Archive: dConstructing The Brighton(cisco) Scene
dConstructing The Brighton(cisco) Scene
Brighton which is only an hour south of London, is well known in the UK for its New Media companies and a few of them recently hit the limelight following their acquisition by larger media companies. VictorialReal was acquired by TV production giant Endemol, Climax Racing (Black Rock) by Disney Interactive and more recently Spannerworks by iCrossing.
Other well known Brighton-based New Media companies include Madgex, Nixon McInnes and CogApp to name but a few.
Soon Linden Lab (Second Life) will join the Brighton scene to sit alongside recent entrant NCSoft who are South Korea’s largest games developer.
But New Media aside, what other leading edge Web startups are there in Brighton? One of the better known Web startups is Snipperoo, the Universal Widget company run by internet veteran and serial entrepreneur Ivan Pope.
Besides writing for blognation, Ivan Pope is also working on a project called Brightoncisco (Brighton + San Francisco), which asks the basic question: ‘Is Brighton the best place in the UK to start an online/digital/web business and if not, what can we do to make it so?’. The plan is to let the world know more about what startups are doing in Brighton and to arrange a support ecosystem for them, including funding, advice etc. As a starter, Ivan hosts a OpenCoffee morning meeting every Wednesday at 10am at the new Costa Coffee on London Rd.
Other well known Web 2.0 aficionados and Brightonians include Jeremy Keith from ClearLeft, one of the industry’s most respected speakers and experts in the field of Microformats, Javascipt and Ajax interactivity. He has also been accredited with coining the term Lifestream.
Jeremy and his colleagues are also better known for organising the dConstruct conference (5th - 7th September) which takes place annually in Brighton. This event has become so popular that it sold out within days of the registration being opened.
There is of course my own social networking company Kwiqq.
The good news is Brighton ‘geek community’ is slowly getting into the business of building Web 2.0 Applications. Most of them seem to now think out of the box and the comfort zone of their agency or freelance work.
A few people have taken the plunge and quit their freelancing or web agency roles to work on their apps are Andrew Mann, from smartmessages.net an email marketing app and David Stone from self hosted job board Joard.
After years of being in a small team of two producing CD-ROM’s and other digital marketing materials for corporate companies, we realised we needed to take the plunge and come up with a service, which paid on an ongoing basis and was scalable as a business. Andrew Mann, Smart Messages
Many others I spoke to are thinking of taking a break from their freelancing roles. A few products to lookout for are Tails, a bug tracking software in private beta, Effeffelle a fantasy football game and Simon Harriyott is developing “a windows application for analysis and decision support”
A recent discussion on the BNM list (a ‘must be on’ mailing list for the Brighton Geek scene) revealed that some of them aspire to be the next 37 Signals, the developers of Basecamp, Highrise etc. Others aspire to be in the same league as Facebook or Google so there is no lack of inspiration, perspiration or aspiration.
Brighton is also blessed with plenty of networking events, a good example is the Brighton New Media Facebook Group. At the same time there are new events emerging that break the mould e.g geeks talking about the business aspect of technology. A good example is the £5 App set up by Ian Ozsvald and John Montgomery. They invite early startups from the Brighton scene to come and speak at the event and explain their story.
If you would like to know more about the Brighton scene then I suggest you checkout either Wired Sussex and/or Sussex Digital for a complete listing of local news and networking events and there is also a very active Brighton GeekGirls community.
So to answer Ivan’s question. Yes I think Brightoncisco is the best place in the UK to start an online/digital/web business.
I asked Rajeshwar Anand, co-founder of Brighton-based social-network systems company, Kwiqq to do a review of the Brighton scene. If you would like to do a similar “guest report” about the startup scene where you live, please let me know. Sam Sethi
August 1st, 2007 at 1:58 pm Several other names to look out for - mobile development via FuturePlatforms and innovative web prototyping via Inuda, along with 70+ start-ups in the always-busy Sussex Innovation Centre.
A second OpenCoffee is run bi-weekly by Jon (Inuda) and myself at the Sussex Innovation Centre - OpenCoffee Sussex.
Ivan and I also run the just-days-old Brighton Digital newsgroup, a complement to the established Brighton New Media list you mentioned.
Ian (ShowMeDo.com)
August 1st, 2007 at 2:40 pm Good write up! Nice to see some coverage of BN1. Having worked for one of the first start-ups in Brighton 12 years ago it’s great to see what’s happening in the area now!
August 1st, 2007 at 4:37 pm Would just like to point out that I’m involved with Joard & Sussex Digital, Sussex Digital was myself and Josh Russell, it’s still early days and we’re releasing new features on the Sussex Digital site as often as possible!
“Ivan hosts a OpenCoffee morning meeting every Wednesday at 10am at the new Costa Coffee on London Rd”, any more details on this? (I’ve not heard about it), I know there is the Thursday OpenCoffee at the Innovation Center.
I’d also like to point out there is an active Flash/Flex/Adobe community down here, making Brighton the perfect place for what is I believe the biggest Flash conference in Europe:
http://www.flashonthebeach.com/
August 1st, 2007 at 4:38 pm Ahem, I can think of at least up and coming web thing that’s been missed from this list!
August 1st, 2007 at 6:37 pm Testing? 2nd comment I’ve left that’s gone missing.
August 1st, 2007 at 6:42 pm It works now. Good.
I’d like to point out that I’m not just involved with Joard, I’m also involved with Sussex Digital, myself and Josh Russell started the project.
“Ivan hosts a OpenCoffee morning meeting every Wednesday at 10am at the new Costa Coffee on London Rd.”, I didn’t know, anymore information? I know of the Thursday OpenCoffee at the Sussex Innovation Center.
I’d also like to point out that there’s a active community of Flash/Flex/Adobe people down here making it a great place for what I believe is the largest Flash conference in Europe, also later this year:
http://www.flashonthebeach.com/
August 1st, 2007 at 7:23 pm […] post is in response to dConstructing The Brighton(cisco) Scene, but for some reason I couldn’t post these comments, but could others (?). No idea […]
August 1st, 2007 at 7:25 pm Interesting, I have always thought of Brighton as a place to spend money on over priced hotels and nights out than setting up shop there.
I have a couple questions if anyone from that neck of the woods fancies have a go.
Is it really cost effective to start a business there?
What about the office costs etc?
Why would I go to Brighton over London if I wanted to setup shop in that neck of the woods?
I live in the south west and other than there being no network for this sort of thing down here I do believe its more cost effective to setup shop here. However I don’t think you’d get the backing to do so. Talent is everywhere these days and its cheaper down here for some unknown reason.
August 1st, 2007 at 7:35 pm I’ve left my comments here as I couldn’t post? But I could my previous comment, weird.
http://www.builtbydave.co.uk/2007/08/01/re-dconstructing-the-brightoncisco-scene/
Can I add, that the missing links in this post are, in order:
* My blog: http://builtbydave.co.uk
* Tails: http://tailshq.com/
* Ian Ozsvald’s blog: http://ianozsvald.com/ (who also does ShowMeDo: http://showmedo.com/ that didn’t get a mention)
August 1st, 2007 at 8:12 pm I will be happy to answer your questions Darren. As someone who planned, developing and growing(nicely) a company, I feel Brighton is a fantastic place.
Is it really cost effective to start a business there?
Yes in any business as you might know the major cost is talent. In Brighton not only we have fantastic freelance/full time designers and developers but they don’t cost you the world.
What about the office costs etc?
Its certainly cheaper than central London and 50 minutes from Victoria/London Bridge Station.
Why would I go to Brighton over London if I wanted to setup shop in that neck of the woods?
I think as a business you would much rather keep your costs low. Brighton allows you to do that whilst giving you access to skilled developers, thriving research universities (Sussex and Brighton), seaside (staff friendly) and emerging Angel networks (VCs hopefully to follow soon)
At the end of the day I think the possibility to easily network with people in Brighton and London is what makes this place really special.
August 1st, 2007 at 9:24 pm Darren,
I’m surprised that you have not heard of/do not count Underscore as a South West network. It’s been going for approaching 10 years and is rammed full of not-really-new-any-more media people.
mailto: underscore-request@under-score.org.uk
Subject: subscribe
I will admit that with its broken website (for the past year or so) it might have missed a radar or two.
August 1st, 2007 at 11:29 pm Thanks Raj, might be worth a look.
@Bealers, not heard of it. Maybe someone should fix the website :p
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:30 am And you failed to mention Brighton Bloggers - a long running (4 years now) list of bloggers in and around Brighton. 270 blogs mentioned at the last count, some of them technical, most of them not and a great indication of just how “new media” Brighton is.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:31 am And the URL for Brighton Bloggers is www.brightonbloggers.com - no indication that HTML is stripped out of comments
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:55 am Jane - the html isn’t stripped, it is just *coloured* as if there is no ‘a href’. You have to hover over each word to discover that it is a hyperlink.
Sam/site admin - any chance the css could be fixed? This feels a touch like mystery-meat navigation (ref: Don’t Make Me Think).
Ian.
ps. we’ve just finished coffee for our third OpenCoffee Sussex at the Sussex Innovation Centre. Over 15 people attended, a mix of tenants, town companies and local academics, with talk of working on a bigger event - another successful morning
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:04 am Ok. Something very weird going on here. My posts were moderated? Some of them? But, not all? What is the criteria BN folk?
Sorry all reading this, didn’t mean to dup.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 pm @Darren: I’ll add a +1 for Underscore as well; though it’s Bristol/Bath-focused, it does have a broader reach in the South-west.
As the site’s down, do the subscribe thing that Bealers mentioned, and check out the Facebook and Upcoming groups:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2246586221
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/1179/
There’s also a South West New Media Meetups group on Upcoming:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/1393/
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:21 pm David - my first post was moderated, my second went straight through. I’m guessing first time posters here (or site-wide if they’ve reset their rights?) have to be moderated.
Ian.
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:19 pm Practicalities: some clients would rather you were in London, irrespective of the fact that travelling to some bits of London from Brighton actually takes less time than getting across London.
We’ve got good international links via Gatwick.
As Raj has pointed out, good local universities. I think it was Tara @ Wired Sussex who mentioned that we have one of the most qualified populations in the country: people go to university here and don’t want to leave.
I’ve not seen any evidence of emerging Angel or VC networks locally Raj, can you fill us in some more on them?
The networking scene is vibrant right now, but there’s a lot of overlap: the same (very pleasant) faces at many (typically small) events. I’d expect things to quieten down a bit in the next year as a few of these combine.
As to whether it’s the best place to start a business: depends on the business.
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm Hi Tom. Thanks for your comment, you will find a lot of information about Brighton investment is now being posted on Brighton Digital Group.
There are big angel networks in Brighton like Finance South East, SEEDA also have contacts with other Angel networks/VCs who can add some serious investment to your proposition.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:32 am With all due respect to Jeremy Keith, Lifestreams I think was first coined by Yale Computer Scientist and Unabomber victim, David Gelertner about 10 years ago
http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.html
August 4th, 2007 at 12:04 pm Thanks Matt. I never knew that either. Will correct in thepost. I don’t think Jeremy has ever claimed it himslef, I just think people have closely associated it with his post on the subject.
August 6th, 2007 at 10:55 am “BrightonCisco” - Great, I thought. A place for people on the South Coast to meet and discuss their router configuration. Then the penny dropped…
Anyway, I’d just like to plug another free local event for geeks and wannabe geeks: Coding Dojo is a fortnightly meet-up at the Future Platforms offices, where you can have fun tackling problems in a collaborative coding way. Definitely at the nerdier end of the spectrum, but all very enjoyable and enlightening.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:11 pm […] Fran Brightoncisco I’d missed this post over at Blognation while I was away on vacation earlier this […]