Essential Web 07

Coming to you live and direct from the immensely comfortable sofas of Shoreditch House where I have been sat for the best part of the day with my developer, Lee, fleshing out some new functionality for phase 1. All this after a hard morning's networking at OpenCoffee where I was fortunate to meet (among others) Conrad Poulson, UK Head of Start-up Business Development, Orange. Conrad is researching new start-up ideas that plan to incorporate mobile application elements. I explained the future mobile organisational tools that we intend to offer Mesh members to assist them to work on projects with greater ease and he seemed keen on where the initiative is going. I very much hope to hear from him in the future.

Thanks to the joys of Facebook, Sam Sethi alerted me last night to the Essential Web 07 after-party held in the foyer of the bfi IMAX cinema. A very enjoyable evening was had by all, although I was far too busy networking every time the tasty morsels of seared beef came round, so had to keep myself from being a drunken idiot whilst my tummy grumbled about the liquid dinner.

It was a great pleasure to meet Mr Sethi of Vecosys fame and one of his new editors of blognation UK, Huw Leslie. Blognation is launching on Monday. In addition, I was very lucky to chat to Nic Brisbourne of Espirit Capital Partners who were one of the first investors in our friends at WAYN.com. At the same time, we talked to Eugene Kouumdjieff of e-man, a strategy consultancy.

After my (slightly inebriated) introduction to Mesh, both agreed that we have a "viable business model", which to us, is a very great accolade indeed. Being completely new to this game and only knowing in great depth the problems facing our target audience, it is always excellent to hear some praise and acknowledgment for what we have set out to do. It makes all the time I spend doing Mesh extra worthwhile and calms my occasional desires to sit and veg out in front of Big Brother.

It was also rather hilarious to step in on the beasting that Stowe Boyd was giving to David of Zubka about the awful name of his website. I didn't know, at points, whether to laugh along or simply make my excuses. David took it all on the chin, like a good British gentleman.

Last but not least, it was brilliant to meet the highly inspirational Errol Damelin of Wonga. Now on his third start-up, Errol's advice was not to approach venture capitalists too early and to remember that a majority of businesses are not built on such funds. He said that if Mesh does well, we could easily rely on debt funding via a sweet-talking of the good old bank manager at the same time as retaining all the shares in Mesh. However, we are still keen to explore venture capital because Mesh is still lacking in the "general commercial advice" field - we could really do with some guidance from someone older and more experienced in the land of Web 2.0 start-ups. At the very least, we would welcome a Non-Executive Director onto the Board to assist us, if we didn't go the whole hog and get VC funding plus a new Director.

In all, I had a superb time at the party and it was a real coup to meet the people I did. I very much look forward to meeting them again or at the very least sharing ideas and suggestion in the virtual manner to which we have all become accustomed. In the mean time, if anyone reading has any contacts for people who may be interested in becoming a Non-Exec of Mesh, please feel free to holler.

I feel Glastonburied...

Afternoon all.

In my muddy-field absence, Zerofee has completed the first draft of the profile template only to be seen by our exclusive community of creative young business professionals. In order to hit the ground running, we have decided to cut back on functionality at this pre-launch stage and follow in Google's footsteps - "to do one thing really well".

It has been an eye-opening trip since last July when we incorporated Mesh and the idea has morphed into an initiative worthy of press coverage. Now, we have decided simply to focus on providing our members tools for managing their contacts and creative lifestyles online. We will be allowing members to promote their own creative projects, those of their friends, and also suggesting new contacts to members who are looking for similar things.

Our motivation behind this is that we want to tackle the problems facing our target audience one by one - the first being that they need contacts and quick reference resources to help their creative projects. Let me give you an example:

Tom is a banker by day and a DJ by night. At the moment, he plays random friend's house parties occasionally. What he wants to do is find a regular monthly gig so that he can start to build a name for himself. He doesn't have the time to approach lots of different venues himself, but he does have the money to host or contribute to a monthly gig.

Dave is a lawyer. His friend, Adam, is an events manager at a small bar with a DJ booth in Islington. Keen to draw in a larger Thursday night crowd, he has started up an amateur DJ gig, but needs DJs. Adam needs DJs who are able to contribute to the cost of the night, either with cash or with equipment.

Both Dave and Tom will be able to post their or their friends' needs and wants on Mesh and Mesh will use profile-matching technology to suggest that they be friends and collaborate on a monthly gig together.

Mesh will use the collective intelligence of a time-deprived, cash-rich community to enhance the opportunities on collaborative projects. And that's just phase 1. Rock on.

Coming up in the next few weeks are the Connected Capital event and on the same night, . Both events should be excellent - a full rundown will be provided here in due course.

That's all for now. Back to nursing my Glastonbury hangover and determining the difference between left and right.

What's going on?

Greetings! Kay's away at Glastonbury so I thought I'd chip in with my first post...

It's been a busy month. You know things are going well when you're booked up on Mesh meetings for the forthcoming month! On Monday, 25 June our static pages will go live. In addition, our developer, Lee, is working really hard on finalising phase 1. Phase 1 will consist of the profile and network pages and the newsletter. In particular, the network page will provide creative young business professionals with an area to showcase their talents and connect with like minded individuals.

We hope to launch a private beta phase to 150 founding members in August 2007 and are organising a launch party in their honour. If you are a young business professional with a creative second life (or aspires to have one) and would like to become a founding member, please email join@meshminds.com.

The founding members are going to be the grassroots of the community. They will have access to phase 1 of the website and we will be actively canvassing them for ideas for phase 2 and feedback on what they like or dislike about phase 1. I'm really looking forward to meeting them all and getting their feedback on the concept as it develops.

Whilst all this is going on, we're actively looking for investment. We've had a couple of meetings with VCs and are awaiting feedback. To that end, Kay, Lee and myself will be at OpenCoffee Club on Thursday, 28 June.

OK, I'm nursing a monumental hangover...off to the water cooler.

A seminar 4Talent...

Salutations from my budda bag.

A very interesting afternoon was had by all. Martha Lane Fox was unfortunately taken ill but Adam Gee (Commissioning Editor, New Media Factual of Channel Four) stepped in to chair the panel made up of: Emily Renshaw-Smith (Manager of Development and Production, Current TV), James Kirkham (Director of digital strategy agency Holler) and James Fabricant (Head of Marketing and Content for MySpace UK & Ireland).

The seminar kicked off with a short film directed and produced by Nic Stacey and Rob Marchant, which showcased the cutting edge of the internet revolution. The film is now used by the President of Linden Labs in his corporate presentations.

Adam then delved into his thoughts on the impact of digital technology on new media, noting 3 key points:

1. We are in an "on demand" age;
2. We operate in a networked environment; and
3. We expect a two-way conversation with our media.

What Adam now wants to see are sites that:

1. Clearly explain what the key concepts are - he cited Flikr as an example: you can use the site to: (i) store, (ii) search for, (iii) sort, and (iv) share photos. This is immediately visible to any user.
2. Answer the question, "What's in it for me?" - again, Flikr will allow a user to review photos and read others' reviews.

He then gave a brief rundown of some of the current projects that C4 are collaborating on:

1. Moblog (a TV series showcasing the mobile blogging site started by some guys in a bedroom in the UK);
2. A "top secret" project with Flikr based around the development of digital photography skills;
3. Big Dig (an archeology-based show);
4. 121 (a site providing co-authored blogs;
5. Four docs (documentaries made by the community);
6. Lost Generation (a site helping to map the lives of the 800,000 people on war memorials in the UK)
7. Breaking the News (a site providing tools for the community to cut their own news items)

Adam also mentioned that they are working with MySpace to create projects with more reach and impact by tapping into the two "modes" of MySpace - (i) marketing (due to the high volume of people) and (ii) communication (due to the sharing of information on the network).

Rather poignantly for Mesh, Adam advised, "do it, do it", to all the new media publishers out there, but warned that we should take care to spend time researching what will give sites their "stickiness". That is exactly what we plan to do with Mesh and why we value so very much our Founding Members - the ones who will transform our seed concepts into key functions on Mesh.

Emily then stepped up to the discussion and explained what is being developed at Current TV headquarters. Current TV was the brainchild of Al Gore and Joel Hyatt with the aim of giving a voice to the younger generation of media "transumers".

She explained the presence of the "global conversation" promoted by the web and the emergence of "VC squared" - viewer created content in the new media arena. She also shared the advertising revenue model which is keeping the channel alive - entities like Sky TV will pay to host the channel and advertisers like L'Oreal will buy space in relevant sections of the channel, for example, "Current Style". In the future, they are looking into ways to monetise the website and have not ruled out the revenue sharing model. Watch this space!

James Kirkham then provided a very entertaining whizz through the difficult task of engaging the online generation who have been turned off from their television sets - giving the example of the viral strategy employed for the teenage angst programme, "Skins".

Interestingly, he noted that the notion that "online is magic" is a farce and that technology facilitates but it is the audience that creates. The biggest change, he said, is that the once passive consumer of all types of media is now an active participant who uses a variety of different methods to contribute. It is no longer the marketing department of a brand that pulls the strings, it is the webmasters, forums owners and bloggers, he said.

James shared the E4 brief for Skins in order to demonstrate his point. E4 required Holler to "Turn the Skins launch into an entertainment event for an audience increasingly spending their time away from the television". Holler's advice was: "You are a guest in their attention span - bore them and they will ruthlessly filter you out. The opportunity? Get it right and they will actively market to each other."

The first episode was watched by more than 1 million viewers and they raised awareness to over 80%. Pretty impressive job on engagement of the community before the first episode had even aired.

Last but not least, James Fabricant led the final panel discussion. He started with a well-edited corporate MySpace montage before introducing MySpace as "a lifestyle portal built on a social network." He also sought to impress with the user stats - 180 million members globally, with about 20,000 joining everyday in the UK alone. He continued with a statement that the "value" of a network was the "square of the number of nodes on that network" (each MySpace user being a node).

Personally speaking, I do wonder about the so-called "value" of the simple idea of everyone being in the same place. Surely, the most important factor in "value" nowadays is the standard of the content. For me, the user interface on Facebook beats MySpace hands down. I don't care about how great a new musician might be if I have to wade through thousands of pages flashing at me, adorned with twinkly backgrounds and irritating "Pimp my MySpace" banners. Sit on My Space? [the words I saw tattooed on a building in Barcelona recently] I'd rather not thanks. I have a boyfriend.

I asked James how MySpace feel about the ground being gained on a daily basis by Facebook. He replied that all the newer sites represent "healthy competition" in a trend that's here to stay - long live the online network. Noting the key difference, he said that he believed Facebook to be a "clean tool with a utility base", whereas MySpace had taken a "lifestyle and cultural approach to social networking". I remain unclear as to why the latter approach has to be so ugly by default.

To finish, Adam Gee commented that in a year when Google ad sales will outstrip C4's, there has been a definite "shifting sands" in which media owners are now calling the shots.

In all, it was a solid discussion on a topic that has already been well-documented and that is highly dynamic and fascinating. The Mesh Heads heard nothing, in terms of theory, that we did not already know from the excellent research conducted by Piper Jaffray, "The User Revolution", but it was a very worthwhile event for meeting new people and generating ideas.

Mesh would like to thank Channel Four for the "Making it Multimedia" event and looks forward to enjoying the "Four days in June" party tomorrow evening. Thank goodness I have Friday off. I feel a hangover coming on already.

What

...is the one thing that Mesh will do really well?

Connect young business professionals.

...will be the benefits for members?

1. To harness the collective intelligence of a cohesive community.
2. To utilise mobile organisational tools to re-balance time-deprived lives.
3. To access quick reference resources to facilitate dynamic lifestyles.
4. To participate in a confidential space to share contacts, generate ideas and shape the brand to their needs.

...am I doing up at 00:48 on a Wednesday-morning-feels-like-Tuesday-evening writing about Mesh?

I love the idea and I live it. Having the day job as a lawyer and balancing Mesh is hard damn work and means that I have to make the most of the 24 hour day. My fellow director, Jonny, even dreams about Mesh. We are so exhilarated by Mesh but we do get frustrated by how long it takes to bring a service like this to the web. It does help that "Facebooking", blogging, "TechCrunching" are all part of our ongoing research, which fascinates us. Life could be a lot worse. We could be contestants on this year's Big Brother. Good night.

Funding - Last.fm paving the way for the UK?

Sue Greenwood, Managing Director of startup Sweeble, commented on the lack of funding for internet start-ups in the UK today:

"Five years is a hell of a long time in webland and the fact that the Last.fm guys had to work so hard to attract investors says a lot about the problems we UK web entrepreneurs face compared to our US counterparts. It took four years for the guys to attract significant venture capital to pay for the "bells and whistles" development that would rope in CBS.

Support for web entrepreneurs is abysmal in Britain. Government business funding mostly keeps quangos and consultants in work. It's interesting that investors in the latest venture (MyDeco.com) launched by Lastminute founders Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox are largely the same ones who first backed Lastminute, rather than a posse of new chequebook-wavers.

The Last.fm guys deserve every penny they've earned, not least because their success might now open the door for other embattled UK web businesses. It will be a shame, however, if it's only American firms, like CBS, that come knocking." (Letters to Media Guardian, 11 June 2007)

Mesh is currently attempting to find funding - if you have any contacts who might be interested in receiving a copy of the business plan, please don't hesitate to holler: mesh@meshminds.com

Intro

Welcome.

It's Friday and I'm in a good mood. I suppose the first post must always be one of the hardest. How do I start this blog? What shall I say? Oh well, I guess I just did.

I think the best thing to do is introduce myself and the others: We are three young lawyers working in the City of London. With our hard-earned cash and keen minds, we have decided to build a trusted network of young business professionals with whom we can share contacts, information and lifestyles.

The website is currently being developed by Zerofee (www.zerofee.org) and Firefli Systems (www.fireflisystems.com) and the private beta will be opening at the end of August 2007.

Whilst we wait, it's all about spreading the word. We have been covered in the national press by the Sunday Times Style magazine who focused on the "creative second life" concept within MeshMinds.com, reporting on the fact that there are a great number of business professionals out there who work as hard in their time out of the office as in. Mesh will be providing our creative second lifers with tools to help organise their projects and a network of like-minded people with whom to collaborate. That's just one aspect of the Mesh project... we have a long sleeve and it's jam-packed with ideas. If you would like to cover Mesh, please email us: mesh@meshminds.com and we will send you our press release.

Coming up over the next few weeks will be coverage of the 4Talent seminar - an audience with Martha Lane Fox of LastMinute.com, James Fabricant, Head of Marketing and Content for MySpace UK & Ireland, James Kirkham from digital strategists Holler - developers of the marketing campaign for E4's Skins - and Adam Gee, Channel 4's Commissioning Editor, New Media Factual.

In the mean time, have a superb weekend and thank you for reading.

Kay