Web 2 Ireland

Apologies for the blatant promotion of some Segala related initiatives, but I hope you find them relevant. We've finally gone live with a staff blog where I intend to post my personal opinions and technical sound bites. Although, it’s due to move home early next week. I will continue to contribute my thoughts on new technology, trends and startups here, so I’m not gone completely.

Contentlabel.org is also live (go ugly early). If anyone is interested in contributing to the creation of new codes of conduct then please get in touch. I already have a number of respected individuals on board such as: Sam Sethi, Tom Raftery, Daniel Appelquist, Ian Hayward, Paul Miller, Phil Archer, Dennis Howlett, Manoj Ranaweera, Kamrul Hassan, David Rooks, Sorcha Moore, Tarique Naseem

A code of conduct for blogs is likely to be the first. Other codes are likely to include e-commerce, direct marketing, advertising, educational and so on.

You can now download a new Firefox extension that reads Content Labels to enable search filtering based on trust.

TechCrunch UKIRL is FIRED by Mike Arrington! Yes you’ve read it properly.

In a WORLD EXCLUSIVE, I can reveal that TechCrunch UKIRL has been fired for using its right to speak.

Sam Sethi was fired by Mike Arrington after he refused to remove the article about how Loic LeMeur's screwed up Le Web 3 with his political ambitions.

Looks like Arrington is now TOO BIG for his boots. I certainly won't be subscribing to his blog if he's more interested in keeping people happy for the sake of $$$.

Mike Arrington has now done a Tim O'Reily on it.

Panthius.com is a Dublin-based software developer. The Panthius e-Business Suite is a web-based, fully integrated, business solution built on proven technologies designed to support entire business enterprises with the automation of all key business processes.

I attended another one of Robert Loch's great networking events last week (and ended up in a club with Rob + 1 afterwards… ouch!). Guest speaker was Simon Murdoch, first head of Amazon UK. You can read more about the evening on TechCrunch.

Ok, I'm a little late off the block with this post, but better late than never. As usual the event attracted a lot of interesting folk and I hooked up with some innovative individuals – amongst them was Alex Tew, creator of milliondollarhomepage.com who’s got a new iron in the fire. I look forward to hearing more about that soon.

I did come across a brilliant new idea, hence the reason for my post automatic brand creation for all those widget companies (a phrase I’ve just coined to describe Web 2.0 related companies) that require a professional, yet cheap brand identity. Justin Champney, Head of Brand Innovation at McCann WorldGroup is responsible for coming up with the idea. Justin told me, it's perfect timing given all the new start-ups that need a brand identity quickly and cheaply. Personally, I think this is a fantastic idea.

Apparently, the tool won't allow the same brand to be created more than once. The tool, being built between San Francisco and India, will ask plenty of intelligent questions to get a feel for your company. It will then build the brand identity online with all the required iconography.

I introduced Justin to an investor I knew at the event so fingers crossed!

A Small group of Irish entrepreneurs are over at Web2Con – Thanks to Enterprise Ireland for organizing.

Some hightlights so far

- WidgetsLive – great event, and Congrats to Infacta/Polldaddy for flying the Irish flag
- Launchpad
- networking….

Pics and more posts to follow….

3V Transaction Services – enabling online shopping without credit/debit cards – raises €20m from Atlas and Benchmark.

“3V Vouchers are a new way to buy online that anyone can use and which allow you to shop safely and securely without needing a credit or debit card or even a bank account”.

3V was born out of the Alphyra Group

Thanks to James for the tip. Also check here for more details.

James Lee in Dublin has followed up on Sam Sethi’s Techcrunch UK post on AngelPitch and has put together this service

Any interest in Irish companies doing a 2 minute elevator pitch for this service ?

From the SB Post article

Web Reservations International, a Dublin internet company[owner of brands such as Hostelworld, Hostels.com, etc], plans to launch a travel search engine next January, pitting the firm against internet giants such as Google….. The company made a pre-tax profit of €12.5 million last year as turnover rose by 79 per cent to €28.5 million. He said that a valuation of $1 billion was ''not beyond the realms of possibility'' for WRI.

alarm:clock euro: Pigsback.com Raises €4M For UK Growth Archives

Pigsback, founded in Ireland raises more money to build their network of consumers and brands – leveraging “Empathy Marketing“

Company name: Segala
Location: Dublin HQ, UK Satellite Office
URL: www.segala.com
Founded: 2002
CEO: Paul Walsh

Description:
Segala is a certificate authority in Web accessibility and mobile standards compliance. Specialist in content labelling using Semantic methods.

The Segala-Certified Trustmark is a clear visual indication that a site has been independently audited and certified for Web accessibility standards compliance. Segala is an expert in the field of mobile testing and is the first testing & standards compliance expert worldwide to become an Associate member of the GSM Association.

As a Founding Sponsor of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI), Segala is well placed to help organisations apply the best practice recommendations for mobile Web content standards. Segala is co-editor of the MWI mobileOK conformance document with Google and ICRA.

Segala-Certified Partner Programme:
The Segala-Certified Partner Programme enables members to audit Web sites and award them with a Segala accessibility Certificate and Trustmark. Any company that provides Web design, development, usability or accessibility services can join the Programme.

Industry focus
* Independent and Privately Owned
* Founding Sponsor of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI)
* Co-editor of the W3C MWI ‘mobileOK‘ document with Google
* Active contributor to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
* Active contributor to the W3C WAI Evaluations and Repair Tools (ERT) Working Group
* Sponsor member of the Content Label Incubator Group (WCL-XG), a worldwide initiative to develop content labelling standards for the Web. Co-author of the final report.
* Active contributor to the W3C Semantic Web Outreach Programme

Something to keep an eye out for:

Personalised Search Revolutionised (literally)
www.searchthresher.segala.com/