Aleks Grynis

During the hush of the weekend after Facebook’s IPO bonanza, and Mark Zuckerberg’s wedding, Microsoft unleashed its entry into the social vertical. The site, called So.cl, is positioned as a research tool for students.

The project comes out of Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, a division of the company that is working on other research tools that compliment social networking sites like Facebook. Microsoft definitely wants you to believe that the project was created with students in mind, so much so that the word “student” is mentioned six times in its FAQ page for the product. However, I’m not so sold on this educational mission.

The reason? Also in its FAQ is this gem:

We expect students to continue using products such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other existing social networks, as well as Bing, Google and other search tools

Even though I don’t believe that Google+ is a “social network”, it surely is a social layer worth mentioning. FUSE labs decided not to, so let the competition begin.

Describing the service as a great social tool for students is a brilliant move, as positioning a social product directly at colleges worked in the past. Just ask Facebook. Having said that, Microsoft has chosen this very weekend to make the product live for anyone and everyone, an obvious signal that this project isn’t all about students. It would have been easy to keep So.cl open to students-only, but it chose not to.

The So.cl mouthpiece for Bing

The product, pronounced “social”, lets you socialize your search results and mix and mash others results with what you find. In a way the product is similar to Wikipedia in that you can collaborate on building an interesting social search result for any person, place, or thing:

As a member of the site, you are urged to “riff” on people’s searches, meaning add more relevant pieces of information to the search result posted by So.cl’s users. Sounds like a great way for Bing to build search results, huh?

However, Microsoft wants you to know that So.cl is not a Bing product:

Is So.cl a part of Bing?
No, So.cl is a research project from FUSE Labs in Microsoft Research that is focused on learning more about social search. So.cl uses Bing for search data via the public API, but it is not a Bing product.

I can’t be the only one to read the above snipped (again for its FAQ page) and think that Microsoft is trying to slide this one past us as this altruistic research tool in such a way that makes it obvious that it’s not.

It’s not all research and search though, as So.cl has a feature called “video parties” that feel a lot like Chill’s product in that you can select a YouTube video, or series of videos, and watch them with your friends while chatting:

The nice part about this feature is that once you join the party, you can keep using the site and the sound will play in the background. This however, is not a “research tool” aimed at students like Microsoft would like you to believe.

It’s a trap!

In the same way that I believe Google+ to be the “social glue” to all of Google’s products, including search, So.cl appears to be the exact same play for Microsoft. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s clearly in response to Google’s success in pulling all of its products together with a “social spine”.

However, positioning the product as a research tool aimed at students is such an obvious way of saying “Hey, if this doesn’t work it doesn’t matter, it was a research experiment for students”, and it shows just how early on we are in the social spectrum of the Internet’s evolution.

With So.cl, Microsoft is going to attempt to fight off any of Facebook’s “ankle-biters”, and it’s not a bad idea since the company is so heavily invested in Facebook’s success. In addition, if Facebook ever does introduce a search product, it’s more than likely going to be a collaboration with Microsoft’s Bing.

At the end of the day, this is a smart idea to get people socializing with Bing search results. But don’t be fooled, this is a product for everyone. At least, Microsoft hopes.

➤ So.cl

The first Music Tech Fest took place through the end of last week and part of the weekend at Ravensbourne College in London.

The event gathered artists, performers and technologists who gave presentations and made new things on the spot to address the future issues of music as we plough on through this digital era.

One of the problems being addressed at the event was that of music discovery and how to handle the sheer volume of audio material now available on the Internet. Matthew Davies works for Inesc Porto in Portugal, researching sound and music computing. He presented RAMA, a relational artist map for visualisation and music discovery.

RAMA harnesses data from Last.fm to link together different musical artists and displaying this as a visualisation that, in turn, takes users to videos on YouTube. Maps of varied complexity can be created in order to then make playlists.

“There’s a wealth of information and there’s too much music, basically I just want to listen to the things I like and there are many, many ways of trying to recommend this content,” said Davies. “Sometimes I think that music recommendation can be like horoscopes, you can always find a way to link these pieces of music together and if it works for you, that’s fine.”

“There are big players that dominate at the moment which is good on the whole, for artists after the music industry crash in sales,” he continued. “It would be nice to think that with a steady growth in user base that some applications will push through and maybe RAMA is one of them.”

What does sound look like?

The event provided plenty of ways of participants to be creative and work with experts. Not only were they asked to express themselves but to also consider what might be behind the design and user experience for the next music app.

Peter Kirn, journalist, composer and media artist who runs the Create Digital Music site, presented a workshop exploring the relationship between visuals and music with drawing at a metaphor.

He said, “When you create an application for an iPad or a new electronic music invention you have a blank slate with which to begin and you can go anywhere. So literally start with a blank piece of paper and sketch.”

It appears that from the session there were some shared intrepretations and feelings about graphics and music and Kirn says that people were able to interpret shapes into sound in similar ways.

This could mean that designers should take into account how people react to and ‘read’ music visually when thinking about the design for their next killer app.

At the moment there appears to be two main schools of thought as Kirn explained, “There seem to be applications that are built for space aliens that have entirely new, inventive, interfaces and there are applications that are designed to be as familiar as possible. So for a guitarist, things look like a guitar. As people seem to enjoy both and may collect apps of both types, there is plenty of opportunity to explore those very different avenues.”

It was Peter Kirn’s writings that influenced the upcoming release of an app by record label Ninja Tune. Matt Black of Coldcut and Ninja Tune was at the event with a sneak preview of the prototype that will be available in June and should enable users to remix parts of the label’s back catalogue. There was also a jamming session where hackers at the event who had created instruments or applications played with Black as he mixed live for the audience.

Hack all of the sounds

Along with the demonstrations and talks there was a hack event where participants were asked to open their minds to computing and music to create almost anything they could think of. Ariel Elkin, of the London Music Hackspace, was running the hack camp and although he appeared to have had very little sleep, he said that events like this provided great satisfaction in enabling technologists to get projects going that might not otherwise see the light of day.

Lightsabers were hacked to play back new sounds, circuit benders had an old CASIO keyboard open and were creating strange new noises while operating with wires and clips, Phd students wired up a ping pong table that plays music depending on how good your game is, music generated by the bmp of your movements could be produced with new apps and a site for guitarists to share chords more socially were all whipped up in the space of a couple of days.

Avi Ashkenazi, interaction designer, was blowing minds with his presentation at the festival. He created an installation for the even which encouraged people to record vocal sounds which then became part of a musical track and was in turn translated into a grid of images projected onto the ceiling of the venue. He also showed a way for hip hop artists to include the crowd or a remote audience into live performances by looping recorded sounds and playing them back as part of a gig.

In future this could mean that even if you can’t travel to see your favourite artists, you can still be a part of the performance.

The creators of the Listening Machine, which we took a look at last week were in attendance. Not only does the site translate tweets into sound, it looks as though it is set to evolve from its initial incarnation with the music of cellist Peter Gregson and the Britten Sinfonia to also allow users to include field receordings to enrich the music it can express.

Though many of the activities at the Music Tech Festival seemed to be a little esoteric, there were many products for attendees to explore. The strange new experiments that took place may have appeared to be wild but these are the raw processes that may turn up in the next runaway success in musical applications.

To check out the talks and presentations from the event, check back with the Music Tech Fest site where video should be posted in the coming weeks.

Online shopping is wildly convenient if you’re tight on time or live out in the boonies, miles from a mall. But often with convenience, comes compromise – on both quality and fit because it’s hard to tell from a picture, especially of a supermodel, what the clothes really look like and how they will fit you.

Clothes Horse, a New York City startup, is a data-driven platform that helps shoppers find brands that fit them best. The technology enables customers to shop for clothing across retailers with a single user profile, which is why it’s being called the “Facebook Connect for fashion.”

Let’s say you arrive at a retail site and want to buy a piece of clothing. You’re wondering what size you should get and you’re thinking about the size you normally wear in most brands and how this brand compares. If the site is using Clothes Horse, you’re all set.

Simply fill out your Clothes Horse profile with information like your gender, height, weight, body type, bra size and favorite brands. It will then recommend sizes and fit ratings for specific fashion items based on its data set of over 70 brands. As it collects more data, Clothes Horse says it’s building “The Fashion Graph.”

In August 2011, the company launched with men’s clothing store Bonobos as its premiere partner. 5 months later, Clothes Horse released a case study citing that its technology brought a 13% increase in conversion for Bonobos and that customers who interacted with its technology on the site were 4-5 times more likely to make a purchase. Boom.

This study opened a lot of doors for the guys at Clothes Horse, and the startup quickly partnered with a brand new menswear line called Frank and Oak in February. In the future, Clothes Horse will appear on top of numerous retailers’ websites, and recommendations will be generated for the user based first on fit, then price, followed by style and input from the user’s social graph. Next up for Clothes Horse’s algorithms is to tackle women’s polos, blazers…and most importantly, dresses.

Watch this one. There wasn’t a startup I interviewed for our Fashion iPad Magazine that hadn’t heard of them.

It’s that time of week again when we take a look at the latest social media news, and highlight some of the most interesting stories.

You couldn’t avoid news of Facebook’s IPO lately if you tried, and the social network’s historical week ended with founder Mark Zuckerberg tying the knot with long time girlfriend Priscilla Chan. To find out more about this, and other social media related stories, read on.

Facebook: IPO, wedding bells and more

The big story of the week in social media circles has undoubtedly been the Facebook IPO. After confirming that the company would go public at $38 per share, Facebook’s share price was quick to jump to $43, with a 13.6% spike, which was accompanied by the trading of 100 million shares in the first 5 minutes. 82% of that happened in the first 30 seconds.

As the day wore on, the share price dropped to the original $38 coming dangerously close to dipping beneath Facebook’s designated share price, before rebounding.

Facebook shares closed at $38. 37 after the social network broke the record for the most shares traded in the first day, with a total of 500 million shares trading hands. Facebook’s IPO is the largest ever for a technology company and the second largest in US history, second only to Visa.

To put the actual numbers in context, you definitely want to take a look at all the things Facebook made more money than on Friday.

It’s been a pretty good week for Zuckerberg. Not only did his Facebook activity include listing his company on Nasdaq, it also saw him updating his relationship status to married and sharing a photo with his 14 millions subscribers.

The wedding itself was a complete surprise to his guests, according to AP:

“The couple married at his Palo Alto, Calif. home in front of fewer than 100 stunned guests who thought they would be attending a party to celebrate Chan’s graduation from medical school.

Zuckerberg gave his new bride a ring he had designed with a “very simple ruby” to end an incredibly eventful week…”

It hasn’t been all good news for Facebook these past few days. Earlier in the week, GM announced its plan to cut Facebook from its advertising budget,

At the time, The Next Web’s Alex Wilhelm wrote:

GM spends heavily on advertising in every medium, so for it to leave Facebook, noting that its ads were inefficacious, raises the question of the power, and therefore monetizability, of Facebook’s ad platform. Ads are a key Facebook revenue source. If its ad business suffers from other major defections, the earnings growth that is widely anticipated following its offering, may not materialize in line with expectations.

Twitter supports Do Not Track

In an announcement on its official blog, Twitter confirmed that the social networking site supports Do Not Track, a feature which allows users to block tracking cookies used by advertisers and website owners.

Initially opening up support to Firefox users only, Twitter was quick to clarify that the feature is available in other browsers, including IE9, Safari 5.1 and Chrome 17+. The move earned Twitter high praise from the White House itself, which referred to it as “an important step” in a post shared on the official White House blog.

Celebrating its first year of having set up shop in the UK, Twitter shared some impressive figures in the country – which included reaching 10 million users, 80% of which are active on mobile.

Twitter also revealed that now has a very apt 140 million users worldwide.

Catering to that worldwide audience, Twitter has opened up its Translation Centre to 6 more languages: Catalan, Afrikaans, Ukrainian, Greek, Czech and Basque, which are the six most requested languages. Twitter is currently available in 28 languages.

Another new introduction for Twitter is a weekly email digest, which will be going out to all of its members. While many mocked the idea, The Next Web’s Matthew Panzarino had this to say about it:

The new email digest should help Twitter to continue its education process, not to gather new users, which it will do organically at this point, but to keep the ones it has and make them more engaged with the service.

Be sure to read his full post here.

Pinterest raises $100 million

Breaking the news that Pinterest was set to announce new funding, it was soon revealed by AllThingsD that the popular pinning site raised $100 million from previous investors, with one new name thrown in the mix – Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten.

Previous backers Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and a few other angel investors also participated in the round.

Speaking about the investment, Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said:

More ‘ghost-town’ reports on Google+

Ghost town: It would seem that there is no more popular term used when trying to prove that Google+ is already a flop. Fast Company points to a new report which “reveals minimal social activity and weak user engagement”.

Fast Company reports that RJ Metrics‘ study analyzed 40,000 random Google+users, coming to the following conclusions:

The average post on Google+ has less than one +1, less than one reply, and less than one re-share.
Roughly 30% of users who make a public post never make a second one.
Even after making five public posts, there is a 15% chance that a user will not post publicly again.
Among users who make publicly viewable posts, there is an average of 12 days between each post.
After a member makes a public post, the average number of public posts they make in each subsequent month declines steadily, a trend that is not improving.

Of course, any studies on Google+ activity that are not conducted by Google itself has to be taken with a grain of salt, since private posts cannot be accounted for in the numbers, which is exactly what a Google spokesperson told Fast Company.

If RJ Metric’s figures are accurate, it does not bode well for Google. Fast Company places the blame of so many ‘Ghost Town’ labels on Google itself, saying that the company’s refusal to share any engagement statistics, or the number of active users, leaves far too much room for speculation.

Not everyone agrees with that perspective, however. Our own Drew Olanoff says that Google isn’t sharing its numbers because it doesn’t have to, but that was back in December. The question is, how long can we continue to make that argument for Google?

Be sure to check out the complete study over at Fast Company.

➤ Keep up with our weekly updates here, and don’t forget to follow The Next Web’s social media posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Spring is in the air. We can feel summer just around the corner. To celebrate our love of dresses, skirts and high heels we decided to dive into the world of fashion and find out how technology is re-shaping the industry. We’ve spent the last month traveling the globe, visiting New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Los Angeles and Beijing in search of the world’s coolest companies for the May issue of our recent TNW iPad Magazine.

In the issue, we asked 7 entrepreneurs in the Young Entrepreneurs Council about the burgeoning digital fashion industry. Check out their answers below!

How has the Internet changed how people view the activity of buying clothes and fashion? Will the brick-and-mortar clothing store ever become obsolete?

“The Internet has helped the awareness of the ‘small guys,’ as opposed to days when the only brands that would thrive were the ones that could afford to open up a brick-and-mortar in the most prominent locations. Now, brands with a personality that resonates with audiences (e.g., Bonobos) can come to life in an interactive way. The Internet also makes it easier to find reviews about products and learn what your friends have purchased. These two factors combine to allow great products to shine through, whether those products come from established or new brands.

Still, brick-and-mortar is here to stay; the attention, care, expertise and relationships delivered by those who do it right can never be replicated digitally. And of course shopping, like eating a meal with friends, is a social activity best enjoyed with others.”

– Aaron Schwartz, Founder and CEO of Modify Watches

“I have been buying and selling clothes online since 2002 — just tonight, I bought a cute dress for $5 from a Craigslist buyer and love it! The Internet has changed how people view shopping online as a timesaver. It is so much easier to order something online when you know the exact measurements than it would be to browse the mall. For fashionistas who love what celebrities wear, the Internet allows them to know who the designers are immediately.

There are more and more designers who only use the Internet to sell their fashion — new designers can start by using eBay, Etsy, Pinterest, and other sites to help bring new products into the market. Will there be less and less brick and mortars? Yes. I own a brick and mortar and can admit that the rising rent and taxes make it difficult to increase profit margins. However, with the combined use of the Internet and brick-and-mortar, I can achieve sales locally and worldwide. Designers will always use their brick-and-mortars stores for fashion shows, networking events, window displays, and space to showcase their products.”

– Nancy T. Nguyen, Ms. Corporate America 2011 and Founder of Sweet T

What’s one hurdle you’ve found as an entrepreneur associated with the fashion industry?

“As a manufacturer, doing business in the fashion industry has a lot of hidden costs that people don’t realize when they first get started. Retail chains, for example, often ask for various allowances and discounts (such as damage or warehousing deductions), which manufacturers are rarely told about in advance of providing pricing. If, as a first-time supplier, you have not included enough margin to cover these costs in your pricing, you can lose money very quickly, and in significant ways. The same thing can happen if you are not fully aware of which tariff codes apply to your products if you are importing them. The duties can be very different depending on the material or the way something is purchased. The cost of goods can vary by as much as 20%, just based on import costs. Failing to calculate this can create price as well as cash flow problems.”

– Vanessa Nornberg, President of Metal Mafia

“One issue that we are dealing with now is that, since we’ve been going strong with T-shirts for so long, we are viewed as a t-shirt company. We actually view ourselves as a community-based design company — there is this huge community of artists participating on Threadless, sending in hundreds of designs a day. We really want to break free from the t-shirt constraint and create meaningful opportunities for the submitted art on other canvases. It’s been really difficult for us to be able to dive into other categories with as much depth and frequency of releases. And I think that’s true for a lot of fashion companies, if you start out making hats or belts or dresses or pants, it can be hard to expand your brand into other products.”

– Jake Nickell, Founder of Threadless

“The greatest hurdle I’ve found as an entrepreneur in the fashion industry is balancing when and how to approach strategic partners — engineering talent, brands partners and potential investors. There are many people who understand either fashion or technology, but few who understand both at an intimate level and getting buy-in as you build your business is critical.

The fashion industry has somewhat of a ‘herd’ mentality, and getting social proof early can be extremely helpful for a young start up. We initially approached our strongest relationships, and garnered support from executives of well-respected brands first, which helped to secure relationships with top retailers even before we started to build out the product. Incorporating feedback from potential users, designers, bloggers, retailers and PR firms throughout product development was important for our company. However, there’s a balance between how early and raw a concept is when you are sharing your vision with people in the fashion industry. The lean startup mentality doesn’t work well for business development, so there’s an art to crafting your story and product development process.”

– Karen Moon, Co-Founder and CEO of StyleMusée

What does the future look like for tomorrow’s fashionistas?

“The future of fashion lies in co-creation and collaborative design. Trends will continue to trickle down from the runways and trickle up from the street. Brands will continue to search for creative ways to attract fickle consumers and stand out. For Millennials, this means giving consumers a glimpse into the fashion production process. Involving users in the creative process is proven to make them value the brand more, engage with the brand more, and shop for it more frequently.

I take inspiration from the innovative campaigns such as Bergdorf Goodman’s Fendi Frenzy Color Challenge, Derek Lam’s crowd-selected eBay collection, and Polyvore’s Rebecca Minkoff Runway Design Challenge, among others. These influencers all point to the fact that co-creation leads to higher brand loyalty and repeat sales. At Stylyt, we let consumers play fashion designer for their favorite brands. This not only gives consumers a real voice, but also provides brands with a visual, interactive and predictive method to find out what consumers want to buy, before anything hits stores.”

– Nina Cherny, Co-Founder of Stylyt

“My work as founder and CEO of Poshly Inc. hinges on a vision of the fashionable future being all about personalized shopping online. We believe it is inevitable and exciting. Poshly is working on understanding and implementing technologies that better target content and commerce to consumers from brands and e-tailers. This is yearned for by fashionable consumers who are already burdened by thousands of product choices and myriad product literature. Personalization is also imperative for brands and e-tailers — and their agencies — in order to access the elevated marketing ROI possible with personalization solutions. Curation-based systems, such as Birchbox or BeachMint, were just the first step.

Fashion is a massive industry, and e-commerce is even bigger. There will be more hardcore technology coming into the space to cater to the whole ecosystem around style shoppers. I believe that products and services online, on mobile, and in-store must cater to the consumer’s unique sense of self.”

– Doreen Bloch, Founder and CEO of Poshly

.shock via shutterstock

London has always been a massive contributor to the international fashion scene. From world-famous designers like Paul Smith, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood and the late Alexander McQueen to the bevy of gorgeous faces like Kate Moss, Lily Cole and Agyness Deyn that grace the runways, London has produced some of the most memorable brands and icons.

In fact, Net-a-Porter and ASOS, two of the most well known sites who’ve led the digitization of the online retail are both based in London. It seems natural then to look towards London’s fashion focused technology startups to get a glimpse of some of the upcoming innovations that are disrupting and evolving the industry.

OSMODA: Enabling emerging brands to rapidly scale their e-commerce offerings

Newly launched in April 2012, Osmoda partners with emerging fashion brands by providing powerful e-commerce solutions to help designers quickly scale their businesses. While many of the world’s most exciting up-and-coming brands, such as Bora Aksu and Craig Lawrence, sell in boutiques in dozens of countries and have thousands of Google search requests every month, they have little to no e-commerce presence due to the online dominance of mega-brands.

Osmoda offers designers a platform that features painless selling, inventory management, high-end photography, logistics, and payment processing, enabling them to focus on what they love best: creating beautiful collections. In addition, Osmoda stays on top of technological trends in e-commerce ensuring that brands are always able to deliver the best possible online experience for their customers.

Osmoda takes a percentage of sales, a model that maximizes the revenue per item sold. Co-founder Will McQuillan, a former investment banker, emphasizes that this is more than just a retail platform, it’s an opportunity to form long-term partnership with some of the most exciting brands and be a facilitator to their growth. “We believe we should work with the brand, sharing both risks and rewards,” he said. “Through this model there is a commitment and investment on both sides to see the brand scale quickly to consumers around the world.”

There are currently 4 designers on the platform, with more added each month. Osmoda was founded by McQuillan, Jonathan Fren and Alex Philip Gough, who were drawn to the commercial opportunity the fashion industry offered. “We are all people who are innately curious and fast learners,” said Gough, who formerly studied as a barrister. “Besides, the skills needed to structure and manage a distribution company flow naturally from law and finance. The ‘fashion’ side is a learning curve, but we’re both highly skilled at finding the right people to support us.” Osmoda counts designers, professional buyers and other industry experts on their advisory board.

Lyst: Socially Curated high fashion

Lyst describes itself as a “social shopping site that helps you discover the best fashion for you.” Founded by Chris Morton, Sebasjan Trepca and Devin Hunt, the platform helps users keep track of when an item shown on the runway is available for purchase. Users can follow designers, specific items, brands, collections, runway shows, and even other users to generate a customized feed of items that appeal to them. The site was released in beta in May of 2011.

For co-founder and CEO Chris Morton, fragmentation is one of the a big challenges facing the fashion industry. “There are thousands of points of purchase for people to buy things online. Even if you know them all, you still have to visit them individually,” he said. “Lyst aggregates all that information for you in one place, and enables you to track various items making it easy to take advantage of a sale.”

Another big issue is discovery: the sheer volume of available stock is quite daunting, and understanding which item makes sense for a buyer can be complicated and overwhelming. Type in “blue sweater” in Google’s image search for example, and you’ll see hundreds of thousands of results. “People are influenced socially rather than rationally when it comes to behaviour so a true algorithm like Google is limited,” he explained. “Users can follow other people who have similar tastes and styles and can help discover pieces that you might be interested in.

This ‘social filtering’ enables my community to help curate the content that’s available and only show me the most relavant pieces of information – that’s what Lyst is doing for fashion.” In November 2010, Lyst raised a £950,000 seed round from Ventrex, SPA, Accel and several New York and London Angels.

Morton mentioned the importance of location when launching a startup, and why his team thought long and hard about the benefits about being based in New York instead of London. “London is the tech center of Europe for startups, there are a lot of VCs as well as other web startups in other verticals that create a very supportive ecosystem that has been very valuable for us,” he said.

Though Morton goes to New York at least twice a month, London eventually won out for two big reasons: ease of access to other fashion hubs such as Paris and Milan, both short flights away, as well as access to talent. “We were able to get developers from around the EU (Spain and Slovenia) relatively easily. Compared to the situation in New York where getting good technical talent is complicated and can sometimes be a bit of a nightmare.”

Lyst, which operates on a commission based business model has helped partners achieve millions of dollars in sales. The company reported growth of 800% in the past 4 months alone and a user base of “tens of thousands”.

Stylistpick: Subscription-based, curated shopping

Stylistpick is a subscription based retail programme that delivers a personalized selection of curated accessories carefully selected to match each user’s style profile. Members fill out a survey to identify their style preferences, and then Stylistpick’s stylists and experts produce a curated list of items that match their tastes. Members can then select one item for £39.95, either choosing to pay-as-they-go or an annual subscription that provides access to VIP events, free next day shipping, trend reports and each 5th purchase is free. It’s a soft-subscription approach, meaning members are not compelled to purchase anything and can skip that month’s offering within a specific time-frame.

Launched in November 2010, Founder and CEO Felix Leuschner saw subscription based curation as the natural addition to the private sale push model. In looking at other business models including Vente Privee and Gilt Groupe, he realized that the personalization of goods being sold would be “the next step in the evolution of e-commerce.” Leuschner says that customers have given very positive feedback to the subscription model as well. “Customers love the fixed price concept which makes it every easy for them to control their spend,” he said. “They love our beautiful packaging and the idea of a monthly treat.” He emphasizes the importance of the expert advice of his team of fashion stylists as the main draw for the site’s 600,000 members.

In February of 2012, StylistPick raised an $11 million Series B round of funding which will be used to drive the business’ growth as well as expand into additional markets.

Leuschner said that London’s e-commerce market size (the biggest in Europe) appealed to him. “You have a big market, which means that with the large amount of fashion companies you have a very strong infrastructure that makes it an ideal environment to grow a business.”

Covetique: Secondary market for pre-owned luxury goods

Covetique is a secondary market for pre-owned luxury goods. All luxury item Sellers send their products to Covetique which holds them on consignment until they are sold. Holding the goods gives Covetique the advantage of being able to authenticate all luxury items, ensure the item is in good quality, provide consistent photography, make sure the prices are aligned with the market, and guarantee fast, reliable shipping within 24 hours. This delivers a more pleasant and stress-free transaction for both buyers and sellers. Buyers can rest easy knowing they are purchasing quality goods and sellers don’t have to trouble themselves with the logistics of managing the transaction.

For CEO and co-founder Nicola McClafferty, a seamless transaction is essential in today’s online marketplace. “Online buyers and sellers of luxury items are very sophisticated. They are getting smarter about extracting value from their possessions as well as maximizing their purchasing dollars,” she said. “Particularly in the UK, buyers have high expectations. They aren’t willing to compromise on the online retail experience, even if they aren’t paying full price.”

CEO and co-founder Nicola McClafferty

Covetique also has several social curation features including the ability for sellers to create profiles and for buyers to be able to follow specific items, brands or even a particular clothing size. This adds a community element to the consumer experience enabling them to discover, share and shop new items in a personal way.

Along with her co-founder and COO Bobby Devins, McClafferty said she was fascinated by luxury brand orientated secondary markets due to the emerging consumer shifts she saw taking place after the economic downturn. “People are thinking differently about their assets, they want to maximize the value they can recoup from what they own,” she explained. “eBay is clearly a global platform but for certain kinds of buyers and sellers it’s not the right one. We set up Covetique to be the secondary market for pre-owned luxury items.”

McClafferty says she sees a real momentum in the startup community of innovative ideas centered around fashion. “Especially for consignment, which is a new concept here in the UK compared to New York, but we’re seeing a demand for it,” she says. In addition, London’s history with companies like Net-a-Porter has created a high concentration of value sellers who are familiar and comfortable with shopping and selling online. “There is a whole network of individuals who have worked with these companies, and so there is familiarity that creates a strong retail market. London is a great hub of interesting, up-and-coming ideas.”

Covetique doesn’t officially launch until the end of the month, but they did soft-launch their site in November 2011. “It’s quite remarkable,” McClafferty said. “With virtually little to no marketing and soft-launch we’ve already seen a big international interest. We’ve shipped goods to the US, Asia and all over Europe.”

EDITD: Using big data to demystify fashion trends

EDITD is a data focused powerhouse that helps businesses stock (or make) the items that consumers want to buy. “This is something the fashion industry has always struggled with,” said Geoff Watts, co-founder and Director. “The industry has always had problems internalizing things that they learn from business intelligence, because product lines change so often, as well as understanding who their customers are exactly and what influences matter to their particular brand.”

That’s where EDITD comes in. Through careful data analysis, trend tracking, and forecasting, clients can gain insights that can help drive better decision making. “Our customers can do things like, say, understand exactly what price point customers in the US are prepared to pay for acid wash skinny jeans. Or whether the peplum trend is going to sell well for the next quarter. Or when an online retailer usually runs a promotion on footwear,” Watts said. “It’s become essential for merchandisers, designers, wholesale buyers and marketing people.”

Watt’s co-founder, Julia Fowler was a fashion designer who saw tremendous opportunity merging big data with the fashion industry. The founders are both originally from Australia, so the move to London was a deliberate one. “London or NY are the two places in the world you could do this, and London has the rest of Europe on its doorstep, a very strong technical scene, and has been fusing art and commerce, as well as art and science for centuries,” Watts explained. “We’re glad we’re here; though we’re opening up in NY shortly too.”

EDITD is privately held but growing quickly with a team of just over 20 people. In two years, the company has worked with clients across the UK and Europe, the Americas, South Africa and Australia.

Also read: Behind the design: An interview with Not Just a Label.

r.nagy via shutterstock

In a move that is all too unsurprising, Pakistan has blocked social networking site Twitter, over a series of “blasphemous drawings”, The Express Tribune reports.

The crackdown comes just a few months after the Pakistani government withdrew its Web censorship plans, which would have restricted access to over 50 million URLs in the country. It also comes just one day after the Interior Minister had claimed, through a tweet no less, that Twitter would not be blocked in the country.

Ironically, the Interior Ministry’s denials, can now not be seen within Pakistan unless you happen to be using a workaround, or according to some reports, mobile access.

Twitter has reportedly come under fire due to a competition putting out a submission call for depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, making it the second time a social networking site has been blocked in Pakistan for the exact same reason.

Yesterday, a Pakistani TV news channel quoted Information and Technology Minister, Raja Parvez Ashraf, as saying that the government could easily block sites like Facebook and Twitter over a new set of blasphemous depictions, prompting the Interior Minister to take to Twitter to allay Pakistani netizen’s fears.

In 2010, Pakistani Internet users were denied access to Facebook, and later YouTube and Wikipedia, following a court-ordered ban. The blockade, which was later lifted, was in response to a Facebook group calling for users to submit caricatures of Prophet Mohammed as part of “Draw Mohammed Day”.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) Chairman, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, said that the Ministry of Information and Technology ordered Twitter to be blocked, with the PTA passing the message on to ISPs. At least four have complied up until now, but what remains unclear is how long the ban will last.

Yasseen added that Twitter refused Pakistani authorities’ request to clamp down on what was viewed as inappropriate content, while according to the Washington Post, Facebook escaped the same fate by complying with authorities, reportedly taking down pages that celebrated the anniversary of “Draw Mohammed Day”.

Following the harsh backlash that Twitter saw earlier this year, due to a decision to comply with governmental requests to suppress content locally, it would appear that Twitter may be owed an apology. The social networking site is reported to have responded to the Pakistani authorities, saying that they “cannot stop any individual doing anything of this nature on the website”.

Update:

In a fast turnaround, Pakistan has restored access to Twitter. According to the Washington Post, “Prime Minister Raza Yousuf Gilani ordered Pakistan’s information technology ministry to restore access to the site”.

Welcome to the latest Last Week in Asia round-up, our selection of the key stories and developments from across Asia’s growing technology and Internet spaces.

This week we are testing a new streamlined format aimed at making the round-up more succinct and useful for our readers.  Feel free to let us know what you think of the new format in the comment section below.

China

Top Story: Baidu aims to rival iOS, Android with own smartphone, OS and app store

After teasing details of its upcoming new smartphone strategy a week previous, last week saw Chinese search giant Baidu finally unveil a new smartphone operating system (OS), app store and device.

The company is targeting the sub 1,000 RMB ($150) market with its new Baidu Cloud OS, and the first device powered by the platform will be the Foxconn-built Changhong H5018.

The device, and others built upon Baidu Cloud — its Android variant — will be tightly integrated with Baidu’s cloud services (as the name suggests), which includes a generous 100GB on its Netdrive (aka Wangpan) storage service.

Interestingly, as TechCrunch points out, Baidu is exploring the possibility of ‘forking’ its own operating system from Windows Phone 7 and iOS platforms. The company’s bold move is aimed at making it the layer of choice for smartphone makers targeting the Chinese market.

Also of note:

• China finally approves Google’s Motorola Mobility acquisition, deal likely to close next week: Three months after US and Europe, China gave the controversial deal the green light.

• China’s Tencent focuses on mobile, ecommerce and overseas growth with restructuring: Tencent restructured its business to focus on developing its core strengths to continue its impressive growth.

• Evernote’s new China service sees more signups than US and Japan combined during its first week: User registration numbers for Yinxiang Biji have been “off the chart”, Evernote GM for Asia Pacific told The Next Web.

• China Mobile chief reveals ongoing talks with Apple over the iPhone: The head of China Mobile revealed that the world’s largest operator remains in discussions with Apple.

India

Top story: Second Indian ISP reportedly blocks video and torrent sites, citing a “court order”

Concerns over Indian ISP Reliance’s move to block Vimeo, other video services and certain torrent sites was heightened last week, as Airtel followed suit.

The rival ISP was found to be blocking access to the online video service, DailyMotion, The Pirate Bay, Isohunt.com, Pastebin, Xmarks and others.

The company cited a court order as the reason for the block, which suggests that a further crackdown on the selected sites could be forthcoming in India.

The incident prompted a large scale backlash from Indians, bitterly upset at having authorities rule over which sites they can use. Indeed, the news prompted members of Anonymous to take down government websites in response.

Also of note:

• India tipped to overtake the US to become the world’s biggest Facebook market by 2015: Gartner analyst Shalini Verma predicted that India will overtake Brazil and the US to become Facebook’s biggest market within the next three years.

• [PluggdIn] Anonymous Takes Down Congress And Supreme Court Website, Gets It All Wrong: Indian startup and tech blog Pluggdin explains why Anonymous took the wrong course of action in response to the site blockades.

• [The Hindu] India’s proposal for government control of Internet to be discussed in Geneva: In light of recent issues with content control in India, the country is proposing that the Internet should be globally regulated at government level.

Japan and Korea

Top story: Confirmed: Pinterest raises $100 million from Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, previous backers

We broke news of Pinterest’s latest round of funding the day before it was announced, but the big surprise of the $100 million funding was that it was led by Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten.

Certain details of the round remain undisclosed — but it is thought to value the site in excess of $1 billion, our source revealed — and it was completed by existing investors.

The participation of Rakuten suggests that Pinterest is looking into the possibility of monetising its red-hot pinning service in the near future.

Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said that he sees “tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for ecommerce”, and the Japanese giant will help launch the social media site in Japan and the 17 other markets where it operates.

Also of note:

• Flipboard launches a fully localized edition of its app for Japan: Following France and China, Japan is the third country to get its own version of the smash hit social magazine app.

• Japan’s DoCoMo unveils cloud services, including a translator and 5GB of storage: DoCoMo revealed its projects for the year, including a number of news services and 16 new smartphones…but still no iPhone.

• Japan’s top social network Mixi is reportedly set for new ownership: Industry speculation suggests Mixi’s co-founder and CEO is looking to offload his 55 percent stake in the company.

• Yahoo Japan: CEO change won’t affect prospective sale of Yahoo Inc stake: Yahoo Japan denied speculation that another change at the top might affect Yahoo’s attempts to offload its stake in the Japanese joint venture.

Southeast Asia

Top story: Facebook co-founder Saverin: Renouncing US citizenship “nothing to do with taxes”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg rang the bell on Friday as the company listed on the Nasdaq, completing the largest Internet IPO ever.

In the run up to the move, that values the social network, the world’s media also cast its eye on one resident of Singapore: Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

News that Brazilian-born Saverin had renounced his US citizenship dominated much of the press last week. In response, the billionaire spoke out in a rare media interview in which he denied that the move had anything to do with avoiding US federal taxes.

“This had nothing to do with taxes. I was born in Brazil, I was an American citizen for about 10 years. I thought of myself as a global citizen,” he told The New York Times.

Also of note:

• [Coconuts Bangkok] Bangkok is top town for Facebookers in the world, as Asia fuels growth: Thailand’s capital city Bangkok is now the world’s ‘Facebook capital’ after its total of 8.68 million Facebookers took it past previous top dog Jakarta (Indonesia).

• [SG Entrepreneurs] Singapore’s m-commerce market jumps seven-fold to US$259M in one year: PayPal’s Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011 study shows that mobile-based buying has grown massively on the island state.

Startup of the week

Streaming service Spuul brings Bollywood to the iPhone and iPad with new iOS app

Indian video streaming service Spuul launched its iOS app last week, bringing Bollywood and other movies from the Asian country to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Spuul includes a number of free films, and its paid catalogue can be accessed via a monthly unlimited fee while its blockbusters are sold independently for a one off $0.99 payment.

You can get the full scoop by reading our write up, or go straight to the App Store.

That’s all for this week until next Sunday – you can keep up with all of our Last Week in Asia round-ups here or follow @TheNextWebAsia on Twitter for news as it happens.

Since About.me set the standard for how to create a splash page, giving users one place to link to their many online profiles, we’ve seen quite a few niche spin-offs targeting musicians, small businesses and professionals. The latest of its kind, Pictually has joined their ranks, with a unique twist which will appeal to photographers and visual artists.

Heading over to Pictually, you have to request an invite to sign up, but the site is actually in public beta, so there is no wait. You’ll instantly receive an email prompting you to create your Pictually profile.

Setting up your page

The process on Pictually is extremely easy. The first thing you’ll want to do is enter your profile information. This consists of a ‘subtitle’, bio, and profile photo. The profile photo will not be displayed on your homepage, appearing instead on a separate ‘About’ tab.

The next step is where you can get all of your social profiles featured onto your Pictually page. Supported services include social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram), blogging platforms (Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger), as well as a list of designer and photographer staples including Behance, Flickr, DeviantArt and more.

The final step is what sets Pictually apart as a splash page option. In addition to uploading a background full screen image, you can also upload individual albums, to be displayed on a separate ‘Gallery’ tab.

The catch here, however, is that you have to find a background image which will not distract from your photos, as albums are displayed one after the other, as a grid of thumbnails over that image.

Individual photos from your albums can also be featured on your front page, if you want visitors to see the very best of your work the minute they land on your Pictually profile.

If we had just one request, it would be the ability to change the background for each tab. That way, you won’t be limited when choosing a photo you want to showcase as a full-screen image on your homepage. Since this is the very first thing visitors are going to see – you want it to be good. A plain or minimalist image would then work best on your ‘Gallery’ tab.

Our verdict

Pictually is a great option if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to throw together a photography or artist portfolio. We’d be a little surprised, however, if a designer opted for a cookie-cutter site rather than come up with something themselves, particularly as Pictually still doesn’t allow users to tweak fonts, colours or layout.

Pictually makes it easy to get an online gallery up and running in a matter of minutes, with the added and essential bonus of linking to all your profiles around the Web. The site can be used to complement a more comprehensive portfolio, by showcasing the very best work you have to offer, while linking to a complete collection elsewhere.

What do you think of Pictually? Let us know in the comments.

➤ Pictually