Some of you may have experienced some problems with our recent server move in the form of old content suddenly jumping to the top of the page. This basically means you are accessing the old server as the information regarding the location of the new server has not propagated across the internet fully just yet. There is nothing you can really do about this, but wait a few days. We set the move to happen over the weekend, but full propagation usually takes about 24 to 72 hours. We apologize for any inconvenience.

On another note, we are extending the Slush and TechCrunch ticket competitions by one extra day. So go on, have a go at explaining Sisu in the comments.

Image by Eggplant (CC:by-nc-sa)

We have signed a sponsorship deal with Nodeta, a Finnish hosting company. With this deal, we were able to move our hosting over to the Nordics and thus dramatically speed up the service for the people in Europe.

Nodeta will also be our partner with regards to the future services we’ll be rolling out so a big thanks to the guys at Nodeta. They’ve been very helpful with us from the start and offered top notch service, something that you can’t get from too many places nowadays. So if you’re in need of quality hosting for an affordable price - make sure you ask Nodeta for a quotation.

We have many times been at lost when we have not been able to find adequate information on the startups we’ve wanted to cover at ArcticStartup. Similarly we have heard many investors and startups complain how there are no adequate directory where the investors could find potential investments or the startups could register themselves for the press and investors to find them.

Just like we like to see ArcticStartup weblog serve those interested in Nordic and Baltic startups, we want to provide other tools for our readers that contribute to our common cause, namely to encourage entrepreneurship and to help create a radically optimistic entrepreneurial culture here in the Nordics and Baltics.

To do this, we figured that we better start listing those companies and what a better way to do that than to build a CrunchBase-like directory of all the startups coming from the region.

We believe that even though one can list a Nordic or Baltic startup in CrunchBase or in Tradevibes it will not do justice to the many startups we have in Northern-Europe as the great number of US based startups will outnumber the Nordic and Baltic ones many fold. This naturally means less visibility and publicity for the non-US ones. Also, by registering your startup to our directory you will greatly improve the changes of us writing your startup.

The Arctic CrunchBase will be ready soon, but we’re still unsure what we should call it. This is where we figured you, our readers, could help out. Propose a name in the comments and we’ll announce the winning name and the person who came up with it as soon as we make our mind. Thanks!

I’m writing this from our summer cottage in Punkaharju, looking at the lake and pondering about the future. Looking back at the last six months, I must say they’ve been excellent, challenging and very rewarding with regards to Arctic Startup. We’ve had two events, which were magnificent successes, tens of blogposts which have gathered tens of comments from Finland and abroad. We’ve also had Ville and Tomi join our ranks after we launched the site last autumn with Miikka.

All of us have been working at our day jobs while putting this together and needless to say, it takes a lot of energy. Nevertheless I’ve talked to the guys and we’re all looking forward to putting in another 100% this coming autumn (I know I know, let’s get through the summer first!). There are a lot of plans put down to paper and I’m now going to share some of them with you.

With organising the two events during last spring we really noticed that there is a lot of demand for a grassroots level, bottom up, type of a forum where the concept is built in co-operation with the entrepreneurs working with the issues. Due to this, we’re going to be having at least two other events this coming fall. They’re going to be bigger and better with more interesting people.

To make this happen, we’re looking towards incorporating ArcticStartup and getting some sponsors on board with us to make the events more worthwhile and interesting to all of us. For the incorporation, we’re not looking for any funding but we will be putting up more information regarding the possible sponsorship packages that many have been asking for.

Furthermore, amidst of all the blogging, we will be participating in a bunch of events during the fall so do follow us to get possible discounts and tips regardging these conferences. We will be co-operating closely with the organisers to bring the best possible experience for the startups and third parties as we really want to shift gears in the Finnish entrepreneurship scene this autumn.

Talking about Finland - we’re hungry and never settle for something that can be reached easily. Having said that, our Finland only focus will be left behind and we’ll be broadening our view to other Nordic countries including Estonia. This is due to the fact that there simply isn’t an organisation that will cover the news and events at these latitudes in a way we would like them to be covered - hence the broadening view.

There’s a lot of things on the roadmap for the autumn, but we really want to work together on these with you the readers, entrepreneurs and vc’s to make all this happen in the right way. As you all know, a good idea only gets you 10% of the way, while a perfect execution will push you the last 90% towards the goal.

What do you think, are we heading the right way? Anything obvious we’ve missed?

Image credits to openDemocracy

There were some very good April Fool’s jokes to be found all around the internet yesterday.

Here’s a few ones we found.

• Virgle - Virgin and Google, a 100 year plan to take over Mars.
• Google Docs - Build your own airplane.
• Arctic Startup - to be honest, not really funded just yet. It was simply too tempting not to post it after I got the idea. However, it wasn’t all that outrageous as Vierityspalkki fell for it as well as som commenters(sorry!). Is there a blog in Finland that has received proper funding yet?
• Google’s Future Search - search the web of tomorrow.

Which ones did you find?