You eagle-eyed West Cork drivers may have noticed a big new sign on the back of one of the units behind Great Gas on the Bandon Bypass. It is the retail/warehouse outlet of newly launched Curious Wines. Mike Kane, the owner, has put together a brilliant selection of wines which are not your usual supermarket generic stuff.
Their web-site has just gone live and it’s a corker (boom! boom!). Another stunning creation by the shockingly talented Ms Dent. I think it’s probably the best looking and most effective wine web-site in the country and puts the major chains to shame. The wine value is also fantastic and you really should buy by the case and save even more.
I’m just looking forward to the tastings that Mike has planned since I’ll be able to walk to them!...
i’m running a survey to find out the habits of iPhone users in Ireland. How you use the phone, what you spend, feedback on the phone etc. If you fill in the survey you’ll be entered into a draw to win a voucher for €50 worth of iTunes vouchers or if you send an iPhone owner to the survey and they fill it in, you’ll be entered into another draw for a €50 voucher.
The Irish iPhone survey is here.
If you have any issues with the server etc. please let me know.
Photo owned by kleinman (cc)...
Highlights from the survey:
Adoption for most categories of digital content services doubled from last year, with services such as social networking now at 60 percent penetration and Internet data plans for mobile devices at over 40 percent for respondents globally
76 percent of consumers have already watched video on their PC, up 27 percent from last year
For both PC and mobile video, the vast majority of respondents prefer advertising-supported models as opposed to consumer-paid models, representing huge growth opportunity for the industry
Close to 60 percent of total respondents were willing to provide information about themselves – such as age, gender, lifestyle or communications preferences – in exchange for something of value
The 13-24 year old segment owns an average of...
Photo owned by jerine (cc)
The more I meet businesses big and small and business people big and small, the more I see how many different ways these businesses communicate both internally and externally. It makes me wonder whether one of the main skills of an excellent sales person is not acting like a foreigner in a company but somebody who can speak to them in their own language.
If you think about those that may have learned English as as second or third language though and when they come to Ireland, they have a lot more to learn because of how we use and abuse English. Our English is quite different to the English of those in the UK or Canada or the United States. Only when someone starts becoming native do they get all those nuances. If you as a company are selling to the SMEs,...
By not being a customer you’re an idiot says new Komplett advertising campaign:
(Begin the photoshopping)
I’m not sure how such a campaign will go over in Ireland. By using emotional blackmail to push people into shopping with you, you can quite easily turn them against you. This has to be the stupidest advertising I’ve seen in Ireland in a while. Let’s hope these ads don’t encourage additional name-calling between people.
What it also suggests is if we somehow use that thing called logic is that unless you’ve always been shopping with Komplett then you too are an idiot but Komplett want your money anyway. Now that’s respect for the customer right there. I used to recommend Komplett.ie to lots of friends and associates. That stops today.
This is...
The more puntastic headline for this could have been: Joyce Le Taxi
Photo owned by Presleyson Lima (cc)
I’m loving the Government eTenders site. Currently just searching for any tenders awarded with the Cork keyword. Found this:
The Irish Prison Service has a requirement for the transport of staff, visitors, prisoners, and small goods within the environs of Cork City and County areas, and occasionally as the need arises further afield. It is expected that the service will commence in early 2008 for initial period of 3 years with the option to extend for a further 12 months. The contracted service provider will be available to provide taxi services throughout the day and throughout the year to Cork Prison, as required.
It’s for 90k over three years starting in 2008 and was...
Via the eTenders site:
Enterprise Ireland invites expressions of interest from suitably competent firms for the Publication of eBusiness Electronic Newsletter - eBusiness Live and management of eBusiness Discussion Forum 2007-2010 for the www.openup.ie web site.
Value:
II.2.1)
Total final value of the contract(s)
Value:210450Currency:EUR Excluding VAT
This would be Richard’s fav mailing list....
O’Briens press released today about them not wanting to pay double time for people that work on a Sunday. Naturally they threatened 60 jobs would be lost. In fairness lads.
Photo owned by Annie Mole (cc)
Brody Sweeney (not pictured) stated in the press release:
“This Sunday ‘double time / time and a third’ comes from a period in Ireland where there was no Sunday trading to speak of, and where many employers used Dickensian tactics with their employees. In modern Ireland, Sunday trading is a fact of life; most employers offer Sunday hours on a purely voluntary basis, and of course we have no ability to charge extra to our customers, to reflect the increased cost” he said.
Currently 75% of O’Briens’ 126 stores on the Island of Ireland are open on Sundays. They...
I’m not being sarcastic here. Two things, no actually three things that EI deserves recognition for.
1. Innovation Vouchers. I got mine during the week. Really excited about them. Getting friends to get theirs too. Right now, in these very odd financial times, they’re a boon.
2. EI sent around an email around today talking up loads of Irish Web 2.0 companies including: PollDaddy, Contrast, dotMobi, Muzu TV, Nooked, Dial2Do, LouderVoice, PutPlace, Finetuna, Abaltat, RevaHealth, Toddle, IGOpeople, Hosting365, Sxoop Technologies
3. The Enterprise Ireland Silicon Valley blog. For a such a dinosaur of an entity, this blog is disruptive. Not for those that see EI from the outside, or those in the inside but also because blogging disrupts the blogger. Blogging has changed the way I...
Why not talk about your own project or a project you like for this week’s push? That’s what Gordon has done. Not had time this week to process the Push or look through the noms for Blog post of the Month. So g’wan promote something you like this time and we’ll get back to the usual in two weeks....
So you may have seen if you’re on Facebook there are some sponsored ads on the right from Heineken or even ads in the middle of your news feed that advertise some music festival they’re running:
Click on the ad and you are brought to their website for the event. It asks where you’re coming from on their Irish site after directing you there. Uhm. Hello?
There they ask you for your details including your age and country you’re from. Data they have easy access to on Facebook. They make you re-register all over again for their events when a simple app on Facebook which only those above 18 in Ireland or 21 in the States can see. Dopes.
I’m sure there’s a massive drop-off rate too. Why not create a fan page on Facebook which you can restrict to people of...
There are some amazing conferences that are on around Ireland, the UK, europe, the rest of the world and some of them have some amazing prices too. Le Web this year in Paris is €1,495.00 - €1,794.00 depending on how early you register. The O’Reilly Web 2.0 moneyfest in Berlin was a few grand too. Even in Ireland you see conferences ranging from €250 to over a grand for a day or two-day event. That’s a lot of dough these days to pay to be lectured to isn’t it?
I do often wonder for the specialised but expensive conferences whether you’d be better off just hosting your own day-long event in Ireland without having to fly in the big names or the big guns. They’re certainly great to see and draw a crowd but when some charge from 10k to 100k for a speaking...
Everyone’s fav property website (except maybe for Fianna Fáil, the Greens, Daft, MyHome and the developers) has done it again. They were first to point out that the Home Choice Loans scheme was dodgy as fuck and now they’ve raised it with the EU, who are going to investigate it. This is probably the next big scandal from the budget. Stay tuned here. This is people power and the web working for the common good.
Blurb:
After hundreds of contributors to website
http://www.thepropertypin.com recently lodged complaints with the EU.
The European Commission has now confirmed that it is to carry out
further investigations under EU State Aid laws regarding the
governments ‘Home Choice Loans’ scheme unveiled in Budget 2009.
Part of the complaint alleges that the scheme is a...
Photo owned by Kofoed (cc)
RTE Current Affairs are looking for stories about experiences with broadband or customer service in general. Want to tell your side? They’re looking for both positive and not so positive experiences. I know which will have the most volume!
Email: consumer.response@rte.ie with your story....
Competition time! Are you the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) person in Ireland? Want to prove it? Via the Irish Web Awards vehicle, we’re running another competition to see who’s the best at SEO in Ireland.
Photo owned by Mister Wilson (cc)
You have until December 1st at 3pm to rank your website for the following phrase: geansai gorm. Yup, we’re using a phease as gaelige in order as as not to pollute the indices as much as possible.
Criteria:
Entries open to all Irish businesses.
Search is to be performed on google.ie. Without Pages From Ireland selected, with personalisation off and from an Irish IP address.
The domain to rank must be a new domain. Must not contain the keywords in the domain name at all and no ccTLD domains are to be used.
Only want the...
The amazing Annette in association with the Arts Council has organised a whopper of a conference in Dublin Castle on November 25th titled New Media, New Audience?. Two keynoters will be speaking, the engaging, intelligent and charming Charles Leadbeater (see his TED video) and the crank’s favourite Andrew (is to Nicholas Carr, as Channel 6 is to the Beeb) Keen.
Photo owned by Cindy Funk (cc)
The full agenda includes some great panel discussions and workshops. (Disclaimer: I’m giving a workshop and getting paid for it). It’s nice to see a traditional and what I’d see as conservative (Arts being conservative seems so wrong!) group take the idea of new/social media heads on and see what they can do together. Every element in every segment could do with more insight...
Cybercom has scooped a 2008 MAA Globe Award for Best Digital Communications Campaign in Toronto this week, for its work on the Powerade ‘Never Give Up’ campaign. It’s not the first award though for this. The campaign has won the Grand Prix at the APMC (Association of Promotional Marketing Consultants), an award for Best Marketing and Communications Campaign at the Coca-Cola Worldwide Marketing Awards and more.
And then also this week Waterford’s Nubiq won a Most Innovative Mobile Internet Consumer Deployment award at the Mobile Internet World in Boston for their Zinadoo Mobile Website Creation service.
Well done both companies who have been working away for the past while and are being rewarded for their efforts. The recognition they got is great for them and for the...
Blank url.
Someone got a screenshot though. Someone else did great detective work.
The Irish Times still have the story though....
I have no excuse for the lack of posting here other than the usual busy-ness of life. I’ll get back into writing mode very soon. Lots of blogposts and book reviews in my head, I just need to get them out through my fingers.
Speaking of reviews, I hope my loyal readers don’t mind me doing a very quick bit of blatant promotion of LouderVoice. We have just kicked off our 2008 BES offering. If the mayhem of the markets has you spooked, then you may find our tax-efficient offering interesting. All details over on our corporate blog.
So for my next post, should I do a rant on Annaghmore (greatest idea since the invention of the square wheel), a review of “Drive On” by LJK Setright (stunning), a review of “Full On Irish” by Kevin Dundon (patchy) or something...
The list of talks (so far) people have suggested for BarCamp Cork II on November 1st. I’m going to do two, if we have the time and space.
The second one is top secret though some know what it is, it’ll be revealed on the day. It’s a bit of fun and troublemaking. And the first: The Famous Raffle: An open discussion (chaired by me) where one person is picked out of a hat and we figure out how to make them famous nationally
Photo owned by Banalities (cc)
Vulgar, brash and tabloidesque it maybe but .. actually there are no buts. Allof the above. Applicants put their name on a piece of paper and all pieces are put into a hat. We then pick out one from the hat, bring the person to the front of the room, they explain who they are and why they want to get fame and then we as a...
This is the Tuesday Push, the idea is that anyone (not just tech companies or bloggers) talk up an Irish technology product service. One that is unique and offers value. We’re not in the business of being a free a marketing team for off-the-shelf products that have been rebadged. Please keep that in mind. If you want to submit your tech product, do so here. If you want to partake, then just watch this space every second Tuesday. Also, feedback, positive or negative once constructive is welcomed. This is about encouragement with eyes open.
Today’s pushee is BookMeetingRoom.com
Blurb:
Simplify the management of meeting room booking and other shared resource reservations within your office environment quickly and efficiently using bookmeetingroom.com. No software downloads or...
My talk at it@Cork the other day was a jamming together of two topics that don’t really fit well, despite the Sunday Business Post having a section for it: Media and Marketing. Working with the media and getting in the media and Online Marketing aren’t exactly much of the same thing. Anyways a way I themed them together is about being connected.
Media relations is all about connecting to the right people to get your story out and the quality of the existing connection if you know the people already. Sometimes you don’t know them but they know you which can also help. An aspect of online marketing these days is also connecting. Connecting people in a company to people who live and breathe the online lifestyle and then connecting the company to their wallets, if you want...
Another of the special surprises at the Web Awards were the amazing cupcakes by Dublin Cupcakes. It was Jason that got on to me about them, suggesting them for the event and knowing I like to have something on the night that was not announced in advance. After being to Interesting in London this year and Moo sponsoring some wonderful cupcakes I thought they’d work well at Irish events too. Who doesn’t like sugar rushes? I then forgot about pursuing the idea.
Here are some pics taken by the folks from Dublin Cupcakes on the night:
Just like the Made in Hollywood people, me blogging about this was not part of the deal, this is me big upping them because I’m so happy with what they brought to the Awards and the great service. I’ll happily use them again for other...
The 2008 it@cork conference has been announced and the title is: GREEN IT: Reduce CO2, Raise Profits Conference
Pretty obvious what it’ll be about from that! There are a whole load of really speakers lined up for this and the full schedule is here. George Lee is opening it. Last week I had great fun watching Catherine and Alison from it@cork getting their photos taken for the press for this. One giant postcard and a green postbox. I ended up being official handbag holder/guarder while they stood around the South Mall.
Have a look at the enviromentally friendly initiatives for the conference too. I’m on the organising committee for this conference and ont he steering committee for it@cork too....
Got this in my mail a while back from Visrez but had no time to blog it.
Well it’s a standalone booking engine system that can be used to sell accommodation online. You can also use the same system to sell events as well but at the moment, we want to test the booking engine side of things. We’re just coming into the beta testing phase and we’re looking for people who are interested in being beta testers and submitting feedback about the usability of the system.
The 3 types of accommodation we’re hoping to test are B&Bs/Guesthouses, Apartments who sell short term accommodation (1 month or less) and hotels who can allocate 10 - 60 rooms to the beta system.
It’s commission-free, no set up costs and no long term contracts. The incentive for beta testers is...
I did an FOI about Innovation Vouchers recently and Enterprise Ireland subsequently decided it would make sense to publish the stats on their website and so they have. You can now see the knowledge providers who have done projects for companies and the companies themselves.
For me this shows takeup is great but once companies have the vouchers the issue is either lack of vision or else inability to find a knowledge provider to do the work. Some companies I know definitely have no idea how to use them despite some orgs really wanting the custom and willing to suggest things to them but I know other orgs have laughed a company out of it for their “puny” 5k. The stats are interesting too as Carlow is out on top so far yet you’d think a Dublin institution would be getting...
Companies that have personalities and a team that adds humanity to their business both online and offline.
Companies who care enough to monitor what blogs are saying and react, even when people have negative issues.
Companies who contribute to online discussions and mailing lists without pimping their solutions and help even when the topic matter isn’t in-synch with their business area.
Companies that ask for help, contributions, feedback.
And then
Businesses that use domain names to describe what they do instead of using a company name.
Business people that leave comments on blog posts with their keywordladen website name and not their name and surname.
Businesses that write blog posts and internally link to their services in every blog post, again laden with keywords....
Fran Hollywood via David got in contact with me before the Web Awards, wondering could he help out in any way. Now Ireland is scattered with mini-Ws and a few large ones are about the place too for example:
Now that we’ve used these props this year, we’re going to have to outdo ourselves at both the Blog Awards and the Web Awards 09. Fran doesn’t make props as his main business, it’s a sideline to show what he can do with expanded polystyrene foam, a lot of what he does is for builders and architects that want to create various shapes which can’t be done with wood or might be too heavy for concrete.
I think we’ll have Fran blogging soon enough, right? Meanwhile check out Made in Hollywood and if you need things made in 3D, they might be the crowd...
Thanks to the latest widgety goodness from DownloadMusic.ie, artists that sell via DownloadMusic.ie can now offer their musical wares direct from their mySpace profiles. That’s certainly upping the game. Well done lads!...
So the Backstreet Boys of Irish Web Dev have come up with a great idea in these recessiontastic times: For one week they build an app for you. You do the dreaming, they do the making. You do have to pay them €865 and they take 5% but do realise that you have an experienced team building you a web app. That’s amazing value for money.
You have til Thursday to submit an idea. Hurry!...