Voilà je trouve une superbe initiative : si vous n’utilisez votre voiture qu’une fois par semaine et qu’elle dort le reste du temps dans votre garage, pourquoi ne pas en faire profiter quelqu’un d’autre, et par la même occasion se faire un peu d’argent?

Si vous avez répondu “ah ben oui c’est vrai ça, pourquoi?” à la question précédente, le site Zilok.com va vous intéresser!

En effet ce site vous permet de proposer votre voiture (ou tout autre matériel, voire votre maison) sur internet : vous indiquez sa disponibilité, le tarif de la location, les conditions éventuelles (si l’assurance est prise en charge pour une location de voiture par exemple) et le tour est joué!

L’internaute souhaitant louer votre matériel pourra voir ces informations, ainsi que les notes données par d’anciens loueurs.

Pour récapituler le tout, quoi de mieux qu’un bon schéma ?  Rendez vous ici si vous voulez avoir plus d’informations!

Si vous n’avez besoin qu’occasionnellement d’un service à raclette par exemple, Zilok est votre allié idéal

All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets.

(1) Easy2DIY – This is a website which can help you with all the home repair and improvement projects. The site lists 100’s of practical home repair tutorials and tips. Most of the tutorials are well explained with step-by-step illustrations. You can browse site by category (windows, plumbing, furniture, electrical ), by place in your house (attic, basement, yard, kitchen) or by a specific task (cleaning, painting, wiring, mowing etc.)

(2) FindMyShift – Online staff scheduling tool which allows you and your staff to manage and view your schedules from anywhere at anytime. It provides direct on-screen editing, allowing you to type anywhere on the schedule, drag and drop entries, text message your staff within the schedule and track your day-to-day costs with built-in reports.

(3) FlickrSync – Allows you to synchronize your Flickr set with local photo folders on your computer. Once the app installed and connected with your Flickr account, it will display your local folders along with your Flickr sets and establish synchronization rules in between. You can easily set your own rules and permissions.

(4) GeekChart – Provides you with an interesting way of showing where you share stuff online. It generates an embeddable pie chart showing the last 30 days of your activity on the popular social sites where you have an account. Each site is presented as a slice on the pie chart along with the overall percentage. Generated pie chart can be easily embedded on your site, blog or personal webpage.

(5) Zilok – It is a rental marketplace where you can rent anything from other people. The site has thousands of rental items in different categories. Search rental items by keywords and location or browse by categories. Filter results by distance, price, item rating etc., and compare them side-by-side.

by Bidhata Rai

A subdivision of development onlookers seem to take an odd sort of glee whenever the market falters.

Cash strapped consumers seek for cost-effective substitutes for high street spending and are turning towards the rental market.

A new generation of rental companies is emerging in the downtown to take advantage of the government backed bank loans. The economic gloom has paradoxically contributed to the glory of the rental markets.

“We are going into the recession with quite a wide choice of value retailers, but when it comes to more expensive products, perhaps we are thinking more about renting,” said Maureen Hinton of Verdict Research, according to the Financial Times.

“It a great idea to be able to rent things for as long as I want and then to get another after I’ve had enough of it. You can’t do that with something you buy,” says Zina Gurung, 56.

Internet sites boost demand

The internet has made life cheerful by making renting just about everything from televisions to furniture and jewellery much easier.

Not just stationary commodities, but you can also rent pets through the internet. Erento, an online renting marketplace for niche lending services, which offers from holiday homes to cameras made a profit of 92 percent in January alone.

“The credit crisis is probably the best thing that has ever happened to Erento,” said Clinton Patterson, its director of international operation reports FT.

All this leads us to contemplate that people prioritise cash and veer towards more rentals as times get tougher.

A market research group, GfK has recorded a leap in rented television in the total TV market from 2 per cent in 2004-05 to 9 per cent in 2008.

Zilok, a French site, launched in UK in 2007, plans to accelerate its international expansion in response to the opportunities flourishing during the economic downtown. Zilok does for rentals what Ebay does for person-to-person selling.

Growing profits

Handbag Hire HQ (online handbag rental business), DIY products (dealing with construction equipments), Hire station (rents tools to businesses and consumers), Brighthouse (rents household goods), and car clubs all saw a huge growth in their profits in the current economic gloom.

Games consoles, party dresses and baby equipment are the most popular items rented.

While other sectors deteriorate in market value, rental business continues to thrive well during the recession.

Even if rental rates slip amid increased competition, the growing population will make the community as a whole stronger.

With the world sliding into a real or imagined recession (sometimes, it’s difficult to tell!) Web Worker Daily has been on the look out for products, services and practices that might help remote workers weather the storm and perhaps feel confident in their own ability to not only save, but even make money in a downturn.

Something that caught my attention recently was Zilok’s peer-to-peer rental services. Zilok is at its heart a marketplace for users to either lend their items to others, or borrow items from other users.

The service meets an almost blindingly obvious market need, in that a great deal of our possessions remain idle and unused, seeing utility only periodically – and infrequently. By ‘mobilizing’ our idle personal inventories, there’s an opportunity to monetize or valorize this idle state.

Though the service launched a year ago, the company recently announced a Rental Income Simulator that helps users predict how much money they could make by listing their idle possessions. The figure is derived from the average rental price of an item as well the duration and frequency of its rental period. The simulator lists a dizzying array of household items – from electronics to kitchen appliance – which, when I think about my own usage, probably do lie idle most of the time.

Like eBay, renting an item from another user is free, but the lister of the item pays a modest fee, calculated as a total percentage of the transaction.

It’s an interesting concept, though I’ve seen more interesting – albeit conceptual – variations, including Dave Chiu and Didier Hilhorst’s Rent-A-Thing, that allows users to ‘vouch’ for each other as a means of assessing the reputability of a renter. Interestingly, the project engaged the Italian post office to provide pickup and dropoff facilities.

Running a handful of my own items through Zilok’s rental income simulator suggested a $50/income from renting various low value items in my possession. With some careful selection, there’s perhaps the potential to make a modest addition to your monthly income.

It was an occasion it was too good to pass that to the top – a chance for a good merry free space out of all the refuse which had collected for always dust in the attic with the additional allowance thrown inside to transform a few hundreds into business.

There is a tradition here in France each summer for villages and the cities through the country to throw open their doors thus-with-speak and make warm welcome in the world with their secondhand trade, or the vacuum attic.

Basically it is an improved sale – boot of shovel-mixes, garage or car – call what you – in which residents can d�barasser of some of their basic image and visitors could take something with an end.

Naturally one binds to be abundance of waste on sale, but there still a refuse of the person is treasure of another person.

And it was for this purpose we loaded the car with our set assembled with tat less than of good taste.

The old boots of horsemanship fought for space with a disorder of the curios of holidays. There were Russian pairs of gloves of not-adaptation of furnace – enough to look at but thin far adapting their goal too much. In a decorative bag from bread and an encyclopaedia of 25 volumes disappeared – under-employed and out-of-date for a generation which prefers at Google something and all. Plates, the cube of Rubik – a side finished, four matched egg cups, and much, much more.

Thus with the vehicle practically bursting with the seams, to far we moved for the main street of village.

Maintaining this was not going to be territory completely not very familiar for us. While to be not exactly the frequent visitors with the secondhand trades nevertheless had taken us a few pieces during the years.

But never really had been put us fire upwards with the �fever of collection� ardante which seems to justify much which leaves hunting treasure. No we remained more friendly Juste-time in our enthusiasm.

It with a certain quantity of agitation and a healthy spoonful of was always na�vt� which we approached our first secondhand trade of the other end – as salesmen.

What does we evaluate-T should us place for the beaten towel? Would no matter who really like that together horrible of three porcelain geese with the yellow ribbons attached around their necks which we had been given many years ago? And this picnic wouldn’t it place – never not used – achieve the dishes and covers out of plastic does not look at a trifle out of the place among the expensive spoils of the professional support of stand?

Our last fear proved mainly nonfounded as majority of our similar �second-hand dealers� being proven to have attics completely of the richness similar to ours.

Naturally you cannot maintain the professionals entirely left and there was the odd stand raising with the ancient treasures, the curios and the large doubtful Masters of candidate at the inflated prices. But as a whole a fast outline was around enough to reassure us that we �belonged�.

It could have been indecent early – makes some far too early really, particularly for Sunday morning, but that was not going to upwards stop enquiring truths of occasions of launching.

The moments after we finished charging us with our cluster to the maximum effect (us thought) there that they were in all their intention of glory on proving exactly what the bird early really can catch. New welcomes with us as the businesses are descended at a beginning suddenly sharp.

It was in this moment that we quickly realized just how much sharp some must haggle over – anyhow low the starting price is – probably right to have made a deal. Apparently it is all the part of the recreation.

Hmmmn. It is sometimes a fact hard to hold above on. We were there to be sold, and appreciate. Even the most timid purchaser (a group that I would have fallen into had the roles had been reversed) seemed galvanized to ask for our best offer thus we learned how ridiculously not to fix low prices to begin par. But from time to time some customers exceeded the mark.

As the woman who spent 10 minutes pouring small above a rather large bag – well-known, robust mark and, even if I say it myself, under pretty good conditions – specifying that they had been employed (what it envisaged with a sale of shovel-mixes?) while complaining that it was too heavy (then do not buy it, I wanted to shout) and was not large enough (do not think even the made-to-order of which I was supposed to avoid that one).

He asked how much it weighed, its capacity, why it was not larger, lighter, a different color. And naturally it fully used all the tactic of negotiation while hopelessly trying to reduce the asking price (.15) even promote. You occupy you, it seemed to sponge while we keep our expenses and thereafter arrange on .12 – to as much obtain with projectile of it like sale the case.

Ah the conservation of our expenses was not always easy because we listened to all the way of the excuses as for why the sale could not be carried out. They extended from �me do not have enough money� (answer: �� The money point cash is right behind you. �) by �me do not have any small change only one note .50� (answer: �Which is very exact we stored upwards on coins in front of time.� We really A arrived me) �only sums just and let us not please really carry it around with me.� (answer – obviously: �If you like it, the wages now and will keep we it for you until you pass by still.� That functioned.)

Then there was the hunter of bag of carrier, probably something of a phenomenon familiar to this kind of event. We had the precaution to take along a pile of the bags used with us. And they seemed to be among the hottest articles, even if we did not invoice them. Perhaps should have made us. Naturally they came certainly in useful for the excuse �which we do not have anything to carry it/them in�.

Precipitation early insane soon became the lull of midday as French directed to far for the lunch, thus some prepared sandwiches with haste and a coffee thermos flask just struck the right spot with us rested again with appreciate the cut. We resisted temptation to wander through ourselves to see that what �steals� we could make because really did not want us to finish packing to the top more in the boot of the car at the end of the day that we had arrived with at the beginning.

Though time was held, there were not simply the numbers of visitor around after the lunch, thus we decided to call it one day.

Naturally we had not sold all although the majority of the larger articles went to believe him or not somebody really bought the encyclopaedias and hulked bravely them with far.

But we moved to the house less strongly weighed to the bottom AND one .98 easier entirety.

We will be of return to nearest the secondhand trade in September, with more our refuse (yes there is more cumbersome always attic – there is not always?) and if all goes much wiser in the business.

Her geçen gün Web 2.0 girişimlerine bir yenisi ekleniyor ve bence sanılanın aksine bu girişimler, sıradaki girişimcilerin önünü kesmek yerine, yeni pazarlar ve potansiyel müşteriler yaratıyor. Web 2.0 dünyası, globalleşmenin ve interaktivitenin tam anlamıyla hissedilebildiği yer olması açısından bizlere de çok farklı kaynaklardan beslenme imkanı sunuyor.

Her sene Barselona’da gerçekleştirilen ve Avrupa’daki yeni girişimlerin yarıştığı bir proje platformu olan Startup 2.0 da orjinal ve başarılı girişimcileri takip edebildiğimiz bir oluşum. Bu yıl ilk 3 e girerek yarışmayı kazanan siteler gerçekten incelemeye değer.

Yarışma 1. si olan Zilok, internet üzerinden herşeyin kiralanabildiği bir platform. Kiralama işlemini gerçekleştirmek için taraflar bir kiralama sözleşmesi imzalamak durumunda. Kiralanan bir ürünü geri alamama korkusuna karşı Zilok, “American Rental Association” nın bir üyesi olarak müşterilerine güvenli alışveriş güvencesi veriyor. Kategorilere ayrılmış ürünler arasından binlerce seçeneğe ulaşabiliyorsunuz . Gelir modelleri ise listeleme ücreti ve işlem başına komisyona (ürün fiyatı elastikiyetli) dayanıyor.

Yarışma 2.si UnLtdWorld ise tam anlamıyla bir sosyal girişim ağı. Sosyal girişimcilerin ürünleri, projelerini, fikirlerini, ilgi alanlarını paylaşabildiği, soru-cevaplarla etkileşebildiği, gruplar kurabildiği Likemind-Facebook karışımı kıvamında bir topluluklar dünyası.

Yarışmanın 3. sü olan iFood da tüm odağını yemek üzerine kurmuş bir girişim örneği. Site vidyolarla yemek tarifi veriyor, üyelerinin yemek tarifleri paylaşmalarını sağlıyor, küçük yarışmalarla katılımcılığı sağlıyor…Sitenin sahipleri, 2 deneyimli ve kariyerli aşçı. Aslında televizyonlarda sıkça rastladığımız sabah yemek programlarının daha profesyonel beyinlerce Web 2.0 dünyasına uyarlanmış hali.

Her piyasaya atılan yeni girişim örneği beni oldukça heyecanlandırıyor ve girişimcilik konusunda kamçılıyor. Umarım önümüzdeki senelerde bu yazıma sektörün içinden birisi olarak bakma imkanı yakalarım.

ps: Startup 2.0 proje yarışmasının jüri üyelerinden biri de Techcrunch yazarlarından ve Techcrunch & Webrazzi Meetup’ta dinleme imkanı bulduğum Mike Butcher.

Cansado de comprar e vender seus objetos online?! Agora você pode alugá-los, o site Zilok é quem fornece o serviço, você se cadastra e pronto, já pode anunciar seus itens e procurar os que lhe interessar, o sistema de buscar facilita a localização dos itens perto das regiões que você determinar (regiões próximas tendem a ter o envio e recebimento em menor tempo), existem anúncios dos mais diversos tipos, desde equipamentos para festas, até ferramentas e roupas, isso mesmo roupas!! O site está disponível em 3 idiomas: Inglês, Francês e Holandês. Quem sabe em breve  não aparece uma versão brasileira do site, será que funcionaria aqui? particularmente acho que não, ainda mais com os Correios de greve rsss.

Fonte: TechCrunch; Zilok.

It used to be that you could rent branded bags from BagBorrowSteal or heck even rent houses for that matter from your realty.

P.S. I got the BagBorrowSteal idea from Sex and The City – Great movie I tell you; the damnit wedding gowns are to die for, for the ladies.

The time has come.

For you can now rent just about ANYTHING!

Yeah you hear saw me right – Anything from Golf Clubs to Macbooks to a Grass Clearing Saw!

You can search for items via their names or via where you live!

It’s pretty cheap – for example a Apple iphone would be around USD 12 a day! Great for showing off to those filthy-rich collegues of yours and shutting their pie-hole. (Been watching too much Pushing Daisies)

Or Golf Clubs for USD 10 a day! Saves you from buying the entire set which can set you back thousands of dollars.

You can also see item date availability as well as contact the owner direct via the system!

Unfortunately, it’s currently only active in USA, France, UK and the Nederlands.

Other countries…we’ll just have to wait till..it eventually arrives.

Ayer sé celebró en Barcelona el startup 2.0 evento organizado por Jesus Monleon y Jose del Moral y que contó la participación de un reconocido jurado que escogió a Zilok, un servicio de alquiler de cualquier cosa que puedas imaginar. Puedes poner tus cosas en alquiler o puedes buscar aquellas cosas que necesitas para alquilar. Es una buena idea alquilar un producto que quieras comprarte para luego saber si es lo que realmente necesita o no. Por otro lado la web ganadora en el apartado de vídeo promocional fue trovit, el buscador de anuncios clasificados de empleo, viviendas y coches.

Me voilà, back depuis le pays des kijs, bon je dis pas “moi je suis mieux que les autres”, loin de là… mais les ardennes c’est trop la loose !

Ca fait déjà quelques années que j’ai quitté la province de mon enfance, arrivée avec un baluchon à la conquête de la capitale, j’avais envie de vivre, souffler, je me sentais tellement vide et étriquée, bref toujours un moment d’angoisse de rentrer la bas !

Je viens de rentrer dans mon petit quartier de rues pavées, de hauts plafonds et de moulures qui ornent mon petit chez moi. Je me sens soulagée… Je ne sais pas si vous aussi (enfin pour celles qui ont quittées leur province) ça vous fait cet effet !

Bon ce petit post non pas pour vous raconter mes déboires de parisienne adoptive, mais plutôt pour vous présenter un site que j’ai découvert ce week end, dont le principe repose sur la location d’objets de la vie de tous les jours que nous stockons chez nous (nos parents nous ont un peu gavés avec la cigale et la fourmi que le traumatisme nous pousse à ne jamais jeter ce que nous achetons) et que nous pouvons mettre en location.

Ce site c’est Zilok, bon on trouve de tout et du n’importe quoi, la poussette en location pour la journée for example… Un peu louche, je vous l’accorde. Mais sur le principe je trouve cela génial. Je veux bien dans ce cas louer mon chien, mon mec, mes parents (ah ouais ma mère !) et peut-être même mes super collants Bon ok, mon humour pas top ! Bref, je vous invite à y jeter un oeil, pour seulement 10 euros j’ai loué un robe BCBG Max Azria au lieu de l’acheter à la madeleine à environ 400 euros !

Voilà un site apparu en fin d’année dernière, et que je viens de découvrir via Il suffisait d’y penser : Zilok vous permet de mettre en location ou de louer à bas prix n’importe quel article en votre possession !

Le fonctionnement du site ressemble fortement à un site d’enchères comme e-bay, sauf que vous n’achetez/vendez pas les objets proposés mais qu’ils sont mis en location entre utilisateurs du site. Le site est très utile pour son aspect juridique puisqu’il s’occupe de vous proposer différents contrats de location afin de prévenir tout problème.

Les frais d’insertion sont gratuits jusqu’au 1er juin 2008 et seront facturés ensuite 10 centimes par objet en location et par mois… ce qui est très raisonnable ! Bien sûr, lorsqu’une transaction se concrétise, Zilok prend une commission supplémentaire (voir tarifs).

Voilà donc un bon moyen de rentabiliser un investissement dont vous n’avez pas d’utilité régulière ou de trouver une location à un tarif moindre que chez un professionnel !

Crédits logo : © 2007 Zi Group. Tous droits réservés.

I had the chance to meet at Plugg with Gary Cige and Thibaud Elziere, the founders of ZiLok, a website where people can rent just about anything (offers and demands of rental), in their area (in a space where we should also mention RentMineOnline.com, a Seedcamp finalist, more focused on the house and appartment rentals). ZiLok will also be on stage at TheNextWeb, and they are certainly one very promising startup .

Thibaud Elziere (who has also founded photo trading platform Fotolia.com, and is seen in the picture below) answered some of my questions.

What elements (technical, marketing, luck ?) played an important role during your launch phase (first 3 months) ? What lessons / advice would you share with entrepreneurs ?
In our opinion, we are still in a launch/preparation phase, at least for the next few months. Our web background and experience helped us a lot to deal with the practical and technical aspects of the launch, so we have enough time and resources to focus on what we really want to achieve, on the big picture.

We have enjoyed a very wide press coverage since the beginning, and the main TV channels, radios and newspapers already covered Zilok. It shows that the concept itself is very “communicative”: people are interested, they get involved, and journalists and media professionals have great material to create compelling stories. Nowadays, it is not that complicated to create a new web service, as technical issues get easier to overcome. Getting visibility and building a community is where the real challenge is, and you really have to focus on communication and marketing to be sure that your wonderful service will be discovered… An easy-to-explain concept is a very good point for your business, you must never forget that! Maintaining a clear, simple and powerful vision and mission statement throughout the development and launch phases is crucial in my opinion. Marketing is also a very important part to reach some visibility. We have been working on this since the beginning, and in the following week, we will roll it out to the next level. Stay tuned!

Can you tell us more about the Business and Consumer orientations of the site ?
With Zilok we focus on both C2C and B2C markets. The B2C market corresponds to the existing rental industry, rental businesses to consumers. This already existing market is an opportunity for us to reach critical mass quickly. Critical mass is always an important issue for marketplaces and internet services, and in our case this critical mass is large since our service is locally based, which means that we must list a critical number of rental items in any local area. The Professional rental market will play a big role in overcoming this challenge.
Peer-to-peer renting, that is the C2C market, is something new that we would like to support and develop. It is the most fun part of our business model but is also the trickiest. We have to evangelize people, and it will take some time even though our first months have been very promising. We already get hundreds of rental listings a day posted by individuals, people.

You are aiming internationally very soon, opening the US, and other national markets. What is your rationale for doing so ?
Six months after opening up Zilok in its beta version, we are already operating in four countries with websites in three languages. We were able to do so because we have been aiming and designing internationally since the beginning. Zilok is offering people a new way of consuming, responding to today’s trends and concerns (scarcity of resources, availability of information, cost of storage, environment). These concerns are shared by people all over the world. That’s the first rationale: the vision and value proposition for Zilok is valid identically in every country we approach.
If you adopt an effective and realistic approach to your international organization, you can do that very early in your development, and we have done just that.
Now, in the business of marketplaces, size matters, and timing is a key factor. That’s eBay 101. Conversations are now global, especially between entrepreneurs and the tech savvy. A local success story related in any country will inspire dozens of similar businesses in the matter of weeks, all over the world. We eventually want to own our success, as far we can reach.

From what I can tell, we have here a focused entrepreneur, driving his startup in a way that changes the rules of the game of a very large (and fragmented) sector. When I see this, I can’t help but recall what a VC such as Danny Rimer from Index Ventures was telling Business 2.0 about why he loves European startups :

[...] the innovations that do arise in Europe tend to be paradigm-shifting, industry-upending, world-changing stuff. Think of Linux. Think of Skype. Hell, think of the Web itself.

Let’s now watch the space for online rental.

Next week the Web 2.0 community will turn its eyes on TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam. If so many of the right people come there, there must be a good reason : Kevin Rose (Diggnation will be made there), Robert Scoble, Nova Spivack (Twine), Chris Saad (DataPortability.org), Scott Rafer (Mashery, MyBlogLog, Lookery),…

An important part of the event will be the startup competition : 24 companies presenting themselves in 5 minutes (that will be 300 seconds sharp). Currently, 22 companies are known, the last 2 will be choosen by the community early next week. Let’s have a short look at some of these startups (in alphabetical order) :

1. andUnite : a German startup with the powerful idea of connecting people that do similar searches on search engines
2. Backbase : the providers of a robust Ajax framework (3 million copies in 80+ countries)
3. Bemba : Dutch startup, providing a button allowing to share any content with your network
4. Beezbox : out of Paris, they enable companies to engage with their communities on social networks
5. ConfNetwork : a tool to facilitate networking at conferences (premiering at TheNextWeb)
6. CoComment : a strong swiss startup that materialized the “commentosphere”, an underlooked component of the blogosphere
7. eBuddy : based in Amsterdam, their browser based chat & messaging service allows millions to connect to MSN, AOL, on the web or on the mobile (recently raised €6.5M funding)
8. Empressr : Ajax/Flash based web presentation company out of New York (they’ve been out for a while)
9. Fav.or.it : plays in the RSS aggregator category, with a twist (or two), allowing to post comments without leaving the window, and to cut ’slices’ of what is of interest to you
10. Fleck : based in Amsterdam (and with an overlap with TheNextWeb people), brought the social dimension into the browser
11. Goojet : manages your mobile “spaces” ; has won LeWeb3 startup competition and raised a €2.3M ’seed-round’ (now this starts to sound US-style)
12. Hoera : under construction at the time of going to (word)press
13. Introniche : facilitates cross-promotion between niche sites
14. Lookery : an ad network for Facebook and social networks, using (anonymized) profiling data ; has raised $900K seed round (and more) from prominent investors
15. Netlog : this belgium-based company would be a heavyweight by European standards : >30 million registered users, it is sometimes compared to a “european facebook”
16. Radionomy : french and belgian team, wants to revolutionize the online radio, by allowing anyone to setup one
17. Symbaloo : with a name that sounds crafted by Kipling, this startup is a new iteration on the “personalized home page” trick
18. Twingly : this links the blogosphere to traditional media (and back)
19. uberVU : a Romanian startup that aims nothing less than “manage all your content and all your conversations in one place”
20. Wakoopa : tracks and shares application usage on your desktop, has been compared to Last.fm and Alexa for desktop apps
21. Wauw.fm : allows to transfer and process the media files of your PC to make them available on your mobile
22. Webnode : web-based website builder and manager
23. ZiLok : last but not least, winner of the public award at Plugg, this company pitches itself as the “eBay of rental”

So it looks like it will be a hot and contrasted show among all those startups, demonstrating that the European web 2.0 scene is alive and kicking. We will profile some of them in more detail.

And also wait anxiously for the last 2 candidates…

The Plugg.eu conference was held yesterday at the posh Plaza Hotel in Brussels. Most participants would agree that for a first edition, it was a success, and that organizer Robin Wauters managed to put Brussels on the web 2.0 circuit, alongside London’s FOWA, Paris’ LeWeb3, and Amsterdam’s TheNextWeb.

Rebecca Jennings from Forrester Research gave us some facts and figures about the European social demographics. Her study splits the public depending on their degree of involvement with social media (“participation ladder”) into Creators (10%), Critics (19%), Collectors (9%), Joiners (13%), Spectators (40%) and Inactives (53%).

Max Niederhofer from Atlas Venture got us excited about the online gaming market, and offered four ways to build a 100 M$ company :

• build the world’s largest casual game (“Poke” on Facebook being the current leader…)
• build Europe’s digital distribution platform for games
• get micro-currency applied to gaming
• successful browser based MMOG (that one would have to be bootstrapped by its founders)

An entrepreneurs panel moderated by Colette Ballou offered insights by Rodrigo Sepulveda (vpod.tv), Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (several startups, including Flock and TheNextWeb), Simon McDermott (Attentio.com), Andrej Nabergoj (Noovo). Some highlights :

• markets are local by default ; it is important to find the right partners to help launch in other countries ;
• beware of cash flow : sales cycles tend to be really long, companies are often afraid of dealing with startups, and pay with long delays
• Rodrigo came up with some delightful analogies : starting a company is like having sex for the first time (you don’t have a clue) ; and setting up a subsidiary in Spain is like a wedding (with a long ceremonial by the notary)
• Andrej : people are key, take the time to find exceptional people for the initial team ; it will be the matrix out of which the company will grow ;
• Boris : the hardest thing is just to start ; get started !

The startup rally saw the presentation by 18 companies (2 had forfeited). Some projects depended on a quite technical platform, like Cellity, Floobs, MyOwnDB, Trutap… Other were mostly a nice idea, well put into form, such as HumanGrid, TVTrip, Mobiya. After seeing all of them, Alenty and Radionomy remained among my own favorite, truly “2.0″ in essence (some of the former still smelled a bit “web 1.0″, I won’t tell which).

The three finalists ended up being :

• Bragster : a platform for sharing “dares”, in a “Jackass meets Facebook and YouTube” fashion (and indeed one founder threw a pie on his co-founder’s face on stage)
• Viewdle : a platform for doing elaborate searches on videos (with a COO in a nice suit and tie, in complete contrast to the Bragster guys)
• ZiLok : a rental marketplace, started in Belgium, France, UK, US (and two cool founders as well, even without pie-throwing)

Viewdle won the Jury award, while ZiLok went away with the prize of the public. Two companies to watch ! (Bragster is already being watched by 800.000 unique visitors monthly)

The investor panel gathered Julie Meyer (Ariadne Capital), Paul Fisher (Advent Venture Partners), Reshma Sohoni (SeedCamp), Alexis Bogaert (Dexia Private Equity / Arkafund), moderated by Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK & Europe). Some points :

• Paul Fisher : eastern and central european markets are very hot ; so is the next wave of internet advertising ;
• Julie Meyer : a core group of people build companies counter-cyclically with the stock market, that’s a smart timing
• Reshma Sohoni : there are a lot more angel investors now ; start thinking internationally early on
• Mike Butcher mentioned “Enterprise 2.0″ as an area of interest for the future

The panel on the Social Web was very promising, with very competent people like Olivier Creiche (Six Apart), Matt Colebourne (coComment), Lorenz Bogaert (Netlog), Jan-Joost Kraal (eBuddy). I found the discussion only mildly interesting, with people agreeing that it was very important to offer fine privacy control (“I don’t want my mother /girlfriend to see that I’m doing this“). Brands and companies better beware of these new social venues, as put by Matt Colebourne :

the era in which you can control what people say about your brand is gone.

Still, François Petavy from Eyeka tried to show how brands can indeed try and organize the creativity that can spring up from a dedicated user community.

Rudy De Waele (from m-trends.org) delivered an insightful presentation on the future of mobile, citing dozens of new innovative startups.

As always, it’s also in the alleysides that we get to meet some interesting entrepreneurs and projects, such as : Rummble, MyID.is, or TripSay.

All in all, a pretty good harvest of new and exciting projects to share with you in the next days and weeks.