TechCrunch
Allez, Alley! Come Be A Part Of The Disrupt Europe Startup Alley
Disrupt Europe in Berlin – the first time our flagship conference is coming to this part of the world – is fast approaching. We’ve got some amazing speakers lined up (with announcements of more still to come); we’re furiously preparing the Battlefield. And we’re calling all corners of the startup world to be a part of the action by getting involved in the Startup Alley.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Disrupt format, the Startup Alley is often and rightly called the beating heart of the event.
It’s where you get to go up close to check out new companies, meet their founders, and use the opportunity to mingle with other attendees — enterpreneurs, engineers who are still buzzing from coding at the Hackathon, VCs, journalists, scouts from big companies and more. With people constantly on the move and chatting, the Alley is the perfect complement to the more hushed tones of the conference.
What makes the Startup Alley especially dynamic is that every day sees a different mix of companies on the floor, and it’s a measure of how much of an attraction in itself it is when you hear about how often the speakers — world-class entrepreneurs and investors — and many attendees of the conference putting in some legwork to check it out.
To get a sense of the look and feel of the Alley, check out these videos from one of the days at our most recent Disrupt event, in New York, or this video with clips from other Alleys past.
We’d love you to be a part of it with us in Berlin, where Disrupt Europe will take place from October 26-29 (Hackathon on 26-27; Main Event on 28-29). For those interested in the Alley, the price is €1190 for the Startup Alley Exhibitor Package, which also includes 2 conference passes, 1 day to exhibit, and the chance to spend some time with whole lot of awesome, like-minded people.
More info here.
Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.
This Week On The TC Europe Podcast: The Ask.fm Debacle, Jolla And Bitcoin Sales Tax In Germany
Europe, here we come! We’ve got another podcast for you, and this one is for our lovely European readers. This is the TechCrunch Europe Podcast, wherein we, European writers, discuss tech news, as well as what’s happening in our startup scene.
This week, join Natasha Lomas, Steve O’Hear, and Romain Dillet (plus honorary Euro John Biggs) to comment on the Jolla phone, the Ask.fm debacle in the U.K. and the looming sales tax on Bitcoin in Germany.
Thanks to Ask.fm, we talk about the tough process of scaling a startup in Europe. We also wonder whether Bitcoin regulatory guidelines are coming soon to Europe. And MeeGo phones are back! Maybe.
We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcast every Thursday (except this first episode).
Download an MP3 of this show
Subscribe in iTunes (coming soon)
Subscribe to the show via RSS
Intro music by Espanto.
GetInspired365 Is A Discovery Site For Inspirational Videos
An industry has blossomed around people hungry for a quick hit of motivation. TED talks, Do Lectures and sites like Brainy Quote all exist to provide inspirational content for the time-strapped. GetInspired365 hopes to draw visitors by showcasing upbeat videos sourced from around the Internet. Its founders hope that users will not only be inspired to achieve their own goals, but also to order a similar site from GetInspired’s Web design and hosting service.
GetInspired365 was self-funded and launched at the beginning of February by Steve Whyley and Mike Doyle, who had previously collaborated on projects like 11K, an online community for volunteers aged 25 and under.
While preparing to run along every Tube line in the London Underground for a charity challenge, Whyley motivated himself by watching inspiring videos online. He also edited a video of his own runs to share on Facebook. Gratified by the positive response he got, Whyley approached Doyle about putting together a simple site to showcase a new video each day. GetInspired365 now has 1,000 inspirational videos and quotes.
GetInspired365′s design features a full-bleed presentation of a video with a highlighted quote and unobtrusive social-sharing and discovery features. Each day’s video is sourced from sites like Reddit, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Users can also submit videos through GetInspired 365′s Social Page.
Since launching six months ago, GetInspired365′s traffic has grown organically to about 2,000 unique visitors each day, with 3,000 readers subscribed to its daily e-mail newsletter. Doyle says the site’s next step is building an SEO strategy with the target of hitting 20,000 unique visitors each day.
The site’s main competition for traffic is the GetMotivated subreddit, which has over 200,000 subscribers, as well as Brainy Quote, GoodReads and Quote Garden. Doyle says GetInspired365 stands out because of its design, ease of use and curated content. Changemakrs, which we profiled last October, also presents quotes in a visually-appealing way. Doyle says GetInspired365′s advantage over Changemakrs in terms of growing a user base is that it does not require people to sign up before exploring the site.
GetInspired365 plans to monetize through two channels: affiliate programs (like linking to books and other products related to each video on Amazon) and building, supporting and hosting similar sites for clients. Doyle says the service’s target customers range from hobbyists to companies that want to build daily traffic to their sites and services. For example, a gaming company can set up a GetInspired site with a “play of the day.”
“As far as scaling up, we hope that we can turn this aspect of GetInspired into a Weebly-type site where people can grab their ‘daily’ site from us and immediately start using it,” says Doyle.
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