applications

Top UK Firms Selected for Prestigious US Digital Mission

PRESS RELEASE: London, UK, Thursday 21st January 2010

Forty of the UK's leading digital SMEs have been selected for the second annual Digital Mission to South by South West interactive (SXSWi), one of the world's leading conferences for interactive media taking place in Austin, Texas from 11-17th March 2010. Established in 1994, the conference provides an opportunity for the Digital Mission companies to attend hundreds of conference sessions and networking events.

The successful companies were chosen from over 120 submissions by an advisory board of industry experts drawn from the UK community including: VC's, export specialists, legal experts, journalist and industry pundits, to take part in the Digital Mission to SXSWi.

The companies selected for the Digital Mission to SXSWi '10 are:

• Amberlight
• Audioboo
• Blueleaf Digital
• Brainient
• Codegent
• Codility
• Cube Interactive
• Face Group
• FreshNetworks
• GigLocator
• Howard Baines
• Illumina Digital
• KMP Digitata
• Likecube
• Little World Gifts
• Littleloud
• Mendeley
• Mobilized
• MOFILM
• Moonfruit
• MusicMetric
• Nsyght  
• oneDrum
• Orange Bus
• PageDo
• Pixeco
• Plug-in Media
• Qhub
• Rummble
• Silence Media
• Skimlinks
• Slicethepie
• Smidgn
• SubHub
• TweetJobs
• UberVu
• Vibio
• Videojuicer
• Wolfstar
• WorldTV

Detailed information and contact details for each company is available from the official Digital Mission website: http://www.digital-mission.org/sxsw10-companies

Too many candidates, chasing too few jobs mean that you have to be just a little bit sleeker than your average to score that prized interview. It's tough out there, I tell you.

If you're churning out the CVs, rapid-fire style, have a read below and see. You could be missing a trick.

Sending a CV online is quick, free and gets your an instant response, even if it's a ping back aknowledgement. Unsuprisingly it's the most common way of applying for a job but at the same time a CV sent by email runs the risk of just festering in an inbox.

Rather than sending your CV as an attachment, paste it into the body of the email. Attachments are often ignored because people are worried about viruses and wasting time downloading documents. With this in mind, stay clear of multi-media CVs. They may make you stand out and prove your technical credentials with their singing, all dancing displays but they're awkward to download, never mind format. 

We all love our iPhone apps. How did we possibly live without them?

There are green ones, dating ones, financial ones and ones that can even teach your kids how to read. Even the free ones can let you do a background check on a blind date and give you a turn at playing God.

So far the number of iPhone apps downloaded is sitting at a mind-blowing 2 billion. We're downloading from the app store at a rate of 6.6 million every day and the market is worth an estimated $2.5 billion US dollars each year. That's quite a hunk of cash.

Google announced the launch of their Nexus One phone on Tuesday, garnering the expected amount of geek love.

But, arguably the real revelation comes from the ecommerce site built to sell the phone, the only place you're going to pick one up in the near future.

Heralded by Business Week as an ecommerce revelation, Google have combined a pared down purchasing process with simple animations which demo the phone using a 3D feel rendered on the 2D computer screen. A nice touch.

Complicated charges, long contracts, complex fees and bundles are being ushered out in favour of simply buying the device, then finding the service. Unusually, the first option available is an unlocked version of the phone, although operator deals are available in the US with t-mobile with more on the way, and a European roll-out schedule (through Vodafone) for Spring 2010.

Back in March this year AudioBoo proudly claimed their mission to be the YouTube of the spoken word.

And it looks like they're just about there. Previously available in iPhone and Android flavours, the Audioboo team have announced a browser-based version launching today. Get in there people.

Following in the intrepid techno-savvy footsteps of users like Stephen Fry, he's been known to say "night night" to his Twitter followers with it, AudioBoo users will now be able to upload their recordings easily from their computers.

The service is PC and Mac compatible, runs on Safari and Firefox and the pre-launch jitters on IE are being smoothed out as I type. Unfortunately, there's no word about Chrome just yet.

SXSW Interactive festival is the digital conference to attend. Yes, it helps that it's based in sunny Austin, Texas and that the BBQ food is *awesome*, but it's also packed full to bursting with top notch panels from the brightest minds in tech

There are hundreds of networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer - all happening over 5 days!