Posted by Tattletech on Mar 27, 2010 in
Conferences,
IPTV,
IPTV World,
Sexy tech guys IPTV can be pretty dry but over the last few years we have seen a lot of convergence and talk of what’s to come including happy rainbows and promises of what will be with HD and social TV – we also saw a lot of glum faces, mumbling about the economy and bitter disputes over patents. But this year’s IPTV WF was actually really good. Better laid out, more happy companies, better conversation, packed stands and lots of business talk. We even saw a glimpse of change in the way news is communicated via elements of social media and online pubs using blogs and video to communicate the exciting news of all the big sponsors, exhibiting companies. In fact, we even saw the formation of a small, yet very hip Twitter community evolving.
But as always, the most important part of IPTV WF [besides Netgem winning an award for Best IPTV Service Delivery Platform and Verimatrix settling their lawsuit with Widevine, who was NOT present at the show this year, was the anticipation of the Hot Men of IPTV list.
Lots of contenders, but in the end there can only be a select few that uphold the values and traditions that we espouse in the Hot Men list -- it's not just looks, but wit, brains, joie de vivre, sense of style and confidence. This year, much like Highlander, there can only be one. We bring you the hot MAN we felt had all the right stuff and then some. Enjoy the collage. -- JH
Graham Pomphrey, Deputy Editor, DigitalTV Europe - Some might say that Graham should have been on the list every year running, and quite frankly, we thought he was. First and foremost, he is a Depeche Mode fan and if that wasn't enough he loves New Order and Joy Division. Since he is from The Wirral, he has a posh Scouse accent that only comes out the more he drinks. The more you talk to him the more you WANT to talk to him. And the more you talk to him the more you can't help just sort of forgetting your PR versus Editor code of ethics. You want to know what it feels like to be in the grip of charm. talk to Graham.
- He's got talent
- The man and his thoughts
Tags: Depeche Mode, Digital TV Europe, Graham Pomphrey, Informa, IPTV, IPTV WF, London, Netgem, Verimatrix
Right. So some say that there aren’t enough female entrepreneurs out there. We say who cares, and it isn’t about volume (and yes gentleman, size does count), maybe females just want to create the perfect sustainable business so aren’t really into just hurling every cotton candy, augmented reality, turn magic beans into beanstalk scheme into the start up community. Which is why when we heard Helen Brown, Founder of Cat Walk Genius, present at the TechCrunch Christmas Crunch par-tay in London last year, we stopped and listened. Fashion. Check. Business model. Check. Helping others become entrepreneurs via grass roots micro investment. Check.
Tattletech: Your site CatWalk Genius strikes us as, well, genius! Are you now or have you in the past been a fashion designer? What was your inspiration for this venture?
Helen Brown: I don’t have a fashion background at all, no. I studied Psychology at university and then spent a career in financial services management – so I’ve always had an interest in consumer behavior.
As the internet started enabling much more interaction between people and brands, I knew I wanted to do something that got a traditional sector to be more engaging. Fashion turned out to hold the most opportunities for that, so Catwalk Genius was the result.
TT: The designers you promote do have some great clothes, but nothing for men. Do you see this as an area for expansion, or is men’s fashion too niche to bother with right now.
HB: Men’s fashion is huge, but it takes a lot of focused effort to get enough quality brands involved to make it worthwhile. It made sense to stick to the larger womens’ market in the early days, but we’ve definitely got boys in mind for the future.
TT: You must have had some great designers who bootstrapped themselves using your site. Tell us one of the best designer success stories, rags to riches and all that.
HB: We’re only now bringing the ‘crowd-funding’ aspect to the forefront of what we do, so we’ve still yet to have a designer hit the funding target. We’re planning to run our first full funding trial in the next few months, so let’s talk again in the summer!
TT: From an entrepreneurial viewpoint you look pretty successful – the company is owned by IQL Ltd in Dublin. Did you approach them or vice versa? Have any of them shopped on the site?
HB: IQL Ltd is us – all the directors were in Ireland a few years ago so it made sense to incorporate over there. We’re just in the process of setting up in the UK now, which will make it a bit easier to get to London Fashion Week!
TT: I won’t ask you to name names from the designers that you support, but in the “mainstream” world of catwalk fashion, what are some of your favorite old school design houses?
HB: I think I always appreciated the loveliness of the old classics like Chanel and Balmain, but my speed-education in fashion has seen me tickled by the likes of Hussein Chalayan, Gareth Pugh and Christopher Kane.
TT: The concept of crowd funding, along with crowd sourcing, independent/micro debt financing, etc., is a “channel” of the internet that is exploding with new interactive ideas. Do you see any hint of “community” on the web, or is it already too big for that – will personal interaction on the web be a thing of the past.
HB: I don’t think size limits the community possibilities – I expect there’ll be many smaller communities formed around niche interests rather than a few large ones.
It’s human nature to seek out personal interaction so I don’t see an end to that happening any time soon – but it’s up to tech companies to provide the kind of platforms that will facilitate meaningful exchanges about interesting content. If anything, I think the future will see more and more people coming together to pool their resources and create fascinating stuff. -- JLH
Tags: Catwalk Genius, Catwalkgenius, Crowd sourcing, Entrepreneur, Fashion design, London, micro investments, TechCrunch
Image by shinyai via Flickr
Re-Think Wireless ran a great story today about how Nokia says that they are gonna help people not get lost in London (which is so easy to do) After talking to about 12,500 people all over the planet, Nokia map-enabled devices can help lower getting lost in London. But it’s not just London that people get lost in, Nokia says they have identified the five “lost cities” on the planet and after London, Paris was the next hardest city to navigate followed by Bangkok, Hong Kong and Beijing. We can’t tell you how glad we are that Re-Think ran this story, it not only makes us chuckle a little, but it’s so full of excellent little pieces of trivia that we can only smile at the people that sat around thinking about turning this into a press release. The country with the best sense of direction? Germany – apparently one-third of people claim they have never lost their way – but the German’s also have the highest reliance on satellite navigation. Hmmmmm.
On of our favorite statistics is that Nokia found that 93% of those surveyed get lost regularly, with the average person wasting 13 minutes each time they do. An average person – what is an average person exactly in this scenario?
Tags: Germany, London, Nokia, Re-Think Wireless
We skipped Day 3 – it was too easy – actually Day 3 was the ink party and that means Top 10 Hot Men list – which is now down to 15 -so we are still reducing that list… stay tuned. But Day 4 – well Day 4 took us away from IBC and over to London where I was at Seedcamp which starts tomorrow and one of my favorite entrepreneurs on the planet. I had the good fortune to spend an evening with Andrej Nabergoj, founder of Noovo and got a first hand tutorial over mojitos on Noovo. Now, before you say to me that you can’t take another social networking site I say to you – I agree. But how about a gathering place where you can in a true sense gather, post and share content from the Web that actually grows a new pool of content. It is so cool i can’t contain myself… that combined with the innovation from Zemanta which you all know is my ALL TIME FAVORITE bloggers tool – apparently they have a big announcement coming out on Thursday — I heard about it at the bar, but promised not to say anything…. 
Tags: Andrej Nabergoj, London, noovo, Seedcamp, Zemanta
Graham Pomphrey, Deputy Editor, DigitalTV Europe - Some might say that Graham should have been on the list every year running, and quite frankly, we thought he was. First and foremost, he is a Depeche Mode fan and if that wasn't enough he loves New Order and Joy Division. Since he is from The Wirral, he has a posh Scouse accent that only comes out the more he drinks. The more you talk to him the more you WANT to talk to him. And the more you talk to him the more you can't help just sort of forgetting your PR versus Editor code of ethics. You want to know what it feels like to be in the grip of charm. talk to Graham.
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