Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

Fluffy Links – Monday March 1st 2010

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The Cork French Film Festival started yesterday. Some good films on the list this year.

Emily O’Reilly not exactly a fan of social networks and the fact that they can’t be trusted sources but it’s not all bad, a previous speech from her shows she does think they have some value and are a good utility for engaging with the populace and promoting the work of Ombudsmen.

And on the idea of trusted sources. Hoax call to a radio station and the press tell the world about Gordon Brown’s tangerine scream.

Excellent post by JP on sharing, privacy and changing cultures.

One step beyond, Google phones can autotranslate documents you point them at.

Nice video of Freelance Whales, live.

Via An Cathach, great ad for Nolan’s Cheddar.

Eddie Lenihan documentary on TG4

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Eddie should be declared a national treasure. Jealous of Allan and his pics.

Fluffy Links – Friday February 26th 2010

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Dragon’s Den‘s Gavin Duffy is a-blogging.

Recession the Musical. Bet they’ll go bust and merge with Menopause the musical. That’ll be cranky.

And now for pure class. Rent is in the Opera House next week.

Ah Irish people. Monorail proposal on Your Country Your Call.

Consumers have the power. This guy isn’t happy with a car dealer.

Hah. Fetch balls. Really?

Scroll down for some nice concepts of superheroes in a retirement home.

I was wondering where Chris Cunningham went. Gucci ad.

Everyone’s heard about the Word-camp

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

A-well-a everybody’s heard about the word w-w-w-word, word, word, w-word’s the word. A-well-a word, word, word, the word is the word, Wordcamp!

35 speakers, some of them lip-smackingly good (from a genuine content distribution perspective), two days, three streams. 50 quid. 50 quid for two days! There’s value for money and there’s this. Plus 200 geeky folks networking. G’wan, go, even for one day.

Fluffy Links – Wednesday February 24th

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

New foodie blog Supper Satisfaction. Healthy eating from a guy who’s lost 8 stone so far.

Conor O’Neill is doing a poll on Where do you get *most* of your Irish web-industry business news?

Adrian Weckler on another post for businesses on proper use of email.

Conor also on why Google Earth just for Nexus is a bad idea.

I bet the same happens here. Councils give parking tickets to themselves, sue over nonpayment.

Dear Influential blogger, we’ll give you free broadband if…

Via Mark Hayes is the greatest Irish Music Video, ever. {{{{{ E V E R }}}}}
Crystal Swing – He Drinks Tequila

Miike Snow – Silvia

Fluffy Links – Tuesday 23rd February 2010

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

It’s not just Cork people you see, it’s Munster people who are over-patriotic. Munster – Nothing Else Matters.

Welcome to the Mediacontact.ie blog.

Gerry Adams publicly questioned on his own blog about the absence of the Irish language from the recent historic Agreement at Hillsborough. And a little while later….

Google Streetview is on the way in Ireland. How to get you and your house removed from it.

Lot of biz related links today:

Old article but good. How to conduct meetings, Google style.

Product placements on RTÉ on the way.

Synergy Centre, the business incubator space at the Institute of Technology, Tallaght, is currently accepting applications for free one year intensive business programme. Deadline for applications is 26th February 2010. Apply here.

Not Robocop tech, but Innovator has identified 15 opportunities to develop new services, processes and products in the Civil Security Market. InterTrade backed workshops on this area.

My fav C words. Apart from Cork, chocolate and the usuals.

Dublin Chamber of Commerce members on Twitter.

Heard mention of these on Phantom yest.
Smoke Fairies – Living With Ghosts

Junkinomics

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

I gave a talk at the Internet Growth Alliance‘s iGAP event last week. The title of the talk was Junkinomics, spammers and Obamabollox. I’ll expand on the first part of the talk in this post.

In the past few years many businesses didn’t consider what they did as a total act of survival. The Celtic Tiger made most people fat and comfortable (phsyically and mentally) and fed into a fantasty that doing nothing would still guarantee comfort. Yet even during the boom times people were still falling into complete poverty, people were homeless, pretty much lived a daily life of being starved and too many people were in constant survival mode.

Today if you walk around Dublin you’ll encounter junkies, beggars and homeless people every few minutes. They all want your money and there’s strong competition for it. Most people walk past them willfully ignoring them, pretending not to see them, some mightgive something and some will say they have no change. The style of the ask has changed over time, evolving to what works best/what will work for a while. It’s gone from aggressive demanding of money to politely asking for money for a cup of tea and thanking people no matter if they help or not (which makes some people stop and then give money as it ups the guilt perhaps.) I’ve noticed over time too that the “money for a cup of tea” ask has now changed to “money for a hostel”.

Access to the old Harcourt St. railway
Photo owned by Jacobo Tarrío (cc)

Last week at iGap I told the story of a girl who came up to me at the Luas Green stop opposite Stephen’s Green shopping centre asking for money. She told me she wasn’t a junkie and rolled up her sleeves to show me, she told me how her boyfriend had just left her, how she was 2 months pregnant and how she has nowhere to live and asked me to help with money.

A cold cynical analysis of this: She hung around at the richer Luas stop, the first leg in the journey of people to get out of the grime of the city. People almost relieved to get out of dodge and so will be slightly more irrational when handing over money. She started to build trust by showing me she wasn’t a junkie. She triggered emotional reactions by telling me 3 facts that would put me at unease and then gave me the opportunity to try and right some of these. She got a tenner off me.

To be able to get money from people with strong competition, from an audience that’s already jaded, you are going to have to adapt to it and find out what will get and sustain attention. In the right location a sign alone might work and get you small amounts of money (hello Google Adwords) but as the streets fill with more people doing the same, you’re not going to make as much. (Still looking at you Google Adwords) Knowing your audience, knowing what will get them to think and react is becoming more and more important. Do you change your message and go after small amounts in large volumes or do you tell a deeper story to a different audience? Watching what others are doing and seeing does it work is also needed and knowing how to adapt again when your unique message gets copied is also important.

It might be worth it for some companies to volunteer time with the “professional” charities who are experts at extracting cash from people even when many of them don’t have a tangible product. What they’ll teach you more than anything is how to understand people. You can donate to the Simon Community here.

Fluffy Links – Monday 22nd February 2010

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Donal is on the Afternoon Show today at 4pm. Watch if you can!

Movies by Moonlight in Blackrock Castle.

Bertie Ahern, true crime.

RTE Documentary on One now available as iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app. (Warning iTunes link)

Highly interesting. Realtime measurement of users on your site and what it means.

Via Slashdot. Jimmy Wales on innovation: Fail faster.

Leo Burdock‘s are on Twitter now.

Amzing links to rock and roll debuts on TV.

Hello Kitty, the musical/show. Crikey.

This fell into my inbox the other day, edited news reels about the Catholic Church’s sustained child abuse campaign:

Oh and this is apparently post number 4006 on the blog. Wow.

Government swallows little green pills for their Willie dysfunction problem

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Any excuse for a title like that. Loving the fact that Twitter are calling it #williegate and/or #willygate

See ya Willie.

Don’t forget to get your commemorative Willie tache. Willie O’Dea, tache.

Fluffy Links – Thursday 18th of February 2010

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Given this is Lent I’m hoping TUG will give up being cynical for it. Or even a percentage. Ah no, maybe next year 🙂

Crowdfunding an Irish book. Declan needs a few hundred people to commit to buying his book and then he can pubish it. Interesting way of getting it out.

New blog. Dublin Chamber of Commerce’s President, Peter Brennan, is blogging his year in office.

Most popular Facebook Pages in Ireland.

Speaking of which, load of jobs available in Facebook Dublin.

Radio DNS. Perhaps another future of radio using the Internet.

The Wisdom 2.0 conference looks quite interesting.

Wolfmother – Joker and the thief (Recycled rock)