Oh goody! We love the Internet of Things. So here is a panel incorporating Smart Things and the makers of HapiFork, moderated by Mike Butcher of TechCrunch. I’ve come across SmartThings before and I have to say they’re pretty cool: it’s a cloud based platform that lets you connect your devices and build applications for them. A bit like Pachube, but it works in the cloud.

So Alex Hawkinson of SmartThings has bravely volunteered to do a live demo, on stage, in front of more than a thousand people. Appealingly, it comes in what looks like an old drawer from a kitchen dresser. He’s showing off motion, temperature and humidity data coming live from the ‘Eye of Sauron’ (according to his phone’s interface) which is not at all disturbing.

In the real world, what this basically means, among other things, is a remote control for everything. So the whole house can be locked remotely. But more powerfully you can set things up remotely to make devices interact. When someone knocks on the front door, the nightlight can flash and you can get a notification direct to your phone.

Mike, straight to the point, wants to know how SmartThings will make money and how developers will share revenue. There will be paid apps and free apps, plus smart services – lovely example of a group of off duty cops who are making money setting up a home monitoring system based on SmartThings monitoring.

HapiForks is a much simpler proposition, a fork that tracks the number of times you bring the fork to your mouth and how fast you’re moving it. Go too fast and the fork vibrates to remind you not to be a greedy pig. It’s a tool to monitor and change eating habits, and it will also track and monitor your habits over a longer period. So now you can have graphs of every meal on your mobile.

It remains to be seen how this will go down at The Fat Duck.

There are projects going on to look at analysing what is on the fork as well as how it is used. Niches include people who have eating disorders, or particular food intolerances, but basically it is a tool for those who want to eat mindfully.

One of the joys of the Internet of Things is the unexpected connections: the guy who has hacked his house so that if his FitBit doesn’t record sufficient steps one day, the heat won’t work tomorrow. The same is true for businesses in the area – they are making all sorts of connections to build new functions.

Mike raises the real challenge of device fragmentation and standardisation. However the panel see this as a converging market, with a potential size of billions. ‘Are you a user of stuff?’ says Alex. If so, the Internet of Things is relevant to you. Look out for it at a fork near you.

Saul Klein is never dull and today he is on a bit of a mission to boost the profile of the internet economy. Here are some fun facts from Saul:

• The UK is the number 1 in the world rankings for internet economy as a percentage of GDP, and the gap is widening
• London is the number 1 english speaking city in Facebook. And the only English speaking city in the top 11
• ARM has the majority of the world’s mobile phone chips based on its designs.

Reasons for optimism, but, what about the City? The City seems uneasy with technology. In the US, they have got it and the US investment markets feature tech companies of a range of sizes as a result – for example,  some US listed companies are worth much less than companies like Yelp and Zoopla. But in the UK, there are £650 Bn under institutional fund management most of which is sitting on the sidelines of the internet economy.Where are the analysts looking at this sector and asking about the 8% driven by the Internet?

(By the way, if this question intrigues you the BLN had a thorough look at the issue at a CEO Tales in November last year – Mark wrote an interesting summary of the challenges facing tech IPOs here)

Even as a business opportunity there seems to be a patchy appreciation of the need to do more with the online economy within the FTSE 100: Saul talked to many of these companies and asked them about their plans for digital. Some of them have made the transistion to doing 8% of their business online: Tesco know that 6% of their sales are done online, but some of them haven’t: Sainsbury’s have no figure for that business.

Perhaps the most surprising/inspiring figure of all: even government has managed to catch up: 80% of tax returns are now done online. Saul now has a simple proposal for a promoting a balanced internet economy:

• Ask FTSE boards, ministers and Permanent Private Secretarys the 8% question (is 8% of your business online?), with answers on quarterly basis
• Create a public transparent body to track investment in internet
• Celebrate the internet champions and short the laggards

Today we’re at London WebSummit, looking at software, entrepreneurship and how to grow great businesses. A subject close to all of our hearts.

Oren wants to talk about planning, but first – subways. Not software, but OK, the audience is prepared to go with him. In San Francisco, the Bart Subway system is a problem. There aren’t many stops – 8 in a city of 50 sq miles. Bart can’t get you there. Compared with the DC Metro with its 41 stops it’s ‘a pain in the butt’. Result, on any given day twice as many people ride the DC Metro as the SF Bart.

So why is he talking about this? The transport system he has just described is exactly how most businesses build their mobile and browsing experience. Especially if you have a mobile optimised site.

The whole point of a good transport system or a good mobile browsing experience is getting people to the place where they want with no extra effort. That’s where a lot of businesses go wrong. It’s not enough to just have people access your site from a mobile. Businesses that operate on this kind of strategy find it isn’t a great strategy for success. People don’t browse on mobiles, they use apps to meet their immediate need and then get on with their lives.

These may have short lives: AP produced an app for the World Cup that was used for 3 weeks but was awesome for those who wanted immediate information on the football.

How do successful companies produce the experience that their users need? They can be be built on APIs , which give you the ability to enter at whatever point people want to get into the process.

So, apps can take people where they want to go, but also, like a good subway system, they should let you transfer between different lines/processes.

So the interactivity between apps provides a situation where companies can collaborate to allow customers to meet their needs. Great news for businesses that have mobile experiences built on APIs. Bad news for businesses still asking customers to browse.

We don’t normally (ever) run press releases as blog posts but this is good follow up information on that exciting TechStars news…

TechStars, one of the world’s most successful accelerators, opens its doors in the UK 

The world renowned start-up accelerator TechStars is to launch a programme in London, its first outside the US, the entrepreneurs behind the venture fund announced today.

In a meeting at No 10, TechStars CEO David Cohen and General Partner Mark Solon confirmed TechStars are expanding their network outside of the US by merging with Springboard, co-founded by Jon Bradford, to launch in London the globally renowned TechStars mentorship-driven investment programme.

Launching in March, TechStars London is expected to support up to 20 start-ups annually across the UK, Europe and further afield through an investment of €85,000, being €15,000 of seed funding and an optional €70,000 convertible debt note for each company.

TechStars already have a strong track record working with European teams, with their alumni including Memrise (UK), GrabCAD (Estonian) and docTrackr (France) who have cumulatively raised €16m of investment funds.

The move comes just two years after Tech City Investment Organisation was set up by the Coalition Government to help attract inward investment and make London the digital capital of Europe. It also highlights the continued benefits of the introduction of policies designed to make the UK the first choice for entrepreneurs and investors, including tax relief for the creative sector and Entrepreneur Visas.

David Cohen, CEO and founder of TechStars, said: “We’ve had our eye on the burgeoning London tech scene for some time, well aware the US doesn’t have a monopoly on either tech skills or entrepreneurship. The current business climate here means we can work with an incredibly broad spectrum of British and international teams and top talent. Merging with Springboard will allow TechStars to deliver great results both for start-ups and investors.”

Jon Bradford, CEO and co-founder of Springboard, said: “Coming together with TechStars makes perfect sense. Springboard and TechStars have long had a natural affinity, not least because of our shared mentor-led approach. Bringing their expertise to London can only be good news for tech start-ups in the UK, Europe and beyond.”

Ed Cooke, CEO and co-founder of Memrise, said: “I’m thrilled at the launch of TechStars London.  Not a week goes by when the exceptional TechStars mentor and alumni network does not materially aid us. This network, its generosity and sense of community, is a wonderful addition to London’s already dynamic start-up scene, and stands to benefit every entrepreneur and investor.”

Joanna Shields, CEO of Tech City Investment Organisation and UK Business Ambassador said: “Today’s announcement shows Tech City is fulfilling its potential as one of the world’s great technology centres. Together with global accelerators like TechStars, we really are paving the way for British businesses to thrive in the international tech race.”

Applications for TechStars London open on 16 March 2013 to compete for one of ten places on the programme. To apply for a place on TechStars London visit www.techstars.com

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The three biggest and most succesful startup and accelerator programmes in the world are probably Y-Combinator, TechStars and Seedcamp. There are a huge number of pretenders to the throne and we have had some experience with the Springboard programme in Cambridge and London over the past few years so it is fantastic news to hear that their exceptionally high energy team – Jon Bradford, Jess Williamson and Elaine Finn are joining forces with TechStars to extend the reach of their programme beyond the US.

If you want to join Y-Combinator, you have to go the to the US. Seedcamp has done a great job of girding the loins of European entrepreneurs and are currently taking a batch of their companies on a tour of the US but you can never have enough high quality support for early stage entrepreneurs and a European operation for TechStars means that companies in this programme will be able to access an extensive network of support in Europe as their US companies expand. More importantly, it gives non-US entrepreneurs an opportunity to join a very high quality programme in Europe and get access to a US network as they grow. Anecdotally, programmes like TechStars have been reluctant to engage to closely with entrepreneurs outside the US because getting people VISAs has been too much of a PITA.

Huge props to the people at Springboard and TechStars for pulling this one off. The only winners will be entrepreneurs and investors. The only losers will be those running low quality programmes and that is a great thing.

If you want to find out more about accelerators, incubators and all that stuff, including some great actual proper data on money in, money out etc, you should follow Jed Christiansen’s blog. He obsesses over that stuff and is an intelligent writer.

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REGISTRATION IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS OF SOFTWARE!

Business of Software is a two and a half day conference for independent software vendors to gather, discuss and learn from each other and some of the most highly regarded thinkers in the industry how to build better, more sustainable, more profitable software businesses.

We love running BoS and are very proud of the fact that it is one of the most highly regarded conferences in the software industry, with 95% delegates saying they would recommend it to a friend. See the feedback (uncensored) from 2012 here.

We’re still in the planning stages for BoS 2013 but the key ingredients of intimate atmosphere, well organised networking and outstanding speakers given time to expand their thoughts will remain.  There are some very exciting ideas in the pipeline, and if you are trying to grow a successful software business, in any sector, we think you should consider coming to BoS. Simple as that.

Contact:  info@businessofsoftware.org

Two days to go to our first CEO tales of 2013 and we are sold out and have closed the waiting list. If you’re coming, you’ll be meeting a great bunch of people, and to help you prepare for the event we’ve attached the the guest list at the bottom of the post.

Our speakers are now confirmed as

• Jack Lang, Raspberry Pi Foundation
• Nigel Beighton, Rackspace
• Jane Silberman, Canonical
• Kirk Wylie, OpenGamma
• Tom Hulme, IDEO

If you can’t come, but want to hear about the evening, we will be publishing some of the discussion later in the week, along with a few pictures, so you can see what you have missed. However, don’t despair, we will be running more CEO Tales later in the year, and we’ve got some exciting speakers and topics lined up.

Your fellow guests on Wednesday will include: