Europe Archive

I’ve always been against texting while driving, videotaping while driving or talking on your mobile device without a hands-free headset while driving. It makes me angry when I see videos on YouTube where a driver is holding a camera and videotaping themselves while driving (many times at high speeds on the highway). As Judge Judy says, it’s one thing if you want to take your own life, but when you are reckless you put so many others in the path of potential harm. It’s too bad that local police agencies don’t go after those who post their videos on YouTube showing off their “oh so important” video they just had to create while driving.

If you think driving your car while filming a video is not appropriate, what about a city bus driver driving a bus down a busy street using his elbows while operating two cellular phones? The bus driver is operating the bus in Rome and appears to be talking on one cell phone while setting up email and other online accounts on the second phone.

Here’s hoping the bus operator was able to get out that important tweet, check-in to his bus, Like his bus, or tip his important update. Those things are certainly more important than passenger safety and the safety of those around the bus.

Here’s the video from the incident — I am unable to confirm whether the driver has only been suspended or whether he has been fired.
Continue reading “Italian Bus Driver Suspended After Driving Bus With Elbows While Hands on Two Cellphones (video)” »

We initially covered Vienna-based Tunesbag in April 2008 when they launched their private beta. Today the company announced that they have received funding and support from the INiTS incubator based in Vienna, Austria.

From the announcement post, “INiTS offers funding, coaching and networking and aims at young professionals who want to start up their own company in the fields of technology, biotech and lifescience.”

The INiTS incubator looks similar to the startup incubators we have in the U.S. It sure seems like incubators are hot in 2010!

I will attempt to get the amount of funding that TunesBag received from founder Hansjoerg Posch and will update the post once I get confirmation.

Creating test plans can take lots of time and can be difficult to build. A new UK-based startup aims to make the test case creation process smoother. TestLodge offers the ability to create and manage test cases and the test plans and runs that are part of the overall test cases.

In my tests, the service loaded very fast and accepted my results in a rapid manner. When you create an account, you select a URL for use with the service — similar to using the 37Signals services. Your customers and colleagues use this new URL to login to the system to create, manage and execute the test plans.

Pricing for TestLodge ranges from $12 – $99/month and there is also a very limited free plan. TestLodge is using the new payment startup Chargify and Paypal for payment processing.

Founder Scott Sherwood is based in the UK and built the site for £300 using Ruby on Rails. Not sure I would push how cheaply the site was developed for as the service looks good and you don’t want customers to worry that the site has nothing behind it. I would stick with something simple like “we are bootstrapping the TestLodge service” and then perhaps in an interview bring up the actual development costs.

But what do I know – Digg was apparently built for $2k and with a $10/hour programmer.

In the new-age of social media, two companies are attempting to remake the old standard press release. NY-based file sharing service drop.io offers PressLift which allows companies to create a multimedia and analytics-driven press release.

PressDoc, a new Amsterdam-based startup, is also looking to revolutionize the press release.  PressDoc describes their service as, “With the rise of blogs and social media the media landscape is changing rapidly. It’s not just the traditional journalists anymore that cover the news. It’s bloggers, Facebookers, ‘Tweeps’ and all the other social media users that decide what news will be distributed across their personal networks. These new journalists demand a new kind of press release optimized for the web, enriched with media and easy to share. PressDoc offers a service for businesses to do just that.”

Both services allow you to add rich media to your release — PressLift appears to be a bit deeper in its analytics and reporting offering. I like the PressDoc publishing layout as matches a traditional blog editor.

You can view press release examples for both PressDoc and PressLift.

Continue reading “PressDoc Creates Social Media Press Releases” »

Ad optimization firm Pubmatic has announced a new partnership with Amsterdam-based Improve Digital today. The partnership will help Pubmatic expand further into Europe and the companies say the partnership should help to increase fill-rate for publishers using the Pubmatic service.

Pubmatic self-reports over 5,500 publishers are using their service and the new partnership will bring sales, service and support in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany and Italy.

Pubmatic notes in the release that on average 20-40% of traffic to large U.S. publishers comes from European visitors. They believe that this new partnership will help increase the fill rate for European visitors which will lead to increased earnings.

Ad networks in the U.S. will also have access to publishers that are served by Improve Digital. Financial terms of the partnership were not provided.

ClipDealer is a Munich-based marketplace for stock video footage. Last year we reviewed another stock footage marketplace based in NYC, Pond5.

ClipDealer notes that they have over 38,000 video clips in a variety of categories including food, leisure, travel, people, sports and technology. Videos are available in multiple formats including PAL and HD1080. Pricing varies based on the specific file and the selected format. In my testing, a 640×480 video was priced at ~$25 and the HD 1080 version priced at ~$100.

You can view samples and usage rights for each video. Storyboards are included as well so you can get an idea of the individual frames that make up the movie. Content creators can post their videos on ClipDealer and share in the revenue. The earnings are split 50/50 and ClipDealer takes an additional 2 euro payment processing fee.

The service is available in English and German although pricing is in Euros.

WebMD has announced a new partnership with Boots (similar to CVS in the U.S.) in the UK to create a consumer health portal. The portal will combine health information from WebMD plus pharmacy and online sales via Boots.

"We are excited to be working with Boots UK as an important part of our strategy to expand WebMD’s presence internationally," said Wayne Gattinella, CEO and President, WebMD. "Boots is the recognized leader in pharmacy and healthcare in the UK. Together we will build a powerful new health information resource designed to help UK consumers lead healthier lives."

The new portal site will launch in mid-2009 and WebMD and Boots will share in the development costs of the site. WebMD will manage the online advertising on the site but both companies will share equally in the generated revenue.