We’re proud to announce we’ve been selected as one of this year’s Red Herring 100 Europe Winners. You can read the official press release here .

Red Herring’s editorial staff screened hundreds of companies based on a set of criteria, such as financial performance, technological innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration.

Choosing the companies with the strongest potential was by no means a small feat, said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of candidates from across Europe to the Top 100 Winners. We believe Silentale embodies the vision, drive and innovation that define a successful entrepreneurial venture. Silentale should be proud of its accomplishment, as the competition was very strong.

Top 100 companies from Europe, North America, and Asia are now enlisted for the Red Herring Global competition whose winners will present in San Diego on December 14-16.

We’re super happy! Yesterday, we learned that we’ve been selected as a finalist for the App Star Awards, and it wasn’t an April’s fool joke!!!

After loads of requests from our users (and because we needed it too!), we have been working like crazy to build Silentale for iPhone. The app gives you an instant overview of all your contacts, plus their latest messages, when you’re on the go.

Although it’s not yet in the App Store, it will be shortly… we’re just putting the finishing touches to it. Make sure to have a Silentale account to be notified of it’s availability! In the meantime, here’s a sneak peak while you’re waiting…

Eager to have it on your mobile? Like what you see? Help us out by giving it the thumbs-up rating on video2.appsfire.com.

And for more on the Awards, check out yesterday’s post by ReadWriteWeb:

“The App Star Awards is a contest that highlights brilliant and innovative upcoming applications for the iPhone (and now the iPad, too).

Created by AppsFire, the service for sharing iPhone applications, the event draws submissions from all over the world.

This year’s group, for example, included over 80 unreleased applications from 20 different countries including Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Spain and Italy, in addition to the U.S.

The finalists, 33 in total, have been broken down into three main categories: “Games,” “Utility and Other,” and “Entertainment and Fun.” As part of the jury for this contest, we got a first look at some of the apps. Some early standouts are below.”

And Silentale for iPhone is the first finalist listed! We’re so proud!

Next up – the uber-jury reviews all the finalists to pick the winners, who will be announced on stage at 360iDev, the leading iPhone developer conference, on April 12th, in San Jose, CA. Wish us luck!

This post has originally been published here.

Andy McLoughlin & Alastair Mitchell, Huddle

So the TechCrunch Europa Awards are a wrap and I’m reliving the rush from all the excitement at yesterday’s event. Although a big proportion of the crowd was from the UK and more specifically from London, Mike Butcher’s effort to create deep, lasting connections all across Europe is paying off (thanks Mike!). Through great entrepreneurs, digital leaders, connecting discussions and creating fruitful partnerships… the European community is growing tighter and stronger.

Although I didn’t have a chance to meet everyone, the event allowed me to spend a great deal of time with fellow entrepreneurs, investors and actors of the community from all over the UK, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Romania and, of course, the US.

These events are important, creating the bridges that are needed to bypass the limits of location, and simply demonstrating the possibilities of a pan-European network of successful startups.

And the winners are: Spotify winning 4 times including The Europas Grand Prix, Huddle, SongKick, Soup.io, Mendeley, AlertMe, Poken, SoundCloud, Nimbuzz, SpinVox, TAG – The Accelerator Group, Yossi Verdi, and let’s not forget Tweetdeck that was highly commended twice.

Unfortunately so many more have not been named, some of which are my personal favorites – not only because they’ve became friends, but because their services can and may very well become mainstream, if they are not already. To name a few Amiando, Dopplr, Myfab, 3scale, Mobypicture, Stupeflix, Tweetmeme, Amee and Truphone.

Building a Robust Network

The first step was to build strong regional communities. Today, they exist all across the old continent, we see it in France at the very well attended weekly OpenCoffeeClub or at LeWeb, in Germany with Next or Web20expo Europe, in the Netherlands with TheNextWeb, in the UK with Geek’n Rolla and in Bruxels with Plugg.

The second step was to create a common platform, in English, to expose and give perspective on what is happening all over. TheNextWeb blog started it, the rebranded Techcrunch Europe is doing it too. Effectively creating the relationships and network. And the event like last night is the proof that it works, it’s happening!

Europe is so different from the States, in terms of language, culture and behavior that we need to find alternative ways of tackling the creation of a single, lasting, pan-European startupcommunity. To be successful these relationships need to be anchored into more robust interactions. One of the most interesting discussions I had last night was around the concept of creating a physical network of hubs built across Europe with the participation of existing entrepreneurs (successful or in the making) and major players. Providing physical space for the community in different locations could definitely shape the way we’re looking at collaboration between growing companies, investors, experts and partners. It can’t be a local play since our markets and relationships are cross-border. This could effectively create a healthy and persistent environment that, to date, has been exclusive to the Valley.

Would love to hear everybody’s thoughts on this, and how it could work!

The news broke this week-end on TechCrunch and Mashable. We’re very happy to have been selected as one of the 24 finalists for this year’s edition of the The Next Web Rising Sun Startup Rally! In total 200 startups submitted applications. After a long screening process, 19 of the most promising startups were selected. The additional 5 spots are given to startups chosen by popular vote on TheNextWeb Blog.

This year’s conference is set to repeat the success of last year, with top keynotes and an impressive crowd of over 900 movers and shakers coming from all corners of Europe and the US. We’re looking forward to pitching alongside some great startups, including Mendeley, Plista and CoTweet. The competition will be steep!

Silentale will be onstage for 5min either on Thursday April 16 or Friday April 17. So if you are in Amsterdam, come and see us!

UPDATE 08/04: The exact schedule has been released. We’ll be presenting on Friday April 17 between 14h15 and 15h20.

It is this time of a year again, the week where a large number of Internet companies converge to San Francisco from everywhere to attend the web 2.0 expo conference. Once again, it takes place at the Moscone Center from Tuesday March 31st to April 3rd and this year’s very appropriate theme is “the Power of Less“.

Laurence and I be there with everyone else, so don’t hesitate to track us down, on site or in the evening events. You can also reach out using twitter @silentale or @lfp.

DON’T MISS: THURSDAY 2nd, 7 PM @ VESSEL

We’re also co-hosting a French 2.0 SF event @Vessel on Thursday night starting at 7pm. So walk over from Moscone after the conference to join us, Seesmic, Netvibes, BlueKiwi, Yoono, AsAnAngel, Qipit, DreamFace, ividence, /community, PupInk and Hip Hip Hip.

Time is running so fast… It’s already been a week since we were at the Plugg’09 conference in Brussels.

It was a really strong event with some super presentations and learning opportunities. Especially the panel discussion between Fred Destin (Atlas Venture), Anil Hansjee (Google) and Sake Bosch (Prime Technology Ventures) where Fred gave some tough love and claimed that the lack of globally successful startups in Europe is a mindset issue vs. limited funding availability, and advised the crowd to “think BIG” about the total market opportunity.  You can browse the event’s Pictures and Videos to see how busy we were and check out that panel!

But first, let’s give big kudos to the Startup Rally winners: Mendeley, the jury’s choice, a socio-academic site for sharing research papers and Myngle, the audience’s choice (also our favorite), a smart platform for online language education. Check their presentations, as well as other nominees’ (including ours).

Although we did not make it to the final this time around, Silentale was noticed and noted quite a few times, including from the inspirational media strategist Inma Martinez as well as the always entertaining editor from TechCrunch UK Mike Butcher. Thank you guys for showing us we are on the right path.

Also, as mentioned in our previous post, Silentale participated in the TechCrunch Talk «What’s next for France 2.0» in Paris on February 25th, and the footage is now available.