Hello all EuropeanStartups readers!

It's been a while since the last post, mine or yours... Well, I am back from a long needed vacation. In the meanwhile we had four new articles waiting from guys from Snagsta and a new company in our index - Adflyer. You will find UK startup Adflyer in our company index together with a Czech startup Mloovi.

Well, I have a lot of things planned out for the last quarter of 2008. I have already initiated a survey with all the CEO's and Founders (and a few others) registered at EuropeanStartups about what they think of outsourcing development to companies, contractors, and freelancers. The point is not to discuss what they think about outsourcing in terms of looking cheep work force in India or Eastern Europe, but what are their stands on having their products or modules developed by outsiders. I have about 10 responses so far (out of 100). Not that many, but it's understandable due to my lack of communication with them and lack of effort on the EuropeanStartups as well. I wasn't a good boy as our counterparts at UK TechCrunch ;)! Just kidding! It's very apprising to see guest author's postings at UK TechCrunch.

So, what now? Well, firstly we have many conferences coming up in Europe in the Autumn season. One of them in Robin Wauters's Plugg conference in Belgium which will be advertised here at the site. Any of you throwing any conferences or attending any, please let us know of any details you'd like to share. Please do that using the existing functionality for registered EuropeanStartups users.

Next, we will try to patch up some bugs we have at the site and make some things automatic so certain delays will be avoided.

As for the future development, we are planning to release a few new modules:
1. Interview's section
2. Expanded Company management section
3. Networking section for registered users
4. Forum for techies

Basically, our goal is to better adjust the current site in order to make it really useful for startups to share ideas, look for feedback and testers, promote products, look for professionals, seek investments, offer investments, promote, promote, and ... have I said "promote" yet?

I'd also like to officially inform everyone of a great web development team that I have gathered behind me over this summer that is now formally offering services in web development, web design, and IT and marketing consulting. The strength of the team lays in the vast experience exposed for companies such as Austrian National Television ORF, Austrian Chamber of Commerce WKO, largest job search site in the world Monster.com, biggest European online sporstbook betting provider BWIN, and most successful digital media agency in the world - Starcom MediaVest! Therefore, all of you needing a strong team to help you build most competitive web applications out there, feel free to reach me directly.

Finally, in order to push you promote yourself or your startup further more at EuropeanStartups, I have intentionally left out URLs in this article, so you can add them latter in your comments. Well, the usual practice so far is that no one cares, or only a few does, but I will stay hard-headed on this topic ;)

Oh, I almost forgot! Many thanks for all who added your CV's to our database. We are working closely with Iperium Consulting, our Premium sponsor, leader in recruitment for Web 2.0 market in Europe. They will resume their usual activity mid of next week, and you may expect to be contacted soon after that.

As success of a startup is dependent upon openness of its platform, here at EuropeanStartups we have decided to give an example and open up one more functionality for all the registered EuropeanStartups users - "Hey CEO, what's on your mind?"!

Now, once you go to the Hey CEO, what's on your mind? page, you will get a screen such as this one with your name on it:



Feel free to use this feature for any European startups related topics, such as startup news, announcements, technology, future plans, chat with other members, etc... Only one feature remains, and that is - only the CEO's and highly ranked company employees will be having their company logo next to their posts. Please email us at EuropeanStartups [at] gmail [dot] com in case we do not have your logo. Logo size should be 100x50 pixels.

Once again we have restructured the Company Index page in order to make it more competitive, more informative, and more useful to all of us.

This time, next to the company index tag cloud where companies are showed by the EuropeanStartups Ranking ( Votes/Month + Number of Blog Posts ), we have added listings of recently added companies and recently updated companies in order to keep you up to date with the latest companies in Europe and with the latest developments in already listed companies.

Last but not least, we have added an option where every registered user can suggest a new company by simply filling in a form with company's basic details. Here at EuropeanStartups we hope that the latest updates will be of most benefit to everyone visiting EuropeanStartups.

Dear EuropeanStartups readers,

I'd like to invite you all to give us a valuable public feedback about EuropeanStartups, meaning - all your comments (feedback) to this post will be displayed for everyone to see and we will keep you informed about what we think about it and what we will do about it.

Help us improve in order to serve you better!

Should I assume that no comments would mean that we do a perfect job? Yeah right! ;) We gave you a lot, it's time that you give something back - and that, again, only to serve you better!

You have all probably noticed a few changes in the past week at EuropeanStartups.com. The most important one is the new Company Index page with new Company Profile pages, while the Contest for the Startup of the Month got its new page as well with a slight functionality update.

I have just added a few more companies to the Company Index page, all of which are clients of Iperium Consulting, EuropeanStartups main sponsor:

WooMe, based in London, UK.

WooMe brings the speed dating craze online and extends it to let users meet new people live in fast, fun and free speed sessions. There are no long forms or lengthy profile descriptions, simply find a session that interests you and meet 5 people in 5 minutes. Or, create your own sessions based on your interests, such as "TechCrunch Readers in San Fran". Invite friends or strangers to play with you and immediately decide if you are woo'd by someone. WooMe's in-browser video and voice capability delivers a live interactive experience where users play for fun, to hook up, or just meet new people around shared interests. There are no tedious profiles, no software to download, and best of all it's free.


Nimbuzz, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Nimbuzz is a mobile and PC application that connects cellphone and PC users. The application supports voice, presence, conference calls, and SMS messaging between mobile devices, PC's, and mobile to PC or PC to mobile. It currently works with MSN, Google Talk, and their own Nimbuzz chat client.


CrowdStorm, based in UK.

CrowdStorm's vision is to provide a single point of contact in helping users research products and find the right one for them before sending them off to the best place to buy it and at the right price.


Yuuguu, based in Manchester, UK.

Recognising the changing world of work, Yuuguu came about as a solution to help people work together remotely, through any firewall, across different platforms, with as many colleagues as needed, just as if they were sat right next to each other. But Yuuguu’s vision stretches far beyond the world of work. Yuuguu’s unique, easy to install features can give anybody the freedom to be together, whether at work or play, even when they’re not.


Palringo

Palringo is a novel Instant Messaging program that runs on a variety of phones and PCs. Palringo allows you to instantly exchange text, photos and vocal IMs with individuals or groups.

In the next couple of days, we will release the update to the Control Center where users can update their company profiles. Currently registered users for each company can be seen at companies profile pages. If you are not listed or your company is not listed, please let us know at EuropeanStartups [at] gmail [dot] com. Further more, each registered user can have his or her own profile page. All you need to do is to login and go to your Control Center, where you will see how to initialize your profile. In the near future all mentions of your name throughout the site will link to your profile page, while all mentions of your company will link to your company's profile page.

Dear users, friends, and colleagues,

A moment when we overpassed capacity of our servers has finally came. Unfortunately, we could not do anything about that immediately, and therefore you have experienced very long server response times over the past two weeks mostly resulting with an error message "Rails application could not start". However, we have reacted in time, and starting today afternoon we will initiate migration to new servers. We hope that migration will run smoothly and that we will be back and running in full capacity on Monday morning.

Thank you for your time and business,
Ivan Trajkovic
Founder & CEO, EuropeanStartups

Just moments ago I have released a new feature at EuropeanStartups - Jobs, where each registered user is free to post job opportunities absolutely free of charge for the entire month of April! Just login, or register if you haven't registered yet, and follow the "My Control Center" link that will appear in the header once you log in. The feature is straight forward and there isn't much I can say but to invite all company owners, HR managers, and others to post job opportunities without any limitations. Job postings can be seen at the home page and at the EuropeanStatups Jobs page.

If you are a job seeker in the European Web startup industry and you haven't found any matching job opportunities or there aren't any opportunities posted yet, feel free to upload your CV at the already existing feature EuropeanStartups Curriculum Vitae. Once the amount of CV's reaches the critical mass, I will release a EuropeanStartups CV search feature.