DISQUS

rokhayakebe · 1 year ago

Dan, are you not being too harsh? For every 5 startups covered on VBeat, you can bet 3 of them are me-too features. The same goes for every tech blog. It is normal.

As users, we cannot have one startup that offers a unique product. Competition is needed or else companies can get cocky and not care about users as much as they should.

Google was a me-too startup. Venture Beat was at one point a me-too blog, but here you are today with hundreds of thousands of loyal readers.

Dan Kaplan · 1 year ago

Competition is essential for spurring innovation. I'm just not sure it makes sense to devote resources in areas where the payoff is questionable to begin with.

Setok · 1 year ago

Additionally Babuki, at least in that form, was not one of the winners. The name was Kyko with, I believe, a different concept. They're still in stealth mode, though.

Dan Kaplan · 1 year ago

Noted. Their website is still listed as Babuki. Kyko is looking at multi-player social games. FIxed.

Zee · 1 year ago

Dan, you don't know what you're talking about... Soup.io as worst? Man, Soup.io would beat nearly the majority of tc50 companies in innovation & attention to detail. Your rankings here are enough for me to completely abandon your posts entirely. What a joke.

Dan Kaplan · 1 year ago

It would be helpful if you could point out how they are innovative. For the record, I was not particularly impressed with nearly the majority of tc50.

hannes a. schwetz · 1 year ago

you might not agree with the ranking, bout there is no doubt, they are winners.
they went out, competed on a european wide level and they made it. the get exposure and if they use it wisely, like zemanta, a former seedcamp winner, the will do well. maybe there are hundreds of similar ideas out there, but only the entrepreneurs will make it, which will also sell their idea properly, and seedcamp is quite a good way to sell.

greg · 1 year ago

All I can say is http://this.isfuckingaweso.me. Just like soup.io but not as cool and no one is using it. It's perfect for that certain hipster who doesn't want to be followed.

Mike Butcher · 1 year ago

This is a well-written post which works in parts but suffers from the usual blogger blind-spot of not actually being at the event you're writing about...

Dan Kaplan · 1 year ago

Indeed, I must work with what I have.

robwatts · 1 year ago

I like UBERVu too, looks like it's definitely one of those disruptor apps that comes along every once in awhile and shakes up the space. This'll make a big difference to a lot of people.

Andy Swarbrick · 1 year ago

Dan, as Mike indicated had you been at the event you might have got clued in to the fact that TickerTXT actually operates with Internet technology outside the Internet cloud. This I personally consider about as different as you can get. I challenge you to indicate any sense in which TickerTXT was a copycat of any other company at Seedcamp 2008, except that we were there.

Dan Kaplan · 1 year ago

Andy, I referred only to the winners I saw, not the whole group of finalists. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to talk about what you're up to.

Mircea @ MyTestBox.com · 1 year ago

UberVU will do just good, if not very good. I can't speak for other startups but knowing the guys from uberVU I know they will leave the mark on the Web 2.0 landscape.

jake · 1 year ago

I'm reading this and thinking about what everybody is saying about new ideas vs. competition. Just thought this site might interest some of you as the subject matter is mildly similar. unleshingideas.org

andraz · 1 year ago

Hi,

being at Seedcamp for the whole week I can say that all startup teams there got one of the best advice that they could get from the industry, but now it is up to them to run with it and make great things.

UberVU could actually be pretty big since there is definitely the space for the "me" service, they just need to execute properly.
Ah, the soup.io. It might be strange to americans, but someone can easily do the tumblr thing for europe/central europe and be pretty successful with it. They already have non-negliable number of users.

Dan, you were a bit harsh, but seriously, almost everything is a "copycat with a twist" nowdays. And for companies that are a bit more locale-specific than the ones listed, regional VCs over here actually love copycats with proven business models and unsaturated markets.

Oh... and this just came to my mind: VentureBeat should get a writer from central europe! Things are really getting interesting here.

Ben · 1 year ago

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furniture stores · 2 months ago

I believe they get exposure and if they use it wisely, like zemanta, a former seedcamp winner, the will do well.

edhardy622 · 2 months ago

British law student sues Abercrombie-Fitch for disability discrimination.
http://www.abercrombieonsale.co.uk