Posts tagged:

blogging

We Are Looking For A Software Writer To Join Our Team

by Ville Vesterinen, June 5, 2009 — Leave a Comment

growthArcticStartup is continually growing and want to offer more to our readers. Päivi is doing great job covering the clean tech sector, but we feel that there are still a lot of startups that deserve to get coverage.

That in mind we want to open applications for a full position for a writer who know the software industry’s ins and outs. The emphasis is on business-to-business software (B2B), since historically that is the biggest exit market in the region and there is currently happening a lot in the space.

Naturally this means that you understand the technology and have an interest in the field. Ideally you would be interested in covering the larger Scandinavian and Baltic scene, but by no means is that a requisite. So if you swim deep in your home country’s software startup scene, that’s enough. If we find people in different countries interested in covering their own market, we might take on board more than one writer. We also see it as a big plus is you’re willing to do a video interviews here and there. Again, you don’t have to be a professional blogger or writer by any means: passion and industry knowledge is all it takes.

We can not pay you money at the moment, but as any startups we can offer you other perks along side with the high visibility you would naturally get as a profilic writer and a solid member of our editorial team. If you’re still reading, are interested to become an integral part of ArcticStartup team and think you’d fit the bill, write to us at info[at]arcticstartup.com. We know there’s a lot of talent in our readership and we’d love to hear from all of you!

Paula Marttila, Welcome On-Board

by Ville Vesterinen, April 6, 2009 — Leave a Comment

paula marttilaNot only did we held a very succesfull ArcticEvening event in Stockholm last week, we are also very exited to announce that Paula Marttila will join our editorial board from Stockholm, Sweden.

Paula is an online strategist who loves Jaiku and all electronics with an Apple logo. A Finn living in Sweden. She’s also survivor of the 24 Hour Business Camp and co-organizer of the Geek Girl Meetup in Stockholm, Sweden. Previously she spent eight years on developing online media and payment services at Aftonbladet, the largest daily newspaper in Sweden. At the moment she’s helping out at Swedish Skincare System.

Paula will direct most of her attention on what is happening in the Swedish startup scene since she knows the ins and outs of the scene. Paula is a great addition to the team as currently we are slightly Finland heavy, but now Paula will balance the game. Warm welcome to the team Paula! We’re lucky to have you.

If you think you have a startup based in Sweden and think you are the next big thing, register your startup at ArcticIndex (here) and then email Paula at info[at]arcticstartup.com and write your company name followed by Sweden on the subject line and she will take a close look at what you’re cooking.

ArcticStartup Is Looking For A Cleantech Writer

by Ville Vesterinen, March 25, 2009 — 2 Comments

windmillArcticStartup is evolving as any healthy venture needs to. After talking to a lot of our readers we are ready to expand our editorial scope towards covering more of what all of us here are so passionate about, not just one industry but startups in general.

We chose the direction that we’re most excited about apart from the area that we already cover. We’re going for cleantech (or greentech depending on what you want to call it)! Irrispective of what you call it, we are now looking for a writer to join our ranks here at ArcticStartup and be a full fledged member of our editorial team.

Not just any blogger though. We are looking for the same passion that drive us each and every day. Naturally, we expect you to know the area of expertise and have something to show for it, be it a job, a resume, magazine articles, a blog, an event you organized, you name it. We are not particularly interested what you’ve done or what you do, as long as you’re passionate about cleantech and everything around it, and want to share what’s happening in the cleantech startup industry in the Northern Europe with our readers.

Some of you might have justified fear what happens to the current editorial that revolves around internet, mobile software startups and growth entrepreneurship. It gets stronger, that’s what! Each week we get a deeper and better view into the Northern European internet and mobile startup industry and each day we are more excited about it. We keep blogging and pushing the scene stronger than ever, now we just have the Northern Europen cleantech startup industry growing with us.

Long story short, If you understand cleantech, are passionate about cleantech startups and would like to share your insight with the world, write to us at info[at]arcticstartup.com. There’s 30 000+ page views a month and 130+ countries following after all, so you’re set for a wide readership. If you’re not sure whether you qualify, write to us anyway. If in doubt whether you know enough about the startup industry in cleantech, write to us anyway. Only thing we absolutely require is passion.

photo by George Lu

Swedish Blog Reader Service Bloggkoll Becomes Bloglovin’

by Miikka Kukkosuo, December 1, 2008 — Leave a Comment

Bloggkoll.com has been a successful Swedish local blog reader service, but the founders are now looking for international markets and have changed the name accordingly to Bloglovin.com. The service has been available as Bloglovin’ since September, and gathered from 15 000 to 60 000 visits per week, but now the name has been changed to Bloglovin’ for good.

The site offers essentially a simple mass market service to stay aware when new posts are available, having them all in the same place for easier and quicker access, and prevent forgetting the addresses of blogs.

The features are really simple. Each time you log in you see how many new unread posts you have, and also you’ll see right away which blogs have been popular today (ranked by the amount of new followers subscribed during the same day), and can select a second tab to view the most popular blogs (in terms of total subscribers). This is a nice feature for first-time visitors, as you can instantly get started even if you didn’t know many blogs. For adding blogs on your reading list you use the search function to find the blog you’re looking for, and if not already in the service, you can add a new blog with its URL. Another nice way to make things easier with not having to know the URL necessarily, if you’ve just heard the name of some interesting blog. And there’s also the recommendation service “if you liked this, then try out these blogs also”. It’s possible to create different groups as well to classify the different blogs you’re following.

I couldn’t find too much regarding the business model; however, there’s an interesting micropayment option called Spotlight – with 10 SEK (close to 1 EUR or 1,20 USD) you can get your blog to be visible to everyone currently using the service for 5 minutes. The payment is done by SMS, but currently works with Sweden only. Very nice idea, but would need quite a big user base and further categorization to generate sizeable revenues – theoretically with just one slot, fully booking 24h would generate just 288 EUR per day (or 2880 SEK/345 USD).

The founders themselves state on the web page they feel the other readers are “technical, boring and cluttered with features”, so they rather wanted to create a dead-simple service with user-friendly interface for those who just want things to work. This kind of service could indeed hit the main stream, as there might be room for a simple reader that just does the core trick without any distractions, and recommends new blogs on the side. However, it’s not going to be an easy task in terms of discovery, and also I’m not sure what the sustainable competitive advantage of the service would be, preventing some other players from stealing the users. Nevertheless, right now the service delivers on its promise. Also interestingly, most of the founder team is around 20 years old, so kudos to the guys for going for it!

Serial Entrepreneur Taneli Tikka Shares His Insights

by Ville Vesterinen, October 6, 2008 — 3 Comments

taneli tikkaTaneli Tikka, a Finnish serial entrepreneur and currently the CEO of RunToShop, COO of Dopplr and a former CEO of IRC Gallery among other things, has started blogging (here) about entrepreneurship, startups and everything that comes with it.

Taneli promises to openly blog about many of his past endeavors, which is something not very often seen from people with an experience comparable to Taneli’s. Not only is this fantastic news for Nordic and especially for Finnish entrepreneurship, but it also sets a great example for all the C-level executives to share their knowledge and insights with the less experienced. To quote Taneli:

I plan to follow the kind of guideline I have often followed: speak my mind on a wide range of issues and topics, as opinionated as it may occasionally be. Sounds like a quick way to get into trouble, doesn’t it?

The blog has only a few posts as yet, but there already is valuable advice for all entrepreneurs. Even though this is certainly not the first time someone has published such information it makes all the difference to the entrepreneurs closer to home who don’t necessarily don’t know where or what to look for from all the blogs published globally.

ArcticStartup applauds the courage for openness and will be sure to follow the blog closely.