Free enterprise is alive and well in Somalia, seemingly the spiritual home of piracy in the Horn of Africa. Just shows you will never know when evidence of entrepreneurial spirit will pop up and surprise you. This report from Thomson Reuters reports on the pirate exchange that has been set up in Haradheere, Somalia that enables locals to invest and profit from the activities of pirates operating off the coast. “Piracy-related business has become the main profitable economic activity in our area and as locals we depend on their output,” said Mohamed Adam, the town’s deputy security officer. “The district gets a percentage of every ransom from ships that have been released, and that goes on public infrastructure, including our hospital and our public schools.”

Interesting move from Google that is possibly a first step towards allowing publishers to get more control over how they charge for content.

Rupert Murdoch & Wendy Deng, Getty Images

Much of the commentary around Rupert Murdoch’s announcements has been focused on the opportunities for Bing to capitalise on Google’s dogmatic pursuit of free. Most of the serious content publishers I know are not that bothered about the traffic that they get from search engines as they don’t see easy ways to make money from it. They are less concerned (rightly or wrongly) with driving traffic, than they are with finding ways of making money. By offering participating publishers the opportunity to use the First Click Free service, Google will allow Google users up to 5 clicks per day into content from a publisher (so surely Five Clicks Free or indeed Sixth Click Possibly Paid?) before offering users the option of registering or subscribing to a news site.

“In addition to First Click Free, we offer another solution: We will crawl, index and treat as “free” any preview pages – generally the headline and first few paragraphs of a story – that they make available to us. This means that our crawlers see the exact same content that will be shown for free to a user. Because the preview page is identical for both users and the crawlers, it’s not cloaking. We will then label such stories as “subscription” in Google News. The ranking of these articles will be subject to the same criteria as all sites in Google, whether paid or free. Paid content may not do as well as free options, but that is not a decision we make based on whether or not it’s free. It’s simply based on the popularity of the content with users and other sites that link to it.

“These are two of the ways we allow publishers to make their subscription content discoverable, and we’re going to keep talking with publishers to refine these methods. After all, whether you’re offering your content for free or selling it, it’s crucial that people find it. Google can help with that.” Google News Blog.

Presumably over time, it will become possible for publishers to have more control over how their content is viewed before a subscription is required – once, twice, forever. While much of the technology oriented press has covered the news as a small concession to whining publishers, (typical here), I think this shows that Google is more interested in the content that they might lose from Murdoch and others. They certainly weren’t ever going to take it lying down. There will be a few more ‘minor concessions’ before this battle plays out.

I think Rory Cellan-Jones sums it up nicely in his piece on the Today programme this morning and subsequent blog:

“In one corner the battle-hardened bruiser of the old media world, in the other the cocky young giant of the web. The fight between Rupert Murdoch and Google over how online journalism should be funded is quite a spectacle. Now it appears that Google may have blinked by making it just a tiny bit harder for readers to find a chink in newspaper paywalls.” Dot Life, ‘Did Google just blink?’

Well I suppose they have such similar cultures…

This is the second BLN organized event I have attended (so far) and I must say they are far and above the best out there.

It was very inspirational to meet the founders and CEOs of some of the world’s most successful start –up and high growth businesses.

Strata Partners advises Whitfield Solar Limited on a £2.7 million private placement. The funding round was led by an undisclosed private syndicate of new investors and supported by existing investors Carbon Trust Investment Ltd, the Cascade Fund and Kilsby Ltd.

Widely reported today that the government has announced a new £1 billion venture capital fund.

“LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) – The government on Friday pledged 150 million pounds ($246 million) to a new venture capital fund, planned as Europe’s largest, as it looks to kick start British technology investment and the ailing business sector.” Reuters

This is excellent news as it means that the government has now launched four such funds this year so there should be £4billion floating around for early stage ventures. Except life isn’t quite like that is it?

Of course the four funds are simply re announcements of the same idea which was initially launched at the beginning of the year to help innovation based companies see their way through the recession. In fact, it is now hoped that the fund of funds (this will be a fund that invests in other venture funds) will not have a manager appointed until next month. The manager can then start deciding where to invest the fund and then do due diligence on those funds before transferring money to them so they can invest, do due diligence on the potential investments that they want to make and then, sometime after midnight on May 10th next year (by total coincidence the latest possible date for a general election), firms may see the money. (Or there may be some more announcements about the fund).

How this money is supposed to be spent is as yet unclear. Many of the largest, top quartile, (most successful) funds – already have money. Others are struggling to raise funds, but their past track record, both in terms of performance and in terms of investing in innovation are less clear – if they cannot raise money from other limited partners, why should they get some government cash – the fund after all is supposed to be a fully commercial fund of funds? Many of the smaller funds, including many of the regional venture capital funds, have ‘interesting’ returns and have found it impossible to raise meaningful money outside of the public sector.

It may well be that the money will be raised and will be used to do something imaginative like backing successful angels and entrepreneurs through side-car funds or some similar mechanism. There are some interesting possibilities here that could make sure that the money is spent to ‘kick start British Technology investment’. But putting it into established funds, particularly ones without decent track records, will just create fund managers who are doing it for the management fees, won’t take the kind of risks that are needed and don’t have the experience to make success happen. Oh and it could create a false market.

The one thing that I have seen time and time again in the past ten years, is the most successful companies typically have investors behind them that have had lots of experience running their own successful companies. ‘Professional’ venture fund managers, can rarely compete with that experience. I would love to see some imagination in action here.

Our next BLN CEO Tales networking drinks event will be held in London on 3rd December from 18.00 – 20.30. BLN CEO Tales networking drinks are an opportunity for an ever growing community of quality venture- and private equity-backed entrepreneurs, VCs, PE investors and corporates  to connect and share experiences with their peers.

The theme for the three short talks from Ben Drury (7Digital), Kieron Smith (The Book Depository) and Jay Bregman (eCourier) will address the question, “Why has the recession been good for us?”

Featured speakers:

Keiron Smith, The Book Depository

Kieron Smith, The Book Depository: The UK’s largest dedicated online bookseller was founded in 2004. They focus on selling ‘less of more’ rather than ‘more of less’, differentiating itself from other retailers who increasingly focus on bestsellers. Now the world’s fastest growing bookseller, The Book Depository saw the last 12 months’ sales topping £62m, dispatching over 100,000 parcels a week worldwide. Kieron has worked in the book trade for over twelve years at WHSmith, setting up Ottakars.co.uk in 1999, heading up the web offering at BCA and operations at Methven’s, Head of Online operations at Waterstones.com and then as Managing Director of innovative start-up BookRabbit. He was Head of Online at GAME.co.uk. He joined The Book Depository as MD in July 2008.

Jay Bregman, ecourier

Jay Bregman, eCourier: is a technology-enabled service provider with the purple vans. eCourier solves a fundamental problem in the same day delivery market that hasn’t changed much since the 1970s – humans issuing work to couriers via radio provides low efficiency, high overheads, and diseconomies of scale. Jay turned a personal frustration with same day couriers into a £6m business in four years, recently ranked 6 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 rankings of the fastest-growing and most innovative technology companies in the country. Prior to eCourier, Jay worked at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. In 2009 Jay was named an ‘Enterprising Young Brit’ by Make Your Mark, despite hailing from New York City.

Ben Drury, 7Digital

Ben Drury, 7Digital:taps into demand for digital media, 7digital operates services that bring together suppliers and consumers of digital media. 7digital was backed by Balderton Capital and Sutton Place, the investment vehicle of Mark Getty and HMV took a 50% stake in 7 digital in September 2009. 7digital.com was the first company in Europe to launch DRM-free MP3 downloads with all four major record labels. Ben began his career as a founder of dotmusic.com andmoved to become Head of Music at BT, where Ben launched a major music channel and led the acquisition of his old company in 2002. Ben founded 7digital with James Kane in 2004 to create a digital media marketplace. 7digital featured in the Deloitte Fast 50 technology companies in October 2009. Ben is also the Deputy Chairman and Director of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) and is a board director the Official UK Charts Company.

Confirmed attendees include: Advent Venture Partners, Amadeus Capital, Ambient Sound Investments, Atlas Venture, Balderton Capital, Bauer Publishing, Coller IP Capital Ltd, Delta Partners, Eden Ventures, FF Private Equity, First Ventures, Frog Capital, IQ Capital Fund, Octopus Investments, Oxford Capital Partners, Scottish Equity Partners, SPARK, TLcom Capital Partners Ltd, TTP Ventures.

BLN events offer investors, corporate execs, CEOs and founders of high growth businesses the chance to meet other smart, busy people to share ideas, challenges, meet investors, customers and partners. This BLN discussion and drinks networking event will be held at the new law offices of Taylor Wessing, which enjoy some of the best views of the Thames in the City.

Networking and drinks from 18.00, CEO Tales at 18.30.

Attendance is strictly limited to qualified individuals – founders/CEOs of venture backed businesses, active angel investors, venture capital, private equity professionals, corporate executives empowered to work with high growth businesses, selected advisers and invited guests.

BLN events are run across the UK with further events in Cambridge, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Bristol this year. See www.thebln.com/events for more details.

To register as a BLN member or non-member, please click here: REGISTER

This event is supported by:

Taylor Wessing