It’s hard to believe the end of the year is here, which means that preparations are being made for the 2009 Silicon Hills poster. You’ve seen them all around town, and you’ve probably been given a few posters as gifts over the years. For 2009, a 5-foot version of the poster will be featured at Austin Bergstrom International Airport. Approximately 35,000 of these posters get distributed each year. Your building and logo will be highlighted on the map, just like many other companies you’ve seen on there in the past. The deadline is October 15th, so if you’re interested contact Alisha Ring now.

Small World Labs, an Austin-based provider of enterprise social media solutions and online community building expertise, today announced an agreement with the ProTech group of companies that will make Small World Labs software available throughout the United Kingdom. ProTech, a 12-year-old provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software used by the Professional Footballer’s Association, the Liberal Democrat political party, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the Institute of Physics, the Royal British Legion and other high-profile organizations, will immediately begin making Small World Labs solutions available to its installed base, and plans to expand its business by offering Small World Labs to the growing market for online community software across the region in general.

ProTech will provide the full line of Small World Labs’ customizable online community platforms, supporting organizations in their efforts to build awareness, acquire new constituents and strengthen relationships with existing audiences. The company expects many of its customers will initially adopt features such as photo and video sharing, specialized groups and forums, and blogs; incrementally adding functionality as the community grows.

“We are seeing great demand throughout the region for online community solutions and with Small World Labs we believe we’re among the very first in England to come to market with a comprehensive offering,” said Mark Trouth, founder and managing director of ProTech. “We see Small World Labs as an important factor in the continued growth of our business and believe the applications will prove invaluable to our clients.”

“The agreement with ProTech is an important milestone in the evolution of Small World Labs and one we believe will accelerate our already healthy growth,” said Michael Wilson, CEO of Small World Labs. “ProTech is exactly the caliber of company we look for when considering business relationships. Many organizations throughout the UK already put their trust in ProTech and can now look to them for proven social media software and community building counsel.”

Earlier in the month we wrote about the public beta of AntStorm, and it seems to be going well. The company announced today that more than 2,500 trails have been created by registered users. AntStorm users share collections of their favorite links about a particular topic as “trails” on AntStorm and the major search engines. Groups of AntStorm users can also collaboratively find, recommend, annotate, and vote on the best links for a specific topic, exposing members of the group to great new information and resources on their favorite topics.

“We’re very happy and a bit surprised by such a fast start,” said David Wilson, president and co-founder of AntStorm. “Many social media sites take several months to see this kind of momentum in terms of content generation, so we see this as a strong validation of what we are doing and how we are doing it.”

Wilson continued: “While we have a great deal of work ahead, we are excited about this milestone in our progress. We look forward to helping our users find information better and faster, while connecting with others who share their interests to interact and collaborate in innovative and rewarding ways.”