pYesterday, we saw the announcement of another bedbank a href=http://www.medhotels.comMedHotels/a snapped by the tour operator Thomas Cook. MedHotels was the property of Lastminute.com acquired for £16.1M in December 2003. a href=http://www.travolution.co.uk/blog/2009/01/bedbanks-are-not-as-cool-as-ai.phpTravolution/a has already hinted that the deal was sealed with an estimated £20M price tag. It this is true, it would mean Lastminute and their parent company Sabre Holdings would only have pocketed a £4M premium after running the business for 5 years. To me it looks like MedHotels was such a different business to run compared to what Lastminute used to do (B2B vs B2C) that Lastminute couldn#39;t really see how to grow the company forward. And surely a Tour Operator like Thomas Cook could leverage this business better with their agencies. /ppThere is already a href=http://www.e-tid.com/pm.aspx?article_id=31837amp;showLive=1amp;useCache=1some speculation/a that newly acquired bedbanks (hotels4u and medhotels) won#39;t be independent anymore because of their tie with Thomas Cook. And therefore this is positive news for independant bedbanks like LowCostBeds or YouTravel (founded by John Kent who founded MedHotels funny enough) who will benefit for reaching more trust with independent travel agents. /ppI beg to differ. /ppExample: HotelBeds, proprietary of TUI Travel - did the acquisition meant they lost travel agency customers and also faith with independent agents? I heard they are still going strong in core markets like Spain for instance./ppWhat#39;s interesting in 2009 is to see what it is going to happen with the remaining independent bedbanks. With offers as low as £5 per night in some resorts hotels in Turkey, you can imagine that margins are thin and you need to sell and secure a lot of bed nights to survive the crisis. Also, some bedbanks are financed by VCs, will they inject some further money as round B or C this year?/ppspan style=text-decoration: underline;a href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536bdb04d970c-pi style=display: inline;img alt=Acquired class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e2010536bdb04d970c src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536bdb04d970c-320wi //a /span br /a href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536b4272a970b-pi style=display: inline;img alt=Picture2 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e2010536b4272a970b src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536b4272a970b-320wi //a /ppbr /By the way, some independent bedbanks are playing a nasty game a href=http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=medhotelsamp;ie=utf-8amp;oe=utf-8amp;aq=tamp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:officialamp;client=firefox-aon Google/a sponsored Links/ppbr / span style=text-decoration: underline;a href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536bdb2ec970c-pi style=display: inline;img alt=Picture1 border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e2010536bdb2ec970c image-full src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536bdb2ec970c-800wi title=Picture1 //a /span /pp/pp/p

pa href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536b138ae970b-pi style=float: right;img alt=A-kayak-big-orange border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e2010536b138ae970b src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536b138ae970b-800wi style=margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; title=A-kayak-big-orange //a Among different interviews conducted during Le Web conference in December 08, I have spent some time with a href=http://www.linkedin.com/in/fgalariaFaisal Galaria/a, Managing Director Europe of a href=http://www.kayak.comKayak.com/a, the leader in travel search engines (Beatrice from a href=http://www.mobissimo.comMobissimo/a claims at Le Web in a French interview she#39;s number 2 now)./ppI have asked Faisal what are the challenges that he encounters when developing the brand Kayak in Europe. Shame I was carried away with the interview, I wish I could ask him some questions about a href=http://www.travelpost.comTravelpost/a and how SideStep acquisition was necessary to drive traffic up in Europe. Next time.../pbr / divobject height=381 width=480param name=movie value=http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k3Swyylc7C8gDVSo8kamp;related=1 /param name=allowFullScreen value=true /param name=allowScriptAccess value=always /embed allowfullscreen=true allowscriptaccess=always height=381 src=http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k3Swyylc7C8gDVSo8kamp;related=1 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=480 //objectbr /stronga href=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ptx0_interview-with-faisal-galaria-kayak_travelInterview with Faisal Galaria, Kayak @ Le Web08, Paris/a/strongbr /emUploaded by a href=http://www.dailymotion.com/HotelBlogsHotelBlogs/a/em/div

div object height=405 width=480param name=movie value=http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k6yaXCwAdS7oKGT20uamp;related=0 /param name=allowFullScreen value=true /param name=allowScriptAccess value=always / embed allowfullscreen=true allowscriptaccess=always height=405 src=http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k6yaXCwAdS7oKGT20uamp;related=0 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=480 //objectbr /stronga href=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7t46m_rayman-raving-rabbids-tv-party-haveRayman Raving Rabbids TV Party - Have A Raving Christmas/a/strongbr /emenvoyé par a href=http://www.dailymotion.com/ubiubi/a/em/div

p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBUbud has a lot of choices when it comes to Hotels and therefore we decided to play safe to book the Alila hotel which sits outside the busy city centre. On our arrival with 15 minutes drive from Ubud, we were stunned by the wildness of the location where this hotel has been constructed. Closed to rice fields and a beaufiful temple, the Alila is really a peaceful hotel in the jungle where you can even see from time to time monkeys inviting themselves nearby the amazing swimming pool with the most incredible view I have ever seen. /span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBWhen we arrived at the reception in the afternoon, we were welcomed by one of the front desk people asking us to fill some information about what we wanted to do during our stay. This is to understand what sort of activities you would be interested in. There were plenty of activities to choose from at the hotel (trekking, tour, massage, cooking lessons and so on).o:pnbsp;/o:p/span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBOur hotel room was a deluxe and we benefited from an upgrade, meaning we were on the ground floor with a private terrace and shower outside with a little closed garden. The room is very nice and simple. You can retrieve some elements of the Chedi hotel chain to which this property belonged to in the past (the hotel became Alila in XXX) /span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBNow, what about service? Having stayed in a couple of Chedi properties before, I was expecting the same kind of service at the Alila even though it changed ownership. /span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBBig, big, big mistake.!/span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBo:pnbsp;/o:pbrOn the first evening, we decided to go to the hotel restaurant where we were given a table closed to the kitchen. We were told because we didn’t make any reservation, that was the only table left. Actually, the problem was the nice tables outside looking over the fantastic scenery were actually booked for a reception / party. We also found one of the waiters quite lunatic and felt she did not really pay attention to us.o:pnbsp;/o:p/span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBAnother big surprise was that the hotel has groups during our entire stay. Call me snobbish but I don’t think hotels should mix honeymooners, couples with groups. Especially when you spend £100 a night./span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBEvery morning was a disaster in terms of getting your breakfast. There is no buffet, probably because of the heat outside. So you have to order your breakfast every morning when you arrive at your table. One morning when were going for an early excursion, we waited 30 min to get 2 orange juice and some hot plate. I was basically fuming inside my head. All the attention was given towards this group of 20 or so people. Individual were simply left out. We didn’t even see the hotel manager. God knows if he was there during the 3 days we were staying at the Alila. /span/p p class=MsoNormalspan lang=EN-GBMy advice is to avoid the hotel if you are not part of a group and opt in for hotels that care about service and give you attention.o:pbrnbsp;/o:pdivobject width=480 height=291param name=movie value=http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k3VKPYf4txQlfISTdurelated=1/paramparam name=allowFullScreen value=true/paramparam name=allowScriptAccess value=always/paramembed src=http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k3VKPYf4txQlfISTdurelated=1 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=480 height=291 allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always/embed/objectbr /ba href=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7se40_alila-ubud-hotel-indonedia-october_travelAlila Ubud Hotel, Indonedia, October 08/a/bbr /iUploaded by a href=http://www.dailymotion.com/HotelBlogsHotelBlogs/a/i/div

pa href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536813bb3970b-pi style=display: inline;img alt=Picture 5 border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e2010536813bb3970b image-full src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536813bb3970b-800wi title=Picture 5 //a /p

pOne of the most famous video blogger a href=http://www.1938media.comLoren Feldman from 1938media/a was participating at Le Web08 in Paris last week and found some mice running free in the bar of the luxury Intercontinental Hotel Paris where he was staying. He shot that video and hours later Google listed his website and finding on the 3rd position when you search quot;Intercontinental Grand Hotel Parisquot;. I wonder how you can cope with this problem and bad advertising. Can the hotel management fix this?/ppa href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e201053679298e970b-pi style=display: inline;img alt=Picture 4 border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e201053679298e970b image-full src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e201053679298e970b-800wi title=Picture 4 //a /ppbr /object height=344 width=425param name=movie value=http://www.youtube.com/v/yvyHDZxtbYQamp;hl=enamp;fs=1 /param name=allowFullScreen value=true /param name=allowscriptaccess value=always /embed allowfullscreen=true allowscriptaccess=always height=344 src=http://www.youtube.com/v/yvyHDZxtbYQamp;hl=enamp;fs=1 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=425 //object/p

pa href=http://www.worldres.coma href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e201053680cc1d970c-pi style=float: right;img alt=Worldres_logo border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e201053680cc1d970c src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e201053680cc1d970c-800wi style=margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; title=Worldres_logo //a WorldRes/a used to be the first hotel online search engine back in the early days of 1995 founded by a href=http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregoryajonesGreg Jones/a (13 years ago!!!)./ppI remember this company very well. I was finishing my studies at IMHI/Essec Business school in 1999-2000, and I attended a conference at our school (I believe it was the IHRA conference). One of the speaker was from WorldRes (can#39;t remember who it was) and was explaining how the Internet changed the dynamics of reaching people in the hotel world. And also how hotel bookings were migrating from phone towards online. /ppa href=http://www.worldres.comWorldRes/a was born and everyone thought it was simply THE span style=text-decoration: line-through;dogs bollocks/span online hotel company. For whatever reasons (bad decisions, span style=text-decoration: line-through;bad/span strange management, difficulties to manage costs...), the company didn#39;t survive the Internet crash in 2001 and was literally loosing millions of dollars. I don#39;t even remember it that company ever made a profit in any quarter. The planned IPO never happened and investors in the company started to worry.br /WorldRes was beaten by bigger and clever companies such as Expedia, Lastminute, Travelocity and more importantly was loosing against new entrants in the online hotel space like ActiveHotels, Booking.com, HRS and of course Hotels.com. /ppAfter a lot changes in the management and subsequent redundancies (local offices were closed i heard), 2003 saw ta href=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_/ai_98548227he renaissance of WorldRes as a joint venture with 3 leading hotel chains/a:br /- Accor who already invested in the company back in 2000br /- Six Continents (now known as Intercontinental Hotel Group with brands like Holiday Inn)br /- Hilton International (Hilton Europe was a separate company from Hilton Corporation in the US)/ppI quote the former CEO of Accor quot;emWe have been a WorldRes partner and investor since 2000. They continue to interface with our central reservation system, thus using the best technology for selling our hotels online. We have agreed to invest and promote WorldRes Europe as the optimal means to find and book our hotels online. WorldRes Europe will make our hotel brands available to anyone with online access, including Web sites, call centers, tour operators and travel agents.quot;/em/ppThis sounds as a great idea but as we know it, a joint venture made with your competitors cannot always work (Andbook.com for instance was another failure on its own for example) and most of the time can go terribly wrong. A few years went by.../ppIn 2005, when everybody forgot about WorldRes and thought the website was well buried, we hear that an Irish company a href=http://www.webresint.com/pressrelease.php?PressID=15Web Reservations International (WRI) buys WorldRes/a for an undisclosed sum. CEO and founder of WRI Ray Nolan says: em quot;WRI has built a successful and profitable budget accommodation business, and this acquisition will significantly broaden our operations. We look forward to applying our unique business model to the global hotel market. We believe our emphasis on value and clarity will be highly attractive to existing WorldRes hotels and anticipate growing the WorldRes business as a part of WRI.quot;/em#0160; /ppSo I believe WRI saw some great potential to make WorldRes profitable and bring more distribution partners. This sounded like a big challenge for the Irish company knowing that after 10 years of of Operations, WorldRes was still struggling to achieve profitability and also hardly raised their profile in the online travel space. Yes the inventory was there (30,000 hotels at that time before the acquisition) but what about consumers? How come other local new entrants were making much more noise (again ActiveHotels in the UK, Venere in Italy, HRS and Hotel.de in Germany, Booking in the Netherlands...) and seemed to get it right compared to the old brother WorldRes?/pp16 December 2008, we hear that WorldRes is acquired by a total stranger in my eyes called a href=http://www.travelhero.com/TravelHero/a. According to the press release in a href=http://www.m-travel.com/news/2008/12/travelhero-acqu.htmlM-Travel/a and a href=http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/travelhero_acquires_worldres/HotelMarketing.com/a, TravelHero based in Scottsdale, Arizona was founded by a href=http://www.linkedin.com/pub/8/7b2/727Rob Lamb/a in 1995 (same year as WorldRes) and has developed and operates the TravelHero online travel planning (I heard about StayPlanner, GoPlanIt but never read anything about TravelHero) and distribution system in addition to other proprietary reservation products and services including ResHero, EventHero and GolfHero. Again the deal doesn#39;t say anything on the terms and how much World is worth today. My gut feeling is that WRI has decided to let WorldRes go elsewhere because they found it difficult to turn it around. WRI is better off expending and developing their great asset like HostelWorld who is a leading online hostel booking engine with a great value proposition (don#39;t get#0160; me started with Boo.com by the way...)./ppSo what TravelHero is going to do with this old lady? The future will tell but I don#39;t think there is much to do with it. Consumers in this very competive online travel landscape will be hard to seduce again./p

pstrongspan style=color: #60bf00; font-family: Verdana;span style=color: #00bf00; font-size: 25px;span style=color: #111111; font-family: Verdana;Score:/span 8 span style=color: #111111; font-family: Verdana;/10/span/span/span/strong/ppClick on the fullscreen button (the icon is the desktop screen) on the video player to enjoy better quality. /ppa href=http://www.wego.comWego/a is a travel meta search engine that is used to be called Bezurk. The company is based in Singapore./pp/ppobject allowfullscreen=true data=http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=trueamp;file=http%3A//blip.tv/rss/flash/1592180amp;feedurl=http%3A//hotelblogs.blip.tv/rss/amp;autostart=falseamp;brandname=Hotel%20Blogsamp;brandlink=http%3A//hotelblogs.blip.tv/ height=300 id=showplayer type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=500param name=movie value=http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=trueamp;file=http%3A//blip.tv/rss/flash/1592180amp;feedurl=http%3A//hotelblogs.blip.tv/rss/amp;autostart=falseamp;brandname=Hotel%20Blogsamp;brandlink=http%3A//hotelblogs.blip.tv/ /param name=quality value=best //object/p

pimg alt= src=file:///Users/guillaumethevenot/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/moz-screenshot.jpg /a href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536777e3b970c-pi style=float: right;img alt=Isango-new-logo_1 border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e2010536777e3b970c src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536777e3b970c-800wi style=margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; title=Isango-new-logo_1 //a a href=http://www.isango.comIsango/a is a fairly new venture in the travel space who recently raised $8M from VCs like a href=http://www.quester.co.uk/Home/About_SPARK/default.aspxSpark Ventures/a (who backed Lastminute.com in the early days). The company was created by the former Ebookers director Ranjan Singh. /ppThe company aggregates all the different travel experiences that a traveler might be interested to book in advance prior to his trip. Things like trekking, day tour of Paris on a Segway, wine tasting, cooking lessons are among different activities you can find on the website. They already have a different strategy of positioning their offers from one country to another.#0160; They compete directly with a href=http://www.dosomethingdifferent.comDoSomethingDifferent.com/a./ppI believe this will be an interesting company to watch in the next year. Their value proposition complements other websites that solely concentrate on obvious travel components such as Air, Hotel, Car and Tranfers (and Trains sometimes)./ppI have asked Daniele Beccari, VP Operations for Europe, how Isango is making money, their growth looking forward, what are the things they will concentrate for next year and also how easy it was to raise capital from VCs in Q1 this year./ppbr /object height=344 width=425param name=movie value=http://www.youtube.com/v/L1Um3Z8YKPgamp;hl=enamp;fs=1 /param name=allowFullScreen value=true /param name=allowscriptaccess value=always /embed allowfullscreen=true allowscriptaccess=always height=344 src=http://www.youtube.com/v/L1Um3Z8YKPgamp;hl=enamp;fs=1 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=425 //object/p

pThe two leading UK quot;low costquot; hotel chains Travelodge and Premier Inn are competing more than ever in this recession market. Travelodge has recently promoted their brand in newspapers by telling people than Premier Inn is definitely more expensive than Travelodge. It reminds me of that story between EasyJet and RyanAir where RyanAir claims Easyjet wasn#39;t low cost anymore./ppimg alt= src=file:///Users/guillaumethevenot/Pictures/Photo%20Booth/Photo%2031.jpg /img alt= src=file:///Users/guillaumethevenot/Pictures/Photo%20Booth/Photo%2031.jpg /br /a href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536663896970c-pi style=display: inline;img alt=Photo 31 border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e2010536663896970c image-full src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e2010536663896970c-800wi title=Photo 31 //a /ppa href=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e20105366638bc970c-pi style=display: inline;img alt=Photo 34 border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451625269e20105366638bc970c src=http://www.hotel-blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451625269e20105366638bc970c-800wi title=Photo 34 //a /p

pa href=http://www.zoover.comZoover/a is a Dutch venture with 2 years of experience who aims to be the next European TripAdvisor. But it doesn#39;t aggregate only hotel reviews. The portal allows you to review your whole holiday experience (restaurant, excursions, transfers and of course hotels)./ppZoover, one of the few travel related companies at Le Web08 was selected among the 30 start ups to compete last Tuesday. And Zoover delivered a great presentation - without an Internet access - in front of a thousands people. /ppRaphael Lucien was representing Zoover France and I have asked him a few questions about their expension plan, their business model. They really have some impressive growth figures, just look at their presentation and you will see why. The competition judges were particularly impressed by the fact the company is profitable in Germany and Netherlands and that they have a nice ambitious plan for next year./ppWho said that you couldn#39;t deliver an alternative proposition to the American TripAdvisor.../pbr /#0160;pbr /object height=344 width=425param name=movie value=http://www.youtube.com/v/YlIHSRe29fMamp;hl=enamp;fs=1 /param name=allowFullScreen value=true /param name=allowscriptaccess value=always /embed allowfullscreen=true allowscriptaccess=always height=344 src=http://www.youtube.com/v/YlIHSRe29fMamp;hl=enamp;fs=1 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=425 //objectobject height=344 width=425param name=movie value=http://www.youtube.com/v/AI6-1Pt2d98amp;hl=enamp;fs=1 /param name=allowFullScreen value=true /param name=allowscriptaccess value=always /embed allowfullscreen=true allowscriptaccess=always height=344 src=http://www.youtube.com/v/AI6-1Pt2d98amp;hl=enamp;fs=1 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=425 //object/p

pExciting news for Cork, it seems that Hilton Hotels are interested in operating at the new and extremly impressive Atlantic Wharf developement, Cork City Centre./p pThe new docklands developement consists of retail outlets, a concert arena, hotel and apartments. It#39;s been crowned the tallest building in the city./p pIt#39;s high time that Cork had the opprtunity to rival Dublin - Up Cork!/p pRead up here : a href=http://www.thepost.ie/ezineSBP/story.asp?storyid=30994http://www.thepost.ie/ezineSBP/story.asp?storyid=30994/a/p pChristina ; 0 )/p

pApologies if this is old news to all Google gurus out there, but for those of you who didn#39;t know, read Google#39;s blogspot via the link below on SearchWiki./p pA few things to consider whilst reading/p ul liHow will this affect new site entrants, will their SEO efforts still yield the same results? liThis is a fantastic personalised tool and brand loyalty is a key factor for determining preferences. With so many sites however, how many do you choose? Is this a way of fazin out the favourites toolbar feature? /li /li/ul pa href=http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.htmlhttp://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html/a/pbr / pAll comments most welcome!/p pChristina ; 0 )/p

pRepresentatives from Google, SixApart, Facebook, Microsoft and MySpace are there. The panel is moderated by Marc Canter from Broadband Mechanics. /ppHow do we interpret Open (Open platforms, Open ID, Open Social)? /ppFacebook has recently opened their platform to allow developers to build some tools. The idea is to see vast growth and get a lot of opportunities with about 60,000 developers around the world. With a recent re-design of Facebook, the system is functioning differently now. Users can stream information as they wish to update their friends. /ppMySpace strongly believes that by buildings open standards, it will work more effectively for the benefits of users. /ppDifference between OpenID and OpenSocial? /ppYou need both to let users allow to do whatever they want to do with their peers. You shouldn#39;t have to create a separate login for each website (OpenID). OpenSocial allows third parties developers to build applications within the social website. /ppThe Love should be for the Users: /pp==gt; Let the users move their profile data, social graph and content anywhere they want /pp==gt; Assume users will want to be members of more than one system /pp==gt; Assume users wish to have their favorite apps, widgets and adgets on all their pages /pp==gt; User don#39;t live for you, you live for them /p

pIt#39;s time to talk about different measures the French government has put in place to boost his digital plan presented a month ago./ppOne of the goal is to get 100% Internet broadband everywhere in France by next year. But also to push the Fibre Optics available in France to have super high speed Internet access./ppAlso to allow the tranformation from analog television towards digital./ppWhat the government is doing to help start ups in France?/pp==gt; deliver high speed Internet to have the right infrastructure for content ownersbr /==gt; €26 billions investment to SMEs to help them to grow and particularly the Internet start ups/ppWhat about the crisis we are facing today?/ppGordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy have been the most pro-active politics to respond to this crisis. /ppQuestions from the audience:/pp1/ How can we make the tax issue regarding start ups in France more flexible?br /Shouldn#39;t the funds be used to grow start ups towards Europe (like helping them on the language)/ppThe tax system is quite favourable to help start ups to grow. People who pay the wealth tax (ISF) can invest in start ups and deduct their investment from the tax bills at the end of the year./ppFrance believes the crisis is an opportunity. Because we can use this crisis to catch up with other countries like the use of English in universities. And the education will be more digital and fits more with International exposure./pbr /pbr /2/ /pbr /

pOuriel from TechCrunch is moderating a panel with venture capitalists (Union Square Ventures, Softech, Wellington partners and Martin Varsavsky from FON)./ppIt is a great time to keep investing, says a first panelist./ppAnother VC says that VCs didn#39;t fear for their own life in 2001/2. Easier to get capital funds. Today, firms are very afraid not to get enough return on their investment. They are more careful and minimize their risk in their portfolio. /ppYou cannot deny a storm is coming up. And VCs need to be prepared with the reality of the market and are cautious with revenue coming from start up they invested in./ppVCs come at a later stage in a start up after angel money. VCs can really make new ventures more succeful and Martin is asking (or begging) VCs to keep investing an supporting brillant ideas./ppIs not easy to have a constructive relationship between VCs and Entrepreneurs. VCs need to allow Entrepreneurs to make some mistakes and learn from them. But the role of the VCs is to also guide start ups and warn them of serious threats or issues./ppGood VCs help Entrepreneurs being better in what they do./ppWhen VCs say quot;noquot; to invest in a venture, they should explain why. Ouriel is asking if VCs are going to say quot;NOquot; next year more often. The ratio is 10 investments out of 1000 presentations made at a particular. Is that ratio going to change next year? Probably not. So no real reasons why start ups will find more difficult to raise money next year./pbr /br /br /

pPierre Chappaz, CEO of Wikio (formerly founder and CEO of Kelkoo) is on stage now./ppIt is not the first time we are living in a Internet crash. We will survive this crisis. Web2.0 services are loosing money for most of them. But growth is still there. Speed of progress with NetVibes is quite impressive (revenue X by 4 in 4 quarters)./ppSo what Wikio is about. A pan European News portal launched in 2005 with a team of 35 people in virtual offices in several countries. It allows users to browse information from traditional media, blogs, video sites. Has used some of the features of NetVibes to enhance the UI of Wikio./ppBusiness model is on merchants links, adsense. sponsoring and advertising./ppIn November, Wikio has reached 12.4 million users (4M in France alone, less than 1M in the UK).540K€ revenue in Q4 2008 and Wikio is now breakeven./ppFew learnings:/pp1/ Believe in what you do and fightbr /2/ Manage expenses very carefullybr /3/ Europe is their natural market and diversity is easier to deals withbr /4/ Information generates traffic but not enough revenue (shopping is much better for that)/pbr /

pMorten Lund is chief ideologist at Lund XY Global Ventures and invested in various start ups at early stage (88 in total !!!!!)/ppIn start ups, people is everything, money matters less./ppSo what is the next BIG thing. Timing is key (think of Skype or Overture). Risk=Return. /ppTo be an entrepreneur, you need to be focused and optimist even on a bad day. You also has to network a lot. Crazyness is ok as well. At the end of the day, best ideas can be leveraged with recruiting good people./ppNow time for a chat with Loic Le Meur./ppMorten has lost about 30M € in his investment into media recently in Denmark. But that#39;s ok for him, he said. He still has some investment in these 88 start ups and hopefully will generate some nice Xmas gifts. True entrepreneurs never go back to a safe job./pbr /br /br /

pMike Butcher is on stage and is here to give an update on the start-up scene./pp2007 was an unusual year where a lot of acquisitions were made like DoubleClick by Google./pp2008 feels very different as the market is becoming more complex. Merger amp; Acquisitions were made more at a local level. A small UK company acquired by a bigger fish in the UK./ppend of 2008, there have been some recent investment trends (networks go niche like Kindo, mobile applications, professionnal content like TVTrip or VideoJug, shopping gets social like Twenga)/ppThere is still a lot of activity in Europe and not everything comes from Silicon Valley (ex: Rummble, Goojet or Kype). Europe start ups start to mature looking at the local European TechCrunch event in Athens or Istanbul/ppMobile/3G, Social Applications are one of the strenghts in Europe./pp1/ Ability to deal with diverse markets/different languagesbr /2/ Mobilebr /3/ Governments support start up/pbr /

pDo you know that a company called 23andme can analyse your DNA with a sample of your saliva for a few hundreds $. The company was voted earlier the best invention 2008 by the Time magazine./ppThe good news is that 23andme won#39;t share the data of your DNA without your consent. Thank God for that. Can you imagine if you need to borrow from a bank and they could check your DNA. And they can see that you could potentially being diagnosed with a disease and therefore resufe any loan. Scary thoughts./p

pNikesh Arora, VP and President Europe/Middle East from Google is on stage with Loic Le Meur/pp==gt; Half of revenue comes outside the US.br /==gt;#0160; Staff at Google has about 60 different nationalilties. br /==gt; There is a low appetite for risk in Europe vs the US. br /==gt;If you have a good idea, it is still possible to access to capital in Europe. /ppHaving said that, an entrepreneur really struggles to raise capital through VCs these days./ppLoic asks quot;how can you get acquired by Google?quot;/ppAn Entrepreneur needs to have the good idea and focus on what you believe. Focus on innovation and don#39;t think about building something which is already there./p

pIts with much sadness that we#0160;wave goodbye here in Ireland, to Capella Castlemartyr, a timeless manor house set amid the the Cork countryside./p pSince the devastating downturn in the economy, Irish luxury hotels have been peeking through opulent curtains in desperation for someone to wait on. Many of the best have slashed prices to complete with modest 3 stars, in a bid to survive. /p pDuring such a depressive time, should we not be looking forward to such treats?/p pBy Christina Giliberti/p