News analysis and profile

Davos 2012: In Search of a Concensus on the Handling of Personal Data

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 27, 2012

As a data breach involving mobile operator 02’s customers was making headlines in the UK, a group of  high ranking government officials from Europe, the U.S. and Asia met with some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies  in a Davos hotel Friday morning to talk about  how to both safeguard and unlock the power of personal data.Read more

Davos 2012: The Dark Side of A Hyperconnected World

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 26, 2012

The global financial crisis is not the only thing worrying the world’s elite as they convene in this snowy alpine resort for the World Economic Forum. Cyber security is high on the agenda of both government and executives at some of the world’s biggest companies. With good reason.  A former CIA director recently observed that we are building our future on the Internet, an asset that we have not yet learned to protect.Read more

E-Commerce 3.0: Europe's Fab Future

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 23, 2012

European start-ups know only too well that being first does not necessarily mean winning. Several pioneered e-commerce models such as flash sales and selling eyeglasses on-line but did not become global giants, while U.S. copycats  raised gobs of money and gained considerable  traction, thanks to the deep pockets of Silicon Valley venture funds and the luxury of a large and lucrative homogenous market.

The tables may be turning.Read more

How London Start-ups Are Transforming The Fashion Industry

Submitted by Eric Sylvers on January 23, 2012

While Europe’s undisputed leaders in the fashion industry are Paris and Milan — in that order according to the French and reversed if you ask the Italians — over the past five years London has quietly become the city of choice for start-ups seeking to use the Internet to disrupt and redefine the fashion industry.Read more

Europe's New Data Protection Rules

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 23, 2012

Viviane Reding, the Vice-President of the European Commission, is spearheading reform of Europe’s data protection laws. Reding, a scheduled speaker at the DLD conference in Munich January 22-24, negotiated a major overhaul of the Continent’s telecommunications sector as the member of the Commission responsible for Information Society and Media from 2004-2010.Read more

A Global Exchange For Personal Data

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 23, 2012

Can SWIFT, the global financial services provider, succeed in doing what Microsoft and other tech titans famously failed to achieve? It is exploring an initiative that could provoke a sea change on the Internet that is so significant and so widespread in scope that the digerati say it could mirror the shift from mainframes to the personal computer.Read more

Berlin Is Buzzing

Submitted by Valerie Thompson on January 23, 2012

SoundCloud, a Berlin start-up that aims to be the YouTube of sound and music, is one of Europe’s hottest young tech companies. The company, which allows users to record audio such as podcasts, crunch it, and then share it with friends, attracted funding from Hollywood movie star Ashton Kutcher's A-Grade Fund and has just raised a reported $50 million C round led by venerable Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.Read more

Tel Aviv: The Start-Up Nation's Hub

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 23, 2012

 

A refurbished 1904 building on Rothschild Boulevard, in the heart of Tel Aviv, is the site of eBay’s new global center for social shopping, a sign that the Israeli capital is making inroads in its bid to become a global tech hub.

It is also a symbol of the evolution of Israel’s high-tech sector. For years Israeli companies believed that the best route to success was to move their headquarters to the U.S. and leave research and development in Israel.Read more

25 of Europe's Hottest Digital Media Companies

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 23, 2012

To identify the most promising Internet companies in Europe Informilo asked some of the Continent’s most active investors to nominate companies outside their own portfolios. While companies copying existing business models are doing well we chose to spotlight innovative European technologies or business models, from early to late stage. We did not include music and gaming as categories for this list, choosing instead to focus on e-commerce, advertising and media companies since these sectors are a big focus of the DLD conference in Munich January 22-24.Read more

Building Bridges

Submitted by Jennifer L. Schenker on January 23, 2012

It is a formula that has made a select group of European entrepreneurs and investors very rich: Identify a new online model that is rapidly gaining traction in the U.S., create a European clone and then sell it to the Americans for an inflated price.Read more

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