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International expansion is part of almost every business plan of an ambitious start-up but few ever get around to it: strong existing competition in international markets, a lack of understanding of the local culture or not enough international expertise in the management team often keep start-ups in their domestic market. At AbeBooks, we learned very early what huge opportunities international expansion can bring and the company is generating today more than 40% of its revenues outside of North-America.

Today we <a href="http://www.financialpost.com/small_business/story.html?id=283914">announced our investment</a> in <a href="http://www.nexopia.com">Nexopia.com</a>, Canada's largest social networking site for youth. At the same time we also announced that I will be <a href="http://www.techvibes.com/blog/nexopia-attracts-major-european-investment/">joining the company as CEO</a>. A new (and very exciting) investment for Burda Digital Ventures / W Media Ventures and at the same time an additional job for me! Nexopia has seen phenomenal growth over the past 5 years since it was founded by Timo Ewalds in Edmonton. Without any external funding the site has grown to over 1 billion page views / month and 1.2 million registered users. One of the questions that I got repeatedly asked when discussing the Nexopia investment with friends and business partners in the past weeks, was focusing on the competitive threat by Facebook. Three importnat points to be made in this respect: 1. Facebook is about efficient communication with your existing friends while Nexopia (and many other social networks for that matter) are much more about expressing your personality on the Internet, discovering new things and making new friends. 2. Nexopia has continued to <a href="http://www.canada.com/theprovince/story.html?id=2907dd42-1f37-406b-b92d-edea40cc73c7">grow very strongly in the past year</a> while Facebook was on the rise here in Canada so their competition doesn't seem to have hurt us. 3. We are focusing on the 14-20 years demographic and think that they have very specific needs that we can serve better than a social network that tries to organize all age groups. So what's next? We have two big priorities for 2008: churning out lots of cool new product and expanding Nexopia into Eastern Canada. I am very impressed with Nexopia's engineering team so we should be seeing some quick results on the first point. And given our track record in Western Canada I am pretty confident that the youth from the East will soon be connected through Nexopia as well. Exciting new investment, exciting new job!

Today we announced our investment in Nexopia.com, Canada’s largest social networking site for youth. At the same time we also announced that I will be joining the company as CEO. A new (and very exciting) investment for Burda Digital Ventures / W Media Ventures and at the same time an additional job for me!

Just came back from 3 incredible days at <a href="http://www.dld-conference.com/">DLD</a>. The conference (hosted by our friends from <a href="http://hubert-burda-media.com/">Burda</a>) is getting better each year and has definitely become the premier European conference for digital media. The first day was a bit slow but day 2 and 3 had a range of highlights: a social networking panel with all of the big guys (Facebook, Linkedin, Bebo, Xing), a very interesting discussion of human versus algorithmic search with Jason Calacanis and Jimmy Wales and comments from Marissa Meyer (see Techcrunch coverage <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/21/mahalo-v-wikia-search/">here</a> - isn't Google human after all?), Shai Agassi's presentation of his <a href="http://shaiagassi.typepad.com/the_long_tailpipe/2008/01/synthesizing-tr.html">new venture Better PLC</a>) and the Exploding Media session with Jeff Jarvis, Bradley Horowitz, Peter Hirshberg and Marissa Meyer. All in all a fantastic event with great networking and really interesting panels. Only drawback: the conference location HVB Forum is getting a bit packed but I guess this is a good problem to have.

Just came back from 3 incredible days at DLD. The conference (hosted by our friends from Burda) is getting better each year and has definitely become the premier European conference for digital media. The first day was a bit slow but day 2 and 3 had a range of highlights: a social networking panel with all of the big guys (Facebook, Linkedin, Bebo, Xing), a very interesting discussion of human versus algorithmic search with Jason Calacanis and Jimmy Wales and comments from Marissa Meyer (see Techcrunch coverage here – isn’t Google human after all?), Shai Agassi’s presentation of his new venture Better PLC) and the Exploding Media session with Jeff Jarvis, Bradley Horowitz, Peter Hirshberg and Marissa Meyer. All in all a fantastic event with great networking and really interesting panels. Only drawback: the conference location HVB Forum is getting a bit packed but I guess this is a good problem to have.

Boris Mann and Danny Robinson (<a href="http://www.techvibes.com/blog/digital-media-people-to-watch-in-bc-in-2008/">both Digital Media people to watch in 2008</a>) have partnered to start an <a href="http://blog.bootuplabs.com/">incubator</a> in Vancouver (see Techvibes coverage <a href="http://www.techvibes.com/blog/booting-up-start-ups-in-vancouver/">here</a>). I think that this is incredible news for our city - as I said <a href="https://www.versionone.vc/vancouver-is-becoming-a-web-20-hotspot/">before</a>, Vancouver has already a lot of engineering and entrepreunerial talent as well as VC money but we need more experienced entrepreneurs like Danny and Boris to help grow ideas into real companies. This is an important step to turn Vancouver into a really buzzing start-up city, good luck to both of you, look forward to seeing many successful products and companies coming out of BootUpLabs!

Boris Mann and Danny Robinson (both Digital Media people to watch in 2008) have partnered to start an incubator in Vancouver (see Techvibes coverage here). I think that this is incredible news for our city – as I said before, Vancouver has already a lot of engineering and entrepreunerial talent as well as VC money but we need more experienced entrepreneurs like Danny and Boris to help grow ideas into real companies. This is an important step to turn Vancouver into a really buzzing start-up city, good luck to both of you, look forward to seeing many successful products and companies coming out of BootUpLabs!

<p>This past year has been a good year for Vancouver in terms of Consumer Internet activities - just have a look at the companies on the <a href="http://www.techcouver.com">Techcouver</a> map or the latest <a href="http://techvibesblog.com/vancouver-start-up-index-december-2007/">Vancouver Start-up index </a>from Techvibes. And Vancouver's Web 2.0 scene is poised to grow in 2008 as we slowly seem to reach critical mass of great entrepreuers and engineers (<a href="http://techvibesblog.com/digital-media-people-to-watch-in-bc-in-2008/">here are 11 people to watch this year</a>), venture capital and media activities. Looking forward to beeing an active part of it in 2008!</p>

This past year has been a good year for Vancouver in terms of Consumer Internet activities – just have a look at the companies on the Techcouver map or the latest Vancouver Start-up index from Techvibes. And Vancouver’s Web 2.0 scene is poised to grow in 2008 as we slowly seem to reach critical mass of great entrepreuers and engineers (here are 11 people to watch this year), venture capital and media activities. Looking forward to beeing an active part of it in 2008!

It took some time but W Media Ventures now has a website. Apart from providing basic information about what we do and featuring our portfolio companies, this blog will be the centerpiece of the new website. We hope to post pretty regularly providing updates from our portfolio companies, announcing new investments or comenting on industry news. A blog certainly gains by getting feed-back from its readers - so we hope to see as many comments as possible from you, our audience!

It took some time but W Media Ventures now has a website. Apart from providing basic information about what we do and featuring our portfolio companies, this blog will be the centerpiece of the new website. We hope to post pretty regularly providing updates from our portfolio companies, announcing new investments or comenting on industry news. A blog certainly gains by getting feed-back from its readers – so we hope to see as many comments as possible from you, our audience!