Switzerland Archive

PetSite is a new Zurich-based startup that aims to create a pet community. I don’t have any pets (except for the rats in the subway) but I know that those with pets believe they actually talk and so forth. PetSite is a social networking site for pets similar to Dogster/Catster. PetSite is available in a number of languages including English.

Each pet gets a profile page (like MySpace) where the pet can “talk”. The pet categories include dogs, cats, birds, horses, fish, rabbits, rodents (??), reptiles and ferrets.

This week’s featured pet is “Pepe” the cat - displayed to the right. Here’s how Pepe describes himself, “Hey there. I just wanted to introduce me quickly :). my name is Pepe and i live in Zurich, Switzerland in a nice apartment together with my brother Pepper. We are both 2 years old and love to sleep - play - eat - sleep every day (in this order). I will post some news from time to time here.” Pepe has a bunch of friends which include a dog, and a horse.

The pet profiles page also includes what the pets first day was like, what the pet enjoys doing, and things the pet likes/doesn’t like. Pepe notes he likes, “I  love to play with small balls, fake mice, my brother and everything else that i can catch.”.

Petsite also has polls and voting for the pet of the week. The site appears to be currently supported via advertising.

Swiss-based Wuala has announced that they have merged with European storage manufacturer LaCie for an undisclosed sum. Congrats to Wuala co-founder and CEO Dominik Grolimund and the entire Wuala team. I’ve had a chance to chat with Dominik several times over the past year and I found him to be very intelligent and I always walk away from the conversations with new knowledge.

The companies note in the release that they will build a "unique and sustainable" cloud storage system. Wuala’s nine employees will join LaCie. The Wuala FAQ notes that they will be expanding the team in the near future.

Interestingly I just purchased a LaCie external drive a month ago and it came with a free year of Carbonite online backup. I wonder if today’s announcement will put the Wuala application in the LaCie package going forward. 

Check out my interview with Dominik from last year.

If you are new to Swiss-based Wuala, here’s how founder and CEO explained the service: "Wuala is a new way of storing, sharing, and publishing files on the internet. Unlike traditional online storage systems, Wuala is decentralized and can harness idle resources of participating computers to build a large, secure, and reliable online storage. This enables its users to trade parts of their local storage for online storage and it allows us to provide a better service for free."

This morning Wuala is announcing the launch of a new interface for their Web client along with an API which will allow developers to tap into the Wuala platform. The API can be used to create or extend existing applications and mobile services. Wuala can be used either via web browser or via a desktop client for mac, pc or linux. I like how clean the new Web interface is (an example screenshot is below). Looks like it could be a good fit for sharing a batch of photos similar to Flickr.

Wuala self-reports 30 million files have been stored and shared on the service since their beta launch in August. Since it seems Wuala offers private storage and sharing, it could be considered a competitor to NY-based Drop.io.

Check out our full interview with Dominik Grolimund to learn more about Wuala, their technology and business model.

Last month we reviewed a Swiss-based service named Moreganize. Our Swiss reporter, Corsin, noted that the biggest competition to Moreganize would come from another Swiss-based company, Doodle. Today Doodle has announced the launch of an event planning tool as a Facebook application.

It’s interesting to watch the event planning category move to a crowdsourced model where polls are used to find a time and date that meets the needs of the group. The Doodle Facebook application allows you to poll your friends around an event topic. Facebook friends will receive a message inside of Facebook and Doodle will send emails to your friends who don’t have Facebook accounts.

Here’s an example of the poll page:

Check out our coverage of other event-planning services including MyPunchbowl, Renkoo, Center’d, Coordinatr and GoLark. Also check out our coverage of technology in Switzerland.

We initially covered online P2P IPTV service Zattoo last year when they launched in the UK. Our reporter in Switzerland, Corsin Camichel, has the scoop on today’s launch of high quality, full television resolution (HiQ) channels on Zattoo. The new HiQ service isn’t full HD (yet?) and is only available in Switzerland.

The monthly fee for the Zattoo HiQ service is 5CHF ($4.60) per month. Zattoo has a partnership with Swisscom and Swisscom VDSL subscribers get the HiQ channels for free. The channels included in the HiQ plan are: ARD, Canale 5, Eurosport, France 2, France 3, M6, Pro7, Rai Uno, RTL, Sat1, SF 1, SF 2, SF info, TF1, TSI1, TSI2, TSR1, TRS2, VOX and ZDF.

Moreganize is a Swiss-based startup that looks to help you organize groups using surveys. Example uses would be to find the perfect time for a group meeting or which movie everyone in the group is interested in viewing. There are also some basic project management services including a to-do list.

The site is easy-to-use and if the survey is used for an event, schedule invites can be automatically sent to the attendees. The service is available in German and English although I would suggest they make sure all of the content is available in English. I see a good bit of words and phrases in German even on the English version.

They also need to look at making it easier to create a survey. There’s no link to create on the homepage and while the text says "no registration required" the only link to get started is for "free registration".

Update: Our Switzerland connection Corsin Camichel tells me that the biggest competition for Moreganize comes from switzerland itself: doodle.

Here’s a Moreganize sample where John Sample attempts to get feedback on which type of movie his guests would like to watch:

Check out Mark Gibbs’ review of Moreganize at NetworkWorld. And check out our coverage of other event-planning services including MyPunchbowl, Renkoo, Center’d, Coordinatr and GoLark.

Editor’s note: The story below was embargoed until this morning - but was broken last night. After speaking with Wuala founder Dominik Grolimund, he asked us to hold off posting until this morning.

When I interviewed Wuala founder and CEO Dominik Grolimund, I asked him how he defines the Wuala service. He replied, "Wuala is a new way of storing, sharing, and publishing files on the internet. Unlike traditional online storage systems, Wuala is decentralized and can harness idle resources of participating computers to build a large, secure, and reliable online storage. This enables its users to trade parts of their local storage for online storage and it allows us to provide a better service for free."

The big news today out of the Wuala camp is that today marks their public opening. Previously the service was in a closed alpha for just under a year. The company is self-funded. The Wuala team is based in Switzerland and has worked on the product for three years.

I asked Dominik about the Wuala business plan as many online storage companies have tried a variety of models. Dominik noted, "At the moment, we’re experimenting with ads in the public (World) area. Since our costs are lower, this might work. However, there are also other possible business models such as photo finishing, buying additional storage (you can trade if you want, if you don’t, you could buy some additional online storage for a really low price), or also other forms of sponsoring that we’re working on."

Check out other Wuala reviews on Download Squad and Profy.