The London TechHub and a roundabout in the Olde East End

TechCrunch's Mike Butcher is calling for a London TechHub after visiting the Dublin one:

The Digital Hub is a community of people – artists, researchers, educators, technologists, entrepreneurs and consumers, all working together to create innovative and successful digital media products and services which support their future. The Digital Hub is an Irish Government initiative to create an international centre of excellence for knowledge, innovation and creativity focused on digital content and technology enterprises. The core development of nine acres is located a ten minute walk from the city centre within the historic Liberties area of Ireland’s capital city, Dublin.

Now, I actually think its a very good idea - but keep your eye on those words "Government Initiative" though - we looked at a plan for a "Virtual Incubator" for London about 3 years ago, but the economics required subsidies or else the prices look the same as any of the other for-profit managed drop in locations in London - which is of course why nearly all the action is happening ad-hoc in pubs and cafes with free WiFi, or in institutions such as the New Media Knowledge centre which is a University property.

In fact, in this virtual age, isn't there an argument that this industry should drink (or at least log into) its own Kool-aid? Ian Forrester certainly thinks so.

Anyway, one of the issues raised is Location - which tallies with another post showing the Old St area is becoming a Digital Roundabout, according to the FT (thanks to Drew Benvie for the link):

Previously known as the busy junction where London’s Old Street meets City Road, Silicon Roundabout is not the most salubrious of locations for budding entrepreneurs. But a coalescence of young web and tech companies in EC1 dates back to dotcom days. Alongside cheaper rents and a surfeit of bars, tapping into that experience is part of the area’s appeal for many of its newer residents.

Many will be hoping to follow the example of local hero Last.fm. The online music community was bought by CBS for $280m (£140m) last year, one of the largest UK web company buyouts of recent years.

“Old Street was a seemingly unlikely place to build a web company when we came here six years ago, but there’s no doubt it’s now becoming a hive of tech activity,” says Martin Stiksel, Last.fm’s co-founder. “The noise, vibrancy, and underground attitude of East London certainly rubs off on you, and inspires fresh perspectives – something I think all these start-ups share. It’s a million miles from sterile, air-conditioned Silicon Alley, literally and metaphorically.”

As with all overnight successes, its been true a long time - Web Hoster Globix built a major presence there in 2001 (because of the rents and nearby customer base), and yours truly ran a software company 2 blocks away in the tech doldrum days of the early 'Noughties.

Nonetheless, rents are lower there than in more salubrious places in London, and it is becoming a bit of a cool tech cluster again (though the meedje creatives still tend to be in Soho) so if one was to set up a TechHub, thats not a bad place to be.

Just preferably not on the Roundabout

Update - very good piece here on the complexities by Matt Locke, I never had time to put all this down...but here it is!

Update 2 - the zeitgeist in Internet Time - now the Evening Standard is at it. I wasn't this fashionable in 2005....