simong's site

COOL

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:40:22 +0000

asdasdaasd

etribes PR

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:13:31 +0100

We're starting our PR roll out this week - some early coverage at mad.co.uk here.

Personally I don't think we're challenging MySpace or Facebook - there are tens of millions of grownups across Europe who simply don't 'get' Facebook & MySpace.

They want uncluttered, easy to use, advert free services that actually serve a purpose in their busy lives. etribes provides that - a single place to store, share, access and organise your digital content and soon your tribe (your close friends and family). Close because they don't have time for their existing friends and family - the idea of making new 'friends' online simply isn't a need they have.

etribes - Spring Special

Wed, 23 May 2007 17:37:08 +0100

We're gearing up for a PR push from the end of May. We're offering all our existing members (those who subscribe by the 8th June) a 50% discount on our Personal and Plus packages. This means that the Plus package which provides unlimited albums etc. and 20GB of storage is just £24. If you'd like to take up this offer sign in and sign up now!

When will you be famous?

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:13:12 +0100

etribes is gearing up for a mainstream consumer PR push towards the end of this month. I'm looking for a number of etribes Members who would be willing to enable us to profile you and your etribes LifeSite in some of our upcoming PR.The PR will involve your site being included in a written Case Study (with our without your website address being included - entirely your choice).I'd also like to conduct a short telephone interview with you, to talk about your site and why you are using etribes. It won't be too formal and it should be fun!As a way of saying thanks, I'll personally arrange for some gift vouchers to be sent to you (value £25) allowing to buy CDs, books or anything else you fancy from Amazon.com!If you'd like to help please drop me an email at simon@etribes.com - thanks! Simon Grice ps. the pic above is Bros for those of you who remember...

Kiss goodbye to your boarding pass and then your car keys (in that order?)

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:28:02 +0100

A friend of mine - David Strahan - recently published his latest book - 'The Last Oil Shock'. Check out his website at www.davidstrahan.com

I read an early draft and was very impressed with the level of detail David has gone into and the weight of evidence he presents in relation to the impending 'oil shock' - generic terminology describing the period after oil demand exceeds supply - forever...

It's clear the oil shock *will* happen - it's really just a question of when. I'd recommend everyone to read it - simply because the ramifications in social terms will be huge.

Of course the optimist in me sees a bright future where we have used our combined intelligence and the Internet (of course!) to create a new future where we're much less dependent on existing energy sources (including oil). So... we have 2 major global crisis rapidly emerging - 'The Last Oil Shock' and 'Climate Change'. As Al says - 'crisis' in Chinese consists of 2 symbols - 'Danger & Opportunity' - I suspect the 'solutions' to both of these problems very much overlap and David (I hope) will be contributing at the upcoming Energy 2.0 event we'll be announcing soon to discuss the opportunities that are being created as a result.

The Last Oil Shock is the explosive new book from David Strahan that explains why you may soon be kissing your car keys and boarding pass goodbye.

	For every barrel of oil we discover, we now consume three.
	Oil production is already falling in 60 countries.
	At some point, probably in the next decade, global oil production will start to fall – for ever.

And that's when things start to get interesting...

mashup* 6.0

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:05:57 +0100

mashup* (the 6th event now) is being held on the 24th April at BT Centre, London. This month will be exploring 'Identity 2.0' and what this means in terms of OpenID, Cardspace and other emerging systems. For more details see the mashupEvent.com site. Thanks again to the panel and contributors for agreeing to take part in mashup*. I'm looking forward to it!

Supported by:

etribes 2.007

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:27:04 +0000

2007. Happy New Year.

It’s Tuesday the 16th January and we're already half-way through January. Things are busy as ever but with our company team-building day planned for this afternoon I wanted to take 5 minutes to look back briefly and reflect on 2006.

2006 was a busy year. We achieved a lot as a business and laid a lot of the groundwork to enable 2007 to be the year we get etribes to 'take off'.

I’ve outlined a summary below. Thanks to the etribes/Midentity team for working so hard to achieve this - I'm looking forward to the rest of 2007 as we continue to drive the business forwards.

2006

January – the Board agrees to acquire etribes Limited and to my proposed shift in strategy away from B2B licensing to a consumer ‘Digital Lifestyle Aggregator’ service called etribes. The Board agrees to my proposal to recruit and hire a great COO.

February – held mashup* 1. Agreed terms with 118118. Spoke at European Directory Conference in Rome. Midentity was a showcase company at the Innovation & Growth Forum.

March – etribes Contacts goes live with 118118 as a partner.

April – etribes made the 1st non-test version of etribes Life (then called) available. We continue to operate etribes Groups. We specify etribes Local & etribes Live (for release in Q1 2007).

May – Mark Sait joins as COO. Held mashup* 2. Spoke at 3i conference in Edinburgh. Spoke at the Blogs and Social Media Forum. etribes Life is nominated for the New Statesman New Media Awards.

June – Added mobile photo upload to etribes LifeSite.

July – we acquired etribes Limited. We held the launch of etribes – “the UK’s leading Digital Lifestyle Aggregator” - at BT Tower. Closed more private funding. Updated the office environment

August – we all took a small break. Appointed Catherine Howe from public-i as an Advisor to the Board.

September – held mashup* 3. Welcomed the return of Mark Stowe. etribes was featured in the Financial Times. Spoke at the PICNIC 06 in Amsterdam. The etribes Deskbar is a finalist for “Innovation of the Year” at the CNET UK Technology Awards.

October – Tom Bureau of CNET joins our Advisory Board. Attended the TechCrunch UK launch party. Spoke at Inside the Bubble. Held customer feedback sessions.

November – agree partnerships with Confetti. Spoke at FT World Communications Congress. Added mobile video to etribes LifeSite feature. Attended MediaTech 2.006 at which our EventSpace service is centre stage (literally).Agreed terms with Vecosys (now called) for mashup* to be run by them in 2007. etribes is mentioned alongside Myspace and Google in the Observer.

December – attend Le Web 3, held mashup* 4.

Mark Sait appointed CEO. Esther Dyson joins the Board. I am Executive Chairman and Founder. Specifically responsible for Product Strategy but as Founder (of what is still a growing business - 15 people) I have many hats. Closed more private funding. Added multiple etribes LifeSite Themes.

MediaTech 2.006

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:12:54 +0000

I'm at MediaTech 2.006 with a great line up of speakers and panel members. Fascinating - I'll have more to say tomorrow.

Meanwhile some pictures (courtest of Edublogger).

FT World Communications Congress

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:02:32 +0000

I'm at the FT World Communications Congress in London. Convergence is the principle subject how content, communications, connectivity and commerce is converging. How telcos are becoming media businesses, how commerce enablers are becoming communications providers.

IP changes everything - actually flattens everything.

I'm up at 4pm talking about "The Generation Issue" where I'll be introducing the Digital Lifestyle Aggregator (DLA) and how that service layer is becoming increasingly important for individuals, service providers, content providers, commerce enablers and communications providers.

mashup* - 13th December

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:56:22 +0100

The next mashup* will be held on the 13th December in central London. The theme will be Advertising 2.0 and with 60 people registering within the first hour I expect it will be a very popular event.

The last mashup* in September was a great success - etribes has lust launched it's mobile MMS Video to etribes LifeSite service - see below for an example - this is a clip from the last mashup* at BT Centre.

I look forward to seeing you there!

TechCrunch UK Launch Party

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:50:50 +0100

Was kindly invited by Sam Sethi to the TechCrunch UK Launch Party last night. The UK startup/tech scene is *very* active right now and it's great to see so much activity. It felt like most of the UK startups/VCs and media/telecom businesses in the UK were represented and the quality of the conversation was great. I'm looking forward to the next mashup* to continue some of the conversations...

Inside the bubble.

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:05:56 +0100

On Monday evening I sat on the panel at the Inside the Bubble event organised by Banner. Sam Sethi, James Cashmore, Ian Jindal, Jose Adams, Robert Hollier and I sat on the panel. It was good fun - although we initially felt we were in a boy (+girl) band - due to the layout of the stage, the seats and the mics (see the photos below). After our opening number ;) - we moved on to discuss the impact on marketing of 'Web2.0'. The principle issue that was agreed by all the members of the panel is that there is no such thing as 'Web2.0' - we agreed there has been a huge shift during the last few years in the availability, speed and cost of access to the Internet - with a similiar shift in the price and availability of wifi enabled laptops and mobile devices. This fundamental shift in the ability for an individual to "connect" to the Internet is creating a 'connected, always on culture' - which in turn is raising people's expectations of what they can and want to do. Humans are very tribal and social by nature (2 million years of evolution...) which means services that help people stay connected to "their tribe" (email, SMS, MySpace, etribes, Bebo etc.) tap into fundamental human needs - not simply fads.

The event was literally 'inside the bubble'. This is the Serpentine Gallery in London. I was hoping we'd take off but that'll have to be another venture...

Going with the flow...

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:27:48 +0100

Richard & I went for a paddle this lunch time. It was *very* relaxing and being on the river gives you a totally different perspective on things. We talked about the upcoming etribes Mobile Video feature (next week) and how we thought people might use it. With the recent news that YouTube has been purchased by Google, video is certainly 'hot'. Personally I think 'mobile video' is how most people will create their own videos - I've already got around 4 videos of my kids on my mobile which I've not backed up or shared with anyone (they're stuck on my mobile!) - so I'm looking forward to using it. It's key to allow people to choose whether the mobile videos album is private, password protected or public (just like we do with photos).

Now I know what a DLA is...

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:32:28 +0100

mashup* was a great success. Thanks to the team, BT, etribes - Tony Fish, Stephen Stokols, Sam Sethi, Marc Canter & Tariq Krim for speaking and sitting on the panel. I learnt a lot and really enjoyed the evening.

The photos are up at http://www.etribes.com/gallery/view/31229

Also a short (80MB though) video is available at http://www.etribes.com/http://www.etribes.com/sites/etribes.com/files/MOV02241.MPG (and yes we're adding inline support for Flash Playback on your etribes LifeSite - *very soon*.

FT coverage

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 08:02:17 +0100

I noticed a nice piece about etribes/Midentity today in the Financial Times. Click the photo to see the original version. What I particulary like is that the focus is moving from 'Social Networking' to 'Digital Lifestyle Aggregators' - very timely given mashup* pushed past the 200 attendees mark...