Moo celebrates one year in MooStyle

It was a party disguised as a product launch - or is it the other way around?
In typical Moo fashion they organised a MeetUp in SF on Tuesday where an "exhibition of cool MOO stuff, loads of freebies, a rockin' DJ and drinks" were available.
to customers, partners, friends and fan of MOO.
Following the success of the moo minicards, the company has launched the Moo NoteCard. This clever bit of paper design is a greetings/note/invitation/ card which can be mailed (16 envelopes provided in the pack of 16 cards) or desk displayed using the folded section.
Of course, the NoteCard can be fully personalised by uploading pictures or graphics from your hard drive or Flickr stream.

Royal Mail benefits from the Web

While email is killing - or has killed - peer to peer letter communication, many web companies seem to be more than making up for the damage.
Amazon has given an enormous boost to the Royal Mail's parcel delivery service but the biggest impact to its letters business has undoubtedly been the on-line DVD rental services.
The Evening Standard's This is London in a piece about film state that "LoveFilm will reportedly soon become the Royal Mail's single biggest client".
Personally, I am a little sceptical of this statement the source of which is not attributed.
Yes, with an estimated 1m discs going to and from LoveFilm (Royal Mail gets paid there and back) each week its pretty good business for Her Majesty's postal service.

No wonder other home delivery services like Deutche Post are eyeing Royal Mail's UK stranglehold.

Royal Mail delivers 84 million items every working day and has a network of 14,376 post offices. Revenue for the year was £9.056 billion, and profits before tax were £312 million.

The Local Globe in action

When Saul coined the name LocalGlobe he showed profound understanding of the web.
We are seeing some really exciting examples of how this all works in practice.

Stardoll [for those unfamiliar, watch eNews on the Stardoll phenomenon], is now available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Hungarian. A look at the Alexa rankings for Stardoll shows how the effort of localising is paying off.
Another great example is TAG's latest announced investment, Netlog.
Netlog is the least known of the social networking giants see LocalGlobe's brief piece on it recently and the press announcement of the Index led round.
Countries where Netlog sites have been established include UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Romania and there is a real local flavour to each. You'd expect a user generated site to be so but Netlog have really facilitated this process.

Netlog Facts: 18.1 Million Members
2 Billion Monthly Pageviews
25 Million Unique Monthly Visitors

It will be interesting to see how Imagini evolves since it uses few words and images tend to be fairly universal in their interpretation. Certainly the 2m VisualDNA profiles which Imagini have collected will throw up some interesting national differences.

Little Moo has not started localising but the comment from one of their customers, Dennis Howlett says a lot:
"Along with a certain scepticism that I might not receive the product given I live in the back of beyond.
Imagine my surprise when my Moo cards turned up - exactly on time.
Although Moo is a tiny company, it has reached 143 countries. A perfect example of the Global Microbrand."

In the big Euro/Valley debate the one advantage Europe and London in particular has is its awareness and readiness to internationalise and localise.
Of course localising is not simply a question of translation it often implies local customer service and cultural nuances.
As broadband penetration grows globally, we are truly seeing the WORLDWIDE WEB emerge.
Let me know of other Euro companies really doing a great job at localising...

Interested in eCommerce? Keep an eye on Digivate

A relatively low key part of the TAG portfolio, Digivate is demonstrating clearly that deep domain knowledge wins in the eCommerce agency space. The founders, Lysander, Will and Mark were all schooled in direct-marketing, database analysis, catalogues and merchandising while at Innovations together. They were all involved in Innovations doing the first UK consumer transaction on the web in May 1995.
They left to set up Digivate and built an eCommerce platform using open source technology. This proved to be a great long-term decision. It was tough in the early years to persuade larger clients who wanted IBM or Microsoft platforms. Not today!
Digivate has expanded its offer from Managed eCommerce service to eMarketing in all its manifestations and their deep knowledge of how to get and keep customers and how to drive conversion, analyse email marketing campaigns really does deliver.
Their latest client is the Pier - site by Digivate not yet released.

Their etails newsletter is worth reading if you are interested in eCommerce - they always have interesting observations about what is happening in the US and they watch the multi-channel retail scene closely.
I'm delighted for the team that they are growing so well, are very profitable AND that they are paying their shareholders good dividends!

moveme starts buzzing ...

MoveMe has attracted a lot of media attention recently. This morning's page 3 of the business section of the Sunday Times is just the start of what we are expecting to be some great coverage for the service.
MoveMe has developed a simple to use but comprehensive planning tool for managing house/flat moves.
With databases and prepared letters covering everything from parking permits, utilities, removal companies, credit cards and the dozens of other chores one has to do - this site is a real godsend to people moving home. The testimonials coming in from the users of the site attest to the fact that MoveMe is a really useful web service.

Spotplex - a better Digg?

We at TAG are betting it is. We've made our 4th US investment with our participation in a seed round of Doyon Kim's Spotplex.

The others are: Daylife, Edgeio and Spotrunner.

Spotplex provides internet users with real-time ranking of blog articles based on actual impression count.
In other words, you can find what is the hot news today, this week, or this month in real time at Spotplex. This is not a list of articles people recommended or voted for, but a list of articles read most in a given timeframe.
Bloggers can track and analyze their blog traffic with a simple Spotplex code or widget. Not just how many people visit the blog, they can even find which articles people read most and how many people read them. Whenever an article of the blog is read, it will show up at Spotplex in real-time and get noticed by Spotplex users.

Techcrunch broke the Spotplex story 6 weeks ago and other commentators like Dave Parker at Daily Internet News seem to like the approach that the company has taken which avoids the probelms that Digg has had in relation to 'gaming' site popularity ratings.
To overcome the problem of the posts from large blogs dominating the popularity stakes in the early months, Spotplex have introduced a neat 'relative measure' as well as an absolute.

With Blogging showing no signs of slowing down [BBC have an interesting article on the subject], Spotplex is aiming at a huge market.

Technorati is now tracking more than 60 million blogs, of which it believes around 55% are 'active' - updated at least every three months....and Chinese is now the third most popular language in blogosphere.

Astley Clarke - Luxury Brand of Tomorrow!

The champagne corks were popping down in Notting Hill when Astley Clarke was named one of the luxury 'Brands of Tomorrow'.

Walpole (the British luxury brands association) put together a panel consisting of John Ayton, Chairman of Links of London, Annoushka Ducas, Creative Director of Links, Sarah Elton, former MD of Smythsons, Lucia Van Der Post -luxury commentator and Demetra Pinsent, strategist at McKinsey to create The Walpole Brands of Tomorrow Programme.

This was announced in The Sunday Times this weekend past.

Congratulations to Becca Clarke and team on yet another accolade. The last of which was being named 'on-line shop of the month' by Marie Claire.

Koodos starts taking shape ...

Miriam and her team have really started to get Koodos on the fashion map. Getting the top luxury brands onto Koodos was always going to be a challenge but in the last 3 weeks some really big names have joined and they are now getting loads of inbound enquiries.
Featured on Koodos right now are Gucci, Prada, Chloe etc and great British brands such as Amanda Wakely, Georgine Gooman and the like.

The new Koodos Blog will help provide a point of view on fashion too.

Interestingly, the biggest issue from the consumer's perspective appears to be: "Are these brands genuine?" I guess the prices challenge the idea that they are the real thing and unfortunately conterfeiting in this market is rife.

Koodos has also introduced the notion of the 'private sale' to the UK. Already very popular as a retail format in France, Koodos is pioneering it in the UK.

Look out for some great promotions over the coming week and a site makeover, following early learnings will also be coming soon.

Another busy OpenCoffee Club

Saul wasn't able to be there this morning so I promised I'd blog some impressions and observations.
The numbers of attendees has held up very well. I'd estimate at least 80 over the 2 hours.
Interesting to see that new networks are are starting to tap into the facility. The London Business School was well represented for the first time.
There were headhunters: - BYT (Agnes Greaves) and The Forsyth Group (Bretton Putter);
VCs: Nick Brisbourne of Esprit, Kevin Commoli of Accel, Danny Rimer of Index
Ad agencies, bloggers, experienced entrepreneurs and first timers.

Lots of serious looking meetings, presentations and demos were taking place.

Agnes has promised me that there are many more female entrepreneurs in London than are turning up at OpenCoffee so I've challenged her to get them there.

LOVEFiLM offers DVDs to Burn

LOVEFilm this week announced its "DVDs to burn" service. The first in the UK. In my judgement, at the current stage of mass adoption of the various technologies, this is the service film-loving consumers are going to enjoy.

LOVEFilm have been offering downloads (up to 2500 titles now, to buy or to rent or free) for a year but you have to watch on PC and 'lean forward' viewing is still a minority pastime.
The announcement co-incided with its national TV campaign following a very successful test in Scotland.

Simon Calver and the team have pulled together Video Island, ScreenSelect and LOVEFiLM into a powerful and comprehensive entertainment company.

Key facts

* Europe's leading online DVD rental and movie download company with nearly 500,000 active household subs.
* In the last 2 years, launched in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Germany
* c.20% of UK and 10% of Sweden total DVD rental market
* Top 3 Most Visited UK Site in Entertainment and Movies
* UK’s largest range - Over 65,000 titles
* World class partners with exclusive relationships
* Lowest-cost DVD rental platform in Europe
* Market leaders in digital film delivery with the largest movie download catalogue in Europe

Moo checks into the Habbo Hotel

Moo's latest parnership is with Habbo. Following hard on the heels of Bebo, Little Moo will be printing away those cute little cards with cute little Habbo folks on them.

A phenomenon! 120 attend The OpenCoffee Club

Have just got back from attending the first OpenCoffee Club.

Saul posted this idea last Friday 23rd Feb.

As far as I know he did nothing more than that. Well, at 10am there must have been 30 people waiting for the doors of Esprit to open. The staff were bemused, the Starbucks team confused (perhaps they thought Howard Shultz had sent us all) and then over-run. By 12.15 when I left, there had been 120 attendees and some 40 were still deep in conversation.

If entrepreneurship in London is not alive in London today, it never will be.
There were VCs, entrepreneurs, angels and press all networking and enjoying.

Saul's idea is to make this a completely self perpetuating 'club'. Anyone who wishes to will simply turn up between 10 and 12.
The quietest Starbucks in the UK becomes the busiest for these 2 hours.

Personally, I met 4 new companies and a number of old friends and acquaintances.
Hope to see you there one of these weeks.

Giving customers a real voice

Read any consumer facing Chairman or CEO annual report and you'll see the phrases: 'listening to customers' 'responding to and serving customers needs'..... or similar.
I once asked Andy Higginson, CFO of Tesco over a drink what the real driver of Tesco's success was. 'We genuinely and obsessively listen to customers and give them what they want'.
The Tesco listening takes lots of forms. Market research - sure. Polling in-store and out-of-store. Focus Groups. ...and of course the biggest voice of all, the ClubCard.

IMI - Instant Market Intelligence - was conceived of by Rob Keve back in 2004. TAG was an early investor and close friend of the business. My son-in-law, Jonathan Morris joined the business in 2005 and it has narrowed and concentrated its focus on a superb product (branded Fizzback) which enables real-time, actionable customer feedback via digital channels.
SMS via mobile phone is particularly effective for the growing list of clients who are using the Fizzback service. This enables consumers to feedback - in real time and ‘at the point of experience’ whilst the issues are still top of mind while using the service of the provider. The data is analysed and interpreted by Fizzback and presented to the management of the company in a variety of forms via a web interface.

We are announcing, this week an investment of Euro 4m by Advent in the business. This has enabled the technology to be developed further, to grow the team and will enable Fizzback to go to market confidently.

Clients already using or trialling the service include: National Express, First Capital Connect, Bourne Leisure Group, one of the National Health Trusts and and many other major players in health, financial services and retail are in the process of signing up.

Fizzback offers a significantly improved way of brands obtaining unsolicited and valuable customer feedback. Its likely to make a big impact on those companies striving for greater customer loyalty and improved customer experience.

This biz moves me ..and could move you too!

About September last year, Frederic Court of Advent asked me to meet an interesting company. The business, called 'The Moving Service' was much more than initally met the eye. Mark Cunningham and Keith McNeilly who know the consumer data market inside out have been developing the idea for a while.
Moving home is one of the most traumatic events in people's lives.
The proposition is simple: moveme.com makes it easy - and saves money in the process.
These days one needs to write about 27 different letters informing service providers (banks, credit cards, utlities, local councils etc) of change of address. Moveme does all of that. You need to get a new residents parking permit, find and organise the removal company. Moveme does that too. Get your mail re-directed .... yes, that too. etc etc.
The databases sitting behind the planner which moveme provides are extensive and have taken many months and an intimate knowledge of the moving process to construct.

What a simple and brilliant idea - all free to the customer.

Its also refreshing to see a new web business whose business model and revenue sources are so clearly defined and so large. U-Switch is proof of just one of the streams.
There are 3.4m house moves made in the UK alone - each year.

Accelerator and Advent have been joined by Brent Hoberman in seeding moveme and a series A will be underway soon.

If you are planning to move house anytime soon, sign up at www.moveme.com and see what I'm excited about. Of course, the site is in beta and comments for improvements will be consumed with relish!

Building a Business for the long term

I have been meaning to do a post on Jonathan Klein and Getty Images for some time. Its unusual to have a a kid brother as a hero but what Jonathan has done with Getty is a great example to anyone setting out to build a sustainable, valuable and widely respected business.
He and Mark Getty started out 13 years ago with an idea to build a global, sustainable business for the long term. A rare ambition these days. Most seek an 'exit' within 5.

Jonathan was the youngest ever director of Hambros Bank and Mark was part of his team.
They had no idea what kind of business it would be but had some clear criteria. Global potential, large margins, owning core assets (preferably intellectual property).
They saw that the digital age would herald a fundamental change in the way that imagery would be stored and distributed and set about acquiring stock-photo libraries. Starting in London with Tony Stone Images in 1995, they made dozens of acquisitions, integrating and consolidating and digitising the images as they went.
Getty Images is what has resulted.
Jonathan moved the company to Seattle some 6 years ago following the acquisition of Photodisc in Seattle and the company's listing on Nasdaq. Today it is listed on the NYSE and is valued at over $3bn. The stock has been volatile but not the company's earnings which have increased steadily every year.
Today, gettyimages.com serves an average of 3.2 billion thumbnails, 7.3 million visits and 4 million unique users in addition to an average of 175 million page views each month. Nearly 100 percent of the company’s visual content is delivered digitally.

Financial Facts
NYSE ticker symbol:	GYI
Revenues (FY 2006):	$807.3 million
Earnings per share (FY 2006):	$2.10 (fully diluted)
Net income (FY 2006):	$129.5 million

So much for the dry facts, but this is a personal post. One about Jonathan and the kind of business he has built. His vision is clear. His communication of that vision internally and externally is equally so. With a string of awards and a company which is universally admired, he has done a remarkable job.

The recent acquisition activity marks a restatement of intent following a difficult period where the street had marked Getty down as 'ex growth' and the share price had taken a whack.

I expect to see more from Jonathan and Getty!

Saul joins Index

It was announced today that Saul Klein has joined Index as a venture partner. Saul and Danny Rimer go back a long way since his Firefly days (back in 1996). They share the enthusiasm for European technology start-ups and the belief that very strong ideas are coming out of this part of the world. There is a vibrant , active and professional set of VCs and experienced angels available to support European entrepreneurs.
In some respects, the outward looking, international and multi-lingual European entrepreneurs have advantages over their US counterparts and I'd expect more 'Skypes' to come out of Europe in the coming years.

Now the hard bit ....of course, I declare my bias up front, but must add that Saul has extra-ordinary vision and his partnership with Index should be a powerful combination.
Read his thoughts on linking up with Index on his blog.

Is the PerplexCity Cube about to be found?

Will someone claim the £100,000 reward which has been offered?
The final clue of the Perplexcity season one is about to be issued.
According to the Independent who ran a double spread article on the phenomenon that is Perplexcity, ARGs and Mind Candy.
Sales of over £1m have been made of the puzzle cards which Mind Candy so brilliantly devised and enthusiasts will be looking forward to the second season and any new puzzles that come out of the Mind Candy imagineers.
If you're looking for some back issue cards, they are actively traded on eBay

Personally I am hoping the puzzles in the new season are going to be a little easier to crack. Give us a break Michael, some of us have day jobs!

Beboers get to Moo

The tens of millions of members of Bebo can now make Moo Minicards using their own uploaded imagery on Bebo.
I can quite see the many thousands of bands who create home pages and upload music finding the cards a really cool way of creating their 'business cards' for distribution at gigs and elsewhere.

The superb print interface which Moo have created is attracting a number of content and community sites to want to partner with them. ....and users absolutely love them.

The mini cards are a superb example of a high quality, personalised product created on the web ........watch out for some new Moo products before too long.

Astley Clarke named by Harpers as second most stylish website!

Calling it the "Net -a -Porter of the Jewellery world with a brilliantly edited collection of gems from contemporary designers", Harpers Bazaar has put Astley Clarke in great company.
Hard on the heels of TomFord.com and ahead of Handbag and Net-a-porter, this is a great accolade for an embryonic business.
Bec Clarke is steadily building Astley Clarke into a web brand with real character.
Congratulations, Becca.
BTW: You could do worse than visit the site before Valentines Day!! Great stuff for Men and Women.

Imagini sees the world in pictures

I have been working with Alex Willcock and his team for over a year now. Alex has invented what looks like a simple and obvious idea. [The best ones often are].
Imagini profiles consumers using something they call their visualDNA.
Demographics of all kinds - geo, psycho and lifestyle have been used extensively to segment and understand consumers. Behavioural, attitudinal and transactional analysis produce interesting results and refine targeting significantly.
Now, after more than a year of developement, Imagini has demonstrated that understanding consumers' emotional preferences can be done very effectively using imagery and a set of tools they have developed.
The applications for the technology are very exciting indeed. Visual content can be served which matches consumers, new insights can be delivered. Advertisers and marketers will no longer need to constructing mood boards and tear sheets using their instincts as to how particular cutural and age demographics are going to respond. They can now add empirical data to back up assumptions.
The consumer applications which Imagini is working on are engaging and fun. Take a look at the Beta site and my widget below to get a flavour.
I'd be surprised if they haven't built up a global database of millions of VisualDNA'a within the next 12 months.
The Wall Street Journal have picked up on Imagini in a major piece featured on 19th January.
MSN and Nectar have both run trials which have been very illuminating.
Great start guys.

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