Just got word from one of the “unorganisers”, Alex North, that the next BarCamp Sydney has been announced.

Details are as follows

Date: 15 November 2008
Venue: UNSW Roundhouse
Time: 9am – 5pm (8:30 registrations)

You can register yourself on the wiki here:

For those who have never been, Alex explains what BarCamp is about

For those who aren’t familiar, a BarCamp is an unconference — an open, participatory workshop-event, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols.

An unconference is an ad-hoc conference, unorganised, unrestricted, unpredictable. The schedule consists of a large piece of paper on which you write in your name if you want to host a session. Campers will turn up to whatever sounds interesting. Sessions might be presentations, discussions, debates, games, … whatever you want. You’re strongly encouraged to present (it’s fun!).

I’ve been to the past 2 events and both have been incredibly valuable. Everyone is friendly – you can come by yourself and easily meet people to hang out with. The day is relaxed so it doesn’t matter if you want to pop in for just one session or for the whole day. You can even come and go to no sessions and still get a lot of value out of the peripheral activities

Keep an eye on the official blog for more details as the day gets closer

In line with the recent trend of tech startups that aim to help us save a buck, Melbourne-based switchwise.com.au, has launched an online service that allows consumers to easily compare electricity and gas prices and switch suppliers over the Internet.

According to founder, Shaun Johnson, the site was:

created to help untangle the complex web of energy pricing and to assist consumers to select the right energy plans for their homes. An average household could save around $200 per year on their combined electricity and gas bills by switching to a cheaper supplier using switchwise.

The service is free to end-users and prides itself on being “unbiased and independent”. To help with the comparing switchwise has developed a sophisticated calculator that uses the consumer’s suburb and energy use to determine the costs and savings of each energy plan available. For those unwilling to trust the calculator, you can get detailed information about each plan, such as price, payment methods and terms and conditions and make up your own mind.

For me, the best part of the site is that if you decide you want to switch you can either do it there and then, online, or phone switchwise directly and have a rep do it for you.

The site was founded by Shaun Johnson, who has over 10 years’ experience in managing digital media, e-commerce and technology-related businesses in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Before establishing switchwise, Shaun was Commercial Director at Ukash, a European e-commerce payments company based in London. Prior to that, he worked in Sydney as the Australian & New Zealand Managing Director for Itsmobile, a mobile payments company, now a division of Payzone plc. Shaun’s experience also includes several years at AOL Europe, where he was General Manager of the CompuServe and Netscape businesses. Whilst at AOL, Shaun launched the highly acclaimed Netscape Online ISP and portal, which he built into a leading player in the UK market. Shaun also spent several years as a strategy consultant with Accenture.

Sounds like he has the business chops to make this site a success, and the VCs at Netus, who have funded switchwise, would appear to agree.

At the moment, the site is in beta and only has Victorian data though Shaun says it will be extended to other States and Territories of Australia shortly.

Other sites in the space include Go Switch and Switch Select (I’m starting to sense a naming trend in the space). The presence of another competitor in switchwise will only help promote competition and hopefully lead to even better analyses and savings.

Keep them coming guys – I’m loving all these new sites!

Times are getting tough for startups, whether here or in the Valley.

Who better, then, to give us an insight into the issues that Silicon Valley faces, with an Aussie twist, than ex-Perth boy  Jeremy Liew of LightSpeed Venture Partners, a leading global venture capital firm that manages over $2 billion of capital commitments and has invested in more than 150 companies over the past 2 decades.

——————

Tell us a bit about your background / projects you’ve worked on.

bio and investments can be found on the LightSpeed website.

When did you decide to make the move to Silicon Valley and what were your motivations?

I moved to the US for a job in ’96. My old boss from McKinsey started CitySearch and I came out to join him. That company was based in LA. I first moved up to Silicon Valley in ’98 to go to Stanford Business School. After graduation I took a job in NY and stayed on the East Coast for a few years. I moved back to Silicon Valley in ’06 to join Lightspeed Venture Partners.

What made you decide to make the move into VC?

It was serendipity – I wasn’t looking. I got a call from a business school classmate at a venture firm who was looking to add someone with more consumer internet experience to their investment team. I grew pretty intrigued and ended up makign the jump.

Do you ever feel like giving it away and working on your own tech startup? Your education in maths and linguistics are an excellent background for a NLP/Semantic startup

Some people have the creativity and drive to be entrepreneurs. I do not and recognize my own limitations. I’m a better critic than a writer!

What are some of the most common mistakes you see aussie start-ups making?

Not thinking big enough. Focusing on technology instead of customer problems. Not looking for a global perspective in employees, leadership and investors early enough.

What do you think is stopping Australia from becoming a leading global tech-hub?

Market Size. Aussie companies need to look to global markets, and that means relocating closer to customers, so there is a limited runway that a company can have while based in Australia.

How will the economic downturn affect the global tech startup (and associated funding) industry?

Revenue will take longer to ramp. Venture debt will be harder to find.  As a result, companies will take longer to break even, need to be more concerned about burn rate, and may need to raise more money, more often. Angel capital will dry up. Some VC firms will be more focused on their portfolio and have less time to focus on new investments. Marginal companies will likely be the most impacted.

Do you buy the argument that a downturn is a great time to start a new business?

It isn’t a great time, but it isn’t a bad time either. You should time the starting of a business to when you see new opportunities and problems to be solved, not to try to coincide with economic cycles.

Are you still looking to invest in start-ups and, if so, what are you looking for?

Yes. Looking for great teams attacking huge markets with innovative defensible solutions.

Can you clarify the notion of a “huge market”? Does it matter to you whether that’s an existing or potential market? And dollar wise, what type of TAM/SAM numbers do you consider to be huge?

$1bn + (bigger the better) within 3-5 years

Also, around the notion of defensibility, and ignoring IP law for now, what types of defense strategies do you feel are winning in the tech startup space at the moment?

Solving hard technical problems. build a loyal community. dominating go-to-market channels. branding. distribution.

What is the one bit of advice you would give a startup founder?

You can change your team, you can change your technology, but you can’t change your market.

What advice would give an Aussie startup considering making the move to the US now?

The time to move to the US (or anywhere that is close to your markets) is when you’re ready to talk to customers. No need to move before that. But you must do it once you’re talking to customers. Otherwise, it is just too hard to stay top of mind as a startup.

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A big thankyou to Jeremy for taking the time to do the interview and to Kathy Drask for organising it.

Last week we ran a story on the “Clean Feed” – the Federal Government’s plan to force ISPs to censor the Internet for all Australians.

Well counter-activity has rapidly progressed and for those of you who haven’t heard, there are now a range of things you can do to get involved and stop the clean feed from happening.

First stop should be Electronic Frontiers Australia’s No Clean Feed site – http://nocleanfeed.com – sign the petition and keep abreast of what they’re up to.

Not long after that you should jump onto the Silicon Beach Google Group post on the topic and either join in the conversation or, at the very least, stay tuned so that when initiatives are announced you’re ready to roll!

This is not just about censorship (if that isn’t enough), it’s also about a reduction in quality of Internet service for EVERYBODY due to the overhead of filtering content as well as wasting of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on something that has little-to-no support in the wider community and is ineffective from a technological standpoint.

So sign up, tell your friends and family to do the same and let’s get his thing shut down before it’s too late.

Oh – if you know of any other relevant sites that you think might be of interest to people wanting to stop the clean feed form being implemented, feel free to put them in the comments.

ZaaBiz, Australia’s leading business networking site, will announce tomorrow that it is dropping all premium service fees for all new and existing members in Australia and New Zealand.

In the past, premium services, which included the ability to message other members, advanced search functionality and the ability to create and manage groups, cost members $99 a year.

As of tomorrow they will be provided for free.

CEO, Michael Brecht, provided the following when asked about the motivation for the move:

We believe it is now the right time to give our members something back while offering something to new members, especially as every dollar counts these days

The cynic in me asked Brecht if it was actually about getting more people to try out the premium services before switching the paid system back on, but that was rejected on two fronts

First of all we already offer a one month trial period for premium services so new members are already trialling the services and second of all we have no intention of charging Australian or New Zealand members for premium services for the foreseeable future

In addition to that it should be noted that standard membership is already free, so traction doesn’t appear to be a major motivator either.

ZaaBiz, which launched a year ago, now has over 100,000 members and continues to grow strongly both in Australia and also, surprisingly, India. Brecht credits the popularity in India with the affinity many Indian business people have with English, and as a result Australian, style networking practices as opposed to American.

I’ve questioned the need for geographically-specific business networking sites, in the past, but the cultural nuances of doing business in different countries/regions is an overwhelming reason why it might just be necessary.

In addition to the fast growth rate, ZaaBiz members also appear to be using the site in different ways to competitors like LinkedIn. For instance, the average time on the site is over 14 minutes a visit, while industry figures put LinkedIn visit times at between 5-6 minutes. In addition to the time spent, Zaabiz members also have more page impressions per session than LinkedIn. One reason for this might be the increased popularity of LinkedIn as a recruiting site, whereas Zaabiz continues, according to Brecht, to be more of a pure business networking site.

Finally, the popularity of the site in Australia and India has seen it become a gateway tool between businesses from both countries looking to start working in the other.

With nothing to stop you from joining, except a 2 minute signup process, why not jump onto Zaabiz and give it a go? At the very least you’ll be supporting another Aussie startup and you may even end up adding another really useful networking site to your arsenal.

Check it out.

There has been a lot of interest in our Australian Startup Index , which has been running for 3 months now. There has also been some discussion about how the raw scores should be calculated.

I’d like to open the topic up to you, as TechNation Australia readers, to get some ideas on what you feel is the best way to rank startups.

We’re currently running on Compete and Alexa stats only but some people have commented that we should focus more on Aussie stats. Do you agree with this? If so, should there be an emphasis placed on local traffic or do you feel that international traffic (including Aussie traffic) is a better measure?

Also, do you want the Index to move beyond pure traffic measures and into other things, such as:

• profitability (or revenues),
• funding,
• staff numbers,
• popularity,
• social media mentions,
• innovation,
• valuation,
• design,
• perceived likelihood of success,
• Something else…

Let’s not worry about the detail of how we would measure these things for now. Let’s just focus on what would be ideal.

The real goal of this exercise is to figure out what you guys want to get out of the Index. For instance:

• Do you want it to be a measure of traffic?
• Do you want it to be a measure of coolness?
• Do you want it to be a measure of business success?
• Do you want it to be a measure of who’s being talked about the most?
• Do you want it to be a measure of who is the most influential?

This is your chance guys, so please don’t hold back.

I can’t promise everything you ask for will be implemented, but can promise that everything will be considered.

Go! go! go!

My Guest List is a Melbourne-based startup that aims to help owners of nightclubs, bars and pubs automate guestlists & function bookings, grow their database of clientele and provide a communication platform which allows for mass SMS and emailing capabilities.

The site, which launched just this month, was co-founded by a self-declared “couple of Melbourne’s most aspiring young and talented entrepreneurs”, Damian Janeski and Andy Marcus. We don’t mind a bit of self-promotion by entrepreneurs, here at TechNation Australia, so it’s good to see the boys not holding back.

Damian and Andy, who are 22 and hold Computer Science and Software engineering degrees, both have ICT and venue management experience, which is how they came up with the idea to convert the largely paper-based systems at the moment into something far more efficient.

In addition to the 2 founders the My Guest List team now consists of a Marketing and Sales person and a full time web and graphic designer.

On the business side, My Guest List is a paid subscription service and they’re already generating revenues by getting “a minimum of two signups a week”.

I spoke to Andy about the response from subscribers and he said:

…we have found that the users of the system have really loved using it and adopted to it very well. Many nightlife venues now completely rely on it for their marketing and guest list purposes.

The guys nominate Impact Data, Inspirus and Vision 6 as competitors, but after playing around with all 3 sites and My Guest List, I don’t really think that they compete that strongly.

My Guest List have created a niche product that is being developed with a specific set of use-cases in mind – the others are far more general and, as such, probably don’t service the nightlife industry the same way My Guest List can.

And the best bit? Being web-based, inspired hackers might finally be able to get themselves on those exclusive guestlists…nah – please don’t do that – rather, if you’re running events, definitely go and check out the service. It looks like a really nice solution.

Word has been getting out over the past few days that McDonalds Australia are planning to offer free WiFi in 720 of their restaurants nationwide.

The WiFi network, which will use the Telstra Next IP network, will be largely based on converting current paid hotspots to free ones in a staged rollout to be completed by March 09.

Internet sessions will not be time-constrained but will have a 50MB limit applied. On top of that, there are unconfirmed rumours that users get 30 minutes free usage after watching an ad at makeupyourownmind.com.au and answering a question correctly. The rumour goes on to say that the questions are fairly simple, like:

• How many delicious flavours of sunday toppings do we serve?
• In 25-50 words, which Mc Donalds menu item do you like best and why?

In my mind, however, the likelihood of that rumour being correct is low as it would limit the kinds of devices that could  easily take advantage of the network, in particular things like smart phones using the network for email access, and to be honest, the benefits of providing free WiFi go way beyond having people watch your ads when they’re actually in your store already, so why would you bother?

As part of the whole process it also looks like Maccas has somehow partnered with free WiFi location website, Free Wifi. The site was one of the first to have the announcement and they now have a comprehensive listing of which Maccas are free and which are stilled paid.

On top of that, word on the street is that pamphlets speaking about the new free WiFi are appearing in individual McDonalds in preparation for when they make the switch and that those official pamphlets are pointing people to freewifi.com.au for more info.

So far there are already 12 stores (all in or around Sydney) listed as now being free including, interestingly, the Carlingford Food Court. It’s interesting because it shows that they won’t be limiting the service to areas that only sell their food.

Those 12 stores are listed below and you can keep an eye on further updates (apparently 8 more will go free by COB tomorrow) by checking out the list at Free WiFi HERE.

• McDonald’s Carlingford Food Court (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Castle Towers (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Castle Hill (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Cremorne (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Gladesville (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Mt Colah (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Northmead (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Westmead (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s St Ives (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Stanmore (Cafe/Eatery)
• McDonald’s Thornleigh (Cafe/Eatery)

It’s a nice move by McDonalds and hopefully will kickstart the widespread availability of free wifi by forcing competitors to keep up.

There seems to be a rush on financial services related startups of late and now there’s another company who has joined the fray that wants to help us save money.

Launched yesterday, Mozo is is a new kind of financial service website that uses consumer generated content and live data feeds to compare and rate financial products and providers on everything from interest rates to customer service.

The site combines personalised price comparison tools with what the team are calling “the first comprehensive customer ratings system for financial products”.

On top of that there’s also a “health check application” that allows people to health check their current home loan, credit card or personal loan to see if they would benefit from switching.

The way it works is that you simply enter your existing product details and Mozo compares the hundreds of products they have in their database to generate a report showing the Top 5 products that would save you the most money and help pay off your loan or credit card debt faster.

Mozo was founded by Rohan Gamble whose entrepreneurial background includes starting and running Virgin Money in Australia.

Rohan says he “developed Mozo to give consumers a powerful new way to navigate the money maze, and to give financial institutions a reliable and cheap distribution channel”.

He also says that “there is a gap in the market for an online financial services marketplace. In Australia successful online marketplaces have already been established in verticals such as jobs, real estate, travel and cars by companies like Seek and Realestate.com.au. The fact that an online financial services marketplace has yet to be established in Australia is in stark contrast to both the UK and the US, which have seen very strong growth in this space.”

Local competitors include Rate City and InfoChoice, though Mozo looks to have more social features and additional services, beyond pure comparison shopping, than the two incumbents.

For the launch, Mozo teamed up with Roy Morgan to conduct an in-depth survey of 3000 Australians to rate and review their financial providers on trust, customer service, convenience, product features and rates and fees. Some of the expected findings include:

• The Commonwealth Bank and NAB were rated Australia’s least favourite banks
• Bendigo Bank is Australia’s favourite bank, ranking above all the big banks
• Regional banks (often the ones consumers know little about due to limited marketing budgets) dominated the Most Trusted Banks category

It’s taken a bit, but finally it looks like we’re starting to get a really good set of local, financial services, startups that are taking advantage of all the benefits the Internet allows to provide us with services that can help us make better financial decisions.

And in light of the current economic conditions, they’ve probably arrived just in time.

Really Sold is a new site that uses the Internet to make life easier for real estate agents in a brand new way – when they’re trying to create advertising for their properties.

The site’s founder is Kirsty Dunphey who was named National Young Business Woman of the Year in 2002 and has gone on to become an author, keynote speaker and now a tech entrepreneur.

As someone who hates all the cliches that real estate agents use, I was excited to see how Really Sold might be able to make it easier for Real Estate agents to put together more descriptive and unique ads.

Unfortunately, if you check out the tour, the site is really just a way for agents to think even less about what they’re writing. Essentially its a series of prepackaged descriptions, most of which we’ve all come to know all too well, that are put into a database and offered through a sexy front end to the ad creator.

Removing the fact that it’s not going to change the words in ads, if it’s true that, as Kristy says, Real Estate agents are “spending far longer than they would have liked crafting their real estate advertisements” then this could be an interesting use of technology to solve a real world problem. And at only $1.95 a week I don’t see any reason why people wouldn’t use the service, whether here or overseas.

If you’re in the real estate game, it might be worth checking out.