Traveling Geeks

Wonga’s Short Term Loan Solution

Wonga’s CEO and Founder Errol Damelin talks to me about their short term lending solution.

Wonga, an Accel Partners funded company based in the UK, focuses on short term cash advances, which is also suitable for mobile. Over 100,000 loans have gone through their system already and it’s growing.

People are using Wonga today to solve short-term cashflow problems. One of the things that is making people adopt it so quickly is that it’s fast, easy, convenient and easy to use.

Within an hour, you can have short term cash in your hands and the whole application process only takes a few minutes. Tune in for more below.

Sam Opens Falafel Stand in Brick Lane

I ran into Sam El Abd in one of my favorite parts of London, Brick Lane.

We’re close in age and his background is IT, but like so many I know, got laid off because of the credit crunch.

He talked to him about his dream of opening a falafel Stand in Brick Lane, the first stall in the area’s well known curry mile. (think: best curries in London. They’re hot, but they’re amazing). Listen to his dream. He officially opened it last week.

Inside of the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare’s Round House in :22 Secs of Video #TG2009

Econsultancy, for you “Yanks,” is the equivalent of our Jupiter before they were eaten by Forrester. Ashley Freidlein and Clare Laurie hosted a round table discussion with their top-notch clients and the Traveling Geeks. Then they took us on a tour of the Globe Theatre, which is just gorgeous.

In this short video, you can see a 280 degree pan of the Globe Theatre in London where they are changing the set for the next play.

Here’s a link to pictures from this event on my Flickr page.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Fragment added to Bard puzzle (guardian.co.uk)
• Mystery relic (guardian.co.uk)
• Remains of the play – has first Shakespeare theatre been found? (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Paul Carr: Calling ‘time of death’ on London 2.0 (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• If Shakespeare were alive today… (telegraph.co.uk)

Video of Howard Rheingold talk in London on 21st Century Literacies

This is my edit of a talk on 21st century literacies that I gave in London at the Reboot Britain conference in July, 2009. It was part of the action-packed, fun-filled Travelling Geeks tour. About 40 minutes. {Original link: Howard Rheingold on 21st Century Literacies.}

[bliptv 2373937]

Howard Rheingold on 21st Century Literacies.

A Chat with Moshi Monster’s Michael Acton Smith

A chat with Moshi Monster’s Michael Acton Smith at the offices of Accel Partners in London.

Skype’s Blogger-in-Chief & Robert Scoble Chat about Social Media

Below, I’m interviewing Robert Scoble and Skype’s blogger-in-chief Peter Parkes about how blogging has changed over the years and how Skype is using blogging and social media in Europe and the rest of the world.

Micha Benoliel Interviews the Geeks

Digitrad’s CEO Micha Benoliel interviewed the Traveling Geeks at our London TweetUp. The entire line-up of blogger interviews have been posted to Vimeo.

Backstage Pass- Tom Foremski

Tom Foremski is the Silicon Valley Watcher. We met up at Green’s in Fort Mason, San Francisco, to get phones working and try out some tiny Internet-enabled portable devices. Here’s what Tom is looking forward to learning on the London trip.

Why is this a short post? Well, I have to go catch the BART (train) to the airport in a few minutes. Thank goodness for fast Internet connections.

Behind the scenes with @garyvee at one of the best wine stores in the world

Gary Vaynerchuk’s dad came to the United States with nothing in his pocket. He worked for less than minimum wage and built up a business, Wine Library, that today sells $50 million a year in wine in a sizeable store in New Jersey.

Today Gary is building on top of his dad’s work and is taking the store global with a video show, Wine Library TV, that gets about 100,000 views a show. I remember when I first saw the impact he was having when I walked into a meeting at Revision 3 and the team was sitting around watching his show and drinking the wine he was talking about.

Here we visited Gary’s store and got more of how he’s using the 2010 web to bash in the skulls of his competitors. He calls it “bringing the thunder.” I call it the most innovative marketing I’ve seen on the web to date. We talked about a range of things from his dad to how he would compete with his show, if someone else had done Wine Library TV and he wanted in on the action.

This is part of our Building43 series of videos. Come over and join the community there, we’re looking for people who are fanatical about the 2010 web and who are looking to help other people and businesses get into this new world.

By the way, I’m a huge fan because Gary has never mislead me and he’s very willing to tell a CEO his/her wine is crap to his/her face (I’ve seen him do it, even after the CEO threw us a party).

Hope  you enjoy, tomorrow Rocky (behind the camera producer at Building43) and me are headed to London to find out what’s happening on the other side of the pond with regards to the 2010 web. Join us on Sunday night at a Tweetup in London.

Backstage Pass- Renee Blodgett (the magic sauce)

What’s the special sauce in marketing? In the case of Renee Blodgett, it’s a creative approach combined with a lotta hard work. Getting ready to go to London with the Traveling Geeks (which Renee co-founded), she’s working day and night to get a client site launched, while at the same time she’s bringing a new sponsor on board and also trying to make sure that 8 geeks who are arriving a day early will have their hotel rooms all arranged. I was able to spring Renee long enough for a dinner last week, but wow has she been burning the midnight oil to get ready for this trip!

Her online projects are her blog Down the Avenue, and We Blog the World, an interesting syndication of blogs around the world – designed to improve communication between cultures and serve as a platform where interesting conversations can happen.