Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

iPads and the future of news and media

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

I’m talking at the Media 2020 conference on Tuesday. I’ll be talking about gadgets and showing off my iPad but here’s my take on the silliness around iPad being the new Christ.

The deathnote for news has been served. So some are running off to the iPad and thinking that will save them and others are looking at paywalls, again. Marc Andreessen suggests burning the boats and going web only. Let management have a viking funeral too.

Newsflash:
A touchscreen interface to your milquetoast content will not save your business.
A paywall to content that is far from unique or of value will not save your business.
Wordpress powered jaded content is still jaded content.
Has 3D saved the movie industry?

We’ve gone from storytelling to writings on parchment to printed missives to audio to audio and video to digital to multi-way interaction to a world now where something that fits in a pocket takes in data, sends out location data, takes audio, video, pictures, is manipulated by us, is shared with the world, shared and taken back into the device. Within seconds. We overshare on Facebook and generate our own news like we always have. “Any news?” we are asked. Do we respond with what we heard on the radio?

News should be getting richer and more multi-faceted every year and instead the past few decades it’s become homogenised. So yeah while starving yourself of oxegen got your rocks off for a while, it has also killed you. Ask Michael Hutchence and David Carradine.

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Photo owned by nDevilTV (cc)

Why are news and media trying to barely iterate on what they are doing when there are devices out there that are not iterations of a previous device but big leaps and you don’t take advantage? The iPad is then going to take what it has now and iterate on that over years. Adapt to change. It hasn’t got multitasking, a camera, USB ports, is certainly not open yet is still vastly superior to anything out there. There are already amazing applications on it. Yet bringing in a new paperboy to deliver the newspaper to the door isn’t going to save you folks, is it?

Popular Science, Coolhunting and that Alice in Wonderland interactive book have been lauded as great so far for iPad but they’re on a device that’s a fraction of one percent of the people that daily consume media. If you wait for all of them to go all iPad buying then you’ll be very broke. Innovate what you’re doing, not how you deliver.

So all these huge news organisations in Ireland, all moaning about crime and gangland bladey blah. Not one has a Google map, mapping out the places where the violence happened. Not one has done interactive timelines. A multimedia world and we’re getting black and white single layer analog content or chirping about RTÉ.ie being a threat.

All could have been iterating their way to the full multimedia experience one gets with an iPad. Nah. Here’s an RSS feed and iPhone app that puts our content in a smaller window. Fa ab.

Look at the big bad content producers online right now. Facebooks, Twitters, YouTubes and all those other places of noise and mess. Look how much Facebook will make this year compared to the New York Times. While NBC or CBS kick their ass, look at the growth rate. Look at how much Apple has made from selling content and apps. I’m doubting the future of news will come from those in news right now or the trail blazing elitists that believe they’re better than their traditional media peers cos they have a blog and better than bloggers because they have a piece of paper that certifies they can type and press record on an mp3 recorder. You’re still the system, you just wear a silly cape around the office. Look to those who caused a stir online already and have a grasp of a business model used this century, not one that worked 200 years ago. Or actually know what a business model is.

At the end of the day the reason for the failure is this: It’s your stupid content, stupid

Start

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Worst recession ever. Banks not lending money. Ireland is all sorts of fucked. Nobody is spending a penny. Stealth redundancies en masse. House prices are plummeting.

And with it…

Office space is dirt cheap.
Every price can be negotiated.
Deals are much easier to do if you are someone with cash.
There are oceans of talented graduates looking for work and who’ll work damned hard to retain their position.
Colleges are throwing interns at companies.
People have more free time (unfortunately for some) to beta test your products or services.
The media want good news stories.

It’s cheaper to fail now.

Some great companies started in a recession, Google wasn’t one.

Fluffy Links – Thursday April 22nd 2010

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Plug! My Online PR course is on May 4th in Camden Court Hotel. Places are available still.

RENT in LIT this Sunday. You may know someone familiar in it.

Love this video summary of the Blog Awards by some of the Brazilian lads.

Glad to report about 60 people have signed up to come along to Measure it! in the Odeon on May 5th. Free event to get the PR/Social Media/Webby/Marketing industries to mix it up with each other and exchange some insights.

Julian video interviews Bill Leigon.

Gardai take away the laptop of a Fianna Fáil councillor. Meanwhile a local paper covers allegations made about said councillor.

Web Analytics 101. Amazing and in-depth post on web analytics. A must read, a must print.

Docs.com from Microsoft and Facebook looks to be interesting.

Old Sufjan Stevens concert with nice string arrangements. Come back Sufjan, we want good music.

DSPCA appeal video (tough images)

Heyday – On April 24th, call for a general election by making noise

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Use of the song approved of my Mic Christopher’s family too:

Facebook Page calling for a General Election. If you support the idea why not blog it, Tweet it and share it with friends on Facebook?

Fluffy Links – Monday 19th April 2010

Monday, April 19th, 2010

It’s the name that caught me. Cookery classes for me and you and kids too! UmNumNum

Did a talk recently at the Ballybane Enterprise Centre. This centre was set up by the local Credit Union to support local business. Brilliant idea.

Guy protests with blank placard. Love it.

Charities, beer drinkers and chancers.

Two more Bizcamps are happening soon. No money resting in accounts under this name at least!

Another TwinnerParty with Donal. Twitter, food prep, food eating.

How not to choke. Stage fright/performance type choke.

This follow finder tool from Google rocks.

Crystal Castles new album is out soon, maybe sooner with the leak the past few days. This is one of the tracks:

Notes from my TEDx Liffey talk

Friday, April 16th, 2010

And these were my notes from TEDx Liffey.

Accidental Business Man

A few years back people asked me to show them how to blog. They offered me money to train them. It went from there to online marketing training to whatever it is I do today. I never saw myself as a business person. Right now, in this time slice of my life, I happen to be someone with a gob that has a business

Jacked in the day job

So as I trained more people and companies, I eventually and after a bit of protest from myself, left the day job and started a business. Goodbye gourmet chef, 9-5 , 5 days a week job, hello just me, alone without support. So I told people I was in this business lark and worked flowed in. Pretty much still works like that. I don’t seek work.

Waking up not wanting to go to work

In the past few years of working for myself I’ve maybe woken up 3-4 times not wanting to “go into work”, mostly this was because I thought I hadn’t prepped enough for this. Compare that to my old job where I made up bullshit excuses so many times about stomach bugs, colds and whathave you because the place at times just got to me

I don’t have a business plan

Right now, invoices go out, money comes in. My accountant whips me when I’m late with accounts. At a previous talk a chap from Enterprise Ireland got quite upset with me when I said I didn’t have a business plan. My plan, not formalised is I won’t be doing this type of work in 3 years. I’ll probably shut down the company. I don’t want to be acquired, don’t want to buy anyone.

Accidently happy

So I might not have a business plan but I do have an idea about business and happiness. I do work because it makes me happy, not because it provides me money to buy myself happiness. I used to be someone that worked in a job that I disliked, waited for payday and bought myself shiny things. Now I pay myself less than the old job, get up usually when I like and can decide with very short notice to head for a break to Iceland or somewhere. I love my job, the last job I loved was working for 2.50 an hour in Pund City when I was 15 16 17, stacking shelves and the like.

Charge less for fun

So this is what I do when I do work. If it’s fun I’ll charge less. I’ll move money out of the motivation equation as much as I can so the before, during and after is fun. Not about a mechanism to pay a credit card bill. I’m not sure you can give 100% to work when you despise it and almost are in some kind of drug addict relationship with the drug.

Buffet to A la carte

So plenty of work comes in and it was as if I was at a buffet. Sample it all, there was so much that I was interested in trying that I was saying yes to an awful lot. Tummy ache for that. Happiness can make you ill too though. So I’m starting to go a la carte now. Wiser decisions, less work but more time to enjoy and appreciate it

Now the song is nearly over…

So my parting thought is that we can all earn a living but maybe we can do it and be happy and appreciate the journey to payday as much as payday instead

Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there’s a light I hold before me
You’re the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams

Preparing a 4 min presentation

Friday, April 16th, 2010

So for TEDx Liffey last night I was given 4 minutes to talk about being happy in business.

240 seconds is 4 minutes so I figured I’d do 8 X 30 second talking points. I started off by jotting down a few quick thoughts on some rough paper. Followed by some thoughts on two pages of notepaper. From that I wrote down the slide headers on a post-it.

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After that I rewrote out all 8 points again. I then proceeded to read them out and time myself. Came out to be about 4 mins 10 seconds after a few read-throughs.

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And from there was typing it up:
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After that it was creating the slides which only used the text from the headers with the last slide taking lyrics from a Pogues song.

IIA’s Digitise the Nation

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

The IIA are running a week-long event called Digitise the Nation. It takes place from the 16th to 21st May 2010. The idea is everyone chips in and does a little to get people using the web more effectively. Workshops, discounts, art using tech etc. etc. While an IIA initiative, I’m told they’ll highlight non-members too that run events for it.

Lots of ideas on the Digitise the Nation page. Here are some more that were sent on:

* In Dundalk, we have a member who is filming from the Museum and streaming to 5th and 6th class students as basis for history homework and projects.
* Kavaleer (award winning digital animation business based in Digitial Hub) showing primary school students how digital art is created… showing children how cartoons are made and inspiring the next generation of Brown Bag Productions and oscar winning “Avatar” creators
* Received a call from Barge Heritage group who are bringing barges to Dublin on the same week and want to learn how to run a podcast, live-streaming as they are upstream on the Liffey and canals
* Two girls with their own computer training business have successfully approached their local “Golden Oldies” community group and are showing them how to make skype calls and send emails

Contact the IIA if you want to suggest some ideas or run an event.

Fluffy Links – Monday April 12th 2010

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Karen from Life’s a Bastard has a new blog counting down to her wedding day. Beating myself into a dress.

Interesting job from Prosperity. Online content editor doing social media larky stuff.

Pat’s put broadband in his car, for his iPad. Easy setup.

BTW meetup (Blogger-Twitter-Whatever) on the 29th April. The event is free to attend.

Direct eBooks in Cork are looking for a web developer.

Congrats to all those nominated for Net Visionary Awards.

Via Neil Gaiman

Skinny Puppy – Spasmolytic

Irish Times iPhone app

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Via JC
Hopefully we’ll something more exciting for the iPad app. Better than viewing it via Safari on iPhone but not by much. €1.59 for the app. Cheap as chips. Offline storing of the stories too. Good!

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