TechCrunch vs. India Mess - Entrepreneur Around the World

Frognector has been moving around the world and has already visited 14 countries during the last year. Being on the road allows us to meet up with collectors in different locations and some dedicated members of Colnect. It also creates an interesting story we use to make Colnect more known. We've had amazing experiences in lovely and exciting places and have met wonderful people on the road.

Frognector enjoying a red/yellow corn in Laos

Throughout this journey a column has been made public on NewsGeek (in Hebrew), sharing some experiences and insights learnt throughout the journey. Recently, we wanted to appeal to a larger audience of English readers and have tried to pitch the story to various publications. A few publications have shown interest in the story and we might soon be published in more places.

One publication, however, has made some very interesting mistake that has created vast amounts of anger amongst its reader. A sample that was sent to TechCrunch to evaluate the level of writing and judge whether our column would interest TechCrunch technologically-oriented readers, has been published by mistake. It was first attributed to someone else and has been put with wrong pictures. But the best part here was that the title was changed and, lacking any introduction to our journey, created the false impression that we're bashing India's hi-tech scene. Quite saddening that this happened as many readers became very upset about it. You're welcome to read the TechCrunch post and the comments there.

As we're now in China and couldn't see the comments (Facebook is blocked in China), we didn't even know they existed. When we got access to them, we could finally respond and here's the full response below.

"

First and foremost, please accept my deepest apologies for this post that has been MISTAKENLY made public on TechCrunch and completely taken out of context. This post was a part of a series of posts describing my PERSONAL experiences as a startupist traveling the world. It was sent to TechCrunch only as a SAMPLE to evaluate the level of writing and see if this could interest TechCrunch readers. I was shocked to find out it was published without any prior request. Its title was changed by TechCrunch and made many of you think it's an opinion about India's Hi-Tech industry. It's not. Many have thought it's bashing India. It's not. I've spent about a year of my life in India (passing through most of its states) and have much appreciation for this diversified nation.

NOW THE REAL CONTEXT: I'm the founder of Colnect ( http://colnect.com/ ), a community website for collectors worldwide available in 60 languages (including a few Indian languages). Coln

ect is offering collectors unique services, such as automatically matching exchanges between collectors based on their personal collection, and has been built by over 500 volunteers from around the globe.

Over a year ago, I've left my home and decided to keep developing Colnect while on the road. There were various reasons for that decision: meeting Colnect members and other collectors, promoting Colnect locally and through the "Entrepreneur around the world series" and enjoying an ever changing work environment. The journey has so far passed in UK, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Israel, Jordan, India, Thailand, Laos and China.

The 22 posts made so far described personal experiences of a traveling startupist and shared my personal tips on how to facilitate traveling and working. One of the posts, published in Hebrew, was titled "7 Reasons to Leave Everything and Start your Startup in India" ( http://www.newsgeek.co.il/startup-in-india/ ).

In an effort to reach a wider audience, I've decided that the series should be made available in English and so we've addressed a few publications we thought would be relevant. One of them was TehcCrunch. They asked for samples and got them. We didn't hear from them. Then I get a Google Alert and saw this post online. Although shocked, I thought that any publicity is better than no publicity, even though the post was first attributed to another person, contained wrong pictures (first isn't mine and second is me in Thailand) and no links to Colnect. Beeing behind China's firewall, FaceBook was inaccessible and I wasn't aware of the comments until my brother let me know about them. So here I am now, explaining how all this happened.

If you've actually read this far and want to keep bashing the post, myself and TechCrunch, feel free to have another go at it.

"

Trading Card Games on Colnect - New TCG Catalog

We're very happy to announce the addition of a new category to Colnect: Trading Card Games

We're starting with 5,281 Game Cards but surely with your help it'll grow very quickly. The coordinators for the category are SerdarAkar and ALeitao. If you've never contributed information to Colnect before, please read our Catalog Contribution Guidelines.

The category has started at the request of collectors and the entire discussion can be seen here on the forum. You may suggest and become a coordinator of more categories on Colnect - just read our More Collectibles? page.

Our blog has been quiet for a while as most of our announcements are published directly on our announcements forum where you can get regular updates. If you wish to write to our blog don't hesitate to make your suggestions.

Happy collecting :)

One Year of Colnect Around the World

Do you know where Colnect offices are? Well, they’re not there. Not anymore. Colnect offices are on the move all over the world and chances are that by the time you read this page, they will be somewhere else than where they were when we wrote it.

Frognector was very impressed by the distinguished Indian gentleman's mustache

Today, 7/7, it will be One Year of Colnect on the road. The roads were various and many, led by the fierce and fearless Frognector. He went from the remote hitchhiking paths of Iceland and down the European continent all the way to Ukraine. He then turned east, floating in the dead sea in Israel, visiting desert caves in Jordan, being tossed around on buses and trains through India, enjoying shakes and massages in Thailand and now celebrating the long and yet-to-become-longer way in Laos. We even have pictures to prove it - the Famous Frog on top of Thai temples as well as Polish buildings and battling Indian snakes.

Look behind you, Frognector! The golden Buddha on the mountain is staring at you

So why create the Traveling Office? Well, for one thing, how else will Frognector get to meet the amazing collectors on Colnect? Yes, they can come to a Colnect Convention. But that is in the future. For now, Frognector just has to be every place. That way he got to connect a smiling face to those on Colnect whom he knows so well from working on Colnect. He got to see their collections for himself and see how their Colnecting home station looks like. In Berlin, in Prague, in Bangkok, all presented impressive collections and some good inside advice that can only be given by a collectors’ first person long term experience.

The Red Rock of Petra, Jordan, amaze even Frognector into a moment of silence

In every nook and corner the world hides amazing collectibles. Some already on Colnect, some soon-to-be-added on Colnect. As with Frognector’s travel plan, so it is with Collectible Categories and Collectible Items on Colnect - The Sky is the Limit. During the journey Colnect was constantly buzzing and busy with adding new Categories. Just like Tokens joined in Colnect, Sugar Packets, Trading Card Games and Lego Sets will soon be announced, many others are in the works and soon will be on Colnect as well. On July 2011 we have decided that Colnect should be everywhere, and so should we be. That kept Colnect growing more than ever and light on its feet ever since. Hopefully this is the start of a new exciting second year, with more developments on the site, more countries visited and more collectors met.