Below is the Nov ‘08 installment of the Aussie Startup index. 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 57 of the 152 sites listed on the startup-australia wiki made the list.  To get yourself included just add your site to the wiki.

Congratulations to this month’s 6 new entrants: -

• uTag (17)
• Gooruze (21)
• dLook (27)
• Metaverse Journal (47)
• Jam Code (55)
• Elcom (57)

Well done!

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CHANGES

We’ve made changes to the list in response to some of the feedback we’ve received.

First of all we’ve added Quantcast rankings to the table. The average (Score) does NOT include the quantcast data. Quantcast looks to be a little too noisy. For example, cushycms(13), momentville(19), and goodbarry(20) all have reasonably comparable Alexa & Compete data, but there is major variation in the Quantcast data for these 3. Quancast also failed to rank 5 of the top 30 sites.

Secondly we’ve added a Rank Change field so you can see how startups on the list are going compared to last month.

Thirdly, thanks to Alan Long at Hitwise, we are able to incorporate Australian specific data. The data is not included in the rankings at the moment, it’s more, like the Quantcast data above, for general interest. The hitwise data is based on Australian Users and represented as a share of all visits for the month of October. Expect the data set to be more complete for future months as Hitwise start to specifically track all sites that make it onto the startup index.

Finally, we’ve turned the list into a sortable table. To change the way the data is sorted, just click on a column header.

Now on to the Index…

UPDATE: A few sharp-eyed TechNation Australia readers have noted that the sorting is not working perfectly for some of the columns. We’re on the case and hopefully will have everything fixed soon.

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TechNation Australia has managed to pop into position 92 on the Top 100 Aussie blogs list run by Meg Tsiamis over at Dipping Into The Blogpond.

Not bad considering tech startups are still a pretty niche market here and that the majority of our readers read our full articles via the TechNation Australia RSS feed and don’t actually hit the site.

As always, a big “thank you” to all of you for continuing to support our attempts to increase awareness of local tech startups. Hopefully we’re doing an OK job and you’re finding interesting things on the site from time to time.

Also, speaking of tech startups, Meg (who runs the blog list) does a lot of good work for the community via her blog as well as being an entrepreneur herself through her startups, dLook (No.27 on our Startup Index) and Obits. So, if you get a chance, please go and check out her sites.

Keep up the good work, Meg.

Hat Tip to Nick Holmes à Court (considered #63 out of the Top 100 Influential Twitterers by Shifted Pixels) for bringing this to my attention!

Here’s a screenshot of MyPhatBreak:

A cursory search of “myphatbreak” eventually lands you to a site of someone (an intern named Steph?) who might be working for their ad agency (Shifted Pixels?) as several of their learning goals (about 5 of them) can be gleaned from the posts:

Learning Goal#1: Learn what online strategies can be teamed up with traditional understanding

“Gain understanding of the benefits of a pure online advertising campaign.
Create an online advertising strategy for one of Shifted Pixels current clients based on an existing creative brief. List the advantages and disadvantages of an online campaign.

MyPhatBreak.com”

“Be part of the online blogging process Shifted Pixels uses to start a conversation with influential parties on the internet. List the advantages and disadvantages.”

Yesterday, Steve Ballmer re-announced, during his presentation at Liberation Day in Sydney, the launch of BizSpark.

BizSpark is a new initiative from Microsoft that gives startups access to a wide range of MS development software and support services for free, for 3 years.

Actually “for free” is a bit of a fib. Enrollment is free but there’s a $100 exit fee from the program.

To qualify you need to have a business that’s less than 3 years old, does less than US$1Million in revenue and has been approved by a “Network Partner”

There are a few Network Partners listed under Australia already, so if you’d like to develop on the Microsoft platform definitely get in contact with them.

I managed to pop in and catch Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, speak at “Liberation Day“, in Sydney yesterday and was pleasantly surprised, not only by his presentation style but also by the things that he had to say.

Unfortunately there was no Monkey Dance during his arrival on stage - but there was enough quirkiness and passion in his speech that, whether or not you buy into the Microsoft dream, it’s hard to deny he is a refreshing change from the robotic CEOs of many other leading tech firms.

As expected, he continued the recent PR around Microsoft’s new Cloud Computing Services Platform - Azure (can someone please work out the correct pronunciation for this one quickly? Already we’ve heard “ajour” “assure” “asia” “azooer” …).

I thought the best stuff came in the Q&A session, though.

The first interesting remarks came in response to a question about whether Microsoft intended to create an app market, following on from the iPhone and Facebook lead, so developers building apps on the MS development platform would have the same chance to make some money. 

…No one is making any money out of iPhone or Facebook apps

First of all Ballmer claimed that no one is making any money out of iPhone or Facebook apps. It was a little disappointing to hear him say that. People are making money by coding for these platforms…maybe not Ballmer-style dollars, but money never the less. Discredit your competitors, by all means Steve, but try to stay factual.

Secondly, he hinted at a Microsoft App store coming soon that might be similar, but not exactly the same, as iPhone / Android / Facebook app markets. This may very well be further proof that the rumoured Windows Mobile 7 “skymarket” may actually become a reality. Then again, I got the feeling that this would be more than just a pure mobile play - but time will tell.

What else did he have to say? I’m glad he jumped in on the Telstra/Government debate saying that hi-speed broadband is critical for enabling next generation services and that rather than continue bickering it was “time to get onto it”.

He also mentioned that technology is making software development one of the most creative and interesting jobs going round at the moment. I tend to agree, and I’m not even a coder.

You can check out his whole presentation at the Liberation Day website.

Big couple of days for the Web/tech startup scene in Perth with a series of kick-ass events.

• Edge of the Web 2008
  • Edge Of The Web is on today and tomorrow with a nice list of speakers including, amongst others:
    • Chris Messina
    • Derek Featherstone
    • Laurel Papworth
    • Nick Hodge ( would be good to hear Nick’s thoughts on BizSpark)
  • For backchannel action check the #eotw tag on twitter

• WebJam 9
  • Lachlan and Lisa will be running the next version of WebJam in Perth tonight
  • At this stage there are still 82 places left so if you’re in Perth make sure you sign up and go. You won’t regret it
  • If you can’t make it, you can keep up to date via the twitter backchannel using #webjam9

• WA Web Awards 2008
  • The WA Web Awards are on tomorrow night. Run by AWIA, the WA web awards are always a really professional event. I might even go out on a limb and say they’re the best web awards we currently have in Oz. Definitely worth checking out if you can

It’s ironic that the main focus of these events is the “Edge of the Web” conference seeing as Perth/WA is definitely the centre of the Aussie Web world for these couple of days, if not always.

So major news outlets have been reporting the news that Telstra is giving up on Sensis.com.au, it’s own search engine, after spending over $100M and a decade trying to build the online property.

From next year, both Sensis and Big Pond searches will be powered by Google and Yellow pages data will be accessible through Google maps. (The fact that I won’t ever need to use WhereIs again could very possibly be the best bit of news that has come out of the announcement)

Bet Sol’s regeretting the “Google Shmoogle” comment from 3 years ago…LOL

Oh yeah, and you’d be upset if you were True Local, who were providing yellow pages style data to Google prior to the announcement. Oh well…

Documentlabs is a Sydney-based startup that is hoping to make life easier for “corporate and SME’s who have a need to publish to the Internet what is commonly referred to as an “interactive document” and those who wish to create a searchable library of their material for their clients.”

The idea sounds simple. Make it easy for people to upload documents, throw in some stats and take the hosting burden off the companies leaving them to do what it is they do well.

Looking at examples on their site, you can see that the documents are definitely easy to navigate and the hosted files and Documentlabs reader look professional. There’s only one problem in my mind - what’s the market?

For instance, larger orgs tend to have professional websites and the notion of hosting your own PDF version of a document with analytics is not something that would frighten either their internal IT staff or outsourced web presence providers.

With that in mind, it would seem that maybe the target market is all those SMEs out there that want a quick, easy and relatively cheap way to create a web library.

Only problem is that Scribd is quick, easy and FREE and does everything, more or less, that Documentlabs do.

That having been said, Documentlabs does look more professional, but how many orgs out there, that are incapable or unwilling to host their own documents, would want to pay a premium to look a little more professional?

The answer may be many. There may also be a whole bunch of large orgs (like those in the examples) who love using the service.  Or maybe the corporate and SME world is full of people like me who don’t think hosting my own docs is that much of an issue. Either way you’d think it’s going to be a tough sell to a general audience.

Perhaps that’s why, as co-founder Ian Lufkin explains, “Documentlabs will be targeted towards several vertical sectors in the Australian, American and European markets”.

I’m rooting for the Documentlabs guys, but time will tell if they can find a market. If they can, then with the way this type of business scales, we could be hearing more from Documentlabs in the near future.

More news on the Government’s brilliant plan to blow millions of dollars of tax-payer money on censoring the Internet for all Australians by using easily defeated technology while simultaneously slowing down everyone’s connections…

Elias Bizannes has written a letter on what he’s calling the “Rudd Filter”.

The letter, which he has sent to all Senators as well as all major news media organisations, is his own work but is based on a “perspective developed in consultation with the Australian (Internet) industry”.

What the paper manages to do is bring together, in one document, the many and varied reasons, including supporting documentation, why the filter should not be allowed to go ahead.

You can view the HTML version HERE or download the PDF HERE

As always, you can also go to the Silicon Beach Google Group or the Electronic Frontiers Australia No Clean Feed website to find out how to participate in community-led action to stop this thing before it gets started

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