Let’s see, Paul heads over to Tech Crunch 52, sponsors a few parties, shows Wubud to about five people, and finally gets us some coverage online from (ahem) Shel Israel.

Next time, we’re hoping Paul mentions the URL for the website or does a bit more promotion rather than be completely shell shocked by an internet superstar. Thankfully he’s not in the next 60 Minutes Special from Robert Scoble…

Ben Matthews, one of the brains behind this week’s Twestival (which Wubud was supporting), has posted a nice report on the entire event, from initial ideas through to execution and rounding up the coverage on the web. Thankfully it’s not in 140 character bursts - that would have been taking it too far.

Now in its fifth year, the Le Web conference is one of the highlights of the European Technology calendar. This year’s programme has just been announced and you can take a look at it here and tick off all your favourite bloggers who’ll be speaking about brand new things they are doing. One of those is Wubud’s very own Ewan Spence.

He’ll be appearing on the panel “Love In Motion - Mobile Ubiquity and Social Networks,” alongside Dr Lai Kok Fung (Buzzcity) and Antonio Vince Staybl (itsmy.com), with Ferhan Cook (Any Screen Productions) in the Moderators chair.

Le Web takes place on the 9th and 10th of December, in central Paris.

Were you lucky enough to attend the Smack My Pitch Up event in San Francisco sponsored by Wubud? Apparently it was mighty craic. I didn’t attend (boohoo) but Paul did and like his In-Depth and Comprehensive Report said it was a huge success. Now we’re at it again! Wubud is proud to sponsor twestival.com

So, I guess I’ll see you there. That’s assuming you’ve registered already - I’m flying in from Dublin for a couple of days.

Or at least in those little sidebars that keep print journalists in work and help bloggers make their quota…

So what’s Bebo co-founder Paul Birch doing these days, after having closed that little $850 million acquisition? Apparently, he’s getting into angel investing. Wubud, a mobile social network founded by serial entrepreneur and former AOL exec Paul Walsh, is his latest investment.
Paid Content

Wubud, a mobile social networking service founded by Irishman Paul Walsh, has attracted €150,000 in angel funding from Bebo co-founder Paul Birch.
The Irish Times

The amount of funding… suggests that this is “lift-off” money (enough to build a solid beta).
Tech Crunch

London, United Kingdom, 10th September 2008 - Wubud, the social network for mobile people founded by Paul Walsh, is delighted to announce the completion of an Angel round of investment from Paul Birch (Co-founder, Bebo - sold to AOL for $850M; Founder, Cominded; Co-founder, BirthdayAlarm - a social network with 50 million subscribers) His track record in the online application space will now be brought into the rapidly accelerating field of social networks.

“Wubud caught my eye because it enables people to communicate with their friends and family from their back pocket while on the go,” explains Birch. “By building it initially around the mobile app Wubud can ensure that it delivers what people would want on their own mobile phone.”

“The Wubud team has been hard at work since identifying a gap in the market,” said CEO and Founder Paul Walsh. “This investment is a huge validation of our hard work to date. Huge challenges remain, not least the continuing development of our mobile client and website.”

Wubud is currently in testing, and will be open to the public in the near future.

Here at Wubud Head Office, we’ve been waiting to hear how Paul Walsh got on at Smack My Pitch Up, where we plied all of you with free drink for wearing a Wubud sticker, while you attempted to pitch the worst possible tech companies in the world to everyone else in the bar. The report has now arrived:

Smack My Pitch Up was a huge success - Paul

Update: For those of you keeping score, even Valleywag managed more than our CEO… (and they have video footage as well - I want to hear more on Mike Butcher’s pitch).

Those of you in San Francisco this Tuesday (Sept 9th) might want to swing by the House of Shields (39 New Montgomery St) at 10pm, where Smack My Pitch Up is being held. Get enough VC’s, investors and entrepreneurs in town, you’ll get people pitching business ideas around like poor baseball pitches. ‘Smack’ is no different, but will be looking for the most terrible ideas in tech possible.

Prizes include a grand prize of $50 (in non-sequential, used single dollar bills). Bonus prizes will be available for best URL containing a pun (or a pub), most creative misuse of grammar and the Calacanis Cup for the most arrogant pitch. One more thing to note… no powerpoint presentations - flipcharts and sharpies, yes, microphones, yes, spending any real prep time, no.

Make sure you have a Wubud sticker on and the drinks are on us. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a sticker, they’ll be at the door. As Paul Carr points out, be there or pay $2,995 to be somewhere else…

In olden times, when explorers left the edges of their home countries and reached out into the unknown, their maps were sometimes labelled as ‘Here Be Dragons.’ With many of them never returning from those distant lands, the phrase acted both as a warning, but also as a handy space filler till people could talk about what was in the empty space.

Nowadays, most of the Earth is mapped out (and Google Moon has been seen occasionally as well), but exploring was never just about the coastlines, forests and hills of a country, it’s now about the people that are there, the experiences they have and the communities that grow around them

The modern day explorer (or long haul flight passenger as we like to call them) doesn’t need a map to warn them of impending dragons. No they simply need to remember one key phrase.

Here be Wubud.