WeColumn Launches A Blogging Widget

During the taping of Diggnation at the Next Web conference today in Amsterdam, Tobias van Telligen, an enterprising CEO of a Dutch startup bum rushed the stage and got in a plug for the Website he just launched today: WeColumn. He also bought 75 beers for the audience. That 150 Euros ($235) was marketing dollars well spent. Afterwards, also came and told me about his new Website.

WeColumn falls in between a regular blog and a micro-blog. You write a paragraph or two about a specific topic that you think others may be interested in and then other blogs or sites can embed the text as a widget on their own sites. For instance, Telligen’s own WeColumn (in Dutch) is about surf conditions in the North Sea. Other Dutch surf sites, such as the Holland Surfing Association re-skins the text and puts it up on their site.

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A Widget That Tracks Political Sentiment

As campaign season heats up, creating a political widget is a good way for startups to highlight their technology. Today, Jodange released two more Top of Mind widgets for iGoogle that tracks the sentiment about the political candidates as well as the sentiment of the candidates themselves on a series of topics. The first one, Candidate Pundit, analyzes news stories, political blogs, and other sources and does a semantic analysis of the text to determine whether the story is positive, neutral, or negative about a particular candidate. (The company’s first Top of Mind widget tracks sentiment on publicly traded stocks).

The second one, Topic Pundit, tracks the candidates own sentiments about issues such as taxes, the armed forces, domestic politics, and immigration. You can click through to see how the sentiments break down by candidate, and then click through again to see the excerpt that was analyzed. To see the actual source (mostly newspapers, it seems), you have to click through all the way back to Jodange’s site. It would be nice to see the source in the widget itself, but otherwise it is a very promising app because it helps you cut through the clutter of political reporting and speeches out there.

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Live From The Next Web (2008)

If you couldn’t make it to Amsterdam, Mike Butcher is live blogging the Next Web conference on TechCrunch UK. Read his individual posts on How to Deal With VCs (Adeo Ressi), the first batch of startup demos (CoComment, eBuddy, Fav.or.it, Wuaw, Introniche, Empressr), Open Widgets (Khris Loux), and Lookery’s play for European social networking ads. Or you can watch a live stream of the entire conference here (in Silverlight) or here (Windows only).

Update: Click on more below and see the live stream here in Silverlight. Right now Scott Rafer (founder of MyBlogLog and Lookery) is interviewing Kevin Rose of Digg. He says he is working on a recommendation system for Digg that will show you Diggs from other people who Digg items similar to what you Digg that should be out this summer. That could be huge. Also, on the difference between Twitter and Pownce: “Pownce is an amazing platform for sharing media with your friends and having a conversation around that media.” (TechCrunch UK has a complete write-up of the Rafer-Rose Q&A).

Update 2: Now up: Leah Culver, Nova Spivack, and demos from Netlog, Webnode, Lookery, Zilok, Radionomy, and Wakoopa.

Update 3: An episode of Diggnation will be streamed live here, starting at 11:50 AM ET. Make that 12:30 PM ET. This thing is starting now.

Update 3: Show’s over. We’ll be streaming the rest of the conference tomorrow.

(more…)

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Wuawee Launches: Connects Your Mobile Phone to Your Social Networks

One startup that presented at the Next Web in Amsterdam is Wuaw, which just launched a mobile app called WuawWee. The app lets you upload photos from your phone to a widget on various social networks (Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, iGoogle) and chat with friends. You can see the chat on your phone, and they can grab the widget and put it on their MySpace or Facebook pages. The mobile service costs 5 Euros per month, or 1 Euro per use.

Ads will be embedded in the desktop widget, and radio streaming will come soon (Wuaw has streaming deals with European radio stations for its MyRadio product).

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Slide Caught Posting Fake Positive Reviews For Their Own App

Multiple fake reviews for the Funwall App on Facebook have been deleted after it was discovered that the reviews came from employees of Slide, the apps owner.

Fake reviews seem to be part of the norm these days, however most companies are smart enough to cover their tracks; Slide employees on the other hand post from accounts that are part of the Slide Inc Facebook network.

A couple of samples (via this thread on Facebook)

FIVE STAR RATING
I can’t live without it!
by Sohyen Claire Kim at 2:12pm on January 30th, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvw

You can enjoy this super amazing FunWall apps!!!!
Very Strongly Recommended!!!! big_smile

FIVE STAR RATING
Fantastic Application!!
by Mayumi Yoshida at 1:44pm on February 1st, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvw

I totally love FunWall!! I can put Youtube videos, greeting cards, neat pix and fun postings…it’s super convenient and addictive!!
And I love how I can forward my friends’ fun stuff that they sent me!!

Hooray for FunWall!! Seriously, a Wall cannot get any better than this.

FIVE STAR RATING
w00t!
by Adora SlideEleven at 6:41pm on February 16th, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvw

love it.

FIVE STAR RATING
luv it!
by Adora SlideEight at 1:15am on February 17th, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvw

The Adora Slidexxx names are a particularly classy touch: not only is Slide spamming Facebook with fake reviews, they’re also using fake accounts with fake names and more staggeringly adding the fake accounts to the company only Facebook group (The name Adora comes from Slides Sr. Product Manager Adora Cheung). A full list of the fake accounts on Slide Inc here; there are pages upon pages of fake accounts, which also breach Facebook’s TOS.

MikeP on the same thread sums it up beautifully: “Slide writing fake reviews on their own reviews board is hilarious! is that really the behavior of a company worth $500M?”

Here’s a new theme song for the bright sparks at Slide who thought this was wise:

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Confirmed: MySpace To Launch New Music Joint Venture With Big Labels

We’ve confirmed through sources that MySpace has settled the pending litigation Universal Music, albeit in a very unique way. They’ll create a new MySpace Music joint venture, with equity stakes from all the major labels (except EMI, which is still negotiating).

Expect the announcement today, and a launch of the new music property in July or August 2008. The news was first reported by Reuters, with additional information from SAI.

The new company will own the MySpace music property, get a cash infusion of $120 million or so from parent company News Corp, and distribute that $120 million to Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. In return, the litigation will be dropped and the labels will give streaming and downloading rights to their catalog to the new entity. Approximately $100 million of the News Corp. capital will go to Universal; the rest will go to Sony BMG and Warner.

Users will be able to stream music on demand, create playlists, and add widget music players to their profiles. The streaming will be advertising supported - at first via display ads (like Imeem), and later via in-stream audio ads. DRM-free downloads will also be available, either advertising supported or on a pay basis like Amazon’s Music Store.

Advertising revenue will be split among the joint venture partners according to their equity stakes, not based on play counts.

CEO Search

MySpace is currently conducting a CEO search for the new entity, which is being led by MySpace COO Amit Kapur on an interim basis. Sources say that Kapur and MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe heavily recruited Ian Rogers, who just left Yahoo for stealth startup Topspin Media.

In case it isn’t abundantly clear - the big labels are all but giving up on charging for recorded music. Instead they’re trying to grab equity stakes in the distribution channels that directly touch consumers.

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Motley Fool Co-Brands With Mint

TechCrunch40-winner and Benchmark-funded startup Mint is having a good year. Their user base has grown 25% in the last month to 200,000. And today they’re getting access to 4 million more via a co-branded partnership with The Motley Fool, a popular finance portal.

The deal includes a co-branded version of Mint and promotion of the site on Motley Fool. Mint CEO Aaron Patzer says the deal is not exclusive, but wouldn’t give other details.

More than anything this is a sign of credibility for Mint, which continues to win ground v. competitors. Expect more partnerships soon.

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