TechYob

Today it was confirmed that Alan Noble has indeed taken up the reigns for Google’s engineering in Oz.  They like to keep a pretty tight ship over there, so no interviews being given at this stage.

NOTE: Re-edited on 13 Jan. 

I was interested to read that TechCrunch described the automated tag categorization company RawSugar as a del.icio.us competitor.  As far as I can tell this is just plainly wrong for anyone who has given the company website even more than just a cursory glance.  Dont get me wrong, TechCrunch is like my Wheat-Bix - both digested daily - but I agree with Marty that Ive missed the cut-and-thrust at times.    

Thanks to our sponsors at Hadron & Castle, the Moet and Mullets were out in force last Sunday.  Good to see the art of the reach-around continues to be perfected.   

Darius Coveney, Ex CFO of Adelaide security startup Dtex and fellow HAAS Alumni is now heading to New York to keep Macquarie Bank’s Finances in order.  It seams the barbarians are storming the gates, and if lives up to his namesake, you’ll meet no smoother a battering ram than Mr Coveney.          

Google just did something else right.

Word on the street is that they hired Alan Noble to head up their R&D in Australia.

Ive worked with Alan and seen first hand his energy, intellect and ability to lead teams.  For those who don’t know the 30 second water cooler run-down is

• Australian born and bred.  Attended Brighton High School in Adelaide.
• Masters of Science at Stanford. Speaks Japanese. 
• Holds over 6 patents (co-authored one with yours truly).
• One of the original developers for Rational Rose acquired by a small company called IBM
• Founder of NetMind, the first web synchronization company, which was acquired by Pumatech (now Nokia) for north of $400m and become VP Engineering.
• Now Ex-CEO of NetPriva, one of Australia’s under the radar success stories (shareholders include IBM)
• Whiteboard ninja. 

My prediction is that outside of Mountain View California, Australia just became the best place to launch your Web business.

Disclosure: TechYob holds shares in NetPriva

The mobile-media sharing startup becomes Just Another Web2.0 For Sale On eBay.

After Kiko set the trend with a sale of $258k on eBay, Mojungle looks like the latest Web 2.0 businesses trying to salvage some blood-sweat-and-tears.  

Mojungle hopes to net $500k.  Best of luck guys, but as the immortal Darryl Kerrigan from “The Castle” would say - “tell’em they’re dreamin”