The team at 3eep have announced that regional media giant Prime Media Group is now displaying SportsPassion content on all 30 iPrime and iGWN sites around the country.

Prime is an investor in 3eep, so it makes sense that they should try to find synergies between their business and their investment to help grow both. That having been said, the hyper-local nature of most sporting teams means that local sporting team content from SportsPassion is probably going to be a good fit.

From that perspective it was a little disappointing to click on the SportsPassion link on various iPrime and iGWN websites and have them redirect to the SportsPassion general landing page rather than a localised landing page with sporting teams form the particular region.

To see what I mean, check out this iGWN Albany site, go down to the footer and under “Time Out” click on the SportsPassion link.

Tony Surtees, Director of iPRIME, said: “Social networking is an important way to communicate with regional Australia, and sport is a powerful and uniting force. Our expanded partnership enhances iPRIME and iGWN’s relevance among regional sporting communities and leverages the strengths of both parties.”

Likewise, Rob Antulov, 3eep co-founder and CEO, said “iPRIME have long shared our vision that local communities in regional Australia need services that are specific to their requirements.  By partnering with iPRIME and iGWN we can more effectively reach into these communities, and provide targeted opportunities for to brands that are eager to engage in more relevant conversation with local sports participants.”

It’s always been part of the 3eep distribution strategy to partner with media organisations around the world, so it’s good to see that strategy bearing fruit. I guess the next thing to check will be whether or not the partnership drives more users to the site and finally helps SportsPassion, and 3eep, fulfill its potential.

A quick story on Prangz.com. It’s another useful google maps traffic news mashup, not unlike Traffic Hawk or iTrafficApp, which was created in much the same way as these two Startup Camp alumni i.e. in a weekend of coding.

The difference in this case is that Prangz is the work of one coder - Matt Allen - but other than that it’s more or less the same.

So, if Prangz is nothing new or extraordinary why am I writing about it? Well it’s another example of how there are developers aching to come up with useful solutions based on public information that are being stifled by Government organisations that refuse to release the information in an easy to use format.

It still baffles me that people like Matt are forced to scrape data from the RTA site. Just like the iPhone App that was almost killed-off by State Rail until the NSW State Premier stepped in, the goal is better services for consumers at zero cost to Government. I’m sure there are reasons behind the refusal to provide useful information, it’s just I can’t really think of any that make sense.

How Sad.

I’ve been playing around with Photo Art Gallery lately - a new, bootstrapped, startup founded by Andrew Coppin. The site is, as the name suggests, a photo gallery, but then again it’s so much more. I’ll let Coppin explain:

Ph.Art Gallery ( It’s Photographic Art ) has been in development for over four years and is a site dedicated to creating a Gallery, Community and Educational portal for enthusiast photographers. We figured not everyone was invited to Getty and Flickr, FB etc were so crowded that their format and display didnt do Photographers work justice. We give all members their own virtual studio, url, 2GB storage and three Galleries in which they can place their work - Private, Public and Collectors. By creating a hierarchy of Galleries and great metadata input we think we can have the best high end image gallery in the market with cool search too. We have heap of Tutorials, Education, Print Facilities and a thriving community of passionate photographers ! Photographers of all levels can run their business from our site and we actively support and market their work. I guess its like a Co-Op for Photographers to display, share, sell and create and we like to think of it as The Ultimate Photographic Destination.

–

–

I asked Coppin about the Ph.Art team and this is what he had to say:

The primary pre-requisite to join our team is that you MUST have a passion for Photography! As founder and CEO I oversee the big picture marketing and direction of the site. Our General Manager of operations David Dennings has a background in Image retouching and oversees the tech and image side of the site. Team Ph.Art also comprises Olivia ( Marketing Manager ), Lisa ( Office Manager), Paul ( Senior Curator ), Glen & Emma ( Curators and Community ) and Mel who heads up our on-line community activities with help from Annie. Our tech and dev team are based in Melbourne and we keep them busy with fortnightly releases. We all take our imagery and looking after our members very seriously…but have alot of fun along the way. Thats why we’re Ph.Art !

Finally, I also asked Coppin about Ph.Art’s competitors:

There are many sites in the photography arena but none that we consider provide our exact mix of Gallery, Education, Agency, Art, Stock and Community.
Key players in the sector are obviously Getty, Flickr and other stock libraries.
In the photog arena we have Smugmug, DPreview, Deviant Art and people have said we are similar to Red Bubble…minus the poetry and with a complete focus on Photography - no pun intended ! So its a busy area but no one we know of actually gets out and actively seeks buyers for members art and images as we do whilst simultaneously providing a very user friendly and aesthetically pleasing site for keen photographers of all skill levels to display their best images.

I really like the fact that Red Bubble is on of the competitors identified here. First of all it’s great to see 2 Aussie startups competing globally in a similar space. Secondly, it’s great that an Aussie startup can recognise great products and services that have come out of Australia rather than the whole cultural cringe thing making them look past what’s happening locally and focusing on stuff coming out of the US, Asia or Europe.

Moving back onto the site itself, the reality is that I’m not a photography enthusiast so while I’ve had fun playing around with the site I’m not really from the target market. My wife is a designer, however, so I asked her to have a play.

At first it was a little confusing for her - there’s so much you can do. After a while, however, she started to get a feel for the site and what it could offer and it impressed her. There’s certainly a lot there to discover and the use cases are many and varied.

I like the site, I like the fact there is a business model and I like the fact that they’re thinking big. I hate the fact that the short name is Ph.Art - but maybe I’ll get used to it. Even if I don’t, the name won’t stop the fact that Ph.Art Gallry is a kick-ass site which has miles of potential.

Quick update to let everyone know that Growth Town 2 is coming up on April 1st…no joke.

Basic Details are:

• April 1
• 6-8pm (kicking off exactly on time..as I found out last time when I rocked up at 6:05)
• 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.

You can find out everything else - HERE. You can also find a summary post of the last event HERE.

As mentioned there will be some cool new stuff going on this time - best of all is the new ELEVATOR FAIL section where people can get up and tell, in around 30 secs, a story of how they tried, failed and what lessons they learned. The boys from Good Barry have even thrown in a free 6 month subscription to their online business management tool for the best fail story.

It’s critical that we remove the cultural stigma associated with failure that exists in Australia if we’re to try and succeed as an entrepreneurial centre. Because of this, things like elevator fail are, in my opinion, simple yet powerful ways of changing people’s mindset.

I’ll be down there on the 1st so if you’re there definitely grab me and say “hi”.

Kim Carr, Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has just announced in his talk to the National Press Club that the Federal Government will be making AUD$83 Million in new funding available for around 20 approved local Venture Capital firms.

The new fund will be called the Innovation Investment Follow-on Fund.

It’s a good proactive step from the Government and recognises the effect that the current economic conditions are having on the ability of VC firms to raise funds and the subsequent flow on effect that has on the development of innovative technologies and businesses in Australia.

It was also good to hear the Minister speak of ICT in the same breath as sexier innovation areas like bio-tech and clean-tech.

There’s no more detail than that available at  the moment, but if anything dramatic happens we’ll provide updates.

While this is definitely a good step in the right direction there are a couple of notable issues.

$83 Million is not a large amount of money to spread across a couple of funds, let alone 20-odd. Also, the name suggests that the funds may go to recipients of the Innovation Industry Fund (IIF) which, as we discussed with local VC Mike Zimmerman in a recent interview, has the problem of being focused on developing new VC firms, not propping up existing ones.

The Minister also mentioned that a formal response to the Cutler Report and more initiatives will be announced around budget time, so hopefully there’ll be more good news to report in the near future.

In my last few posts I described the process of applying for a “Climate Ready” R&D grant from the Commonwealth Government. In December I applied for a grant to develop software which will mimic the way a stone mason builds a dry-stone wall. The software will take on the hard part which is the 3D geometric manipulation of irregular objects and so enable builders to use a very low embodied energy material (rock rubble) as an alternative to more energy-intensive manufactured materials such as concrete and brick.

I’ve just been informed the application was not successful. The grants scheme is competitive which means startups will be hard pressed to compete against larger businesses who have more experienced management teams and more resources to conduct detailed market research to support their application. These two things are important selection criteria. AusIndustry (who administer the scheme) also automatically put applications for software at the bottom of the pile so all I can say is thank god for the R&D Tax Offset.

The graphic above shows total expenditure for R&D and how assistance via the ATO is nearly as much as via a grant. A significant advantage of the R&D Tax Offset compared to a grant is that the applicant needs to jump through far fewer hoops. For a brief intro to the R&D Tax scheme have a look at Startup Australia.

Asher Moses of Fairfax has written a story about how the “Fake” Stephen Conroy tweets were being written by a Telstra employee named Leslie Nasser. Yawn! Good to see it’s made the main story on www.smh.com.au , though.

–

Got to say that the Amnesia blog post which worked through the suspects was more entertaining than the actual fake Twitter account.

And when are we going to discover who the Fake Asher Moses was. Now THAT was funny for the few hours the first account was up and running. Seriously guys, if you’re going to set up a fake account make it scandalous like that one, yeah?

Top Aussie tech writer Brad Howarth has a good story up on leading tech news/funding blog Venture Beat about the recent Austrade and AIMIA backed mission to NY by 7 mobile startups.

Here’s a sample from the story, which you can read in full at VentureBeat - HERE

So last week a group of seven Australian mobile technology companies — games developers and other assorted digital media technology companies — descended on Manhattan to present their wares to a group of ad agency executives and publishers, courtesy of the Australian Trade Commission and the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association.

NY is still the home of Advertising in the US, so it’s great to see a bunch of boot-strapped Aussie startups heading to the East Coast where they believe their customers are, as opposed to the West Coast where the investors are. (kind of odd, from that perspective, that the story is up on Venture Beat…)

Nice work in any case by Brad - getting a story about Aussie Startups into a leading tech blog. And nice job by Austrade and AIMIA in helping the startups get to NY. Should be interesting to see what comes out of the trip.

Welcome to the March ‘09 installment of the Top 100 Aussie Web Startup Index.

The first thing to note, as promised in the Feb Startup Index, is the name change.

We’re limiting the list to 100 startups only and changing the name to reflect the obvious focus on measuring the web traffic of startups.

Sites from startup-australia.orgare ranked and listed below. If you think that a site is missing, or that one oughtn’t be included on the list, then feel free to edit the wiki.

Sites are ranked based on an average of Alexa and Compete traffic data. Only sites that are ranked by both Alexa & Compete and that have an average ranking of < 1 million will be listed. This month 104 sites listed on the startup-australia wikimade the list. To get yourself included just add your site to the wiki.

In addition to the Alexa and Compete traffic data are the following fields which, while they aren’t included in the actual rank calculations, add deeper insight into the startups on the list

• Quantcast -  data from Quantcast.
• Hitwise - Hitwise Australian traffic rank.
• Change - Change in the startup’s ranking between Nov and Dec.
• NB: All columns are sortable, just click on the heading

Congratulations to all the startups that are appearing for the first time and to those who have improved their ranking.

Now onto the list…

—

Aussie Social Network Aggregator PeopleBrowsr has launched a custom South by South West  (SXSW) app to allow conference go-ers (and those of us on the other side of the world) to keep up to date with what’s going on.

For those who don’t know - SXSWis a massive film, music and tech conference held in Austin, Texas every year. It was at SXSW in 2007 that Twitter jumped into the mainstream cool-kid consciousness after being a more or less unknown/unappreciated service for a year or so.

I don’t know if history will repeat itself, but PeopleBroswr definitely has potential and SXSW is a good place to test whether the idea will work, so good luck to Jodee and the team.