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Joost just lost its CTO, Dirk-Willem van Gulik is to join the BBC next month to become their Chief Technical Architect.

vanGulik will join fellow Dutchman Erik Huggers, BBC Future Media and Technology Controller and will be tasked with developing a new-look infrastructure which Huggers described will “.. embrace … audio and video all the way up to HD quality”. It will encompass web, interactive TV and mobile.

In another moove Joost is hiring Matt Zelesko as SVP of engineering.

Zelesko has a history with Joost CEO Mike Volpi, sharing some years at Cisco. Zelesko will manage engineers on both sides of the Atlantic and himself joins Joost’s management board.

I am a couple of days late with this one but it made me laugh so much I’d thought I would share it with you anyway. In fact, the last time I laughed like this was when I caught sight of myself naked in the bathroom mirror. After the mirth subsided I lapsed into two days of sobbing followed by a month of depression.

The technology section of the BBC News website (the UK TV state broadcaster), has published its predictions for ‘Technologies on the rise in 2008′. The article, clearly written as part of a primary school project says that “Predicting technology trends can be a difficult business” and goes on to pose such brainteasers as “Could the online and offline worlds meet in 2008?” [Read more]

Speaking of sitting on your ass all day and playing games, the BBC are reporting that UK Gamers spent over £1.5billion on titles in 2007, roughly the GDP of Tahiti. That’s an increase of 25% on the previous year and there’s still the holiday sales rush to be counted. Given the fact that in the UK each game costs around the £40 mark (yes - you guys in the USA have it easy), we are talking of somthing in the order of 37million games or 3 million a month or 101,000 a day. I think about 20% of that is attributable to my son who claims he needs to try the games so that he can generate content for his gaming blog!

Well that’s my lot for 2007. Back on-line in January. happy hols!!

Original story

The end of the year is closing in so I thought I would share with you my pick of the top three hottest tech companies. I have based my selection primarily on revenue growth and what I view as an interesting niche or sector. As ever, make your own mind up, do not rely upon my data for your business or personal decisions.

#1 GOLDEN GEKKO www.goldengekko.com

Revenue Growth 06-07: 900% (stg£34,000 - stg£359,000)

HQ: London UK

Sector: Mobile Application Development - Business Productivity

Investors: Active Capital Partners

CEO: Magnus Jern

Customers include: Coca-Cola, Paramount, Unilever, Vodafone

From the website:

Golden Gekko simplifies the development of mobile applications. Whether for marketing, sales or to assist your mobile workforce, Golden Gekko brings the world of mobile applications within everyone’s reach.

We’ve streamlined the development and distribution of mobile applications, allowing for quick and easy deployment, across any mobile network and on over 1000 devices.

Golden Gekko’s unique advantage is our platform the GG Mobile Media Engine(tm). This enables rapid, high quality development of easy-to-use and cost efficient mobile applications.

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