UK-based Skimlinks, a plugin which automatically converts outbound links in editorial content into affiliate links, has closed it’s first funding round. The amount is rumoured to be £700,000 (just over AUD$1.5M) or slightly less, depending on the source.

Either way, it’s a good chunk of money in a time when cash isn’t being thrown at dumb ideas. This goes to show the potential that the various investors - Sussex Place Ventures, UK government body NESTA, The Accelerator Group & Angels Duncan Jennings and Alex Hoye - believe the business has.

Skimlinks is a product of Skimbit, a company founded by Aussie Alicia Navarro. which used to be all about its decision making tool, also called Skimbit. The change in direction would appear to be a good one. To quote Navarro’s feelings about closing the round:

YIIIIHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haha.

Well done to Alicia and the team.

Today TechNation Australia (TNA) has an interview with recently named World Economic Forum Global Young Leader, and Atlassian co-founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes (MCB).  The interview was focused on the recent milestone the company has reached - $100 Million in accrued revenues.

—-

TNA - First of all, congratulations from all of us here at TNA in being named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum.  Its an amazing accomplishment to be ranked beside the best forward thinking brains in the world.

MCB - Thanks, it all happened quite quickly. I got notice of it a few days ago and was just as excited as everyone else when I heard it.

TNA - So $100M in accrued revenues, do you know what time you actually hit this point and did a celebration ensue?

MCB - We reached the milestone on Wednesday.  We we’re all pretty busy and didn’t take too much time to celebrate, however we did have some champagne on Friday night instead of the usual beers, so I suppose we did have a wee party of sorts!

TNA - For those readers unfamiliar with the Atlassian story, how did you manage to build the business from nothing, to where you are now?

MCB - When we started out in 2002 we realized that there was going to be a real need for organisations to employ easy to use, cost effective enterprise software.  We also realized that the internet was starting to provide a new distribution platform to effectively build and sell software, compared with boxed software that could be bought over the counter. From the start Atlassian has focused on collaboration software, our goal is to make it easier for companies to communicate internally behind the firewall. In essence we zeroed in on the fact that software was easier to sell, easier to maintain and easier to upgrade over the internet.  Atlassian hasn’t really changed that philosophy since we started.  If you take today’s tech climate for example, software pricing is still going down and software development cost’s are still going down, this justifies what we were thinking when we first started 7 years ago.

TNA - Did you expect to reach the milestone sooner; are you surprised how quickly it came?

MCB - We thought it would be later.  If you look at our fiscal growth rates, it took us 4 years to reach $10M, then 3 years to reach $100M.  This would indicate that we are currently riding a significant growth curve.  However we’re not really too focused on how much revenue we turn over, we’re focused on building great products and services, revenue is a direct follow on from that.

TNA - Whats the next fiscal milestone going forward, based on your current growth rates and financial projections.

MCB - As a company we don’t talk about our figures or projections.  What I can say is that we are on track to acheive the goals we’ve put in place.   We did hit US$40M last year solely from the US market, which we were very happy with, the US is one market we spend alot of time and effort developing.

TNA - In your opinion, hows the Aussie startup scene going to progress this year?

MCB - I think that with the worlds current financial situation, its going to really tough for Aussie startups who have VC money and are growing.  Its going to be tough getting a strong second round of funding if cash is running out, as most VC’s will only invest in companies they see real value in.  In a bull market there’s alot of money thrown around to startups, some of which would not really be justified in getting funding.  In a bear market, VC’s will only invest in companies that know what their core proposition is and how they will use that proposition to create real value.  However, in a way, its a really exciting time for tech, some of the worlds biggest and most successful companies were founded in a down market, so i’m very optimistic that we will see some really great Aussie startups coming through on a global scale in the next 3-4 years.

TNA - Thanks so much for the Interview Mike and congratulations once again on such a significant milestone, you guys really are flying the flag for the Australian Tech scene worldwide.

MCB - Cheers

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Asher Moses is reporting that Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has withdrawn all support for Senator Stephen Conroy’s mandatory Internet filtering scheme, otherwise known as the “Cleanfeed“.

You can check out our past coverage on the topic here, here and here.

Without Xenophon’s support, the Government won’t have the numbers to get the plan over the line.

While the Twitter backchannel isn’t counting this as a win, just yet, it definitely is another great step forward for the coalition of ISPs, community groups and experts who have fought against the Government’s ridiculous scare campaign since the plan was first announced.

Hopefully we can finally put this thing to rest and, amongst other things, start getting people to return their twitter avatars to normal…I’m forgetting what people actually look like!

More news as it arises…

The team at MacTalk, one of Australia’s largest online communities for Apple users (they have over 20,000 registered members), have announced the first of many conferences in Melbourne’s CBD.

The first event will be held on March 5th at Innovation@257, Level 1, 257 Collins Street, Melbourne and will be starting at 6:30pm.

UPDATE: PLEASE NOTE THE DATE CHANGE TO MARCH 5TH

Attendees will hear from speakers including MacTalk co-founder Anthony Agius, who will demonstrate the workflow of MacTalk’s popular weekly podcast. Guest speaker Peter Wells will give an introductory lesson in Final Cut, Apple’s video editing suite, and Robert Amos will show webmasters how to make their websites iPhone compatible.

MacTalk co-founder Anthony Agius said he wants to provide Melbourne with a platform for community engagement with Apple products.

It will be completely free to attend and I encourage all Apple users who want to learn more about their Mac to come and do so.

The MacTalk Tech Talks are expected to run for approximately 2 hours, including question time, followed by networking afterwards.

“The presentations will be available for video download shortly after the event via podcast, but we’re hoping people don’t use that as an excuse not to attend.”

While there’s an ever increasing place for online communities it’s great to see more and more offline activities popping up for Aussie fans, of all kinds of tech, to meet in person.

With Optus releasing Googles their much anticipated HTC Dream phone last Tuesday, we at Technation Australia thought it was time to see how Google’s first foray into the cellphone market stacks up with the pioneering market leader – Apples iPhone.

I’ve structured the post to focus on four main topics - Usability, Internet browsing, Application Platform and Cost.

- None of us here at TNA have had much experience in product writing,  so if we’ve missed a few points please leave them in comments and we will amend

Stats

Weight:
HTC Dream = 158g
iPhone = 133g

Battery life:
HTC Dream = 5 hours talk time, 130 hours standby
iPhone = 5 hours talk time, 300 hours standby

Screen size:
HTC Dream = 3.2in
iPhone = 3.5in

Camera:
HTC Dream = 3-megapixel
iPhone = 2-megapixel

Capacity:
HTC Dream = 2GB, expandable to 8GB
iPhone = 8GB or 16GB

Usability

Dream
-    Qwerty slide-out keyboard
-    Touch-screen
-    Roll ball navigation nub
-    4 button control panel

iPhone
-    Mulit-touch screen
-    On Screen Keyboard
-    Singular Home button

Verdict – iPhone
I just can’t pass up Apple’s free flowing user interface.  Yes I am an Apple lover, but after spending several days using both phones, performing identical tasks, the iPhone wins out due to small things. Such as being able to use the keyboard when the phone is upright, which allows you to message with one hand.  The iPhones multi-touch interface which allows you to zoom easily was a big deciding factor, you have to touch the screen then press on a + or – to zoom with the Dream. I am in no way writing off the Dreams’s UI because it is extremely intuitive and practical, but Apple’s focus on design shines through with the iPhone, it would be a tough ask for anyone to top it currently.  So I think it comes down to personal preference, some people like touch-screen keyboards, others prefer Qwerty keyboards.  Touch-screens win with me.

Internet browsing

HTC Dream
-    Web-kit based browser
-    Text resizing
-    Magnification Window
-    Multi page view

iPhone
-    Web-kit Based Safari Browser
-    Multi touch zoom
-    Multi Page View

Verdict – HTC Dream

The Dream wins out here for some very important pieces of smart technology.  When viewing pages through the Dream, the text of the page or article content resizes to fit comfortably into your screen.  If you zoom in closer, the text will resize accordingly.  This is an extremely helpful feature as you don’t have to muck around with the zoom to find the right text size to browse with.  The iPhone definitely gets points with its larger screen, sometimes when trying to touch links with the Dream, the screen will pick up another link, which can get annoying.  Both phones have similar multi page views when you are wanting to go between different windows.  The Dream also has a small magnification window which can be employed to have a closer look into a page.  Great when your viewing a site through full page view.  It seems to me that Google has taken all its knowledge and familiarity of the internet, its pages/content and built a sleek mobile Web-kit based browser that allows the user to easily digest that content. While on the other hand, Apple has stuck with Safari, which has had mild reviews since its inception a few years ago.

Applications

HTC Dream
-    App Market

iPhone
-     iTunes App Store

Verdict – iPhone

So, the topic that everyone is saying will make or break smart phones in the future.  Apples iPhone App store has been around since July last year  and is already turning well over tens of millions in revenue a month.  The Dream’s App Market has been running since late last year, coinciding with its release in the US, I cant find info regarding revenues generated but will add when I do.

So its basically a battle of a closed application platform in Apples App Store versus an open source application platform in the Dream’s App Market.   The iPhone App store wins out ‘at the moment’ mainly because it’s been around longer and developers are more comfortable with the code associated to the platform which allows for more refined apps.  However, there I am in no way writing off the Dream’s App market.  It’s basically still an infant and will mature and grow over time, the fact that its open source allows for a lot more creative freedom for developers which I predict will be a tide turner in the future.   The controlled nature of Apples App store, where App’s have to be first approved by Apple before going public ensures that all the App’s reach a certain standard of usability and relevance -  a welcome difference to that of open source platforms, which can be wonderfully chaotic or horribly confusing at times.  iPhone wins the App race for now, but my advice would be to keep a keen eye on how the Dream’s App market evolves, it’s only going to keep growing, into what? - we’ll wait and see.

Cost and Pricing

HTC Dream
24 Month Optus Contracts
$74 for 500MB
$92 for 700MB
$122.95 for 1.5GB – free calls to any Australian number
$132 for 3GB – free calls to any Australian number

iPhone
24 Month Optus Contracts
$79 cap for 1GB

$99 cap for 3GB

Verdict – HTC Dream

The pricing plans for both phones are very limited, both work on 24 month Optus contracts and include access costs among other minor conditions.  The Dream has a few more options than the iPhone which makes it more flexible however the pricing for data still has the iPhone on top in that respect.  The fact that swings the result in the Dream’s favors is that calls made to Australian phones on either the 1.5GB or 3GB plans are free.  Depending on what you use your phone for is going to determine what phone and plan is better for you.

Result – Draw

So, both phones come out even.  This is a good result as I think both phones are on an equal footing. They both do different things better than one another and in some ways serve different purposes.  The best way to find out which one is for you is take a test-drive with a showroom model.  The one that feels the most natural to you and has the plan that suits your mobile habits will obviously be the winner.

What the arrival of the HTC Dream does kick start is the monumental battle that will be waged for many years to come in the smart phone market.  The iPhone holds the crown at the moment, but with real competitors like the HTC Dream coming through, it’s going to be fascinating to see how this battle plays out.

We mentioned in our post on Australia becoming an Enterprise 2.0 hub that one of the key reasons was “Mr Enterprise 2.0″ Ross Dawson.

Well Ross and his Future Exploration Network are hosting the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009 on Tuesday, 24th February (That’s next week, BTW) in Sydney as well as a Compact Lunch Briefing in Melbourne on Thursday, March 5th.

At $795 ex GST it’s probably not something for everyone, but for those interested in the space there will be some excellent speakers as well as some really useful materials.

I’m also letting everyone know because I think that even if you don’t want to, or can’t really afford to, go it’s important to know that these events are on and corporates are genuinely looking to Enterprise 2.0 solutions even in these harsh economic times.

A few weeks ago we ran a story on the Australian beta launch of Vodafone’s Pocketlife - a mobile social networking app that combines telecommunications with online social networking and location-based GPS functionality.

For me, the most interesting part of the service, besides the fact that it’s incredibly cool, is that Vodafone opened the service up to more or less any phone on any network. The openness made me want to find out more about what they’re up to over at Vodafone, so I tracked down Hanno Blankenstein,  Vodafone Australia’s Head of Innovation, for a chat.

After speaking with him I was really pleased to hear what he, and his team, are doing in Australia.

First of all, Pocketlife is an Australian innovation that is being pushed out to the rest of the world. That’s something that’s pretty rare these days. Blankenstein explained that driving it out of Australia was a bit of a struggle at first, as you would expect, but that now they have business buy-in from the top. That’s really important as an example if we’re hoping for more global IT&T businesses to start looking at Australia as more than just a sales and marketing branch.

Locally they have a small cross-functional (marketing and tech) internal team but they also are highly outsourced, bringing innovative products and services from outside the organisation into the internal development environment where possible.

Many of you will know that I’m a huge fan of open innovation - where organisations leverage the skills and experience that exist outside of the corporate walls to create better offerings for their consumers. I’m even working on a related startup, so to see it in practice at Vodafone is really exciting.

Hanno’s goals aren’t small either. He wants Pocketlife to position Australia as the source of the world’s most popular mobile social network, not unlike Australia is widely renowned as the source of the world’s most popular mapping software - Google Maps.

Interestingly, it may very well be a Google Maps based service - Google Latitude - which proves to be the biggest competitor to Pocketlife. The service, which launched only a couple of weeks ago, was no doubt heavily reliant on the Australian Google Maps team to get it over the line, so we may very well be seeing the beginnings of an Aussie-focussed mobile social network war (throw in Mig33 and that comment looks even more accurate)

Either way, Blankenstein explained that Pocketlife is only the first of many world-leading innovations he plans to bring out of Vodafone Australia. The fact that you have a passionate leader willing to take Australian innovation and support it with the global marketing powerhouse that is Vodafone is extremely exciting. Marry that with the focus on openness, as opposed to the antiquated closed environments that most Telco’s still insist on trying to shove down our throats, and this could very well be the start of something special in Australia.

The only big uncertainty is the recent merger announcement between Vodafone Australia and Hutch 3. I guess we’ll soon see whether this development will stifle or drive further innovation.

So the Daily Telegraph “can reveal” that the NSW Government is going to be creating a Silicon Valley for the Western Suburbs of Sydney.

“A $500 million plan will go before a Cabinet budget committee tomorrow to declare 10,000ha of western Sydney a “special economic zone”.

It will be the largest in Australia and is expected to create employment for thousands of workers in new hi-tech, IT and bio-medical industries as well as blue collar manufacturing.”

The plan sees business “given payroll tax and land tax reductions to set up in the area” with supporting transport/infrastructure to be built connecting the centre to other areas (other areas where people actually live and work, that is…)

I haven’t seen the fine print so I don’t know if it’s the Government trying to spin this as a Silicon Valley, or the Daily Telegraph.

Either way, I can’t believe that a Government in Australia has missed the mark by so much, again.

I swear if you look closely the lion in the State coat of arms is poking its tongue out at us

Last week a few of us got together in a room in Darlinghurst, Sydney, to brainstorm ideas on what could be done to further improve the local startup industry.

In the room was a group of people representing various interests and experiences.

That list included:

• Ross Dawson (Future Exploration Network)
• Mike Zimmermann (ex-TVP, now Bondi Ventures)
• Mick Liubinskas (Pollenizer)
• Phil Morle (Pollenizer)
• Phaedon Stough (Mitchel Lake)
• Todd Forest (Tasman Ventures)
• Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian)
• Martin Duursma (Citrix)
• Me…Kim Heras

The first initiative to come out of this meeting is Growth Town (props to MCB for the name!)

The aim will be to bring those with experience executing (successfully and not) together with those who have started and are growing, but lack the advisors and mentors to learn faster.

MIck Liubinskas’ explanation of the event:

“This is NOT about starting. This is about growing.

The event will be very simple and free flowing. Those with experience will offer to talk about various subjects and the entrepreneurs can gather around, listen and wander around as they want to. “

And Mike Cannon-Brookes’ version:

This is not an event for Accenture-consultants-who-have-an-idea-and-might-try-it-some-day. This is an event for those who have already started on their idea and are looking to learn how to grow it with other like minded folks.

Details for the event are as follows:

• March 4
• 6-8pm
• Atlassian office, 173-185 Sussex Street (Thanks Mike and Scott!)
• To the entrepreneurs - Bring pen, paper, questions and a bottle of water.
• No food. Keeping it simple.

So, if you fit the description of either

• Someone with experience executing
• Someone who has already started their business and is growing but wants to learn faster

…then jump onto Startup Australia wiki and RSVP -  http://startup-australia.wikidot.com/growth-town

Great story in the New York Times today about how the much-loved twitter “fail whale” came to be.

The illustration is actually the work of Sydney-based designer Yiying Lu.

It’s a great story about how a uni student, who had never heard of Twitter when they decided to use it on their site, went on to create one of the most famous images of the Web 2.0 generation.