...ITS FREE!!!
Leonardo Dicaprio
Oh Leo, you sure know how to talk crap dont you now?
Back to the Oscars, and without a doubt the most amusing comment for the night came from Leonardo Dicaprio.... yet it was unintentional.
"While on stage, Leo made the startling claim....
"The Hollywood Movie Industry is always looking for new ways to give back to society."
Leo, we think not.
Michelle Anderson
Ok, so you are probably asking who the **** is Michelle Anderson. Michelle is a staff member and sometimes on air presenter at Melbournes Nova 100 FM who has quite an interesting achievement under her belt, and we though it was worthy of a mention. Anderson can sometimes be seen out on the road with the Nova ambulances and promotional vehicles where she does broadcasts on location. Anderson despite being at the station for little more than 3 years, has managed to crash the Nova promotional vehicles a record 7 times in her time at Nova. Not a bad effort at all. Although we are sure its an effort shes not proud of. Safe Driving Michelle.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Apparently there is 3 sides to the story of the Chilli Peppers at the 2007 Brit Awards.
Our final word this week goes to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Despite the fact that the Brit Awards, Englands very own version of the Grammy Awards, were held more than 2 weeks ago, word only just got out this week of the bizarre antics of the Chilli Peppers. The band would only enter their dressing room if all 3 sided objects were removed from the room. As a result, staff had to scour every corner of the room to ensure that no 3 sided objects were inside the room. After clearing the room, one very observant staff member noticed that a plate of sandwiches made up for the band members were cut into...yes you guessed it....triangles. The staff member quickly removed the sandwiches and the band entered oblivious to their existance. We think perhaps the Chilli Peppers oughta focus on doing something they havent done for many years......release a half decent album.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
judge judy nails scammer
judge judy owning a ebay scammer who scammed for $477.99 for 2 mobile phones, she awards the people who lost the money $5000 in damages and totally rips into the scammer lol.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Virgin Blues Latest Marketing Campaign!!!!
Virgin Blues Latest Marketing Campaign!!!!
Ok, so its a mock up......but still very funny considering recent events involving air hostesses, movie stars and aircraft toilets.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Internets Next Million Dollar IDEA - BREAKING NEWS!
Like many of the best ideas, it began with a simple question. 'How many people are kissing at this moment?' Thomas Whitfield, a 25-year-old student, wanted to know. Talking over a drink in a hotel lobby, he and a friend dreamed up DesignTheTime, a website with the limitless ambition of charting 'the history of mankind' moment by moment.
Last week the site announced it had won 50m to develop its idea - a historical 'timeline' split into minutes, each of which can be bought by users to post memorable moments in their lives, for example by uploading video footage of a child's birthday or favourite pop concert. Its backers, Bright Station Ventures, were 'blown away' by the concept. Microsoft said: 'We believe DesignTheTime has the potential to be the next YouTube or Skype.' Such grand claims are commonplace in America's Silicon Valley. What makes Whitfield's venture remarkable is that it was born in Britain.
Article continues
The UK's reputation as something of a backwater in the world of the web is out of date. Today The Observer reveals some of the brightest stars of this new generation, from the teenager who made a million dollars from his bedroom to the businesswoman revolutionising mobile text messaging, from the brother-and-sister team creating online social networks linked to real places to the Leeds man who started his first website at 14 and is now pioneering software to protect children. None is older than 30, all are shaping the future.
This generation of entrepreneurs is taking on, and sometimes beating, the Americans at their own game. The UK software economy is worth around 20bn, with Microsoft a huge investor. Millions are being poured into internet start-ups with a flamboyance once seen only in California, and some US venture capitalists have opened offices here for the purpose of making money. Experts say that economic and cultural changes - including TV programmes such as Dragons' Den and The Apprentice - have made entrepreneurship a fashionable career choice for young people, promising to slow the brain drain and revive Britain's pride in innovation.
But, unlike the first UK internet boom a decade ago led by Martha Lane Fox's online travel firm Lastminute.com, large-scale financial backing is not essential to get started: the spread of broadband access and the diminishing price of hardware make it possible to set up and run a virtual company from a bedroom or coffee shop. The next wave of would-be dotcom millionaires includes teenagers, university dropouts and a former Butlins redcoat. All they need is a big idea.
Whitfield, studying for a PhD in biochemistry at Oxford, spends his days researching vaccines for HIV and hepatitis C. Late at night, over eight months, he was hunched over a computer screen programming software for DesignTheTime. Eventually it wowed the judges at the university's own version of Dragons' Den. Whitfield and his two co-founders are from Germany, but will move to Britain permanently. 'Britain is very friendly for building up ventures like this,' he said. 'In Germany it's much more bureaucratic.'
Dan Wagner, a partner at Bright Station Ventures, said: 'Momentum is now gathering in this country. The fact we watch Dragons' Den on TV is illustrative of a change, and now if you ask young students what they want to do, it's start a business. They need the right funding to make their dream a reality, but the infrastructure is not there - yet.'
The poster boy of internet dreamers is Alex Tew, 22, who hit the jackpot in 2005 with his website Million Dollar Homepage. With a debt of £4,000 and more to come at university, one night Tew wrote, 'How can I become a millionaire?' on a piece of paper and began brainstorming. 'It needed to be ambitious, have a good name, grab attention, be directly about money and so simple I could build it in a couple of days,' he recalled. 'I needed a million of something to sell and I didn't have a million of anything, then pixels [the simplest graphical unit on a computer screen] came to mind. It was a lightbulb moment.'
Tew set up a website to sell advertising space in the form of a million pixels at $1 each. He borrowed £500 from family and friends to put out publicity which gained coverage from the BBC and snowballed: 'It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. People were in disbelief because I was making money for effectively nothing, and the very fact they talked about it was the reason it did well.' He made £500,000.
Tew, from Swindon, Wiltshire, said there are now opportunities that were unthinkable in the Nineties. 'It's so cheap these days for an internet start-up. Everyone has broadband, so the internet is a lot more appealing. Sites like MySpace and YouTube could not have existed five years ago in their current form.'
The self-confident can-do enthusiasm of Silicon Valley is now audible in the buzz of Second Chance Tuesday, a networking event in central London where hi-tech entrepreneurs, investors and visitors from the likes of eBay and Google swap ideas and business cards. The first, a year ago, was organised in 10 days with little publicity yet attracted 400 applicants; it is now invariably over-subscribed several times.
Co-organiser Judith Clegg said: 'We have businesses such as Bebo [a social networking site] and Skype [internet telephony] getting international recognition, and people all over the world are looking to London as a creative hub.'
A winning website can take just one person, a laptop and a killer concept that harnesses content generated by its users, a characteristic of so-called 'Web 2.0'. But fully fledged businesses, particularly those involving complex technology, still require initial support from venture capitalists or 'angel investors', individuals who back schemes without an aggressive profit-at-all-costs motivation. When Christina Domecq, a member of the Allied Domecq wine and spirits family, wanted to set up a hi-tech company she did not choose Spain, where she was born, or America, where she grew up. She came to Britain.
Domecq co-founded SpinVox - which turns mobile voicemails into text messages, and voice calls into internet blogs - and raised £25m from angel investors. Her staff has grown from 30 to 165 in the past year and SpinVox expects its six millionth user in 2007. 'I've found the UK amazingly welcoming,' said Domecq, 30. 'There's great opportunity for innovation and real breadth of experience here.'
Just as Stanford University is a powerhouse at the heart of Silicon Valley UK, so Oxford, Cambridge and London universities such as Imperial College are fuelling the UK surge. Venture capital investment in London, the east and south-east was £923m in 2005. But Bob Goodson, co-founder and chairman of the student society Oxford Entrepreneurs, warned that Britain still has some way to go - Silicon Valley investments for 2005 totalled £4.2bn.
'In the US, angel investors invest in people and markets at an early stage,' said the 26-year-old, now working for a social networking start-up in California. 'That concept does not seem to be prevalent in the UK, where it's more "Show me the business plan and exactly how I'm going to get my money back, times 10." That's all very well in a solid established industry, but when you're doing something for the first time you can't know everything in advance. You have to be nimble.'
Nevertheless, there is a sense of growing confidence and energy in digital Britain. Time and again, the most important ingredient has been a winning idea - and Britain's twentysomethings appear to be rich in those.
The young webmasters:
Oli Barrett
29, Reading
Site: www.connectedcapital.co.uk
Background: Dropped out of university and did a summer job as a Butlins redcoat. Went to Leeds University and started Amazingyou, a student headhunting site.
Big idea: Introduced a business version of speed-dating in which people meet for three minutes at a time.
He says: 'I'm 29 and still hungry.'
Adam Hildreth
21, Leeds
Site: www.crispthinking.com
Background: Came up with Dubit, a website for teenagers, when he was 14 and left school at 16 to run it full time. Turnover this year will be £1.5m.
Big idea: Technology to protect children from paedophiles online.
He says: 'The money isn't just handed over, there is a lot of testing to make sure it will work.'
Harjeet Johal
27, Nottingham
Site: underfivepounds.com
Background: Started his internet business in 2006. Turnover is now more than £5m.
Big idea: Online retailer selling items for less than £5.
He says: 'You don't have to be technically minded, just have an idea and drive it to its conclusion.'
Lindsay and Russell
Middleton
Sister and brother, 24 and 25, Plymouth
Site: www.wehanghere.com
Background: She read economics at University College London; he studied engineering at Cambridge.They created the site in their spare time and now have nearly 500 members .
Big idea: free website enabling users to look, via Google Maps, at their favourite venues and see who 'hangs out' there.
Lindsay says: 'We've no intention of going to Silicon Valley. We're proud to be British.'
The UK's reputation as something of a backwater in the world of the web is out of date. Today The Observer reveals some of the brightest stars of this new generation, from the teenager who made a million dollars from his bedroom to the businesswoman revolutionising mobile text messaging, from the brother-and-sister team creating online social networks linked to real places to the Leeds man who started his first website at 14 and is now pioneering software to protect children. None is older than 30, all are shaping the future.
This generation of entrepreneurs is taking on, and sometimes beating, the Americans at their own game. The UK software economy is worth around £20bn, with Microsoft a huge investor. Millions are being poured into internet start-ups with a flamboyance once seen only in California, and some US venture capitalists have opened offices here for the purpose of making money. Experts say that economic and cultural changes - including TV programmes such as Dragons' Den and The Apprentice - have made entrepreneurship a fashionable career choice for young people, promising to slow the brain drain and revive Britain's pride in innovation.
But, unlike the first UK internet boom a decade ago led by Martha Lane Fox's online travel firm Lastminute.com, large-scale financial backing is not essential to get started: the spread of broadband access and the diminishing price of hardware make it possible to set up and run a virtual company from a bedroom or coffee shop. The next wave of would-be dotcom millionaires includes teenagers, university dropouts and a former Butlins redcoat. All they need is a big idea.
Whitfield, studying for a PhD in biochemistry at Oxford, spends his days researching vaccines for HIV and hepatitis C. Late at night, over eight months, he was hunched over a computer screen programming software for DesignTheTime. Eventually it wowed the judges at the university's own version of Dragons' Den. Whitfield and his two co-founders are from Germany, but will move to Britain permanently. 'Britain is very friendly for building up ventures like this,' he said. 'In Germany it's much more bureaucratic.'
Dan Wagner, a partner at Bright Station Ventures, said: 'Momentum is now gathering in this country. The fact we watch Dragons' Den on TV is illustrative of a change, and now if you ask young students what they want to do, it's start a business. They need the right funding to make their dream a reality, but the infrastructure is not there - yet.'
The poster boy of internet dreamers is Alex Tew, 22, who hit the jackpot in 2005 with his website Million Dollar Homepage. With a debt of £4,000 and more to come at university, one night Tew wrote, 'How can I become a millionaire?' on a piece of paper and began brainstorming. 'It needed to be ambitious, have a good name, grab attention, be directly about money and so simple I could build it in a couple of days,' he recalled. 'I needed a million of something to sell and I didn't have a million of anything, then pixels [the simplest graphical unit on a computer screen] came to mind. It was a lightbulb moment.'
Tew set up a website to sell advertising space in the form of a million pixels at $1 each. He borrowed £500 from family and friends to put out publicity which gained coverage from the BBC and snowballed: 'It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. People were in disbelief because I was making money for effectively nothing, and the very fact they talked about it was the reason it did well.' He made £500,000.
Tew, from Swindon, Wiltshire, said there are now opportunities that were unthinkable in the Nineties. 'It's so cheap these days for an internet start-up. Everyone has broadband, so the internet is a lot more appealing. Sites like MySpace and YouTube could not have existed five years ago in their current form.'
The self-confident can-do enthusiasm of Silicon Valley is now audible in the buzz of Second Chance Tuesday, a networking event in central London where hi-tech entrepreneurs, investors and visitors from the likes of eBay and Google swap ideas and business cards. The first, a year ago, was organised in 10 days with little publicity yet attracted 400 applicants; it is now invariably over-subscribed several times.
Co-organiser Judith Clegg said: 'We have businesses such as Bebo [a social networking site] and Skype [internet telephony] getting international recognition, and people all over the world are looking to London as a creative hub.'
A winning website can take just one person, a laptop and a killer concept that harnesses content generated by its users, a characteristic of so-called 'Web 2.0'. But fully fledged businesses, particularly those involving complex technology, still require initial support from venture capitalists or 'angel investors', individuals who back schemes without an aggressive profit-at-all-costs motivation. When Christina Domecq, a member of the Allied Domecq wine and spirits family, wanted to set up a hi-tech company she did not choose Spain, where she was born, or America, where she grew up. She came to Britain.
Domecq co-founded SpinVox - which turns mobile voicemails into text messages, and voice calls into internet blogs - and raised £25m from angel investors. Her staff has grown from 30 to 165 in the past year and SpinVox expects its six millionth user in 2007. 'I've found the UK amazingly welcoming,' said Domecq, 30. 'There's great opportunity for innovation and real breadth of experience here.'
Just as Stanford University is a powerhouse at the heart of Silicon Valley UK, so Oxford, Cambridge and London universities such as Imperial College are fuelling the UK surge. Venture capital investment in London, the east and south-east was £923m in 2005. But Bob Goodson, co-founder and chairman of the student society Oxford Entrepreneurs, warned that Britain still has some way to go - Silicon Valley investments for 2005 totalled £4.2bn.
'In the US, angel investors invest in people and markets at an early stage,' said the 26-year-old, now working for a social networking start-up in California. 'That concept does not seem to be prevalent in the UK, where it's more "Show me the business plan and exactly how I'm going to get my money back, times 10." That's all very well in a solid established industry, but when you're doing something for the first time you can't know everything in advance. You have to be nimble.'
Nevertheless, there is a sense of growing confidence and energy in digital Britain. Time and again, the most important ingredient has been a winning idea - and Britain's twentysomethings appear to be rich in those.
The young webmasters:
Oli Barrett
29, Reading
Site: www.connectedcapital.co.uk
Background: Dropped out of university and did a summer job as a Butlins redcoat. Went to Leeds University and started Amazingyou, a student headhunting site.
Big idea: Introduced a business version of speed-dating in which people meet for three minutes at a time.
He says: 'I'm 29 and still hungry.'
Adam Hildreth
21, Leeds
Site: www.crispthinking.com
Background: Came up with Dubit, a website for teenagers, when he was 14 and left school at 16 to run it full time. Turnover this year will be £1.5m.
Big idea: Technology to protect children from paedophiles online.
He says: 'The money isn't just handed over, there is a lot of testing to make sure it will work.'
Harjeet Johal
27, Nottingham
Site: underfivepounds.com
Background: Started his internet business in 2006. Turnover is now more than £5m.
Big idea: Online retailer selling items for less than £5.
He says: 'You don't have to be technically minded, just have an idea and drive it to its conclusion.'
Lindsay and Russell
Middleton
Sister and brother, 24 and 25, Plymouth
Site: www.wehanghere.com
Background: She read economics at University College London; he studied engineering at Cambridge.They created the site in their spare time and now have nearly 500 members .
Big idea: free website enabling users to look, via Google Maps, at their favourite venues and see who 'hangs out' there.
Lindsay says: 'We've no intention of going to Silicon Valley. We're proud to be British.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk
Last week the site announced it had won 50m to develop its idea - a historical 'timeline' split into minutes, each of which can be bought by users to post memorable moments in their lives, for example by uploading video footage of a child's birthday or favourite pop concert. Its backers, Bright Station Ventures, were 'blown away' by the concept. Microsoft said: 'We believe DesignTheTime has the potential to be the next YouTube or Skype.' Such grand claims are commonplace in America's Silicon Valley. What makes Whitfield's venture remarkable is that it was born in Britain.
Article continues
The UK's reputation as something of a backwater in the world of the web is out of date. Today The Observer reveals some of the brightest stars of this new generation, from the teenager who made a million dollars from his bedroom to the businesswoman revolutionising mobile text messaging, from the brother-and-sister team creating online social networks linked to real places to the Leeds man who started his first website at 14 and is now pioneering software to protect children. None is older than 30, all are shaping the future.
This generation of entrepreneurs is taking on, and sometimes beating, the Americans at their own game. The UK software economy is worth around 20bn, with Microsoft a huge investor. Millions are being poured into internet start-ups with a flamboyance once seen only in California, and some US venture capitalists have opened offices here for the purpose of making money. Experts say that economic and cultural changes - including TV programmes such as Dragons' Den and The Apprentice - have made entrepreneurship a fashionable career choice for young people, promising to slow the brain drain and revive Britain's pride in innovation.
But, unlike the first UK internet boom a decade ago led by Martha Lane Fox's online travel firm Lastminute.com, large-scale financial backing is not essential to get started: the spread of broadband access and the diminishing price of hardware make it possible to set up and run a virtual company from a bedroom or coffee shop. The next wave of would-be dotcom millionaires includes teenagers, university dropouts and a former Butlins redcoat. All they need is a big idea.
Whitfield, studying for a PhD in biochemistry at Oxford, spends his days researching vaccines for HIV and hepatitis C. Late at night, over eight months, he was hunched over a computer screen programming software for DesignTheTime. Eventually it wowed the judges at the university's own version of Dragons' Den. Whitfield and his two co-founders are from Germany, but will move to Britain permanently. 'Britain is very friendly for building up ventures like this,' he said. 'In Germany it's much more bureaucratic.'
Dan Wagner, a partner at Bright Station Ventures, said: 'Momentum is now gathering in this country. The fact we watch Dragons' Den on TV is illustrative of a change, and now if you ask young students what they want to do, it's start a business. They need the right funding to make their dream a reality, but the infrastructure is not there - yet.'
The poster boy of internet dreamers is Alex Tew, 22, who hit the jackpot in 2005 with his website Million Dollar Homepage. With a debt of £4,000 and more to come at university, one night Tew wrote, 'How can I become a millionaire?' on a piece of paper and began brainstorming. 'It needed to be ambitious, have a good name, grab attention, be directly about money and so simple I could build it in a couple of days,' he recalled. 'I needed a million of something to sell and I didn't have a million of anything, then pixels [the simplest graphical unit on a computer screen] came to mind. It was a lightbulb moment.'
Tew set up a website to sell advertising space in the form of a million pixels at $1 each. He borrowed £500 from family and friends to put out publicity which gained coverage from the BBC and snowballed: 'It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. People were in disbelief because I was making money for effectively nothing, and the very fact they talked about it was the reason it did well.' He made £500,000.
Tew, from Swindon, Wiltshire, said there are now opportunities that were unthinkable in the Nineties. 'It's so cheap these days for an internet start-up. Everyone has broadband, so the internet is a lot more appealing. Sites like MySpace and YouTube could not have existed five years ago in their current form.'
The self-confident can-do enthusiasm of Silicon Valley is now audible in the buzz of Second Chance Tuesday, a networking event in central London where hi-tech entrepreneurs, investors and visitors from the likes of eBay and Google swap ideas and business cards. The first, a year ago, was organised in 10 days with little publicity yet attracted 400 applicants; it is now invariably over-subscribed several times.
Co-organiser Judith Clegg said: 'We have businesses such as Bebo [a social networking site] and Skype [internet telephony] getting international recognition, and people all over the world are looking to London as a creative hub.'
A winning website can take just one person, a laptop and a killer concept that harnesses content generated by its users, a characteristic of so-called 'Web 2.0'. But fully fledged businesses, particularly those involving complex technology, still require initial support from venture capitalists or 'angel investors', individuals who back schemes without an aggressive profit-at-all-costs motivation. When Christina Domecq, a member of the Allied Domecq wine and spirits family, wanted to set up a hi-tech company she did not choose Spain, where she was born, or America, where she grew up. She came to Britain.
Domecq co-founded SpinVox - which turns mobile voicemails into text messages, and voice calls into internet blogs - and raised £25m from angel investors. Her staff has grown from 30 to 165 in the past year and SpinVox expects its six millionth user in 2007. 'I've found the UK amazingly welcoming,' said Domecq, 30. 'There's great opportunity for innovation and real breadth of experience here.'
Just as Stanford University is a powerhouse at the heart of Silicon Valley UK, so Oxford, Cambridge and London universities such as Imperial College are fuelling the UK surge. Venture capital investment in London, the east and south-east was £923m in 2005. But Bob Goodson, co-founder and chairman of the student society Oxford Entrepreneurs, warned that Britain still has some way to go - Silicon Valley investments for 2005 totalled £4.2bn.
'In the US, angel investors invest in people and markets at an early stage,' said the 26-year-old, now working for a social networking start-up in California. 'That concept does not seem to be prevalent in the UK, where it's more "Show me the business plan and exactly how I'm going to get my money back, times 10." That's all very well in a solid established industry, but when you're doing something for the first time you can't know everything in advance. You have to be nimble.'
Nevertheless, there is a sense of growing confidence and energy in digital Britain. Time and again, the most important ingredient has been a winning idea - and Britain's twentysomethings appear to be rich in those.
The young webmasters:
Oli Barrett
29, Reading
Site: www.connectedcapital.co.uk
Background: Dropped out of university and did a summer job as a Butlins redcoat. Went to Leeds University and started Amazingyou, a student headhunting site.
Big idea: Introduced a business version of speed-dating in which people meet for three minutes at a time.
He says: 'I'm 29 and still hungry.'
Adam Hildreth
21, Leeds
Site: www.crispthinking.com
Background: Came up with Dubit, a website for teenagers, when he was 14 and left school at 16 to run it full time. Turnover this year will be £1.5m.
Big idea: Technology to protect children from paedophiles online.
He says: 'The money isn't just handed over, there is a lot of testing to make sure it will work.'
Harjeet Johal
27, Nottingham
Site: underfivepounds.com
Background: Started his internet business in 2006. Turnover is now more than £5m.
Big idea: Online retailer selling items for less than £5.
He says: 'You don't have to be technically minded, just have an idea and drive it to its conclusion.'
Lindsay and Russell
Middleton
Sister and brother, 24 and 25, Plymouth
Site: www.wehanghere.com
Background: She read economics at University College London; he studied engineering at Cambridge.They created the site in their spare time and now have nearly 500 members .
Big idea: free website enabling users to look, via Google Maps, at their favourite venues and see who 'hangs out' there.
Lindsay says: 'We've no intention of going to Silicon Valley. We're proud to be British.'
The UK's reputation as something of a backwater in the world of the web is out of date. Today The Observer reveals some of the brightest stars of this new generation, from the teenager who made a million dollars from his bedroom to the businesswoman revolutionising mobile text messaging, from the brother-and-sister team creating online social networks linked to real places to the Leeds man who started his first website at 14 and is now pioneering software to protect children. None is older than 30, all are shaping the future.
This generation of entrepreneurs is taking on, and sometimes beating, the Americans at their own game. The UK software economy is worth around £20bn, with Microsoft a huge investor. Millions are being poured into internet start-ups with a flamboyance once seen only in California, and some US venture capitalists have opened offices here for the purpose of making money. Experts say that economic and cultural changes - including TV programmes such as Dragons' Den and The Apprentice - have made entrepreneurship a fashionable career choice for young people, promising to slow the brain drain and revive Britain's pride in innovation.
But, unlike the first UK internet boom a decade ago led by Martha Lane Fox's online travel firm Lastminute.com, large-scale financial backing is not essential to get started: the spread of broadband access and the diminishing price of hardware make it possible to set up and run a virtual company from a bedroom or coffee shop. The next wave of would-be dotcom millionaires includes teenagers, university dropouts and a former Butlins redcoat. All they need is a big idea.
Whitfield, studying for a PhD in biochemistry at Oxford, spends his days researching vaccines for HIV and hepatitis C. Late at night, over eight months, he was hunched over a computer screen programming software for DesignTheTime. Eventually it wowed the judges at the university's own version of Dragons' Den. Whitfield and his two co-founders are from Germany, but will move to Britain permanently. 'Britain is very friendly for building up ventures like this,' he said. 'In Germany it's much more bureaucratic.'
Dan Wagner, a partner at Bright Station Ventures, said: 'Momentum is now gathering in this country. The fact we watch Dragons' Den on TV is illustrative of a change, and now if you ask young students what they want to do, it's start a business. They need the right funding to make their dream a reality, but the infrastructure is not there - yet.'
The poster boy of internet dreamers is Alex Tew, 22, who hit the jackpot in 2005 with his website Million Dollar Homepage. With a debt of £4,000 and more to come at university, one night Tew wrote, 'How can I become a millionaire?' on a piece of paper and began brainstorming. 'It needed to be ambitious, have a good name, grab attention, be directly about money and so simple I could build it in a couple of days,' he recalled. 'I needed a million of something to sell and I didn't have a million of anything, then pixels [the simplest graphical unit on a computer screen] came to mind. It was a lightbulb moment.'
Tew set up a website to sell advertising space in the form of a million pixels at $1 each. He borrowed £500 from family and friends to put out publicity which gained coverage from the BBC and snowballed: 'It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. People were in disbelief because I was making money for effectively nothing, and the very fact they talked about it was the reason it did well.' He made £500,000.
Tew, from Swindon, Wiltshire, said there are now opportunities that were unthinkable in the Nineties. 'It's so cheap these days for an internet start-up. Everyone has broadband, so the internet is a lot more appealing. Sites like MySpace and YouTube could not have existed five years ago in their current form.'
The self-confident can-do enthusiasm of Silicon Valley is now audible in the buzz of Second Chance Tuesday, a networking event in central London where hi-tech entrepreneurs, investors and visitors from the likes of eBay and Google swap ideas and business cards. The first, a year ago, was organised in 10 days with little publicity yet attracted 400 applicants; it is now invariably over-subscribed several times.
Co-organiser Judith Clegg said: 'We have businesses such as Bebo [a social networking site] and Skype [internet telephony] getting international recognition, and people all over the world are looking to London as a creative hub.'
A winning website can take just one person, a laptop and a killer concept that harnesses content generated by its users, a characteristic of so-called 'Web 2.0'. But fully fledged businesses, particularly those involving complex technology, still require initial support from venture capitalists or 'angel investors', individuals who back schemes without an aggressive profit-at-all-costs motivation. When Christina Domecq, a member of the Allied Domecq wine and spirits family, wanted to set up a hi-tech company she did not choose Spain, where she was born, or America, where she grew up. She came to Britain.
Domecq co-founded SpinVox - which turns mobile voicemails into text messages, and voice calls into internet blogs - and raised £25m from angel investors. Her staff has grown from 30 to 165 in the past year and SpinVox expects its six millionth user in 2007. 'I've found the UK amazingly welcoming,' said Domecq, 30. 'There's great opportunity for innovation and real breadth of experience here.'
Just as Stanford University is a powerhouse at the heart of Silicon Valley UK, so Oxford, Cambridge and London universities such as Imperial College are fuelling the UK surge. Venture capital investment in London, the east and south-east was £923m in 2005. But Bob Goodson, co-founder and chairman of the student society Oxford Entrepreneurs, warned that Britain still has some way to go - Silicon Valley investments for 2005 totalled £4.2bn.
'In the US, angel investors invest in people and markets at an early stage,' said the 26-year-old, now working for a social networking start-up in California. 'That concept does not seem to be prevalent in the UK, where it's more "Show me the business plan and exactly how I'm going to get my money back, times 10." That's all very well in a solid established industry, but when you're doing something for the first time you can't know everything in advance. You have to be nimble.'
Nevertheless, there is a sense of growing confidence and energy in digital Britain. Time and again, the most important ingredient has been a winning idea - and Britain's twentysomethings appear to be rich in those.
The young webmasters:
Oli Barrett
29, Reading
Site: www.connectedcapital.co.uk
Background: Dropped out of university and did a summer job as a Butlins redcoat. Went to Leeds University and started Amazingyou, a student headhunting site.
Big idea: Introduced a business version of speed-dating in which people meet for three minutes at a time.
He says: 'I'm 29 and still hungry.'
Adam Hildreth
21, Leeds
Site: www.crispthinking.com
Background: Came up with Dubit, a website for teenagers, when he was 14 and left school at 16 to run it full time. Turnover this year will be £1.5m.
Big idea: Technology to protect children from paedophiles online.
He says: 'The money isn't just handed over, there is a lot of testing to make sure it will work.'
Harjeet Johal
27, Nottingham
Site: underfivepounds.com
Background: Started his internet business in 2006. Turnover is now more than £5m.
Big idea: Online retailer selling items for less than £5.
He says: 'You don't have to be technically minded, just have an idea and drive it to its conclusion.'
Lindsay and Russell
Middleton
Sister and brother, 24 and 25, Plymouth
Site: www.wehanghere.com
Background: She read economics at University College London; he studied engineering at Cambridge.They created the site in their spare time and now have nearly 500 members .
Big idea: free website enabling users to look, via Google Maps, at their favourite venues and see who 'hangs out' there.
Lindsay says: 'We've no intention of going to Silicon Valley. We're proud to be British.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Anthony Patounas
And finally, a special mention to Anthony Patounas, 36, from Oakleigh for providing one of the lamest excuses for having a drugs laboratory in his house, ever heard by man. Patounas has been remanded in custody after a Police raid yesterday discovered a large and sophisticated methanphetamines laboratory operating within a shop in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh. Police were initially tipped off from a member of the public who became suspicious of a strange smell coming from the shop. When Police raided the premises, they found Patounas inside smoking a cigarette, while equipment used to make such drugs as Speed and Ice operated only metres away. Police said the equipment and other supplies were of a large and sophisticated quantity, capable of making commercial quantities of the deadly drugs.
While facing court yesterday Patounas claimed that the Police were exxagerating the charges against him, and that the drugs he was making were for personal use, and helped him bring the best out of his voice while he engaged in his passion for singing opera. Umm... RIIIGGGHHT!!!!
See you in court later this year Mr Patounis.
While facing court yesterday Patounas claimed that the Police were exxagerating the charges against him, and that the drugs he was making were for personal use, and helped him bring the best out of his voice while he engaged in his passion for singing opera. Umm... RIIIGGGHHT!!!!
See you in court later this year Mr Patounis.
Kanye West has made it clear, hes not a fan of Chicks With Dicks
Kanye West is generally regard as one of the leading figures in Hip Hop at the moment, however he is also known for his tendancy to say things that raise eyebrows. This week was no exception. West was talking to MTV straight after the conclusion of the Grammy Awards last week when he made a comment that not only had the Dixie Chicks a little disappointed, but also had the rest of the world in fits of laughter.
When asked for his opinion of the Grammys ceremony, West didnt exactly hold back.
"The winners for Record Of The Year really show how predictable and irellevent the Grammy Awards have become. I mean, who are these Chicks With Dicks anyway?" West asked.
While the Dixie Chicks were said to be not amused, those lucky enough to see the comments aired on TV were left in fits of laughter as West once again showed that while his lyrics are often considered to be very personal, real and from the heart, when he talks to the media, its often a recipe for disaster.
Germaine Greer some ugly old bitch who cares about her?
It seems that Steve Irwin not only had to contend with a Stingrays barb, but he is still copping barbs from another evil creature, Germaine Greer.
In September last year, Germaine Greer had the honour of recieving a Friday ****wit award for her heartless comments about Steve Irwins death from a Stingray attack. For those of you who dont remember, Greer commented that the Stingray attack was nature taking revenge against Irwin for all the times he has harrassed and disturbed animals for the purpose of making entertainment. Well, it seems that no amount of bad publicity will stop this pathetic waste of space from opening her bitter mouth. Last week the National Portrait Gallery of Australia removed Germaine Greers photo from its walls and replaced it with a portrait of Steve Irwin. The Portrait Gallery has placed Irwin on the wall as part of a collection of portraits of iconic Australians. While the gallery has stated that the decision to replace Greer of all people with Irwin, considering past events, is purely co-incidental, the move has seen many theories bandied about, even a suggestion that Irwin was taking revenge against Greer from heaven.
However, clearly upset by the fact that her photo has been removed, Greer used the situation to attack the portrait of Irwin. She commented that the photo of Irwin made him look feminine, unmanly and weak. While her comments this time didnt upset people as much as those she made back in September, it once again proved that Greer is nothing more than a bitter old cow with absolutly nothing of any relevance to say.
Germaine Greer, we should take this opportunity, while awarding you another Friday ****wit award, to remind you that looking masculine, rough and scary is not always a good thing. And you are living proof of that.
by: PeachExperiment
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