Author Archive

The Facebook IPO – Every Facebook member to become a shareholder?

Monday, December 17th, 2007

We all have bad memories of IPOs in Ireland, eircom’s one in particular. It’s looking likely that Facebook in the near future will go the IPO route. Facebook, not one for doing things the conventional way, even if the convention is about 3 years old could do something unexpected again. Imagine if they gave the members of Facebook options to be shareholders? They already listen to their people and even after all the hulabaloo over Beacon (which was more about a lameass “democrat” organisation finding a new target. MoveOn.org you’re tossers) and other issues, they amended things to keep people happy, they just caught Google out by checkmating them on OpenSocial and they have a few more clever things on the radar to make their users happy and make money from it.

It almost makes sense they’ll do what Google did and have a dutch style IPO but also offer cheaper shares to their users or give them options to buy.

What would that do to their stock though? Would 50Million shareholders mean that their whims, if tweaked, could see the stock go up and down like a yoyo or would it mean they just ensured 50M people are devoted to making the site work and recruiting everyone else? Would the stock would remain very stable as each shareholder feels they have a connection to each other and the Facebook board? What about the traditional institutional investors?

Whatever whichway, I bet the Facebook IPO will be fun.

Blog Awards 2008 – Some more details

Monday, December 17th, 2007

The categories for the 2008 Irish Blog Awards are below. I’m looking for sponsors again, previous sponsors pay the same price as last year whereas new sponsors pay a little more. Prices to be finalised in the next few days. While last year the goody bags were secret (and were near empty as a result), this year I’m seeking goods to put into the goody bags. If you work for a company or know of a company that wants to put some of their merchandise in the bags for free, give me a shout. Leaflets are a no. Ideally we’ll need about 400 items per company. Nominations will start fairly soon too so be ready. This year the process is going to be different as you’ll see. Keep a look out!

* Best Blog
* Best Blog Post
* Special Recognition Award
* Most Humorous Post
* Best Photo Blog
* Best Arts and Culture Blog
* Best Political Blog
* Best Group Blog

* Best Personal Blog
* Best Use of the Irish Language in a Blog
* Best Technology Blog/Blogger

* Best Designed Blog
* Best Sport & Recreation Blog
* Best News/Current Affairs Blog
* Best Specialist Blog

* Best Newcomer
* Best Business Blog
* Best Music Blog

* Best Food/Drink Blog
* Best Crafts Blog
* Best Popculture blog
* Best Blog from a Journalist

Fluffy Links – Monday December 17th 2007

Monday, December 17th, 2007

Is mise Donal Duck? RTE are oirishing Disney?

So people are now slow to trust Governments with their data? Took some time didn’t it?

A great summary of what Vendor Relationship Management is.

Via Kottke, love it:

Trying stuff is cheaper than deciding whether to try it.

Via RFJ Track all your packages in one go with Track the Pack.

Dickheads of the year. Irish version to follow? Twenty, ya want to make one?

There’s a competitor to Redbull in America for the girlie market and some sales proceeds goes to a breast cancer charity. It’s called Go Girl. That’s me modeling for them.

I bet she nagged him into it.

Still a chance to get Tom Waits to number one for Christmas

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

People of Ireland, you have til Thursday to buy the Tom Waits song “Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis” and try and get it in the charts or close to number 1. G’wan, it’ll beat the usual shite. Buying details here from Adam. Summary:

Apple iTunes* – 99c, works on any iPod or iPhone (please note the link will launch iTunes)
Eircom Music Club – €1.20, works on any ‘Plays for Sure’ device / €1.40, works on mobile phone
Sony Connect* – €1.29, works on any Sony device (please note the link only works in Internet Explorer and you will need the SonicStage application to download song)
EasyMusic – €1.35, works on any ‘Plays for Sure’ device (please note you may have to change your location to Ireland before purchasing as the site’s default is for the UK)
Wippit – €1.39, works on any ‘Plays for Sure’ device (please note you may have to change your location to Ireland before purchasing as the site’s default is for the UK)

Happy 200th to 73man

Friday, December 14th, 2007

200 posts down. 2000 more to go.

Fluffy Links – Friday December 14th 2007

Friday, December 14th, 2007

Bock has at it with the Brothers of Charity Inquiry. Bock is like Geraldo and Prime Time mixed together with gin. Seriously though, Bock is impressing me more and more each week. Well done dude. If this fucker gets a book deal before me though there’ll be war… 🙂

Suzy scoops again.

More Paddy’s Valley meetup details from Anton.

John Collins talks about when Paddy’s Valley meets Socialtext.

Want. Want eile.

Jessi now has a blog too. Ready, steady, rant! Prolific already.

John Gormley did not mention me today. Crysies (Una you rock). I wonder though could he answer a comment somebody here made about the carbon footprint he’s left as a result of all the jetting to Bali. Someone suggested teleconferencing in to the meeting instead. Not sure is teleconferencing ready to be as good as real-life ear bending though. And by the way, still not a fan of the new Green party but fair play for the Minister for the Environment blogging, as in REAL blogging. Dialup Dempsey blogged during the election and stopped but full praise for Sandal John for the blogging.

Via the Chancer, the RTE News Bebo page.

Oh sweet Christ.

Speaking of Christ, I got the 2007 edition of this.

eircom. Tut tut.

Via Lar: The Paradox of choice:

Fluffy Links – Thursday December 13th 2007

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

Suzy has a Michael Lynn scoop. Is he off to Brazil?

Red Mum has a long rant about the life of someone that rents in Dublin. Politicians should read that.

Go to Sabrina’s site or else.

Bosco is back. Oh bollox. Annoy your friends this Christmas.

Teachers are getting Bebo bullying training. Perhaps getting them to use a computer is a first step. Step zero is the state providing a computer to them. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I tore up 40 euros worth of One 4 All vouchers the other day as they were out of date. Gits. Seems Conor found a loophole.

Amazon customer service, now with a funny bone.

This is sad. Using a pic of a blackberry convo for a scoop.

Remember my friends from that baggage handling company? 🙂 Thanks to Paul.
Sky Handling

Randall Munroe from mega-amazing comic XKCD gave a 50 min talk at Google. Funny, entertaining a little bit hot.

Another Paddy’s Valley post – Alexia, Anton, Shane and Havi blog about it

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

Alexia has blogged some takeaways from the trip. Nice summary of Valley philosophy. Forget some business book, print off her points and stick it on your mirror so you see it every time you’re feeling vain.

Anton doesn’t want the momentum to dwindle. Come along on January 20th 24th to meet us all.

Shane blogs about the Paddy’s Valley adventure too.

And now for a super bonus, we got mentioned on the Yahoo! Next blog by Havi.

If there is a next time for Paddy’s Valley I want us all to meet the the Governator. Aim high, it works over there.

EDIT: Cough.

Facebook Applications on … Bebo and others – Important for Irish businesses

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

Via Techcrunch and Facebook Dev blog:

Google Open what?

CEO Michael Birch says that it has been developing these parallel languages for about five months and in communication with Facebook itself, which has been assisting Bebo in its efforts to essentially adopt its platform.

This is very very important for Ireland since Bebo is still the main social networking site here. I still believe Facebook is where it’s at in terms of social networks and current figures show that Facebook now stands at 190k+ users in Ireland but as of a few weeks time applications like Scrabulous can be installed on Bebo. Scrabulous has more mindshare than Facebook it seems and this comes from FB people! If you are an application developer it’s all good as Bebo is mirroring the application markup language that Facebook is using. What is probably most important is that this will allow cross-platform interaction. Play scrabulous via Facebook against your kid brother on Bebo. If you’re a business that wants to reach a large audience and saw Facebook as easier to build for, well now all that’s changed again. Now you don’t have to pay thousands to have your application approved by Bebo and accessed by their userbase. I wonder what those companies will say who paid a lot to load their applications onto Bebo?

One wonders will we see the same happen with other social networking sites? I think we will. Great move by Bebo but this is a coup for Facebook. They just open-socialed Open Social. Of course every other social network will want Facebook applications to be installed on their site and ways to interlink with Facebook’s 50Million users. Next year they’ll have 100Million on the site. I assume we’ll soon see cross-network IM, chat, gaming and VOIP and all done before Open Social.

I’m betting a tenner the werewolves and ninjas applications will be the most popular though.

I’m blogging about John blogging about me about me blogging about him

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

It had to be done. Never mind the sandals, here’s John Gormley. Day Two in Bali and John pokes me about poking him about his sandals. We’re rooting for John in Bali though. We’re shit at soccer and rugby on the International stage, perhaps it’ll be “our John” who’ll beat the French, the English and the South Africans at this event. Oh, right, it’s not that kind of event? Still, c’mon Sandal John!

Sandal John Gormley and his environmentally friendly rothar