Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

Eamon Ryan is Comms Minister

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

Goodbye Dialup Dempsey, hello someone that is more able to fix the communications problems than anyone to date. I’m actually quite happy and confident that Eamon Ryan is the new Minister for Energy, Communications and Natural Resources. There were bits of the Green Manifesto I disagreed with but I hope most of it is implemented. It was a very tough decision shutting down IrelandOffline last week but it gets a little easier to sleep knowing the new boss is not a Fianna Fáiler, PDr or Fine Gaeler. Fingers crossed. Minister, please do something about ComReg.

Update: Seven months later and Minister Ryan is probably the worst Communications Minister so far. A total disgrace.

The Videos have started – Another 5 years on Planet Bertie

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

Via That’s Ireland:

Not very Fluffy Links – Thursday June 14th 2007

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

Just three this morning.

Markham writes a love letter to Aus traffic wardens.

Consider signing up for Paddy’s Valley.

Don’t forget the draw for 2 tickets to Beirut.

Dáil 30 arrangements

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

The 30th Dáil will sit at 3.00 p.m. on Thursday 14 June 2007.

All media are welcome to access the Plinth via Kildare Street Entrance from 12.30 p.m. on Thursday until the Taoiseach departs Leinster House for �ras an Uachtaráin. It is expected that the Taoiseach will depart from Leinster House for the park via the Kildare Street exit. Full details.

At least they’re Flickring behind closed doors

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Update: Twittering inside the Green Event. Rebeltastic! Updates live 🙂

The Green Party Flickr account shows two new photos inside the closed doors special meeting of the Green party. I believe bloggers asked to attend and got told no. Shame. The Press Office did email bloggers to let them know of the photos though. Tease.

Green Party Special Convention

Update: Blog post from Ciarán. (See what I’m doing? Using his first name like we’re blog buddies or something. Makes it look like I in some way have his ear. 😛 )

Anyway, good blog post, very optimistic and lovely final quote:

sometimes the devil has all the best tunes

Reference to his deal with the devil blog post? 🙂

Genius. LouderVoice will now take reviews via txt message

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

As James pointed out, Conor from LouderVoice has done a little hack so that if you have a Twitter account you can now review something via a txt message and it gets put on his LouderVoice review aggregator. You can also of course send in the review via IM or the web. So Conor sent in this review via Twitter and it turned into this review on his site.

That’s really really clever. Next up has got to be a Facebook implementation I suppose? Well done Conor.

Fluffy Links – Wednesday June 13th

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Consider signing up for Paddy’s Valley.

Don’t forget the draw for 2 tickets to Beirut.

The Frugal Tiger. Another blog from Humble Housewife Deborah, this one is about saving money with tips about shopping vouchers and so forth. You know, Ireland doesn’t have a tradition of coupon cutting or anything of that and there almost seems to be (in my opinion) a kind of macho attitude in not using discount vouchers when buying things. With rising costs though, it is well worth looking at services like Pigsback.com and their ilk.

It’s a shame that every time I look at American Hell, the American Woman cover by Lenny Kravitz plays in my head. American Hell does comic strips. Kinda. Very odd but very good.

EBay finally finally offers APIs.

Heh. I love how in the UK they give out about lack of funding for local startups, yet there seems to be 1000 times more opportunity over there than here.

Matt Cutts, Google employee, sticks up for Google after Privacy International did a PR stunt saying Google are evil for their privacy policies or some stuff. I think Matt’s response is half right and half smokescreen.

Via MP3Hugger

The Polyphonic Spree “Running Away”

In the bag. Greens agree. Now roll on special convention tomorrow

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

Green Party agree to programme for Govt with FF as of 830pm tonight. Green Party special convention @ 1pm tmrw. More on IrishElection.com

A digg for Irish blog posts to get them into the mainstream press

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

So we have Kick.ie which is meant to be a DIGG-like site for Ireland though it isn’t hugely popular right now but a comment from Blog from the Bog notes:

The only news that gets reported are the stories that come to the papers, there are no journalists anymore that go out looking for news. The importance of blogging during the recent election was mooted by Damien Mulley and that idea could be developed further into all news reporting. Why shouldn’t bloggers get the scoops?

There is plenty of news out there to go around I should think, though it would take some looking and digging unless you happened upon it by chance. Not every story would be headlined on the evening news but I suspect there are more enthusiastic bloggers out there than reporters.

Firstly, I do think there are journalists who search for stories but I also think the modern cut and thrust of the news industry means most cannot afford to spend too much time on a story and deeply researching it. They are afterall paid to report on a daily or weekly basis and to fill x amount of space while trying to produce something which is also timely and not old news.

Enough of that for now, so why don’t bloggers get scoops? I think it has to do with the type of scoops. Some are deliberately leaked or fed in return for an ego boost, knowing you are the cause of headlines, even if you are a “source within company x”. If I did an FOI and got some great information and I blogged it, it might get a bit of attention but only when someone reads my blog in the mainstream press would the readership of the story go from 1200 to 12,000 o even 120,000. You got to wonder if a blog had 120k daily readers, would they be doing the scooping by being fed so much? I think they would. This is how it works in the States. Blogorrah gets a lot of scoops these days or takes a scoop from a lesser site and gets it huge attention. They currently only work in a certain niche but the model can work for other sites too.

Then there are they accidental finds and again getting the word out. Many people that make an accidental find will blog about it if they have a blog and if not they’ll tell someone who’ll tell someone and it ends up getting to the ears of a journalist or is more likely these days, it goes on a blog or discussion forum first. Anything on youTube is on a blog first, including all those Garda videos of late.

Then there are the investigative scoops, after a tipoff or suspicion. Research into company records, or local newspaper stories or FOI requests. Those who are employed to write might have time to do this but bloggers themselves might not have time. The recent article(s) in the Irish Times and their consumer panel were actually noted on my blog last year but it was only through a conversation with John Collins that he learned that ComReg pay people on their consumer panel to sit through presentations from telcos on how everything is great in Ireland. Yadda. Yadda.

For the FOI requests, wouldn’t it be good if there was a site that scanned in all FOI requests and made them public. Make FOI requests and either upload them yourelf to the service or post them to the service and they’ll scan them in. Tag them and stick them online to be found. Maybe use OCR software to recan them and convert the scans to text so the search engines can find them even more.

But getting to the point of this post. If someone has an interesting story, wouldn’t it be good if there was an “attention” button which people could press if they think that post should get looked at by the press? kind of like a DIGG button but specifically for newsworthy stories.

Greens do deal with the Devil

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

Update: Now Dan Boyle says no deal is done. Political correspondents seem to be losing their patience with the Green Party.

Via the IrishElection.com twitter:

Dan boyle just emerged from govt. buildings saying deal has been done. Sargent and Ahern to confirm programme for govt later today.

I actually voted for the Greens in the election and I think they could do a world of good compared to a FF/PDs/Independents coalition. Some of their ideas and policies are off-the-wall but they also will hopefully bring transparency and new thinking to the Government. Best of luck to all of them and I hope Dan Boyle is rewarded for his work.