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Back in August Techcrunch wrote about Outside Lands Music Festival and how they had nailed it with their festival apps and approach to social. They did. The apps, produced by Aloompa, were awesome. The emphasis was on providing an integrated festival…

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Crowd-funding was very much on the ascent in 2012. I suspect 2013 is going to be an even bigger year for it, particularly in light of the AngelList and SecondMarket tie-ups, the sprucing up of Indiegogo, and the expansion of Kickstarter into the UK, and I suspect other countries the end of this year.

On all levels this is exciting. Unknown teams and products are being backed, and now (for a 10% brokerage fee - a bit of a piss take!) mom and pop can join McClure and co as they invest in burgeoning startups.

A few days ago Arrington was bemoaning the lack of tech excitement in 2012. I can't help but feel the levelling of the funding, pre-selling, and PR playing field will help alleviate that. Thing of all the very impressive crowd-funded projects we wouldn't have heard about in 2012 without these platforms.

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Just a millionaire? AngelList and SecondMarket pave the path for ‘micro-venture investing’ (venturebeat.com)

Just a millionaire? The only slightly wealthy can now invest in hot startups (venturebeat.com)

A GigaOM guide to Kickstarter wannabes [Earth2Tech] (gigaom.com)

Crowdfunding platform Indiegogo to launch in France, now accepts €/£ (rudebaguette.com)

We escaped relatively unscathed.

No trip back to Hong Kong is ever complete without the obligatory visit to Al's Diner for vodka jello shots and a stiff dose of 80s tunes. We probably cheated. In fact we definitely cheated, swooping in for a single VJ before swooping out equally fast and climbing to safety high above the gutters of LKF. But here's a toast to the old times, and to "institutions" that never fade, and to that unforgettable gag reflex upon inhaling an Al's VJ in one go... oh, and to finally holding to that promise of "just one!". Although I suspect karma is going to bite me in the butt and that won't be my last brush with Al's this trip.

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Bad-Girl Beauty: How Vodka Is Good For Your Look (bellasugar.com) - tell that to these guys!

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Three pages of iOS folders, each with about 12 apps in each. Yup that's a lot of apps. So it's time to share the love and highlight the ones I think are awesome (Echoer aside...).

I've been flirting with using Hotel Tonight for some time and finally booked a room with it during a layover in Chicago. The whole experience was amazing! After the thrill of arriving at O'Hare with no hotel booking to speak of, I logged in and Hotel Tonight showed me a selection of great hotel deals in the city that night. The deals for that day go live in the early afternoon and in my experience there have always been 3-4 great options at varying price points. It has a very sleek interface and booking is made safe and easy - all within the app.

I stayed at The James in Chicago for $99 pre-tax. The rack rate is something like $140, so a great saving. And the app curates hotels with its own rating system and short snippets from the Hotel Tonight editorial team.

My favorite part? When confirming a reservation you have to trace an outline of the Hotel Tonight icon (below). Unexpected, cute, and a genius way to drive the app's branding into your physical memory.

Hotel Tonight also has a review and referral scheme which gives you booking credits.

The app is free to download on iOS or Android. I suspect I'll be using this a lot and am excited to see it spread to even more cities.

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13 of the best travel apps of 2012 (thenextweb.com)

Same-day booking app HotelTonight invades Europe and goes after last-minute gifts (venturebeat.com)

Hotel Tonight Faces An Attack Of The Last-Minute-Hotel-App Clones In Europe (techcrunch.com)

HotelTonight is taking over the world - adds Mexico, France & 4 languages [GigaOM] (gigaom.com)

Mexico gets same-day hotel booking apps, as LastRoom debuts and HotelTonight heads south (tnooz.com)

Travel App Moves To Help Sandy Victims (huffingtonpost.com)

HotelTonight Now Allows You To Gift Hotel Stays (mashable.com)

Last summer I was invited to the Northern Voice conference in Vancouver to speak about location-based services and online privacy, a topic close to Echoer's heart. The title of the talk was "Did I really want you to know that?!". I had a whim that this would be an awesome topic to speak on. Once accepted we put that whim to the test and I worked with Andrew, one of our interns, to pull together the materials.

The findings were shocking and took us way off where I thought the session was going to go. Originally it was meant to be a "social media nightmares" wall of fame/shame. Instead it became a detailed account of how each of our lives could be systematically violated and turned inside out by a few hours of online research.

Andrew was set the following task: Find someone on Twitter who has just checked in on Foursquare. Now start looking into their online persona, Twitter, 4sq, LinkedIn, blogs, Facebook, Google... go for broke... I expected to keep Andrew busy for a few days and to churn through a few candidates, but we struck "gold" within hours.

In no time at all, Andrew had a tome of info on Jane Doe, from the banal to the intimate and intriguing. We stopped there because it was getting a little too close for comfort, but before we did I tried a small experiment. We pulled up lists of the most frequently asked questions from banks and utility companies. And we had it all. Pet names, maiden names, zip codes, memorable places, and even SS numbers. Those few bits that were missing were likely a search or two away. What's even more shocking is that Jane Doe's blog would have given us enough to know where to meet her and spark one of those "I feel like I've known you a lifetime" moments. That reeks of danger.

As I spoke at Northern Voice the room fell silent. Heads down, fingers taping away. I figured the session had tanked. I briefly checked my twitter feed and it was on fire. With terror. There was a room full of bloggers wondering what they had exposed themselves to and trying to recall writings from years back. How much had they divulged to anyone who wanted to systematically profile them?

When I woke up jet-lagged today I had planned to write about how some medicines have funny compound reactions with others. And that's what reminded me of the Northern Voice session and the risks of sharing. Very few people will read this, but even so, how comfortable am I with people knowing I take X or Y? While we all need to share, and learn, and educate, we should also be aware of how much we put online. Jane Doe's undoing would have been her blog + Twitter + LinkedIn. We've erased everything we learnt, but we're all still at risk from people with more sinister motives than ours.

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So much for resolving to blog once a day for the entirety of 2013! It seems I bailed on Day 1. Is it a fair excuse that I boarded a plane in 2012 and landed at 8pm in HK on 1st Jan? Likely not! It didn’t stop Fred Wilson and since when was jet-lag an excuse.

This won’t be a long post. Just a quick observation about the intense familiarity and yet strangeness of places you once lived. Whether a house or a city, they are lined with memories that create deep and irreplaceable connections. Yet as you walk those streets and those corridors you have to balance it with the reality that places forget you (if they ever “knew” you at all). Perhaps that’s why we calve words in trees and tag walls - to create a physical memory where an emotional one is lacking.

Making it big in the Middle East

Making it big in the Middle East

I remember very clearly the day before Echoer launched. Sitting in…

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Here's a piece I wrote about the Echoer social media strategy and some recent changes we have made. The piece says it all, but this was the result of some heavy reflection and a LOT of internal discussion. Looking forward to letting you know how it goes. Engagement is already showing a positive reaction.

Here are some of mine:

- Community but not a limiting dynamic to it

- Anonymity when you need it

- A good music scene

- Hiking within 20 minutes

- Cinemas

- Open water - accessible and usable

- Civic Intelligence

- Creativity and innovation, or at least the pursuit of creativity and innovation

- Great food

- Enterprise but not an over-obsession with material wealth

- Ease of travel and an airport within a 30min commute to the city centre

- Great weather, but with some seasonality

- Cheap taxis

- Tips included in checks!

- Freedom of speech :)

A personal utopia?

What would you add to your list?

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Running a start-up has it's up and downs, but sometimes, even when it gets particularly draining, things happen that really make you really believe in what you are doing... the ups then follow pretty swiftly.

Echoer is insanely proud to be partnering with the Montreal Jazz Festival and The Montreal Gazette this year. What started off as a pitch to the world's largest jazz festival only a few months ago is now a reality. Starting today Montreal and the JazzFest venues will be filled with a true wealth of content: event listings, reviews and images from the Gazette, tips, "relevant" Twitter content, and last but not least, the thoughts and discoveries of festival-goers. And the visual icing on the cake: Festival and Gazette content will appear in bespoke echo colors, sometimes inside specially "skinned" echo spaces.

               What we are doing with the JazzFest is extremely cool and useful. It's also unique. I've been playing around with the first wave of content, and Echoer really is the perfect interactive guide to what is happening in and around the JazzFest. There's no other platform that can present you with so much varied and useful info/opinions relating to each location; and then allow you to interact with it and share it with others.