LeWeb Startup Competition Winners Announced

The LeWeb 3 conference startup competition we highlighted earlier this week commenced yesterday. And oh how unlucky we’ve been. All of the budding companies we’ve mentioned so far have failed to make it to the awards ceremony.

Nevertheless, winners have emerged from the feisty Parisian melee that has ensued for the past 24 hours or so. Without further adieu, we bring you some brief profiles of the last startups standing.

We’ll begin from the bottom, m’kay? Third place: G.ho.st. Which, I’m sure you recognize, translates to “Ghost.” Not G-Ho-St. That’d be weird. Unique, maybe. And a bit cool in a strange, bizarre kind of way. But no. It’s Ghost.

Anywho, you’re probably wondering what the heck it is that G.ho.st does; what it is that ultimately got itself bronzed. Well, it manages information. Like an operating system would. Because it is an operating system. A “global hosted” operating system, to be precise. Hence the name.

And it does various tasks in fairly attractive fashion. A bit to candy-ish for my taste. But it’s a decent piece of kit. Wonder how well it’ll do now that it’s gotten this PR boost from Loic Le Meur & Co. Probably better than it would otherwise, wouldn’t you agree?

Coming in second is PLYMedia, which – I’ll just toss out some company copy here – is a “pioneer in the development and deployment of an interactive, multi-dimensional Web video platform – PLYplatform.” Too vague for you? You’re not alone in thinking so. Consider PLYMedia a sort of small-fry Adobe, and PLYplatform a kind of Adobe Flash - but with added stuff. Stuff being additional layers that allow content providers to formulate clips to include text and advertisements. Yep, that’s the gist of it. And yep, that got the silver medal at LeWeb.

Who got gold? None other than Goojet. Uh-huh. Goojet. Zats ze name. It’s a play on the term gadget, and the idea is to offer much the same social, Web 2.0-esque experience you get on your desktop with your mobile phone. So you can network with your friends via your PC browser, and when you’re on the go, you can do the very same via your pocket-sized pal. Total synchronicity is basically what you’re given with Goojet. Which is convenient, I suppose. Especially for young folk. They’re in constant need to connect, whether in the flesh or by way of small 2-inch screens. Goojet allows them to do so. The utility’s color circle will likely appeal to kids and teens, too. It’s very…vivid.

All in all, LeWeb 3 certainly seems not to provide quite the caliber of technological prowess some might have expected to find in a fourth-year conference - held in Paris, no less. While developers are developing and innovation is pushing along, the buzz surrounding the French capital this week looks rather unsubstantiated in hindsight. Yes, surely there was quite a bit of useful networking among attendees being done, and there have indeed been reports made of some superb demonstrations and discussions and things. But as the BBC’s Ewan Spence laid out plainly this morning, Silicon Valley is still the place where the biggest and most influential stories are being written.

Hey, Europe’s getting there, though. We look forward to what LeWeb 4 has in store.

3rd Place - G.ho.st

2nd Place - PLYMedia

1st Place - Goojet