Formentera Weekend

This weekend I've discovered one of the last jewels in the Mediterranean. Formentera!

Formentera is the fourth of the Balearic Islands and is situated off the coast of Ibiza. It is approximately 4km from Ibiza, or half an hour by boat. The island is only 18km long and has beautiful beaches and crystal clear seas (like in the Caribbean).

The island was full of Italian! I'm amazed how the Italians are experts at colonising the coolest spots around the world. :-)

I would highly recommend everyone visiting Formentera at some point. Here are some pics.

Nick Latham from Adoos.. carrying lots of beer to the beach

First day at the beach..   no sun tan yet!

Google Maps in Argentina

Google Maps has finally launched maps for Argentina!! I know a lot of my friends in Buenos Aires are going to be extremely happy about this news. :-)

Until yesterday, Argentina was surprisingly the only country in Latin America with no Google Maps.

Note: To see the maps, you need to go to maps.google.com, then click on the Terrain  button (a new view option) and finally move the map down to Argentina and zoom.

Social Networking Keeps Growing

According to comScore's latest stats on social network sites, MySpace is still king and twice as large as its nearest rival, Facebook. Both Facebook and Bebo have growth dramatically over the past year:

Having said this, we still don't have any dominant social network in many countries in Europe (including France, Spain & Italy). 2007 might be the last chance to launch a social network for European startups before the US social networks enter Europe aggressively  in 2008.

Making music - Akai Mpd24

Here is a little secret about me, before launching Adoos I tried (for a couple of years) to become a professional DJ and Music producer in London! It didn't work out because I ran out of money before I ever produced a Hit so I had to quit and go back to my boring consulting job. c'est la vie...

Anyway, today I saw a video on YouTube of a guy making music with an Akai MPD24 sampler and I loved it! I used to own an Akai S5000.

Here is the video....

Here is a picture of my studio at my house in Bayswater, London (yr 2002):

World Map of Social Networks

VCs are throwing around money like it’s no tomorrow at Social Networks. Hi5 and Tagged are a two that have gotten funding recently.

1) Tagged raises $15m on a $102m pre valuation

2) Hi5 Takes $20 million

For some strange reason, social networks haven't been as popular in Europe like they have in the rest of the world, but I think the situation is starting to change. Most of my friends are split into 3-4 networks, so I'm regularly user of ASmallWorld, Orkut, Hi5, Facebook and Linkedin.

Here's a map of the world, showing the dominant social networks by country, according to Alexa. Including: Bebo, Cyworld, Facebook, Fotolog, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut, Studivz

RobotReplay - Watch your site visitors

How cool would it be to be able to watch your visitors move their mouse, click on links, and scroll down your pages?  Would that tell you anything about your site? 

This week I've been playing around with a software that does exactly that. Just sign up at RobotReplay, put a teeny-tiny line of script on any pages you want to record, and you’re all set. 

At Adoos, we implement new features and changes on the User Interface nearly on a weekly basis. RobotReplay is definitively going to help us understand how our users interact with the site.

Jungle Disk - Unlimited Online Disk

One of my latest discoveries is Jungle Disk. An application that lets you store files and backup data securely with unlimited capacity. Jungle disk is powered by Amazon's new S3 storage service and it allows you to store data for only $0.15 per GB (per month). Here are some of the specs and features:

* Store an unlimited amount of data for only 15¢ per gigabyte
* No monthly subscription fee, no startup fee, no commitment
* Your data is fully encrypted at all times
* Data is stored at multiple Amazon.com datacenters for high availability
* Access files directly from Windows Explorer, Mac OSX Finder, and Linux
* Automatically back up your important files quickly and easily

I'm currently using Jungle Disk as my main hard disk to store all my personal files and most work docs. It automatically synchronises my home PC HD, office PC HD and laptop HD!
I have even uploaded my 50GB mp3 collection (as a backup).

I highly recommend using it if you're looking a way to back up your data and don't want to rely on Platypus/GDrive when/if it comes out this year.

OFERTA LABORAL - PROGRAMADOR SENIOR PHP / MYSQL

PROGRAMADOR SENIOR PHP / MySQL   -   ADOOS.COM
Capital Federal (Buenos Aires)

COMPANY OVERVIEW:

Adoos (http://www.adoos.com) is one of the leading classifieds websites in Europe and Latin America. Over 3 million unique visitors per month, we are one of the fastest growing start-ups in Argentina.

Our offices are located in Micro-centro, Capital Federal (Buenos Aires). We're looking for amazing programmers to help us build a better product.  

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop and maintain software that will power Adoos' various product efforts.
• Help brainstorm and contribute ideas that will lead to new and innovative products.
• Be adaptable and take on whatever comes your way!

REQUIREMENTS:

• Sense of humor..!
• 5+ years experience in PHP/MySQL development.
• Computer Science or equivalent education.
• Scalability and replication experience is a plus.
• Linux administration skills is a plus.
• Ability to work independently, as well as collaboratively with other staff members, to complete short and long-term projects
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills ENGLISH or SPANISH.

COMPENSATION:

• Extremely competitive salary and stock options. You will earn in Euros!!

INTERESTED?     Contact me directly by email:

Yoigo launches 3G Mobile Broadband at €1.20/day

Yoigo is Spain's fourth mobile operator. The company was born from the demise of Xfera, a subsidiary of construction giant ACS, which bought the rights to one of Spain's 3G licences back in 2000.  However, by 2006, Xfera had still not launched. Last summer, TeliaSonera, the leading mobile operator in the Nordic region bought Xfera. In only three months Yoigo was up and running. By the end of December it had 30,000 subscribers. It has its own 3G network but uses Vodafone's 2G network for national calls.

Recently, Yoigo started offering unlimited 3G broadband access  for a daily rate of only €1.20! In other words you can now have highspeed internet access anywhere in Spain for as little as €36 per month! ADSL providers must surely be worried and a price war looks  certain to follow.

Perhaps the bigger worry is for the developers of Wi-Max and companies such as Fon. Achieving wireless network coverage that is as good as current mobile coverage is going to be costly (especially in the case of Wi-Max) and will take time. If all mobile operators reduce their prices to this level the uptake is likely to be huge and by the time Fon or Wi-Max are able provide comparable coverage there will be little incentive to switch.

2 pictures tell a story

This morning the guys in Buenos Aires sent me a few pictures of the office. We recently ordered a number of LCD screens so that each member of our business development team could work in comfort with two monitors. It was great to see that they had finally been delivered and set up.

I guess with it being the end of the year, it also made me reflect on how much Adoos has changed over the last 24 months. I think the contrast in the two pictures below highlights this perfectly.

Our office early 2005

 

Our office late 2006

It's really satisfying to see our work starting to pay off and the company begin to mature.However, there is a long way to go yet. Last week we welcomed two new joiners to our business development team. We will continue to grow this team in 2007 as we look to offer our sites in even more languages and enhance our localisation efforts.