Sam Sethi launches Blognation across 16 countries

Today ex-TechCrunchUK publisher, and more recently Vecosys editor Sam Sethi launches his ambitious Blognation network covering the startup/ web 2.0 space.

With 16 editors onboard already Blognation will initially launch in : United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Netherlands, Japan, China / Taiwan / Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, South America.

Deliberately the US is not being covered by Blognation as Sam says 'because there are already enough excellent blogs reporting on the start-up ecosystem over there and one more wouldn’t make the slightest difference.'

Future expansion of Blognation is planned to cover Canada, Russia, India, South Africa, South Korea, South-East Asia, Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey and Greece.

Blognation's About Us page states ' blognation is backed by undisclosed venture capital funding, by vendor advertising and through affiliate advertising.'



Best of luck Sam and to all involved.

Future of Web Apps heats up London

Via Suw Charman and Carson Systems at Future of Web Apps; Sam Sethi at Vecosys, Robert Andrews at Wired and Tara Hunt at Horsepigcow.

Originally uploaded by Tech Paparazzi.

TechCrunch20 reignites conflict of interest row

Last December an enormous row erupted between Sam Sethi, publisher of newly setup TechCrunch UK and Mike Arrington the owner/editor of TechCrunch.com.

One of Arrington's gripes with Sethi was

"Sam's ethical lapse in trashing a competitor while simultaneously promoting his own events."

Fast forward six weeks with TechCrunch UK still on hold and Sam succesfully relocated to his own site Vecosys with co-editor Mike Butcher.
Today Arrington posts a curious announcement from DEMO outlining its deficiencies and high entry costs while promoting TechCrunch20, his zero cost startup launch conference in partnership with Jason Calacanis, founder of highly popular tech blog Engadget.

Guardian technology journalist Bobbie Johnson was one of the first to point out:

"wasn’t the reason you got irritated with TCUK because they criticised Le Web and announced a competing event at the same time? If so, so what’s with ragging DEMO and launching your own competitor in the same post here?"

Arrington is yet to respond to this observation, but replies to Robert Scoble's accusation of being 'tactless' hours after having lunch together today.

Sam Sethi magnanimously resists having too much of a dig writing:

"good luck Jason and Mike, we already know it’s a great idea! I look forward to reading more about the “original” ideas presented at TechCrunch20."

'Le Web 3 spat' illustrated timeline of events

Illustrated timeline of Le Web 3 spat