Where in the world is the UK's silicon valley?

The UK tech industry has never boasted a throbbing heart to match Silicon Valley. The industry, such as it is, is scattered across a multitude of business parks throughout the country.

But as the power of the voodoo around Web 2.0 reaches unprecedented heights, it seems appropriate to mount an expedition in search of the internet scene in the UK. Maybe the magic of JavaScript will fill the coffee shops of Leeds with MacBook-wielding web polymaths who’ll create a virtuous circle of startups, successes, and gloriously unpunished failures.

Or not.

Decades of attempts to address the lack of a physical place for bright young minds to congregate have fallen flat: technology triangles, innovation incubators, and a hundred other EU grant-funded initiatives have failed to create anything remotely comparable.

Of course, our search is an act of self-flagellation. For a start, we've never had a proper label for the disparate successes that punctuate the tech industry's history in the UK. There's nothing that even approaches the instant recognition and understanding that the words "Silicon Valley" generate.

Silicon Fen outside Cambridge pretty well scuppered its chances of becoming a genuine phenomenon as soon as it invited the comparisons with the region that birthed HP, Apple, Google and Intel. Steady successes like chip designer ARM have emerged from the Fen, and it claims to be the second largest venture capital market in the world behind Silicon Valley. But we're after Google-sized internet hype here: weightless share price, government influence, Teflon public image, that kind of thing. Alas, there's never been justification to mint a buzzword even as nebulous as Web 2.0.

No matter, perhaps we can ride its wispy coattails. Witness Ofcom's plans for a "Public Service Publisher" to dish out millions of pounds in taxpayers' money to webby startups, and the endless soporific babble of Facebook anecdotes from mainstream outlets' banner columnists and Sunday supplements.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/01/uk_web_valley/