Past articles

Boštjan Špetič: How big is blogging really?

The second speaker of the How To Web 2010 conference was Boštjan Špetič, the Zemanta CEO.

Boštjan’s presentation was entitled: “Measuring the blogosphere… or how big is it really?”. In his presentation Boštjan compared data regarding the blogosphere size obtained from different sources and highlighted the huge differences between these sources.

The bottom line of Boštjan’s presentation was that:

  • The blogosphere is 3 to 5 times overestimated;
  • It is very important to measure what you are working with as “If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist”.

Check out Boštjan’s presentation below for more information:

Boštjan špetič howtoweb blogosphere
View more presentations from HowToWeb.

November 15, 2010 by no comments

Christopher Grew thinks Eastern Europe’s got a lot of web potential

During Seedcamp Week 2010 we also had the opportunity to interview another one of our main speakers: Christopher Grew, partner at Orrick. Chris told us that he thinks Eastern Europe has got a lot of web business potential and that he is looking forward to meeting Eastern Europe entrepreneurs at How To Web 2010. During his presentation at the conference, Chris Grew will explain to you how to ensure that you and your technology business are suitable for investment in a few easy steps.

October 12, 2010 by no comments

Eastern Europe’s Got Web Talent!

Web innovation is global nowadays. It has never been easier for web innovators and entrepreneurs all over the world to get out in the open. I would dare say that nowadays web truly is a global language. However, Eastern Europe’s focus on this area is unexpectedly low and very few EE startups are launched eevery year. Nevertheless, the few international success stories seem to be proving that inspite of this small numbers of daring EE entrepreneurs, Eastern Europe’s got the web talent it needs.

The Slovenian Httpool, the Estonian Skype, the Romanian Interakt and Gecad,  the Czech NetBeans and GoodData are all good examples of Eastern Europe’s web know-how. Zemanta, Codility, Erply,  UberVU, Brainient are also a wonderful proof of Eastern Europe’s drive and energy.

According to Reshma Sohoni, CEO Seedcamp the EE entrepreneurs are: “Very talented from a technical standpoint. I find Eastern Europe’s entrepreneurs really driven and dream big. Many of them display the sense of urgency that is really critical for a startup entrepreneur to have“.

As a matter of fact this is exactly what the Seedcamp competition is all about. Seedcamp believes that Europe has the talent, the role models, and the capital founders it needs to succeed. That’s why Seedcamp is trying and, based on the success stories, it is also succeeding to empower web entrepreneurs all over Europe, including EE.

So, Eastern Europe has got the energy, the skills and the opportunities to make web things happen. But it no longer has any excuses.

According to Loic Le Meur, founder and CEO of Seesmic.com and LeWeb Europe tech event,  “the fact that the largest investor in Facebook this year is a Russian company says a lot about the Internet industry in eastern europe, I am expecting entrepreneurs from the east to build more international leaders very soon“.

Alex van Someren, UK IT Entrepreneur, states the exactly main idea: “I’ve met a lot of exciting and imaginative entrepreneurs and technology businesses from Eastern Europe recently, and I think How to Web looks like a great opportunity to meet and spend time with even more of them!“.

So… do you speak web? Then, what are you waiting for?

July 1, 2010 by 1 comment

Zemanta – $2 mil for a smart blogging Seedcamp start-up

Zemanta is the blogging-intelligence platform founded in Slovenia and one of the 6 winners of the 2007 Seecamp Week.  Zemanta won the €50,000 ($67,200) prize in 2007 from Seedcamp and then had about 10 weeks to develop the software from the initial Slovenian prototype. In January 2008, The Accelerator Group, Britain’s Eden Ventures and Union Square Ventures invested around £750,000 ($1.1 million) for an undisclosed stake in the startup. That was followed by a further $650,000 investment in September 2008 by Union Square Ventures.

Zemanta – your personal blogging assistant

Zemanta is a tool that helps bloggers write better articles by suggesting related content from the web. It is meant to be some sort of content suggestion engine that helps users blog easier and smarter. In order to use Zemanta one must install a Firefox extension that will automatically show related images, blog posts and articles from Wikipedia, IMDb, Amazon, Crunchbase, Facebook, MySpace, RottenTomatoes, Twitter, etc. next to the post editor. These suggestions are updated as you write more content.

You can also use Zemanta to write e-mails more effectively. You get the same features you get on your blog on Gmail and Yahoo! mail as well.

The co-founders are Andraž Tori and Boštjan Špetič. They have since brought in the team Aleš Špetič as Chairman and Marko Mrdjenovič as VP Engineering.

June 29, 2010 by 1 comment

Httpool – Slovenia’s 20 mil EUR/year hit

20 million EUR turnover for 2009. 7500+ campaigns for 1000+ referential clients since 2000. 1B+ monthly impressions on 3000+ sites. 35+ partnerships with major international networks. 60+ online media specialists. 10 offices in CEE, Germany and US. In other words, Httpool, a business started in Slovenia in 2000.

Httpool is the leading Central and Eastern European online advertising network with international reach and focus on emerging markets.

The serial entrepreneurs from Slovenia

The co-founders of Httpool are Aljoša Jenko and Andrej Nabergoj. The 2 of them have also co-founded Parsek, the Slovenian e-business solution provider, and Noovo, asocial discovery engine which will change the way people share and discover content online.

Aljoša Jenko has 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur, supervising 9 companies in the fields of software and interactive advertising as a founding partner. Prior to Httpool, Aljoša co-founded and sold 00net, the largest national indoor media network in Slovenia.

Andrej Nabergoj describes himself as a “tireless entrepreneur, start-up guy and angel investor, who started fast-growing companies in software and online media”. During the last 10 years Andrej has indeed proved tireless, co-founding and leading 6 software and internet companies with more than  +$20M in revenues, including Parsek and Parsek Japan. Andrej is also the chairman of the Yes – Young Executives Society, co-curator for the Silicon Valley TEDx and is vice-president for the Young Entrepreneurs of Europe organization. Currently, Andrej is CEO of Noovo.

Andrej’s blog is entitled “Nothing Ever Happens” as a tribute to cult artist and dream teacher, Yoshitomo Nara. This title is one of the beliefs that guided Nabergoj all through his startup founding activity. “Life is boring, so be creative and make it interesting. And also, nothing ever happens- per se. You make it happen”, explains Nabergoj.

June 23, 2010 by 2 comments