
First Twitter Engineer Does it Again, Secures 2 Million, Amen. - iSimone
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/ashton-kutcher-and-madonnas-manager-invest-in-tiny-berlin-startup-what-gives/
======
iSimone
The _first twitter engineer_ is Florian Weber, at least he's always called
that here in Berlin and Techcrunch is referring to him as that. I always
thought it was an interesting story, that's also why I shared this article.

Here's a longer article about the guy:
[http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/09/exclusive-the-story-
of-t...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/09/exclusive-the-story-of-the-
almost-forgotten-european-behind-twitter-%E2%80%94-and-his-new-startup/)

Yes there is a European version of Techcrunch, even a French one if I'm not
mistaken. But they are normally not as interesting in my opinion. However, and
that's why I cared to share, they are starting to write more about the Berlin
scene. I find it rather fascinating to watch how the startup scene is starting
to take off here with SoundCloud, Wooga and ResearchGate being the first stars
(If you want to learn something about professional copycats google Samwer
Brothers, they've done some 25 exits from Berlin, but I don't think they
deserve to be mentioned more than that).

So for me the two million in funding (among them Ashton Kutcher) are
sensational news but let me shed _some_ more light on the actual product. As
their landing page says already (<http://amenhq.com/>) it's revolving around
opinions and ratings but in a highly semantic and mobile way.

I don't think it has anything to do with color, I think of this team rather
highly.

However there's another Berlin startup that does what color does but imo is
something I would actually USE: <http://eyeem.com>. It's an interesting mix in
between color and instagram.

@rhizome I hope your question in particular could be answered, although he is
in fact also an important part of the techrunch story I linked to in the first
place.

EDIT: Ah I've just seen that @rhizome might be referring to the actual article
on techcrunch, that left a lot of details out? Were you referred to that
article ([http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/21/ashton-kutcher-and-
madonnas...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/21/ashton-kutcher-and-madonnas-
manager-invest-in-tiny-berlin-startup-what-gives/)) instead of this one:
[http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/ashton-kutcher-and-
madon...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/ashton-kutcher-and-madonnas-
manager-invest-in-tiny-berlin-startup-what-gives/) ?

------
robtoo
_A slect few have been been given access to its Beta and are coming up with
statements like "strangely addictive", at least according to the startups
itself._

No description of what Amen actually do, but they themselves think they're
pretty great.

And ... that's it?

------
rokhayakebe
What a sensational title

------
ErikRogneby
I didn't know there was an eu. version of techcrunch.com. Looks like fr and jp
sub-domains are also in use.

------
lambada
This reminds me of color for some reason, although admittedly it's on a
smaller scale (for now)

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rhizome
Where's the "first twitter engineer" part, smart guy?

