Went to Minibar on Friday and took my eee pc 900 (black) with me to see how it could help me. Wrote a blog on the way home, but have only just remembered to upload it… here it is:

Minibar June 27th 2008

Had a really great time at Minibar this evening. Not only did I hear about something very interesting from Channel 4, but also spoke with some great people.

Channel 4’s Matt Locke presented about Channel 4’s new initiative 4IP. They are setting up a pilot fund of £50m to find companies that are innovating around the digital world and public service broadcasting.

They are looking to fund innovation and they want to know what would Channel 4 be putting it’s money into now if it was started today, and not in 1982. How would it engage with entrepreneurs and the public?

Matt then introduced some innovative businesses that Channel 4 have already started supporting. These seem to focus on niches and on generating revenue within the social space.

schoolofeverything.com is an interesting concept as a website. It puts together those who have something to teach and those who have something to learn. The hope is that people will learn across the internet from each other. Interesting idea, but I was a bit stumped byt he business model.

Then, EC1 came along to present about their applications for things like bebo and myspace for a niche area – goths and emos. Interesting idea, but poorly presented unfortunately, although there was a definite space in there to gain the attention of a group that likes to use social networks, andＩwas wondering why mobile wasn’t mentioned more. Surely that’s a growth area still.

And finally, Techlightenment (who didn’t introduce themselves very well) presented their Bob Dylan viral marketing piece. It is very cool (and if you haven’t seen it it’s here) and they told us that Bob Dylan’s music company paid for it, to generate interest in Bob Dylan. Apparently, it worked, with 3x more searches on Google for Bob Dylan. Impressive, but definitely a point – don’t do this kind of thing unless you’re being paid for it! Too many rubbish virals get sent ou that don’t have any relation to anything important and are just self-indulgent publicity stunts that generally backfire. This one though, was cool.

Met Benjamin and Jof as well. Had long conversations about Eastern Europe, startups and got told I’m only 2 more startups from statistical success. Which is nice.

Also met some Ruby ond Rails guys which (short term) is good for me as I’m looking for some fill in work at the moment, to tide me over before my startup starts cooking, so hopefull that’s going to produce some leads for some work. If not, I’ll be begging for someone to get me some work via twitter/blogs and everything else!!!

James Andrews was there who was part of Mashed08 Team Bob. He’s an RoR guy and we had a long chat, and I’m going to get him and Nigel Crawley in touch, as I think there’s some real possibilities for collaboration there.

Signing off – long post – will try to cut it down. Writing this on the train on my new EEE PC 900 (not the atom one – couldn’t wait any longer!) and I’m finding it surprisingly fantastic for getting my thoughts down.Ｉwrote notes throughout the minibar by holding it in one hand and typing with the other. Just a shame I wasn’t live-blogging (no wifi) or you could have seen it!