To start off, Startupbootcamp and Atlassian are sponsoring the launch party in Amsterdam on Saturday the 3rd of December. If you are in Amsterdam, register tonight to be part of the first StartupBus Europe party.

On Sunday morning everyone is welcome to wave us goodbye as we board the bus in front of the Hotel Victoria in Amsterdam. (Across from Central station.) No reservations are needed.

On Sunday night Startupbootcamp will be hosting us in Copenhagen. We will have drinks, a pitch competition and plenty of time to network with fellow entrepreneurs. Register here!

On Monday afternoon Startupbootcamp will be hosting a startup lunch for us in Berlin around 2pm. Details will come shortly and so will the possibility to register. More pitching and more competition.

On Tuesday morning we will be welcomed to Google’s European headquarters in Zurich for breakfast, a tour and more pitching competitions. If you want to be part of this, please register quickly as the number of places is limited. But it will be a great experience.

If you are at LeWeb, StartupBus Europe will be there as well. You can meet us at the conference, but you can also meet us at the bus. We can show you around and your can meet our startups, get demo’s or offer your investment money to your favorite startup. FInd us at LeWeb!

Something that I personally love in the approach to the competition this year is that they will be including a video element in their competition. And they have already said that creativity and originality will be the key to success. So, bring out the video equipment, the pizza, drinks and snacks and do an all night brainstorm with your crew how you are going to storm this competition. Read more on the LeWeb’11 agenda.

Btw. why do I love that video element that much? Because I know it will be fun to do, but also because I know it can pull your team together more. Hanging out and trying to get the weirdest ideas going to present your startup will get the most out of your team and bring you closer together after the stress of regular business. How do I know? In 2008 I ran a video competition with Erwin Blom and Lucien Burm. Soocial did a great movie that took the complete Next Web conference by storm. (They were not actually in the end results for the competition as they also won The Next Web’s own startup competition.) Take a look at it below and then get to work!

Hassle Free from Soocial on Vimeo.

So, Jux you said? Yes. Unlike current blogging systems (like this WordPress blog), Jux is not focusing on sharing text and then beautifying it with images. Jux aims for the experience. Images, video and text can all be mixed together to create more of an experience page than a blog in the traditional sense of the word. Do I like that? Yes. A picture says more than a thousand words, and I am a bit of a talker. But I like the way Jux presents the content I can create. I like what I write to be an experience. And Jux allows me to create that. More than WordPress, Tumblr or Posterous does.

Is there a downside? Obviously. You have to have that visual content. And not everyone always has visual content that supports the point they are trying to get across. There also is a distinct lack of lenght. I wouldn’t know how I could share the post on recommending your favorite bloggers for LeWeb’11 in Jux. And that makes it less of a real blogging platform to me.

Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. There is no way to save a post as a draft. Or at least not that I could find. Then there is no way to connect it to your personal URL, which is incredibly important if it is your personal expression space. By my standards anyway. And I would like to have more freedom in moving text blocks around and playing with more fonts and styling elements. But I am sure that will grow in the future. So, Juxers, if you are reading this, this is my wish list:

• Saving a post as a draft
• Scheduling a post
• A creative all text format that I can use to post text only posts
• Keeping me signed in with Facebook and Twitter
• Moving text blocks around and resizing them to fit text and images
• More fonts
• More styling elements
• Allow me to change the color of my JUX title
• Running it on a personal domain or a personal subdomain

But in general, I am going to play with this for a while. Check out my playground.

In the case of this particular app, it would have been much easier if they would have chosen to include checking in on the most available sites such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook pages etc. And it is not that hard. Most offer an API which you can use, making it relatively easy to incorporate.

What it really comes down to is determining how your app can make your user’s life easier. Because that is the reason we use apps. We want them to add to our life instead of making it an extra something that we need to do. So yes, it is great if “there’s an app for that”, but it is even greater if there is a single app that follows through the whole process that the user is in. And better still if that is done regardless of whether the service the user wants to use is part of the developers’ stable. If that is something you can do for your customer, you might just be on to a winner.

Dit is de beweegreden achter het vleigtuig op zonneenergie. Want als we dit kunnen doen, dan is dat een basis om een verandering in te zetten. En dit is niet eenvoudig. Ze wisten al dat het vliegtuig vleugels nodig had die even groot waren als die van een Airbus 340 (64 meter), mocht niet meer wegen dan een auto (2000kg) en niet meer energie gebruiken dan een kleine motorfiets. Dat is technisch een grote uitdaging om aan te gaan zonder geld en zonder dat er iets verkocht gaat worden. Het heeft ook veel tijd en moeite gekost om pioniers te vinden die het project zouden willen sponsoren. Met organisaties als Solvay, Omega en Deutsche Bank die de stap hebben gewaagd op basis van enkel een powerpoint presentatie, kun je het zeker hebben over pioniers.

Ook bij de bouw moesten hobbels worden overwonnen, omdat geen enkele vliegtuigbouwer het vliegtuig wilde bouwen op basis van de ontwerpen. Uiteindelijk is er een scheepswerf gevonden die de uitdaging aan wilde gaan, vooral omdat hij niet wist dat het niet zou kunnen. En met succes, want de structuur van de hele romp weegt slechts 50kg.

Solar Impulse is geen vliegtuig. Het is een beweging die moet groeien. Dat is ook de reden waarom Bertrand op het LeWeb podium spreekt. Mensen volgen het project online en verbinden zich aan de toekomst van het project. Want dit heeft de wereld nodig. We hebben een nieuwe zienswijze nodig om te veranderen hoe we vandaag de dag leven. We zullen het in de wereld niet redden als we doorgaan op de weg die we nu zijn ingeslagen. Daarom moeten projecten als de Solar Impulse doorgaan om te laten zien dat pionieren niet iets is van het verleden, maar dat dat nu zeker zo belangrijk is. Mensen die nu pionieren hebben de steun nodig van de mensen om zich heen. Maar daarnaast moet pionierschap en de inslag van de avonturier terug komen op school en in de maatschappij. Daarom roept Bertrand op dat de bezoekers en kijkers van LeWeb ook helpen om de beweging en vooral het idee van pionierschap bekend te maken aan de wereld waarmee wij online verbonden zijn. Want dat kan de wereld echt veranderen.

Foto: eni_kao

This is the live stream for the Plenary:

This is the live stream for the Startup competition on Wednesday:

If you are at LeWeb and would like me to do a video interview or write about you, just come up to me and let me know. Give me a shout on Twitter and lets make an impact starting at LeWeb.

Ik heb een hart voor mensen en voor de wereld. Ik ga naar LeWeb om te kijken hoe we samen “de dialoog met de klant” ook uit het marketing jargon kunnen trekken en om te zien of we de technologie kunnen gebruiken om onze wereld te verbeteren. Voor onszelf en voor anderen. Om er samen duurzamer, socialer, hartelijker, enthousiaster en beter van te worden. Dat is ook het verhaal dat ik wil delen. Ik zal schrijven over LeWeb en ik zal ook zeker weer wat video interviews gaan doen.

Ken jij startups met een visie om (online) technologie in te zetten om onze wereld duurzamer, socialer, hartelijker, enthousiaster en beter te maken? Of ken je mensen die hier een duidelijke visie over hebben? Ben je in Parijs? Of kunnen we elkaar ergens onderweg ontmoeten voor een kort interview? Laat het me dan weten via mijn blog of via arne [@] arnehulstein.nl. Deel je visie met de wereld. Op LeWeb, maar ook daarvoor en daarna.

A great addition to the pack of startups was Woobius, the third place winner. As the only one aimed at an enterprise market, Woobius aims for an audience that is rarely represented at this kind of event. It was awesome to see the surprise of the group, who saw themselves as underdogs, when they heard they could come up to pick up their third price. Congratulations guys and lets stay in touch, I will have some leads for you.

Mobypicture hardly needs any introduction. Mathys has been a friend ever since I met him and I just love his service. During the finale Mobypicture launched no less than 6 new features. An awesome step and something to be proud of. Your second place was well deserved Mathys and I love your passion for shoot and share.

One of Layar’s demonstrations for their new 3D technology is a rocket taking off. It could not have been chosen more appropriately. Since its launch, Layar has swept the world of its feet with its augmented reality browser. The world has been at their feet ever since. Maarten did a presentation which harnessed so much passion that it was impossible to beat. And the rollercoaster continues. Taking first price, the Layar team has seen a great reward for following its dreams. And for Maarten, the last year has been the ride of his life.

Congratulations to you all and I will be seeing more of all of you, I am sure.

It all started off with my question on how to get to Berlin in style for the Web 2.0 Expo. Unfortunately a number of brands rejected the whole idea. Both BMW and Citroën even stated that they were not interested in social media exposure at all. But Ford is working hard on finding the value communities can offer its brand and Scott Monty reacted positively to the idea. As he connected me with Dennis Homburg at Ford Netherlands, the search for a suitable car started and the end result was the S-Max. A spacious car with a sporty outside due to the sports package and the huge 20″ alloy wheels.

To be honest, I was a bit sceptical about the Ford. I have driven Ford’s before and I never really liked the seats. And on a trip to Berlin, you really spend a lot of time in those. However, the S-Max exceeded my expectations. Of course the car dazzled you at first with it good looks and even two-tone leather on the seats. During the pitches in Berlin the car even changed names from the Pitchmobile to the Pimpmobile. But driving it for so many ours revealed that the car was much more than just good looks.

I enjoyed the S-Max thoroughly. So much so, that I never actually let go of the wheel, except when I got Erno Hannink to drive it to the Berlin Conference Center once. But the only reason for that was that I still had to change after running. Sorry about that guys. It was just a good wheel to be holding. Speedwise the 2.5 turbo leaves nothing to be desired, as long as you keep track of the gear you are in. Accelerating from 120 in sixth will not be heartstopping, but go down two gears and you are flying. As long as you make sure the turbo is spinning, performance is great. And one of the nice additions for the autobahn was the adaptive cruise control. It keeps you at a safe distance of the car you are following, regardless of what speed you are doing. Well, I have to correct that. It only works until 180 kilometers an hour as it does not allow you to use cruise control above that speed. And that is not a bad idea. Because you need all your concentration at speeds that exceed that. Nevertheless, even when it topped out at 220, we still had someone asleep in the car. A testimony to the relative ease with which the S-Max seems to be performing. And that was something we all agreed upon. Travelling with five to Berlin and four coming back, we did notice that four adults fitted the car much more comfortably. But five worked great if a bit cosier in the back seat. We never pulled up the two rear seats, because we did not have to, but anyone bigger than a child would have been challenged to sit in there for the whole trip by the looks of it.

As an overall result, I was very pleased with the S-Max. It looked great, had good performance and got us there reasonably rested. A good travelling companion. Thanks Ford. It was a good experience.