Damien Mulley

I got one of the 3 mobile/Skypephones, the one that retail at €99 and allow you to call anyone who uses Skype and vice-versa. If you want to help me test it, add me to Skype, I’m damienmulleymobile and let’s see if this aul thing will work. Please don’t call til after 2 today though 🙂

Update: I just got two more of them in the post but these don’t come with sims so have to buy some.

Update2: Only in the past few minutes (It is now 1647) have your requests to add me to your contact details come through. 11 of you so far. 🙂 Bit of a bloody lag there. Rax, I think I accidently declined you!

With just a few days to go for Paddy’s valley, we have visits in place with Google, Apple, Facebook and SocialText and hopefully a few more to be announced as well. As well as that, Enterprise Ireland have organised an event on Tuesday evening where some of the Paddy’s Valley companies will pitch in front of some American VCs. The event starts at 1630 and ends after 2000. The Irish Ambassador will be in attendance. On Thursday we’ll be meeting the members of the Irish Network in San Francisco for another networking event from about 5 onwards. If any Irish company wants to contribute to the bar tab for the Thu night event, let us know.

We’re also trying to meet with some Irish folks that work in San Fran and the Valley while we’re over and a few of us are inviting other Valley people to smaller dinners where we can act like rabid fanboys, ok, not really, but close. If you are in or around San Fran or Silicon Valley from Dec 2nd to Dec 9th, let us know: paddysvalley { at } gmail.com

Well done to Vinny and Dave.*

An Irish mapping website which provides details of public transport links around the country saw a 150 per cent increase in usage as a result of the recent Dublin Bus dispute, writes John Collins .

JustRoutes.com has details of almost all Dublin Bus routes in the city and 3,621 bus stops. It also has details of all mainline rail routes and stations as well as 1,459 Bus Éireann stops. All street names can be viewed in Irish and English, and there is also an interface for French and Polish speakers. The site has been set up by Dave Rooney and Vinny Glennon, who were students at DCU together. A frustrating couple of hours spent by Rooney trying to get to Rathcoole, Co Dublin, on public transport inspired them to create the site. It is designed to allow people to find how to get from any two points in Ireland by public transport.

Dublin Bus or any of the other public transport companies do not have a similar service.

* Disclaimer, I helped them a little with their press release.

Sorry about the lateness in this, apparently people were emailed about it. Was too caught up with other matters to let you know the winners and to blog the past day and a bit.

Congrats to the following who won a Wii for Science Week:

• What was your favourite invention from your childhood? – Kevin Breathnach
• What invention would you most like to see in the future – Brian from atrier.com
• What is the next gadget you plan to buy? – Pedro Monscooch
• What was the best invention of 2007? – Poetbloggs
• What invention helps you most with your working life – Johnny Keyes

But it looks like if you want to keep writing about this, then go see Sinéad. She’s taken up the mantle and is asking people a new science question (no Wii prize this time though), the question is: What changes would you make to an existing piece of technology?

More during the week about the various events around Broadband Week. One to definitely to note is that they’ll be announcing an Innovation Fund at the end of the week that tech startups might benefit from.

Remember those ComScore stats? They’re back again for September, via eircom.

Top 10 Internet properties visited by Irish users during September 2007:

FACTS:
* Over 2 million people in Ireland logged onto the Internet in September 2007 (48% of the population)
* Top 5 properties visited by Irish users are non Irish sites
* eircom.net is the number one Irish site visited by Irish users
* Almost 1.2m unique users visited eircom.net during September.
* Only 3 of the top 10 sites visited by Irish users are Irish sites

1. Google
2. Microsoft
3. Yahoo!
4. bebo.com
5. eBay
6. eircom.net
7. Wikipedia
8. Time Warner Network
9. Ryanair
10. Aer Lingus

Top Sporting sites visited by Irish Users

FACTS:

* 65% of Irish visitors to sporting sites are under the age of 35
* 64% of Irish visitors to these sites are male
* RTE Sport is the 3rd most visited sporting site by Irish internet users
* Only two Irish sites in the top 10 – RTE Sport and GAA.ie
* One in three Irish users visited a sporting site

1. skysports.com
2. premierleague.com
3. RTE Sport
4. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
5. BBC Sport

Wrestling!!

Top Multimedia Sites visited by Irish Users

FACTS:
* 66% of Irish visitors to multimedia entertainment sites are under the age of 35
* 10% of Irish visitors to these sites are 55 or older
* 43% of Irish users visited a multimedia site during September 2007

1. youtube.com
2. iTunes
3. Windowsmedia.com
4. real.com
5.AOL Music

Top Gambling Sites Visited by Irish Users

FACTS
* The number of unique visits to Gambling sites by Irish users has doubled in the past year.
* lotto.ie and paddypower.com are the 2nd and 3rd most popular gambling sites for Irish users
* 30% of Irish Internet users visit Gambling websites once a month

1. 888.com
2. lotto.ie
3. Paddy Power
4. 365 Media Group
5. betfair.com

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS
* Boards.ie is the most visited discussion / chat site by Irish users in September 2007
* Unique visits to discussion / chat sites have increased 16% in the last year
* 1 in 4 Irish users visited a discussion / chat site during September

And sometimes I really like Google. It seems anyone that sold out and polluted the web by fakeblogging for Pay Per Post have now received almost the ulimate punishment and have gotten a Pagerank of zero. Just checked a few sites who use Lie Per Post and yup, zero. Trouble is my ranking has gone down from 5 to 3 too but I wonder is that because of the increased diluting of link weight? Though it doesn’t bother me as I’ve never been obsessed about it.

Update: Loving how Pay Per Post claim censorship by Google yet mysteriously there are ZERO negative comments about their service on their blog post. Everyone is positive.

Final day. Final chance. With so many people not going online to blog today, you might have a greater chance. The question for the Science Week competition today is:

In your opinion what was the best invention in 2007?

Now don’t forget to link to the Science Week website for this and every entry this week! Happy blogging.

David is already out the gates and suggests the One Laptop Per Child.

M Buckley says Functionalized Nanoporous Thin Films.

Sinéad says the ZymeQuest Blood Simple Machine

Johnny says Xerox’s Erasable Paper.

Bernie says MammaPrint.

Kevin suggests a Facebook Application.

Daragh says Monkey Cloning.

Cian says something better than Velcro.

Joe says the Facebook API.

Treasa doesn’t know.

Conor says the BiancaMed Overnight Sleep Monitor

Tensare says a hamster shredder. No, not that kinda of thing.

Simon says his son. Best answer ever.

Will says the haptic screen.

Darran says the iPhone.

There’s a Wii to be won for blogging an answer to the question:Which invention has helped you most with your working life?

Off ye go. Am sure it being a Friday and everyone being busy you’re allowed to take your time with this one. Another day to go too, this is the question to consider for blogging on Saturday: In your opinion what was the best invention in 2007?

David says (shock!) books.

Pedro says the alarm clock.

Johnny says the World Wide Web.

Simon thinks the treasury tag.

Daragh says the dry-wipe whiteboard and the non-permanent marker.

Bernie says the Moleskin.

Sinéad says the Filofax. Old school!

Darran says the Internet.

Tensare says Tea!

Conor says the Internet.

Joe says the Internet.

Kevin says the database.

Adam says email.

Right, thanks for those that voted for me and judged me for the Netvisionary Award. I won for Technology Journalist.

We were not allowed give speeches except for the overall netvisonary who was Fergus Burns from Nooked. Met him twice now in the past seven days and the guy is a networking dynamo and someone with a very progressive attitude about Ireland and technology and what needs to change. Well done Fegus. About time and very much deserved.

Anyways, if I was allowed to make a speech I would have said the award was dedicated to Richard Delevan who hired me for the Sunday Tribune and guided me for the past 10 or so months. It would be great to see more people scouting the very talented blogging community that we have in Ireland and offering them various opportunities. There are a fair few bloggers out there that can and do give a lot of journalists a run for their money.

I should also thank Ralph Averbuch, Ciara O’Brien, Eamonn McGrane, John Kennedy, John Collins, Adrian Weckler, Max Kelly, Mark Tighe, Kathy Foley and so many more journalists who have interviewed me when I was at the other side of the fence causing trouble (and mostly still am) and in doing so helped me to communicate my own thoughts in a better way. Same goes for everyone that leaves comments here and gives feedback whether they agree with me or not.

Thank you everyone for being my army of editors and my free R&D team.

(Picture nicked from Keith)