We have released the latest version patch for Zebtab (v1.8.1), delivering a number of feature/functionality improvements. Most of the work is under the bonnet and users will benefit from the following:
1). Speedier Adding/Removing of channels
2). Better communication in the event of lost network connection
3). ‘Refresh’ added to the action buttons
Rich
FootballFanCast is now live on the Zebtab platform, giving football fans all the latest fan podcasts, blogs and news from their favourite team.
This channel is a great complement to the existing football channels on Zebtab, such as Man Utd, 4TheGame and Setanta Sports.
Watch this space for more club channels comng soon (particularly if you are from North London or the North West of England…all will be revealed!).
Rich
Ok, so not quite the front page, but we’re more than happy with Page 6 in the Business section. Richard Tyler, the Telegraph’s Enterprise Editor, focusses on how the likes of Google and Microsoft are working with smaller companies in his article ‘Tips for start-ups to score with Giants’. Writing specifically about Microsoft’s approach, Zebtab is highlighted as a featured case study with quotes a-plenty from our CEO, Damon.
You can view the article online here or see a scanned version of the original, complete with Mr Ronalodo in full flow here!
Rich
‘Zebtab the Unreader…’ A nice line! Interesting take on what we do from a feed is born blog. Click the link to read the article.
Rich
Listen to Damon’s interview with Blogtalkradio while over in San Francisco for Web Mission ‘08. Also check out WAYN in the same piece…
Rich
Our CEO, Damon Oldcorn, is currently ensconsed in the Web Mission ‘08 to San Francisco, alongside the rest of the great & good (rabble?) of the UK digerati. Clearly it’s not been all VC presentations and coffee with Michael Birch as, today, Damon has been extensively quoted in the BBC’s coverage of the mission. To quote:
‘Damon Oldcorn, chief executive of Zebtab, a desktop tv application promoting sport and news, says he hopes to forge relationships and lay down plans to expand in the US.
“The game is back on again. We were here during the dotcom era with another company I built but that tapered off in 2001. It’s pretty obvious the buzz is back. The money is here, the alliances are being struck and there are deals to be done and it’s the place to be again.” ‘
Read the full article here.
Rich
Update - more articles coming out covering Web Mission, check out Tech Digest here
Also, check out Mike Butcher’s coverage on Techcrunch ‘The Brits are coming…back soon’ and ‘It’s a wrap’
And Richard Tyler’s piece on The Daily Telegraph
We have a shiny new movie on Zebtab.com and we’re so pleased with it we just had to share it here!
We hope it gives users a simple and clear view of what Zebtab is all about, and…we just think it looks cool!
Rich
As we announced last Thursday, the Man Utd channel is now live on Zebtab, with the soft launch (a single discreet link on their site) already delivering hundreds of downloads.
As of 3pm GMT today, however, the channel is prominently featured on their Splash Page (see above image) as Man Utd Desktop. Suffice to say the impact has been significant!. Where once it was hundreds, now it’s thousands. An even closer eye to be kept on our servers!!!
Rich
p.s. More channels on their way shortly, watch this space…
We’ve just been told by the guys at killerstartups.com that we are…err…a killer start-up!
You can read their full article here.
…and don’t forget to vote for us when you get there!
Rich
We pleased to announce that the Man Utd channel on Zebtab is now officially live. You can see for yourself by visiting the download page here:
Come on you reds!!!
Rich
We’re absolutely delighted to have bagged another award, this time it’s the coveted Red Herring 100 Europe, the award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region each year. Past Red Herring 100 award winners include Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Netscape, Salesforce.com and YouTube, so we like the company we’re keeping!
This award builds on our recent nomination to the upcoming Web Mission to San Francisco and our 2007 Digital Elite Award. With major launches ahead over the next few weeks it’s officially an exciting time here at Zebtab towers!
Rich
We’re delighted to release Zebtab v1.8 into the wild today. There’s a ton of stuff that has improved, both under the bonnet and in front of users. Highlights include:
1). New ‘Toaster’ Alert - When we launched the rhs of the screen was pretty much virgin territory. Alas no longer! With the likes of Google Desktop, Vista Sidebar now on the scene, it’s getting a bit crowded. So we’ve amended Zebtab to alert via ‘toaster’ from the bottom right hand corner. We’ve also made the alert bigger for stronger branding and to enable added functionality (coming for v1.9).
2). Drag & Drop - Users told us they wanted the ability to put Zebtab where they wanted on their screen, and not be chained to the right hand side. We listened and we changed.
3). Server upgrades - to deliver an even faster user experience. Faster content loading and faster adding of new channels.
And…
4). Removal of Registration - Users can now download and experience Zebtab without needing to input their personal details. There were many guesses as to how this would impact user numbers and while, a matter of hours after launch, it’s a little early to draw too many concrete conclusions, we currently have double the number of active users we have ever seen before. Go figure…
Rich
p.s. Watch this space for a major channel launch this week…
Josh Kopelman tells us, in his AlwaysOn article, why he loves the idea of news feeds but is less than enamoured with the sheer volume of content he now has to sift through. His response to this ‘pain’ is Feeds 2.0, the feeds dashboard (as a notional concept). An intelligent filtering agent/platform, giving you what you want, when you want it.
This is pretty close to what we are delivering with Zebtab. Helping users to cut through the ‘noise’ to stay connected to their interests and passions, effortless, without having to wade through 2000 stries to get their. RSS is a victim of it’s own success, the time is now right to introduce intelligent layers on top of the RSS engine to give user a great experience, based on ease & convenience.
It’s good to hear some other voices in the wilderness!
Read Josh’s article here.
Rich
Good news for us today, we have been informed that we have made it down to the ’short’-list of 200 for the 2008 Red Herring 100 Europe. Granted, not the shortest of shortlists but, hey, better to be on it than not! We now await word of whether we’ve made it to the 100 Europe list, announced mid-April. Key quotes from the press release as follows:
“This year’s impressive list of submissions from companies demonstrates Europe’s growing role as a major center of innovation in the global technology sector,” said Red Herring Editor-in-Chief Joel Dreyfuss.
“Recognition at this level can mean so much to a young company as it finds its way in Europe and the US in this desktop gadget space, “ commented Damon Oldcorn CEO of Zebtab. “ We keep on signing the content deals day by day while this plays out.”
Read the full article on the Red Herring site here
Rich
As Michael Arrington says in his article, rarely does a VC leave to do anything other than retire!!! Well, Will Price has left VC, Hummer Winblad, to head up Widgetbox. In the article, Will talks about the opportunity he sees in the widget space and shares some impressive stats about widget penetration and usage, such as there being 650m global users (65% of internet users)!
As the ‘turbo-charged widget’ (according to Real Business in awarding Zebtab the 2007 Digital Elite Award), these figures work for us!
You can read Mike’s article here
Rich
We’re delighted to have made the cut for the forthcoming Web Mission to San Francisco. Backed by UK Trade Invest, and a host of sector/media partners, this will be a fantastic opportunity to plug directly in to Silicon Valley. Congratulations to the other 19 companies who made it, great to see so many great companies having the opportunity to showcase to our US friends.
Check out the full anouncement on Techcrunch here
Rich
Fantastic news for us. We are, today, able to announce Man Utd as the latest content owner to sign up to Zebtab.
The Man Utd Zebtab channel will be delivering all the latest Official Old Trafford news, events and gossip direct to the desktop of their worldwide fan base.
As a clear leader in their field it’s a great endorsement of Zebtab and we now look forward to building out yet further within Football (and Sport in general, not to mention our other core markets of News & Entertainment).
Exciting times indeed…
Rich
Microsoft have been talking the the world about their recently launched Business Accelerator programme, headed by Lars Lindstadt. As a founding partner in the programme Zebtab has once again found itself in the spotlight (about which we are not disappointed of course!!!).
You can read the article in Growing Business here
Rich
Setanta Sports continues to be our fastest growing channel, and, despite being only a month old, is already the third most popular, after AtTheRaces and Maxim (and is closing fast on them both).
Football Transfer Deadline Day saw high points reached for both user sign-ups and concurrent live users since we launched.
It has really show us that where there is a news hungry audience and a dynamic web site generating content, there is a real demand for Zebtab. People want to be ‘in the know’, Phew…
Rich
So we’ve thrown our hat into the ring with a submission to Channel 4’s ‘platform4contest’, set up to find the most creative app using Film4 and Channel4 feeds.
While this is primarily a Film4 contest, we just couldn’t resist covering the latest Big Brother incarnation - Celebrity Hijack. Not only are we picking up the latest headline news from the C4 site we’re also scooping up the latest content posted to You Tube. So now you can see all the latest BB content, right at your desktop. Zebtab will let you know as soon as content is added, so you never need to miss that riveting coverage of people sleeping on the sofa again!!!
If you’re new to Zebtab you can download the Channel 4 version here.
Already have Zebtab on your pc? Just add Channel 4 by clicking ‘add’.
Enjoy!
Rich
