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Qype, the European user-generated local review site, has raised €8 million in funding from Wellington Partners, Advent Venture Partners and Partech International. This new funding will be used for development and expansion.

Qype’s recently broke through the 5 million visitors per month landmark for the first time, and Qype.co.uk is now receiving over 50,000 visitors every single day.

This new round of funding also brings with it the appointment of two new non-executive board members: Pelle Tornbe, the man behind the worldwide success of Metro newspapers, and Wellington General Partner Eric Archambeau.

Qype was founded in Hamburg, Germany by Stephan Uhrenbacher, in November of 2005 and since then has gone on to become the largest user-generated local review site in Europe.

Tags: Advent Venture Partners, Partech International, Qype, Wellington Partners

There is one thing about Blogging as a business that you all need to know. It takes commitment. You have to set yourself a target and decide if you’re going to blog once per day or maybe x posts per week. Get yourself a system going, for example writing one post every day at say 7pm. Then for the sake of those reading your Blog you need to stick to it no matter what … or you could lose business. Build a reputation for being there when people need you. Think about the blogs that you visit. If you keep going back and nothing has changed, eventually you don’t bother going back. It’s only natural.

I’m working on this myself. I miss days all too frequently. Its a bad habit and in the long term will cost me.  It’s my intention to Blog everyday. When I don’t, I try to make up for it with a couple postings in one day.

Sometimes what we want to do and what we can do are two different things. I am busy with my businesses so sometimes it’s hard to do… but it shouldn’t be too hard… even a 2 minute quality missive is better than nothing… I’ll work on it!

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Here is my checklist for effective social media strategies in the Web2.0 era:

Give Back/Add value

• Facilitate community – be a focal point for discussion
• Participate in existing communities - become an ‘expert’
• Give something for free - but make it something useful
• Promote your fans - feature them and/or their posts/comments on your site
• News, advice, database

Content

• Blogs are of the moment – events drive posts
• Get ideas from anywhere
  • Techmeme
  • Business Wire
  • Smaller Blogs
  • Google Alerts
  • Yahoo! News Alerts
• Why is your post important?
  
  
• You only have time to argue one point
• It must be interesting
• You must invite people to link to it
• Get exclusive info
• Blog regularly – you never know what will work

Headlines

• Headlines are 75% of a post
• Be plausibly sensational
• Do not over promise, viewed as SPAM

Templates

• Small news Announcements – intro/facts/analysis
• Round-up posts – top XYZ – used as Digg bait
• How to
• Editorial – you are all wrong and here is why!

Distribution

• Feedburner
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Yahoo Buzz
• Other Blogs
• RSS
• FriendFeed
• Facebook
• Techmeme
• Article Marketing

Recommendation: Bookmarking Demon - neat software to create social media backlinks for your site or blog..

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Big fish Games, an online portal for both online and downloadable computer games, have reportedly closed an $83.3 million funding round led by Balderton Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and the rather aptly named Salmon River Capital.

Founded in 2002 as a game development studio, BFG now distributes games created by other developers, with over 500 in its ‘partnership’ program.

The money will be used to promote worldwide expansion.

Balderton lists Bebo amongst its other investments.

Tags: Balderton Capital, Big Fish Games, General Catalyst Partners, Salmon River Capital

If you run a small company and you are not blogging you may find that you are missing out on a great opportunity. Blogging is a great way to get the
word out to consumers about your product or service, and it can even be useful for inspiring employee loyalty and helping you keep morale high. But beware, blogging for business owners has a lot in common with all other types of blogging, but it has its own unique DNA.

The key to running a successful business blog is to ensure the message you are giving is both clear and consistent.  Changing your message or wrapping it into a whole load of waffle will generate nothing in terms of sales leads.

Before you dive in and get started I recommend

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