Pajama Entrepreneur

The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports: “Investors directed at least $464.2 million into 101 Web 2.0 deals worldwide in the first half of the year, according to a report released Monday . . . Overall, the number of global Web 2.0 deals climbed 14 percent in the first half, the report said — but the gain was in Europe and Israel, while U.S. investments were virtually unchanged from the first half of 2006 with 67 deals and $357 million invested.”

It’s 2007 and by now, things should have changed, especially in this part of the world - “progressive” Europe that likes to look down on those backward Americans and unwashed Third Worlders with weird ideologies. But check out this video and the Financial Times stories about Seedcamp. Who do you see? Men, men and more men.

Where are the women? Sitting at home knitting cute little sweaters, baking cakes, filing their nails?

This is a serious question because according to the Chamber of Commerce here in Amsterdam women have been starting a large number of new enterprises, including in technology. Indeed, across the European Union, women have started a lot of new businesses but you wouldn’t find them in the super-macho world of VC backed technology companies.

I dumped on Seedcamp a few days ago as being a total joke and watching that room full of male geeks only reinforces my argument.

Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, has just released a report (The Communications Market 2007) that is hundreds of pages long but very interesting. Among the little tidbits of information in this report which covers TV, radio, broadband, Internet use, fixed and mobile telephony are:

• women 25-34 spend more than 20% online than men;
• of the 70 million mobile phone subscriptions in the UK, 64 percent are prepaid, 36 percent on contract;
• broadband speed doubled between 2005 and 2006;
• online advertising is one quarter of total press advertising;
• 78 percent of people who own DVRs (digital video recorders) skip the ads;
• 60 percent of 10-year olds own a mobile phone.

Click here to read more little tidbits I have picked out from this report.

Stylefeeder.com is the latest personal online shopping site that allows you to bookmark items you like (an iPhone, Gucci shoes, Dior bag), find “style twins” (people who share your taste), get product recommendations specific to your taste and solicit advice from others in the community about items you are thinking of buying. It’s a social network and bookmarking site around shopping that tries to match people’s tastes. Stylefeeder makes money by taking a cut on purchases made via your recommendations.

I signed up for a Stylefeeder account and found it very easy and fun to use. The best way to make use of Stylefeeder is to install a browser plug-in button so that whenever you find an item in an online shop, you can simply add it to your Stylefeeder list.

For example, you go to a store, click on an item, click the Stylefeeder button to add to your Stylefeed. A box pops up that allows you to pick the photo you want associated with the item and to edit any information about it. Click “add” and that’s it. You can also edit to add tags to the item, and add it to any groups that you have joined in the Stylefeeder community.

Stylefeeder is like Kaboodle, the other social shopping site that’s been around for a while and has a larger audience. Kaboodle describes itself as “social shopping community where people discover, recommend and share products. Kaboodle’s powerful shopping tools allow people to organize their shopping through lists, discover new things from people with similar style, get discounts on popular products and find best prices. At the heart of Kaboodle is a fun and engaging community of people who love to shop.”

Both sites encourage users to make lists of favorites, to tag items, create or join groups, make recommendations, rate items, etc. Kaboodle was recently sold to Hearst Magazines. The rumored price is $40 million (Kaboodle raised $5 million in VC funding).

I like Stylefeeder more than Kaboodle because Stylefeeder looks better and is easier to use. It’s less cluttered, more “Web 2.0″. Stylefeeder also lets you place widgets on your blog, website, Friendster and MySpace pages, and it has a Facebook application. But Kaboodle has the advantage in terms of the size of the community so if you are looking to join a group of beauty junkies who have already posted a lot of items, Kaboodle is better . . . for now.

There is such a demand for online sites that do taste search, not just for shopping, but also for travel, entertainment, eating out, and home decor. I expect Stylefeeder to attract a large audience very quickly.

Stylefeeder and Kaboodle founders motivated by similar problem: finding things that match their taste

The similarities between Stylefeeder and Kaboodle extend also to the founders. Both sites were started by couples who had difficulty shopping for things online to decorate their homes. In the case of Stylefeeder, she couldn’t find decent lighting in the US (see http://www.stylefeeder.com/about.html). Kaboodle’s About page says the founders were remodeling their home and couldn’t find products that matched their tastes.

Stylefeeder’s founder goes into his obsession with taste search, finding whom to trust when it comes to restaurant reviews, etc. (http://blog.tech.stylefeeder.com/).

I love Wordpress, the software behind this blog and Rosecantine. It’s easy to use, fun and versatile. And there’s a huge community of developers writing widgets and plugins, and creating beautiful templates for it. Mashable posted a list of more than 300 Wordpress tools so if you have not yet bookmarked that page, do so now.

Mashable has just created a Web 2.o marketplace for entrepreneurs who want to find software developers, sell or buy companies, provide development services, etc. Mashable was inspired by the recent trend of companies listing themselves for sale on eBay but apparently, they claim they got more leads from Mashable. Among the categories are websites for sale (and wanted), jobs available (and wanted) Facebook development services, software providers, etc.

Anyone who lists within 48 hours (starting August 14, 2007 — 03:15 AM PDT) gets a free listing. Mashable is thinking of charging $120 per month for listings but they’re open to other suggestions. 

Go to the Mashable Web 2.0 marketplace: http://market.mashable.com/ 

Add Plaxo to my list of totally useless time-wasting online applications filed under Web 2.0 and social networking. I signed up a few weeks ago for Plaxo’s online beta service just to see what it’s like. I was not impressed with what I saw and promptly forgot about it. In the meantime, I canceled my Linked In account and asked them to delete me from their network (see my post on why Linked In is totally useless).

Today, I got an email via Plaxo from someone named Sidney. The message says: Sidney wants to add you as a business connection on Plaxo Pulse.

Who’s Sidney? No last name, no photo, no other details about Sidney were communicated to me either in the email or in the online invitation I had to view on Plaxo. Is Sidney an axe-murdering dope fiend? Maybe. So I rejected the invitation and sent an email to the Plaxo people telling them that I want out of their online network.