Author Archive

Fluffy Links – Monday June 14th 2010

Monday, June 14th, 2010

The IRISS Cyber Crime Conference, IRISSCON is on the 18th of November 2010 and are looking for papers/submission.

Directory for Irish research.

Very interesting discussion about cheating in the Leaving Cert.

Going to France? See where you can get free wifi.

Making a Greenhouse from smashed windscreens.

Certainly a bugbear of mine is trying to copy a link from a Google result and getting their fugly giant link. A workaround of a sort.

Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing and the Devices we Love.

Interesting interview with performance artist Marina Abramovic.

Fluffy Links – Friday June 11th 2010

Friday, June 11th, 2010

One day to Dublin Tweasure. Still time to sign up.

Free booze! Attention Seth Godin fans, Linchpins, an event to bring Sethazistas together is on Monday evening in Dublin. Go and meet like-minded people. Shaving head is not mandatory. Anyone who checks-in on FourSquare will get a free drink, plus finger food!

Rachel Allen interviewed by 8 year old Irish podcaster.

Doodlebread. South African flag Doodlebread.

Social media analysis of Hunky Dorys campaign shows some negative sentiment that was quite damaging.

Diamonds on the sole of her shoes

Dublin Tweasurehunt, the second coming on Saturday

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

After the good feedback of the first one, we have another Tweasurehunt planned for this Saturday. More clues, more fun. Prizes too. And all for free and you might encounter some interesting cultural elements in Dublin City Centre too.

You don’t really need to know Dublin well, street names perhaps, if you’re weak on this, why not join up with someone that is?

Sign up by leaving a comment on the post over here.

Fluffy Links – Wednesday June 9th 2010

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

I can already hear the phone conversation with a journalist asking me to explain myself contributing to making people dumber.

via the Business Post, An Post doing seminars on how to do direct marketing. 100 quid for a half day. Er lads, it’s your platform you want to enrich. Free maybe?

This graph showing growth of the pro blogs Mashable, Boingboing and Techcrunch and attributing it to Twitter channeling is bogus. It might also be to do with the fact that Mashable has veered from the goal and become a whore for anything to do with current affairs and tabloidism.

Ate in French Table in Limerick last night. Recommended.

Yahoo! takes it deep from Facebook. Loadsa intergration.

So now the Oz cops want a panic button on Facebook. There a panic button on your phones or are we clever enough to dial 211?

All the music from Treme in one place.

Via Darragh Brophy on Phantom1052
Colourmusic – Put In A Little Gas

INXS – Beautiful Girl

Fluffy Links – Monday June 7th 2010

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Good Twitter list from Charlie Taylor on Irish Times staffers that are on Twitter.

Manuel the Waiter brought me to Tedford’s last week. He previously reviewed it here. What an amazing menu. Shame I was in a rush so could not enjoy it fully.

Dave Davis gives some common sense tips on SEO in wake of the recent changes to the way the Google search engine works.

Irish Pork recipe megalist from FoodFight.ie

Irish based gaming website Ubecha.com have launched a World Cup Celebrity Fantasy Football league fundraiser in aid of The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation. Prizes for the public that compete against the celebs. Take a gander.

Arthur’s Day is Back. Dublin, Cork and Galway on Thursday, 23rd September 2010. Bands can audition to play in venues on the night.

The Gateway Ireland: Connecting the Dots Seminar which took place in Dublin Castle now has videos available.

Work better by banging off the competition.

This Gravilux iPad app looks great.

Villagers – Becoming A Jackal (On Watch Listen Tell)

Newswalls and all that

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

Some thoughts on The Times and their paywall as relayed to a journalist recently, though in a slightly expanded and modified form.

Isn’t it sad that it’s 2010 and only now are papers doing something in this always-on multimedia world to up their game? Now we are told we’ll get some quality content after all the years of decline in quality and readership. Something is needed to bring back quality, maybe it’ll be the idea of paywalls that will bring it back and then maybe a different model to retain quality will happen. This recent presentation from Hal Varian from Google actually shows newspaper revenues have been under attack since the 50s.

Google Newspaper media share

Google has never been a threat. Terrible content has been. Looking at the media these days, you can’t tell which news site you’re on as every story is the same. Far too many pieces are just copied and pasted from press releases, especially the breaking news sections of sites.

It’s been a race to the bottom for years with newspapers cutting back on journalists and editors, relying too much on using news feeds that all other papers use and taking less and less risks to break stories. No longer have newspapers been setting the news agenda but covering it with a slight timeshift.

Paywalls won’t work if you are hiding the bland content that is also on so many other websites out there. The internet has been designed to route around “damage” or blockages so if you are blocking your content that’s based on a press release, it will be available elsewhere.

Initial reports from the Times are that there are “value adds” behind the paywall. More images, more insight, access to journalists etc. This is value and it is unique and I think people will pay for that.

Instead of charging for this content, other alternatives would be to sell historic data, to give free access to the main site but analysis type reports which can be used to enrich a company would be sold. Imagine having the Irish Times create a report on the state of technology in Ireland and opinions from their most experienced journalists on what are areas to punt on? Charge a few hundred euros for the report. Same for all the other industries they cover and tie it in with pass historical records from their archives.

There’s also way more money to be made from advertising if they made it more targeted and more automated. Instead of charging for banner impressions which makes both sides lazy, they should be working with advertisers on a cost per conversion model. Get direct custom from a newspaper site, pay more.

There are also sorts of additional streams too like business conferences, sport events with their pundits and the sports stars they know. Bands make less from album sales and more from touring these days apparently, a working business model, why not the same for newspapers? Too much hard work. I watched a documentary about UK dockers and in particular the Liverpool ones who resisted the cargo boxes for years and the shipping world passed them by. The print model worked for a while but it’s very odd that it really has not changed in decades despite all the warning signs being there.

Update: Paul McAvinchey’s thoughts on paywalls.

Fluffy Links – Monday May 31st 2010

Monday, May 31st, 2010

The Dublin Tweasurehunt is back on June 12th at 2pm. More clues, more prizes, more teams, more fun.

Measure it! is on this Wednesday in The Academy Plaza. Realex Payments, O’Leary Analytics and Barry Hand will be giving presentations before those attending will be given a task to solve around social media measurement.

Pól Ó Conghaile’s Ireland Uncovered blog is a handy resource of curated information for those that like to travel. Nice post on the best Irish campsites.

The Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Special Olympics Ireland Games is in Limerick on June 9th. Tickets are on sale now.

RIP aka Rock Indie Pop RIP is: “Dublin’s newest alternative for indie kids, rock chicks and pop tarts.” The first is on Friday 18th June 2010.

DirecteBooks.com is seeking an Internet Sales Specialist to coordinate and further develop our online sales and marketing efforts

Neal Stephenson and chums create an interesting multimedia story/narrative for iPad, iPhones? Is this one of the future of books?

Big Boi – Shutterbug

Google outside your gaff, taking pics while logging your WiFi traffic

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

You’ve probably all heard about the crap Google got into in Germany when it was found out (after initial denials by Google) that they were doing more than taking pictures of cats in the windows of homes. They were also (and they never informed the public of this) scanning all WiFi networks, logging on if they could and taking snapshots of whatever traffic was passing through the network. So bits of emails, images from websites etc. were logged against your GPS coordinates and your WiFi network name.

In February I asked Google to remove where I live from their Streetview database as per instructions from the Data Protection Commissioner. Being a human and not someone that spends big money with Google, I was ignored. I’m sure if they made money from me I’d be listened to and get a free Nexus too. So now I need to ask the same for my Wifi networks? Great.

CeBIT 2010 - Google Streetview
Photo owned by Patrick H~ (cc)

The issues here are still being found out, for example in Germany the authorities investigating this serious privacy breach asked for the data that was collected but handing over the data breaches data privacy laws! But do they breach the Data Retention Directives? where countries including Ireland can demand an ISP store data on Internet usage. It’s great data for a Government to have. The location of every WiFi network in Ireland and the name of the network. What if someone was uploading an MP3 when being scanned? Could IRMA go after Google?

This is not like the screaming hysteria around Facebook where people sign up to Facebook and then give it data. This is Google coming into your neighbourhood and scanning your WiFi, aggregating it and other data around your location and then storing it in a database or databases. Where are these databases?

This whole story shows that even if this was an error in code it shows that now 30 countries are affected by it. Chinese hackers got into Google systems, imagine if they got this data or they themselves injected code in it. The arrogant grandstanding by Google, hiding behind their “do no evil” mantra, letting us know that they know better is not good enough in this situation. When technology like this, where a simple error can affect the privacy of potentially millions of people then maybe it’s up to the local data protection entities to examine the data gathering process to make sure it’s clean and safe.

Fluffy Links – Monday 24th of May 2010

Monday, May 24th, 2010

The next Measure it! will be on June 2nd in the Academy Plaza Hotel. One in Cork for June 16th it seems.

Next time a political party comes to your door, even if you never voted for them, they are still accountable to you since you and I bankroll them so heavily.

Nice summary of the Dublin Startup weekend.

Free Workshop from EI. Top 10 Mistakes Made When Pitching Investors…And How To Avoid Them. “Nathan Gold is also the co-author of Giving Memorable Product Demos and a 2-time winner of the distinguished DEMOgod Award.”

Think Google and others know this? It seems websites can access a hell of a lot of your browser history.

IADT’s business training and mentoring programme Create is open to recruit 10 companies in their early stage of business development.

How to become a Youtube Hero, 23rd June, Griffith College, Dublin. Course from MediaContact.ie

OpenFM will be Ireland’s first gay culture radio station. Temporary licence seems them broadcasting for 90 days from June in Dublin.

Aerosmith – Dream On

That Irish Food Blogger Event

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Organised by Donal Skehan and facilitated by Bord Bia, the Irish Food Bloggers event last Thursday was superb. It was great to be there, even if toast is the best thing I can er cook.

It was fantastic too to meet so many of the food bloggers I’ve been reading for years. More blogs too to add to FoodFight.ie I was going to call Caroline the grand dame of Irish food bloggers but she’s far far too young for that. She has a great summary of the day, a good deal of which comprised of Irish Pork. I think it would be good to have regular foodie blogger get togethers and get such creative talent (both in the kitchen and on their blogs) to network more.

Lorraine Fitzmaurice of Blazing Salads kicked off the practical demos and showed how to make spelt bread and miso pesto.

photo

Then came Pat Conway from GMIT on butchering some Irish Pork. I think his demo was a favourite of many, well except the poor veggies having to watch as he showed the art form of butchery. I got up close and recorded him doing his magic, ten minute video embedded:

photo

Maire Dufficy of Bord Bia then did some cookery demos with various types of Irish pork, minced pork was new to me. This demo was tough as it was nearing lunch and the smell wafting through the room was a killer for most people.
photo

I was up next to talk briefly on marketing your blog and suggested (selfishly as I was starving now) we move me to after lunch but the kitchen wasn’t ready, so I wittered on fo 10 mins about marketing and getting yourself attention.

Then lunch, guess what we had? And then dessert:
photo

Eoin Purcell from Green Lamp Media then gave a great quick talk on what publishers want and also what areas are underserved in the cooking book industry. Some brilliant tips were shared. One main takeaway is that a pre-existing audience and even a mailing list of blog readers makes selling books and getting a book deal a little easier.

After lunch there was a talk on food styling and photography from Erica Ryan and Jocasta Clarke. Eoin mentioned in his talk that food bloggers with great photos have an advantage in terms of book deals so this talk proved very valuable. Again, loads and loads of tips were shared.

And then some nice swag was given away as the day wrapped up.
photo

The day was good in many ways, it brought the vibrant food blogger community together, some meeting each other for the first time. It gave Bord Bia a nice opportunity to meet opinion formers and sharers and to tell them about the quality processes around Irish pork. It also was a nice training day for people passionate about food allowing them to up their game. Hopefully there’ll be more of these events for food bloggers, I’d love to see a food fair showing off Irish produce to food bloggers for example. This event is a perfect example of earned media, with the likes of Bord Bia not marketing or broadcasting to a community but working with them and helping to enrichen it with knowledge.

Well done Donal and Bord Bia.