Mick Johnson and James Gregory from kick-ass iPhone development house Jam-Code have been working on a side-project that has the potential to blow up, big time.

Having had recent success at Jam-Code with GasBag and myATM, the boys have now released Knektr (Connector), a geo-location social networking app which plans to compete with services like Loopt, Google Latitude and Pocketlife.

Knektr is available as a free iPhone App and a FaceBook App

The interesting thing about Knektr is that it leverages Facebook Connect so you don’t actually have to join another social network, or get your friends to sign up to a new one either. If you have a Facebook account then you and your mates are ready to rock and roll.

According to Johnson, there are 3 main ways that you can get value out of Knektr:

1. See where your friends are and what they’re doing

• Fast, usable map with all your friends represented by their current profile picture (or an icon if they have no picture you can view)
• You’re in red, your Facebook friends are in green, and any friends on Knektr are in blue
• iPhone lets you update your location in real-time
• Currently building the Facebook Connect application to let you move your location around from your desktop, and check who’s nearby from there

2. Contact your friends

• View them either on the map or on the list of all your friends from FacebookSee their profile and status from Facebook
• Integrates with your iPhone Address Book to pull in their email or phone number so you can call them directly
• Send them a notification through Facebook that will pop up on the desktop client or the official Facebook application

3. Update your own details

• Update your status
• Post a photo
• In both cases, lets you automatically include the location in the update e.g. Mick is dropping in to Maruichi Ramen in Sunnyvale
• Future plans to let you view your friends’ photos on the map in the locations they were taken

As Johnson further explains: -

The #1 advantage Knektr has over other services is that it leverages the most popular social network among iPhone users – Facebook. Every iPhone user I know has Facebook, so I think it’s fair to use the TAM is roughly the entire iPhone user population

That might be a slight exageration, but the sentiment is correct, i.e. if you’re going to pick a social network that as many iPhone users as possible probably actively use, then Facebook is the smart choice.

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Re: the obvious privacy questions that always come up with these types of services, you can block a user individually or hide from everyone. The round-time is pretty rapid for show/hide, too. Markers will appear/disappear off other people’s maps in around 5 seconds

Using both the iPhone and Facebook App is pretty intuitive – not a whole bunch of learning is needed.

The facebook app is not as sexy as the iPhone app – friends not on the service probably don’t need to be displayed – but that’s a minor quibble. The only real problem I have is that the App was only released last week and I haven’t had a chance to get my friends to sign up, so I can’t see anyone yet . That should be an easy fix though, the App is free after all, it’s just a question of timing.

All in all, I’m serious when I say this could be a big winner for Mick and James. The business-model is advertising supported, a good place to start when dealing with local mapping services. That having been said, and as you can see above, the advertising isn’t super-targeted at the moment. That will no doubt change in future iterations of the service, though.  They key thing is that as long as they can get the advertising/functionality balance right there’s no reason this thing shouldn’t take off.

I’m also serious when I say that this is another example of how Australia is getting a real reputation for creating world-leading mapping and geo-location services. Nice work, guys.

To play with Knektr check out:

The iPhone App or the FaceBook App

Great News as another blog focusing on Aussie tech startups and entrepreneurship has come to life.

Startup Melbourne, founded by Erik Unger, will, as the name suggests, focus on the Melbourne startup scene. 

Unger says on the site:

I have created this blog as a service for the Melbourne startup and entrepreneurial scene. The goal is not to write long postings about events and companies, but to give a quick overview what’s going.

All the best to Erik. Hopefully the Melbourne community will get behind his efforts.

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

Sites from startup-australia.org are 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.

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…

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Wondering what the boys at Omnisio have been up to since their acquisition by Google?

Looks like Google have had them hard at work on a new service called YouTube Real Time.

TechCrunch have a good preview story on the service for those who want to check out more about the service.

Hmm – have to get TNA onto that preview list somehow…

The excellent innovation and entrepreneurship focused publication, Anthill Magazine, have released their Smart 100 list of Australia’s most promising innovations and it features a whole bunch of web startups.

You can checkout the top 50 HERE and 51-100 HERE.

The Smart 100, compiled by Australian Anthill and Colmar Brunton , involved running the approximately 900 companies who submitted their products and services past a panel of over 1600 Mavens (in the Tipping Point sense of the word).

Good to see a few TechNation Australia favourites, like Applebox (#51) redbubble (#82) and 99designs (#93) representing.

I’m a little pissed off to see Qlikview in there taking attention away from real Australian Enterprise 2.0 apps (QlikView is not an Aussie product, something which we found out after being a little confused by a press release sent through to us by their local distributor).  But hey, good on Inside Info for getting their name on the list.

Looking through the full set of names, its a bit of a wake-up call. No doubt many of us think that the tech startup industry is, and is perceived to be by the general public, at the forefront of innovation in Australia.

Look through the list and you get a feel for what ordinary Aussies, as opposed to the local Twitterati, think is really important.

More on the Smart 100 can be found here – http://anthillonline.com/anthill-magazines-smart-100-2009/

Last week, in the aftermath of the BrisConnections saga, the Australian Domain Name Administrator (auDA) announced that it had terminated Australia’s latest corporate hero/villain Nick Bolton’s domain registration business, Bottle Domains, due to a “serious” breach of the registrar agreement. That breach was related to a failure to report a network intrusion and the subsequent stealing of tens of thousands of user accounts in 2007.

But not one to go quietly, Bolton and Bottle Domains have sought and won an injunction to stop the termination and, in the process have created a situation which may end up bringing down the regulator as we know it.

Part of the problem is that Bottle’s 20,000 domain name customers have already been told by auDA that they are no longer Bottle customers, only to be told by auDA days later that that decision has been reversed (after the successful injunction application) – and may be reversed yet again pending Wednesday’s court battle.

Even competitors have come out and criticised the auDA’s actions.

Netregistry CEO and co-founder Larry Bloch explained the situation in detail:

The turmoil in domains has caused confusion among domain holders – mostly businesses – as well as those companies reselling Bottle’s services. We have already received many calls from confused customers asking for help and clarification, and many resellers have already transferred their business to us, unable to wait for the outcome of the court proceedings. This leaves auDA exposed to pay significant damages should the de-accreditation be permanently overturned by the courts, as much of the damage to Bottle is irreversible, regardless of the legal outcome. What that means for auDA financially – which runs a tightly balanced budget – and how a bankrupt administrator would impact the entire Australian domain industry, is anyone’s guess.

Bloch also believes that, contrary to the auDA’s statement, there was a link between the timing of the termination announcement and all the news surrounding Bolton and BrisConnections:

auDA would not normally gain mainstream publicity for its activities, but with Nick Bolton already being pilloried in the press, it not only provided an easy media story but automatically cast Bolton as the villain and Disspain and auDA as the white knight providing a come-uppance. This alleged security breach has been under investigation for months now, so the timing of the announcement is extremely curious at best.

When it comes to apportioning blame for the mess, Bloch doesn’t hold back either:

Chris Disspain of auDA has acted as judge, jury and executioner by cancelling Bottle Domains’ accreditation so suddenly, and this action is now proving to be grossly negligent.

When a company comes out and heavily criticises the deregistration of a competitor, you know that the regulatory body has probably made a massive error in judgment – one that has the potential to affect the whole industry.

Some time on or after Wednesday, a decision will be handed down that may have wide-ranging implications for the local domain registration environment.

Love him or hate him, there’s no doubting that Bolton knows how to make an impact. Should be fun to see how this one plays out.

Yahoo! has been doing a lot over the past year or two building on their Open Web Strategy. In the past, however, Aussie developers were left in the wilderness as our overseas counterparts got all the good juice on initiatives like BOSS, Fire Eagle, Pipes and the many other Yahoo! projects. That’s all about to change now, though.

The Yahoo!7 office has now put in place a wide range of activities to reach out to the local community. Included in those activities are the Yahoo Open Sessions, the first of which will be held on April 22nd at Yahoo’s Sydney offices and has Christian Heilmann, Yahoo’s “International Developer Evangelist” giving a free talk.

Check out the links below to find out more about:

The upcoming event – http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2413704

Yahoo! Developer Network – http://developer.yahoo.com/

Yahoo! Open Strategy – http://developer.yahoo.com/yos/

The team at recently-funded semantic news service, Wotnews, have been busy applying their semantic engine to the music business and have launched one of the coolest sites I’ve seen in a while – We Are Hunted.

We Are Hunted is “the online music chart”. Rather than look at shipped unit sales or online music downloads as a measure of popularity, We Are Hunted (WAH) listens to what is happening in online music across blogs, social networks, forums, Twitter and P2P networks to chart the top songs online.

It’s not just simple mentions either. The underlying tech tracks “sentiment, expression and advocacy” to give a list of the most popular music online, which you can narrow down based on song, timeframe, artist or even specific search terms.

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The WAH business model has a couple of arms at the moment  – there’s an iTunes affiliate program where people can buy songs that they discover on the site and WAH are also working with Native Digital to provide record labels with relevant information.

Despite how cool the site is just for browsing, the best thing about WAH, im my opinion, is what it could mean for musicians and the fledgling music industry. With record sales plummeting and new business models needed, what WAH does is once again provide musicians, whether independent or signed, with an idea of where they stand in comparison to the popularity of other acts.

With this almost real-time information, musicians can look for new ways, beyond the mere selling of a digital music file, to make a living from their audience as their popularity grows. I don’t know what those new business models will be, but the musicians I know are a creative bunch, so the outcomes should be interesting.

Richard Slatter from Wotnews explained the genesis of WAH to TechNation Australia:

It occurred to us there is no longer a single definitive chart. With the impact of the Internet over the last decade or so the old metrics have disappeared. We wanted to create a new kind of chart based on buzz and activity across social networks, forums, music blogs, Torrents, P2P Networks and Twitter. Using this unstructured disparate data we measure and determine what are the most popular 99 songs online… right now.

I also asked Slatter about whether diversification is a growth strategy for Wotnews and he said:

This (WAH) is an experiment in how we can extend and apply our text analytics and search technology into other areas.

Music seemed an interesting candidate – an industry going through massive change, presenting enormous opportunities and openings to try something new.

We also liked the idea of partnering up with someone from the industry who understands the landscape. This means we can focus on the tech and lean on Native for other aspects of the project – branding and design, industry knowledge and contacts, etc.

This also allows us to remain focused on our main investments in the news space, while diversifying a little at the same time.

He also added:

we are interested in other verticals and would probably seek to partner with others to make it happen, much like we are doing with Native.

I’ve been playing with the site for the past few days and what’s popular has been really interesting. It seems that the list of the most popular songs on the Internet is actually a mix of old school favourites, up and comers and a few well known songs.

Oddly enough, if you go to the popular artists listing there are a lot more well-known names.

I’m not sure if that means that people like to talk more about well-known artists than their songs, or whether mainstream media pushes those well known artists so much that people don’t feel like they need to use talk about them on social media. It may be something completely different, but that’s another great thing about WAH – it’s putting together information that will make many people think more about the interaction between music, social media and those who enjoy both.

Go check it out – We Are Hunted.

Got an interesting email in from August, an online creative / web dev company that works with quite a few e-commerce startups. Seems that online sales are growing, which might be an indicator of a wider increase in spending across the rest of the economy.

To quote them

From ergonomic chairs to hiking boots, online sales are going strong. March online sales increased by an average of 60% on the previous month, and a massive 163% increase was reported on the previous 12 month average

You’d expect there to be some natural growth in e-commerce numbers over 12 months as more and more people start to shop online, but the month by month numbers are quite impressive.

Here’s hoping the rebooting of the economy gets people thinking about e-commerce as a more efficient way of spending money.

For those who don’t know – the word crowd-sourcing had it’s genesis in a 2006 Wired Article written by Jeff Howe and is defined as ”the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call”

Crowd-sourcing is more relevant than ever today because of the decreased transaction and information sharing costs that the Internet enables. As such it’s great to see aussie startups, like Design Bay, moving into the space.

DesignBay.com is a crowd-sourcing marketplace for logo design, web design and graphic design. It was founded by Alec Lynch in early 2008 and in early 2009 Darren Kwan came on board. The pair are both ex Booz and Co consultants with educational backgrounds in IT & Art. Sounds like just the right mix to grow a business like Design Bay.

Lynch explained the Design Bay benefits for both businesses and designers:

Businesses can use DesignBay to get designs and ideas from hundreds of designers around the world.

An average project receives over 50 designs from 20 competing designers.

Businesses can save money on creative services by accessing freelance, offshore and student designers or by requesting quotes from competing designers.

Designers can use DesignBay to get opportunities to be creative and to earn more money. They can market themselves globally, find new clients and build their portfolios.

There are a bunch of competitors in the space including Elance, oDesk, CrowdSpring and even another Aussie start-up 99 Designs that is one of the market-leaders. All this competition is a good thing, though, as it verifies the validity of the idea. Notwithstanding that competition,  Design Bay continues to grow well and has recently added global footwear and apparel brand, Hi-Tec as a customer.

Despite all the good the company has been doing so far, in the end the real determinant of success for DesignBay, will be the same as it is for all crowd-sourcing companies – whether or not the contributors, in this case the designers, want to continue doing the work and going to tender for every job.

Rather appropriately, for this post, it is the design community that has been the most vocal in labelling crowd-sourcing as evil. Then again, perhaps that’s just a vocal minority, particularly when you consider that, as an example, 99 Designs, has paid out over $4Million to contibutors so far.

Personally, I think that the crowd-sourcing is beginning its run, rather than ending it, and that those organisations that can create the best marketplaces (what the “best” is will depend on the players) will succeed. In that respect, Design Bay has done a good job of positioning itself to be one of the leaders in the design crowd-sourcing area. I also think it’s fantastic that we have yet another aussie startup leveraging the ability of the Internet to make our geography (both ours and the geography of participants) meaningless, in terms of enabling connections between people and organisations.

I’m definitley hoping that we see more crowd-sourcing apps come out of Australia and we’re able to create a cluster of sorts here. Crowd-sourcing isn’t the right solution for everything, but it’s going to be the best solution for many things and we should try to get on that train while we still can.