Today, OnVista has sold our former project Ligatus which we started in 2003 for 18.75 Mio. EUR to Gruner & Jahr. Hope everyone is happy with this deal and our former colleagues might stay longer than the next 6 months in Cologne.
Here you find more details on this transaction.
Yes and no. The usage seems to be dead already while there are still some hundred thousand local merchants paying a listing fee in Germany. The question is for what they are paying? Just because they got used to it? Just because they haven’t noticed that people don’t use the Yellow Pages anymore?
Since 14 days you can pick up the brand new edition of the German Yellow Pages (Gelbe Seiten) in our house. And nobody has done so far. As Bill Gates mentioned in 2007, the yellow pages will be dead within 5 years - at least the usage above under 50 year old people. It seems to be that this time has already arrived.
It’s still a billion dollar business, but there can’t be no doubt. There is a hugh transition ahead. It’s just the question who might be the winner. Once again Google with it’s local maps? Yelp or Qype with it’s local review communities? or will there be more innovative solutions upcoming?
That will be very interesting to follow as noone seems to have found the solution so far how to win this market.
I’m very proud to announce that Ormigo is a Red Herring Top 100 Winner. Thanks to the jury for choosing Ormigo and to a great Red Herring Team for organising such a cool conference in Malta. Hope to see you at Etre in Stockholm again.
Red Herring today announced that Ormigo was named a Finalist of Red Herring 100 Europe, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region each year.
“This year’s impressive list of submissions from companies demonstrates Europe’s growing role as a major center of innovation in the global technology sector,” said Red Herring Editor-in-Chief Joel Dreyfuss. “The exceptional accomplishments of European technology startups and entrepreneurs are a testament to the rapid advancements being made in building the European innovation ecosystem.”
Red Herring’s lists of top private companies are an important part of the publication’s tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. Companies like Google, eBay, and Skype were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors, and touted as leaders that would change the way we live and work.
Red Herring’s editorial staff rigorously evaluated several hundred private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria, including quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.
Red Herring will honor the Red Herring 100 Europe Finalist companies at its Red Herring Europe 2008 event. Scheduled for April 14-16, at the Westin Dragonara Resort, this intimate, three-day event is themed “The Pursuit of Disruption” and will explore how European firms are leading the charge in many technology sectors, gaining the competitive advantage, and driving entrepreneurial success in ways that create business opportunities for challengers and incumbents alike.
Thanks for choosing Ormigo and see you in Malta form 14-16th of April.
Children are our future. To give all children access to knowledge and foster their understanding the very didicated Nicolas Negroponte founded one laptop per child. The idea behind his non-for-profit organisation is to give each child worldwide one laptop with a learning environment and wifi. These laptops are now available and you can donate one for US$ 200, just EUR 142 at the actual exchange rate of US$ 1,41 for 1 EUR. So, donate a laptop today.
I had the pleasure to listen to Nicolas at DLD 2007 in Munich. Watch his TED talk explaning the vision behind one laptop per child.
Technorati Tags: One laptop per child, Nicolas Negroponte, TED, DLD
There have been lot’s of rumor, now their is certainty. Google once more gains the bidding battle against AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo and buys Doubleclick for $US 3.1 billion in cash. This is another big step for Google to become the ultimate advertising operating system of the universe or as Google states: “The next step in Google advertising.”
There is a good post by Morrision on the meaning of this aquisition. One thing is clear: The air for all middlemen in the advertising industry is getting thinner.
Next to a blogger event during the awesome Digital Lifestyle Days Lukasz from Spreadshirt asked us some questions regarding to Ormigo in front of a bar. The interview is now online at Gründerszene.
Thanks Lukasz!
For the third time Loic Le Meur invites bloggers, web entrepreneurs, investors and everyone who is interested in the internet space to Paris to talk about the media revolution. While the first two conferences were focused more on the blogosphare LE WEB 3 program is even more promising. I’m looking forward on talks about Web and Enterprise 2.0, the death of TV through content and distribution as well as Old Europe vs. Silicon Valley.
For the first time their will be a start-up area, where web entrepreneurs meet-up with investors. Sorry, that we aren’t presenting Ormigo this time. If you are interested in our disruptive approach for the local advertising market, please, feel free to contact me or Oliver.
Now it’s official. Last Friday, 24th of November openBC which just relaunched it’s social networking business under the new brand Xing.com declared it’s IPO for 7th of Dezember 2006. The signing period is from 4th-6th of Dezember. As a premium-member they offer you a preferred assignment of their new stocks.
I have been a premium-member for over 2 years now. As an entrepreneur I see several values Xing provides as helping you to find new employees or freelancers, to identify the right contact persons at potential customers or partners, to keep your addressbook state of the art, share contacts and information. But I’m not sure if EUR 10 Mio. in sales justifies a valuation of EUR 250+ Mio. as their are rumors that openBC wants to offer 40% for at least EUR 100 Mio. in cash. This puts the value of it’s 150.000 premium members at EUR 1.667 each, or above 20 years of their annual fee. So, what do you think? Is it worth to sign on?
Sorry, for my long silence. While lots of interesting things happend within the last six months we worked 120% on the launch of Ormigo Profiles. Ormigo Profiles allows local merchants for the first time to acquire qualified buyers for their products and services in a very easy and effectiv way. Please, check it out: www.ormigo.com
If you wanna learn more about Ormigo you might also watch our first tv-interview.