Shhmooze one of the 20 finalists at the Mobile Premier Awards

2nd of February 2011 by conor

Belfast-based tech start-up Shhmooze, founded just in April 2010, has been selected as one of the 20 finalists at the Mobile Premier Awards for the Mobile World Congress.

Shhmooze is a free location-based app that lets you use your smartphone to check into a conference or business event and broadcast your presence to other attendees. It is currently available on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad and is coming soon to Android (hurry!) and Blackberry.

Le Web 2010 (Part 8) Paddy Cosgrave & Daire Hickey

31st of January 2011 by admin

Le Web 2010 what it meant for Ireland (part8)
This is 8th in a series of audio interviews about Le Web 2010

The aim is to examine the experience & value of Le Web 2010 from the point of view of those who went from Ireland.

Paul O'Mahony interviewed many of those who went to Le Web from Ireland with Enterprise Ireland . He also interviewed

Paddy Cosgrave & Daire Hickey

Paddy Cosgrave is

Previously

Daire Hickey is

  • Guests and Press at F.ounders
  • Guests and Press at Dublin Web Summit
  • Freelance Journalist

Previously:

Daire Hickey & Paddy Cosgrave give their view of Le Web 2010, Dublin Web Summit @ F.ounders – and highlight some future plans…

Listen!

You can listen to the interview with Karen Hallez, Enterprise Ireland, here

You can hear Sam Kidd, TeamworkPM, here…

You can tune into to Philip Meagher, Gruupy, here…

Listen to Aiden Callaly, MXSweep, here…

Paul Barry, Temetra, here…

Conor O’Neill, LouderVoice, here…

Ronan Skehill, Cauwill Technologies, here …

Facebook Garage Ireland – Feb 9th – Gateway House

25th of January 2011 by conor

The next Facebook Developer Garage is on Wednesday February 9th in Gateway House, Dublin from 5pm-7pm. If you are interested in speaking, please contact web2ireland.editor@gmail.com

Some of the hot topics which we can expect to hear about include:

  • Facebook Places
  • Facebook Credits
  • Gaming
  • fCommerce

If you have interest in any aspect of where Facebook is going, you should attend. It is free but you must register over on Eventbrite.

The Gateway House venue at 133 Capel Street (top of Mary Street and just left) is very interesting too. It is the former tram station:

The aim of Gateway House is to provide a dynamic environment for established companies in the area of online activities. We will build clusters of like-minded people and initiatives who will build synergies with Gateway Ireland. Together we aim to be part of a movement to innovate and reinvigorate Ireland. A number of relevant companies have already committed to joining us in Gateway House.

Hope to see you there. If there is anything specific you’d like to hear about on the day, leave a comment below.

Web2Ireland now running on Digital Mines

22nd of January 2011 by conor

We have moved this blog over to Digital Mines and it is now running beautifully (and quickly!) on an Irish AWS instance. Getting setup on Digital Mines was a doddle.

Digital Mines

The process to get WordPress going was extremely straightforward and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for more welly than a shared host can provide.

Full deployment instructions over on my geek blog. When I get a chance I’ll do it as a script so it becomes a single-ish click install.

Le Web 2010 (part 7) – Ronan Skehill, Cauwill Technologies

20th of January 2011 by admin

Le Web 2010 what it meant for Ireland (part 7)

This is 7th in a series of audio interviews about Le Web 2010

The aim is to examine the experience & value of Le Web 2010 from the point of view of those who went from Ireland.

Paul O'Mahony interviewed those who went to Le Web with Enterprise Ireland. The seventh person he interviewed was Ronan Skehill (who went with Ian Rice to Paris)

Ronan Skehill is Co-Founder of Cauwill Technoligies – first release “Pinpoints”

Previously

  • Senior Research Officer at University of Limerick [his publications here…]
  • Visiting Researcher at Orange Labs (FT)
  • Visiting Researcher at UPC
  • Ronan Skehill talks about his experience of LeWeb 2010 …

    You can listen to the interview with Karen Hallez, Enterprise Ireland, here

    You can hear Sam Kidd, TeamworkPM, here…

    You can tune into to Philip Meagher, Gruupy, here…

    Listen to Aiden Callaly, MXSweep, here…

    Paul Barry, Temetra, here…

    Conor O’Neill, LouderVoice, here…

    Next interview: Paddy Cosgrave & Daire Hickey

    The Ireland API

    17th of January 2011 by conor

    As anyone who has followed my writing over the years on various blogs knows, I have a particular bee in my bonnet about Government APIs and freeing all public sector data. Unless there is some absolute secrecy requirement on that data, it should be made available to the Irish people, to do with what they will.

    But I have lost lots of hair and gained lots of pounds waiting for it to happen here. I watch in despair as the UK and US race ahead and we sit here without even a bloody working postcode system. Just look at data.gov.uk in the UK or CodeForAmerica in the US.

    So do we just sit and wait or do private sector companies and tech communities take the lead and show the Public Sector how it’s done? Do we lead by example rather than just brow-beating?

    We’ve already seen it happen, most notably with KildareStreet but also with Loc8 postcodes. People and businesses sick of waiting, solve the problems themselves by taking whatever poor public data there is already and doing something useful with it and on top of it.

    There has also been a recent community initiative with opendata.ie to collect together available datasets but it doesn’t seem to have gained much momentum.

    So where else can we leverage exisiting datasets and groupings to benefit the country and those elsewhere who care deeply about Ireland?

    I think we should look again at the idea I mentioned way back around the diaspora and genealogy. At the moment we have:

    • Irish/UK/US historical census data
    • National Library records
    • Church records
    • Geni data
    • Ellis Island data
    • Mormon Data
    • Family Tree DNA Testing
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • The living Irish Diaspora and their knowledge of their families
    • Ordnance Survey Map data
    • OpenStreetMap Data
    • Phonebook data
    • Irish emigrant groups around the world
    • Irish-Americans working in thousands of tech companies

    Would it be possible to build an API around this data, starting simply and iterating out? Enabling people to search and mashup by names, dates, locations and Y chromosome? Think of the platforms that such a thing would enable? Now wire that into the social graph!

    If there was one co-ordinating organisation concerned with building the relationships needed to get this data and providing the APIs but letting people build any app they want, wouldn’t that be incredibly powerful?

    Such an org could co-ordinate with churches to have parishioners transcribe all of records that are still in paper form. They would have the clout to get access to currently-non-public government data. They could then help Government departments and state/semi-state bodies build good APIs on their data.

    They could also co-ordinate with all the emigrant groupings in UK, USA and elsewhere to fill in missing holes in records. Colleges could get involved. What about all the Alumni data?

    One or two simple but powerful example apps could be built to show what’s possible.

    Thoughts?

    Quick Poll:

    [polldaddy poll="4403590"]

    Le Web 2010 (Part 6) Conor O’Neill, LouderVoice

    17th of January 2011 by admin

    Le Web 2010 what it meant for Ireland (part 6)

    This is 6th in a series of audio interviews about Le Web 2010

    The aim is to examine the experience & value of Le Web 2010 from the point of view of those who went from Ireland.

    Paul O'Mahony interviewed those who went to Le Web with Enterprise Ireland. The sixth person he interviewed was Conor O’Neill

    Conor O’Neill is CEO of LouderVoice Customer Reviews

    Previously

    During Le Web in December, Conor O’Neill was interviewed. [You can see him interviewed by John Peavoy here …]

    Afterward, Conor O’Neill talks about his experience of LeWeb 2010 …

    You can listen to the interview with Karen Hallez, Enterprise Ireland, here

    You can hear Sam Kidd, TeamworkPM, here…

    You can tune into to Philip Meagher, Gruupy, here…

    Listen to Aiden Callaly, MXSweep, here…

    Paul Barry, Temetra, here…

    Next interview: Ronan Skehill, Cauwill Technologies & Pinpoints

    Le Web 2010 (Part 5) – Paul Barry, Temetra

    14th of January 2011 by admin

    Le Web 2010 what it meant for Ireland (part 5)

    This is 5th in a series of audio interviews about LeWeb 2010

    The aim is to examine the experience & value of Le Web 2010 from the point of view of those who went from Ireland.

    Paul O'Mahony interviewed those who went to Le Web with Enterprise Ireland. The fifth person he interviewed was Paul Barry

    Paul Barry is Founder of Temetra

    Previously

    • Engineer at Apple Computer
    • Engineer at Agfa

    During Le Web in December, Paul Barry was interviewed. [You can see him interviewed by John Peavoy here…]

    Afterward, from Clonmel, John Barry talks about his experience of Le Web 2010 …

    You can listen to the interview with Karen Hallez, Enterprise Ireland, here

    You can hear Sam Kidd, TeamworkPM, here…

    You can tune into to Philip Meagher, Gruupy, here…

    Listen to Aiden Callaly, MXSweep, here…

    Next interview: Conor O’Neill, LouderVoice

    Le Web 2010 (Part 4) – Aiden Callaly, MXSweep

    13th of January 2011 by admin

    Le Web 2010 what it meant for Ireland (part 4)

    This is 4th in a series of audio interviews about Le Web 2010

    The aim is to examine the experience & value of Le Web 2010 from the point of view of those who went from Ireland.

    Paul O'Mahony interviewed those who went to Le Web with Enterprise Ireland. The fourth person he interviewed was Aiden Callaly

    Aiden Callaly is VP Sales at MXSweep

    Previously

    Aiden Callaly talks about his experience of Le Web 2010 in two parts…

    and

    You can listen to the interview with Karen Hallez, Enterprise Ireland, here

    You can hear Sam Kidd, TeamworkPM, here…

    You can tune into to Philip Meagher, Gruupy, here…

    Next interview: Paul Barry, Temetra

    Le Web 2010 (Part 3) – Philip Meagher, Gruupy

    12th of January 2011 by admin

    Le Web 2010 what it meant for Ireland (part 3)
    This is 3rd in a series of audio interviews about LeWeb 2010…

    The aim is to examine the experience & value of Le Web 2010 from the point of view of those who went from Ireland.

    Paul O'Mahony interviewed those who went to Le Web with Enterprise Ireland. The third person he interviewed was Philip Meagher, Gruupy.com.

    Philip Meagher is CEO of Gruupy.com

    Previously…

    • Director at Artbex
    • Analyst at Coeus Investments

    Philip Meagher talks about the experience and value of Le Web 2010

    You can listen to the interview with Karen Hallez, Enterprise Ireland, here

    You can hear Sam Kidd, TeamworkPM, here…