Web 2 Ireland

Entrepreneur Dylan Collins, who previously founded Demonware, is busy with his new online gaming company – OMAC Industries.

OMAC Industries is building a portfolio of online games communities through development, partnership and acquisitions – with a primary focus on Persistent Browser Games (PBGs).

LegendsofZork.com will provide online gamers with a persistent online adventure, playable from any Internet browser. Players take up the role of a recently laid-off salesman and part-time loot-gatherer, as he explores the Great Underground Empire. Designed to provide gamers with a casual MMO game they can play on their laptop, desktop or Apple iPhone (in school, work or on the bus), there's nothing to download, just go to www.legendsofzork.com.

For more information, beta-registration, and game announcements please go to www.legendsofzork.com.

Northern Ireland Science Park are hosting an event on in Belfast on 15th Jan on Seed Capital: How to Sweeten your Dragon

Panelists
* Aidan Langan, CEO Enterprise Equity
* Panos Lioulias, CEO QUBIS

Time:
08.00am 08.30am Registration
08.30am 09.30am Programme
09.30am 10.00am Q&A
Cost: Free of charge

Contact: Roisin Clancy, Northern Ireland Science Park
Tel: 028 9073 7920 Email: nispconnect@nisp.co.uk

REVAHEALTH, (renamed to WhatClinic in August 2010) the health search engine RECEIVES €1.25 MILLION INVESTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION, Led By Mianach Venture Capital and Supported by Enterprise Ireland.

“More consumers are going online to research their healthcare options. RevaHealth.com provides a valuable service that gives consumers an easy way to find and compare health clinics worldwide,” said Caelen King, founder and CEO of RevaHealth.com. “We now intend to take our proven business model to a wider market.”

RevaHealth.com is a search engine that helps users find and compare health clinics worldwide. Founded in 2006, it currently stores information on over 60,000 clinics in the UK, Ireland and 50 other countries worldwide. RevaHealth.com helps people take control of their healthcare choices and find the most suitable clinic and treatment for their needs.

I love posting good news and this is just wonderful to hear. Niall Harbison and the crew at iFoods have just announced a €400k investment.

It proves that great businesses with a world class team can still secure serious money. We’ve been fans of the iFoods concept since day one. They are going to be serious players in the food web-site niche. eMarketer did an article on this during the week.

According to comScore, food sites attracted 45.6 million unique visitors in September 2008, up 10% from 2007more than double the rate of total Internet growth in the US.

LouderVoice is currently on the Genesis Enterprise Programme in the Rubicon Centre in CIT. I can’t recommend it highly enough. These schemes give people the opportunity to start a business with a support infrastructure around them. The advice and training alone are worth their weight in gold.

Brian O’Malley from EI in Sligo contacted us to tell us about the West and Midlands version of this programme:

An Open Evening will take place in the Innovation in Business Centre(IiBC) at GMIT Castlebar on Wednesday 21st Jan from 5pm 8pm outlining the 2009 Midlands & West Enterprise Programme (MWEP), commencing in March 2009, for people interested in starting their own business.

The one-year programme is a collaboration between GMIT and Athlone IT, and provides entrepreneurs with business skills, networks, facilities and supports necessary to navigate the business start-up process. It is delivered in GMIT's campuses in Galway and Mayo, and in Athlone IT.

Applications are now being accepted.

Anyone interested in signing up for the course should ideally have a number of years industry experience and have the enthusiasm and drive necessary to develop and grow a successful business. The MWEP may also be of interest to expatriates who are hoping to return home to set up their own business in the West of Ireland. Participants may apply to Enterprise Ireland for CORD funding, which could provide up to 50 per cent of previous year's gross salary.

The MWEP provides participants with business acumen, office desk space, mentoring, networking, facilities, and supports necessary to help them in establishing and running their own businesses. Participants should have a business idea with growth and export potential.

For further details, please contact Maria Staunton who is the business incubation manager at GMIT Castlebar on 094-9043198 or maria.staunton@gmit.ie

Quite a few startup programmes seeking applications

DIT Hothouse

PDC – News – Call for applications for the 17th Hothouse Venture Programme. DIT Hothouse are now accepting applications for the 17th Hothouse Venture Programme which will commence in March 2009. The closing date for receipt of applications is Friday 20th February. For further information please contact Sara Hogan at sara.hogan@hothouse.ie or on 01 2401 307

Midlands & West Enterprise Programme (MWEP)

An Open Evening will take place in the Innovation in Business Centre(IiBC) at GMIT Castlebar on Wednesday 21st Jan from 5pm 8pm outlining the 2009 Midlands & West Enterprise Programme (MWEP), commencing in March 2009, for people interested in starting their own business. The one-year programme is a collaboration between GMIT and Athlone IT, and provides entrepreneurs with business skills, networks, facilities and supports necessary to navigate the business start-up process. It is delivered in GMIT's campuses in Galway and Mayo, and in Athlone IT. Applications are now being accepted.

Anyone interested in signing up for the course should ideally have a number of years industry experience and have the enthusiasm and drive necessary to develop and grow a successful business. The MWEP may also be of interest to expatriates who are hoping to return home to set up their own business in the West of Ireland. Participants may apply to Enterprise Ireland for CORD funding, which could provide up to 50 per cent of previous year's gross salary. The MWEP provides participants with business acumen, office desk space, mentoring, networking, facilities, and supports necessary to help them in establishing and running their own businesses. Participants should have a business idea with growth and export potential. For further details, please contact Maria Staunton who is the business incubation manager at GMIT Castlebar on 094-9043198 or maria.staunton@gmit.ie

Walter Higgins has just released the latest version of Pixenate ~ the online photo editor. This version has a new Transparency tool which makes it easy to create cut-outs from your photos and images.

Smaller web publishers can use the Pixenate hosted service which starts at €29 Euro per month.

Despite Walter’s constant grumping about Twitter , they also had more than 800 twits use Pixenate to make festive twitter avatars in the run up to Christmas.

It looks like 2009 is going to be another top year for the Pixenate crew.

Delighted to hear that the KK crew are finally having an OpenCoffee at 11.30 this morning in the Kilkenny Cafe located downstairs in Market Cross Shopping Centre.

They join Cork, Limerick, Dublin, Waterford, Belfast and Galway as an OCC location. 

If you are based anywhere in the South-East, it’ll be worth checking out. We have people driving 30+ miles to Cork OCC on a regular basis, so hopefully they’ll have attendees from Wexford, Waterford, Carlow, Tipperary, Offaly etc.

2009 off to a flying start.

Orbiscom acquired by Mastercard for $100m according to
Irish Times article

Great turnaround by Orbiscom team – as they were written off a few years back.

We’ve just turned-on support for Facebook Connect on this blog. It enables you to comment here using your Facebook credentials and also to optionally send your comments from here to your Facebook profile.

To make use of it, simply login to Facebook using the Widget in the right-hand sidebar. Then when you comment on a post, you’ll be doing so as your Facebook identity.

Whilst we remain big fans of standards like OpenID, the simple fact remains that the implementations are non-intuitive, the plugins are flakey and the uptake has been tiny. Connect is instant portable identity for a much bigger demographic. 

We were hugely impressed with Dave Morin’s presentation of Connect at Le Web. I hope we can get him over to Ireland at some stage to tell us more. Any chance Ryan will get him over for FOWA Dublin?

Full instructions on enabling Facebook Connect on WordPress Blogs are here.