As Berlin’s overhyped Amen fails, time to take stock
The death of Amen is no great surprise, but it does represent the end of a certain era — one of hype — for Berlin. So what’s left? A ton of serious businesses that bode well for the future.
The death of Amen is no great surprise, but it does represent the end of a certain era — one of hype — for Berlin. So what’s left? A ton of serious businesses that bode well for the future.
The organization behind Firefox, which is in the early stages of a serious mobile push, says it wants to be ‘where new web trends are created’ — and that means the German capital, where it could link up with some of the city’s mobile app developers.
Changes brought in by much-hyped Berlin startup Amen were partially intended to stop the opinion service being used as a messaging platform — ironic, given that the CTO was a key early developer at Twitter.
Hot Berlin startup Amen has got plenty of hype for building a simple app that lets you say if things are good or bad. But fresh money and major new additions — including deep integration with Facebook and iTunes — could make it a whole lot more useful.
Berlin is the most un-German of German cities. It is relatively new in its latest & post-unification incarnation. It is cheap and it has no major industry – for now. But that could soon change. My impression from a visit to what could become Europe’s biggest tech-hub.
Recommendations have become the holy grail of the social web, sparking competition between small services like Pinterest to Amen and large ones like Facebook and Google+. So how can Italian website Circleme elbow in on the action?
Berlin is fast becoming the destination of choice for entrepreneurs, thanks to the emergence of hot startups such as SoundCloud, Amen, EyeEm, Phonedeck, Txtr and Wunderlist. And thanks to this burgeoning startup scene, Amazon Web Services is looking to establish its operations in Berlin.
As the battle heats up among social recommendation websites, British newcomer Top10.com thinks it can make an impact. But with Facebook cranking up to launch new features, do independent sites have a fight on their hands?