The official coComment weblog

Red Herring announced that coComment was named a Finalist of Red Herring 100 Europe, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region each year.

“To be a young company named as a finalist of Red Herring 100 Europe is an honor,” stated Matt Colebourne, CEO of coComment. “While we are proud of what coComment has achieved in a short amount of time, we are even more excited about the initiatives that we will be introducing to our product and the site later this year.”

“This year’s impressive list of submissions from companies demonstrates Europe’s growing role as a major center of innovation in the global technology sector,” said Red Herring Editor-in-Chief Joel Dreyfuss. “The exceptional accomplishments of European technology startups and entrepreneurs are a testament to the rapid advancements being made in building the European innovation ecosystem.”

Red Herring’s lists of top private companies are an important part of the publication’s tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. Companies like Google, eBay, and Skype were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors, and touted as leaders that would change the way we live and work.

Red Herring’s editorial staff rigorously evaluated several hundred private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria, including quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

Red Herring will honor the Red Herring 100 Europe Finalist companies at its Red Herring Europe 2008 event. Scheduled for April 14-16, at the Westin Dragonara Resort, this intimate, three-day event is themed “The Pursuit of Disruption” and will explore how European firms are leading the charge in many technology sectors, gaining the competitive advantage, and driving entrepreneurial success in ways that create business opportunities for challengers and incumbents alike.

About Red Herring
Red Herring is a global media company which unites the world’s best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine, an online daily technology news service, technology newsletters and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider’s access to the global innovation economy, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy. More information about Red Herring is available on the Internet at www.redherring.com.

CoComment is partnering with well known venture blogger, Jon Burke, from the alarm:clock to bring you a unique experience, starting this Friday! To demonstrate the utility of commenting across any subject, coComment is asking Jon to blog about something completely different, The Landmark Forum. You can follow his blog posts each day on landmark.cocomment.com

That means that this weekend alarm:clock will be attending a self-help conference called Landmark Forum. Over the years, Landmark has won a rabid following and has also been covered by the media, including Huffington Post and GQ. Can’t wait to see how this venture blogger, normally concerned with the less than spiritual world of start-up investments, can gain from this spiritual wellness fest.

Today, minutes before the Landmark Forum starts, this is what Jon has told us he expects to feel like:

coComment is sponsoring the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam next week (April 3-4), where coComment CEO, Matt Colebourne, will present coComment on stage and at our booth.

Next Web is THE European conference for industry thought-leaders, leading web-companies, innovative Startups, visionaries and real Web savvies. If you are at the conference or in town, be sure to stop by and check out the latest updates on coComment. We just launched V2.4 and there’s a lot more coming!

We have just released a new version with lots of new features and improvements:

• Improved performance: Significant increase in speed while browsing. Reduced time of server access via coComment extension and new caching mechanism for JavaScript loading.
• New Home Page: Visual and easy to understand presentation of coComment features.
• Improved conversation pages: Improved layout of “my conversations” page, including direct links to blogs/sites and default link from extension to “my conversations”.
• Outsourced conversations: New wizards for using coComment to power conversations on your blog/site, including seamless integration with Blogger with just few clicks.
• New version of coComment extension: Enhanced sidebar functionality, with ability for easy and simple browsing of conversations within the sidebar. This feature is available for Firefox only, but the IE version is coming soon.
• Version 2.4 includes many more improvements in addition to the ones above, so please come and check it out!

Your feedback is welcome, please send us your opinions and tells us what you like, what you’d like to see next, and anything else you’d like to share about V2.4!

Thanks
The coComment Team

Leprechauns, booze, girls, and clover….this year coComment and 971freefm.com are partnering up so you can comment with users around the globe and in Los Angeles on anything St. Patrick’s Day related. Don’t miss the 971freefm.com live in-studio webcast of all day day drinking show. And because we know you guys want to get in on the drunken revelry, visit our St. Patty’s Day blog and start posting your stories! We will have great prizes for our commenters, so stay tuned …