Ulla and I are both speaking at the Mobtagging workshop, organized by Mediamatic in Amsterdam today and tomorrow. Ulla will also deliver an open lecture on the Crafter Manifesto tonight at 8pm.

Paul Fisher compared VC funding for Web 2.0 startups in the U.S. and Europe. As one would assume Europe lags behind, but the discrepancy he reports is pretty startling:

In 2005, US-based Web2.0 companies reported raising £200mn whilst European businesses raised just £24mn.

This is in line with my anecdotal experience. A local entrepreneur / angel investor friend of mine recently asked a number of the local VCs if they’re getting much Web 2.0 dealflow. The major VC firm said they hadn’t received any business plans.

Fisher ends on a positive note, though:

Frequently, we see European VC software investment trends trailing the US by anywhere from 3 – 12 months. I’m pretty excited by the range of European Web2.0 entrepreneurs that I’m meeting today. I also know there are some interesting deals currently “in process” at many VC houses. I’m looking forward to seeing the European numbers catch-up.

Again, my anecdotal experience from recent Euro events (DLD, LIFT) suggests there are some cool startups in the process of landing VC investment. Perhaps characteristically of Europe, they seem to have more of a mobile angle.

Model Anina reports that her agency has told her to stop blogging. She’s the latest in a growing list of professionals who face the consequences of their choice to step out of role (if ever so slightly) because by blogging they disturb the uneasy boundary between private and public life.

On a general note, I see here an instantiation of ‘exposure‘, the powerlessness challenge that personal publishing technologies pose to social institutions in general – from family to industry to governments – who can no longer control nor protect people like they just kind of naturally did before. I also think it’s pretty clear that we haven’t even started dealing with exposure on a large scale yet.

Hopefully Anina manages to sort it out with her agency and keep blogging.

Here are the transcript and slides of my 8-minute DLD talk, titled "Internet Services and Mobile Devices: What the Future Holds." Three startups presented in the session: Socialite, Area/Code, and Plazes. A video is available for download on the DLD site.

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Nicole Simon has interviewed a bunch of Digital Lifestyle Day speakers for the pre-conference podcast. In the one she did with me we spoke, among other things, about the potential of open mobile devices to open up the global conversation to non-bloggers, and mobile services that would make for a sensible part of people’s everyday lives.

Ulla and I will be in Geneva for Lift 06 Feb 2nd-3rd.

Hubert Burda Media is organizing Digital Lifestyle Day 06 in Munich on January 23-24. They’ve invited 200 people to ‘discuss the connected worlds, the digital consumer and Europe’s role in innovation.’

I want to discuss the need for a new approach to mobile devices. I’m not thinking phones but devices that have internet built into their DNA. With Martin Varsavsky around, I’m hoping this will trigger some fruitful discussion.

But I’m still wondering what form the talk should take. My first choice at the moment is to try to develop a set of design principles for the next generation of mobile. Suggestions, anyone?

Here’s an interview on blogging I did at Bloggforum in Stockholm with Sisuradio, the Finnish-language station of Sweden’s national radio.

Random quote: “Blogging is a medium that makes it easier to find other people. Blogging is never going to supplant face to face conversations.”

The interviewer is Niki Bergman.

UPDATE: The last panel stood apart. Loic’s moderation was on cue, Reid Hoffman dropped gems, and Yat Siu convinced that English isn’t the main language of the online conversation.

So far Les Blogs is not living up to expectations.

• People: where are the young creators?
• Talks: please, more substance, less panel blah blah.
• Food: ‘dinner’ = cocktail toothpicks?
• Ambiance: please, more Paris, less airport hotel.

Six Apart, you can do better :)

I was supposed to be in the U.S. next week but now that changed so Ulla and I just booked flights to Paris for Les Blogs 2. Yay!