Web 2 Ireland

The Being-Digital conference is on in London on June 10th. They are looking for 30 start-ups to present to a audience of 250 VC’s, entrepreneurs, Angel Investors, CEOs of the internet businesses and Internet media/press.

There will be 7 core discussion themes in the main auditorium – Search, Advertising, Identity, Social, Location, Retail and Content – and a dedicated ‘Demo room’ in which the 30 selected companies will demo their services and products to delegates throughout the day.

Demo Tickets are normally £895 but they are offering them for £500 which includes:

• 1 stand in the Demo room – this will be a dedicated to you all day
• 1 x full delegate ticket (for the main auditorium)
• 1 x demo room ticket (for a second person to attend)
• 1 x 1 minute pitch to audience of 200+ on the main stage following the speaker/panel session most relevant to your company (eg: social, search, advertising etc.)
• Your 1min pitch will be filmed and the video will be on their website, along with your details
• Evening networking reception
• There is also a competition running for best one minute demo pitch as voted for by delegates on the day – prize includes hardware, software and consultancy time

Whilst £500 may seem like a lot, it looks like reasonable value to me compared to lots of other conferences. It is also highly targetted rather than just being a general “web conf”. And with DEMO  costing $18000……

And I’ve just realised that PutPlace are already signed-up!

We have a couple of invites left for the experimental Telco 2.0 roadtrip to Dublin, happening on Friday 30th May (yes, Friday-week).

Mail me at sos “at” dial2do “dot” com for an invite. Outline details are here.

Those fab people at TechWeb Networks have come up trumps for us again and have given us two free tickets for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston from June 9th to 12th.

Let’s keep this one simple. Either post your Enterprise 2.0 elevator pitch as a comment here or mail it to web2ireland DOT editor AT gmail DOT com. The pitch can be  anything from the germ of an idea to an existing revenue generating business. The two best ones get the tickets. The deadline is midnight BST on Friday 16th. We also have a discount code for anyone who still wants to attend but misses out on the free tickets. Feel free to mail us for that code from now on.

Given EI’s love of all things Enterprisey, you should definitely request market research assistance from your DA if you are thinking of going.

OK, I know this is a bit last minute but the lovely Liliana who provided us with all those free Web2Expo tickets just contacted me to tell me about Enterprise 2.0 in Boston in June.

They have something called the Launch Pad program which is designed to give start ups a platform to launch new products and services.

Interested companies are being asked to submit a one minute video pitch. These video pitches are posted to the Launch Pad forum where readers will choose who they want to see live at the event. After a few rounds of voting, the final four get to present in front of a live audience in Boston in June, where the winner will be chosen by the audience. The winner of the Launch Pad gets a free booth on the show floor of the 2009 Enterprise 2.0 Conference.

The catch? The deadline for submissions is today! So get pitching now. All that UStream, Qik and Seesmic practice can now be put to good use

Like Web2Expo, we’ll probably have some freebies and discounts for those who just wish to attend. My guess is that Enterprise Ireland may also lend a hand to those who are going.

3Dcamp, the next in a series of themed Barcamps to hit Ireland, takes place at the University of Limerick on Saturday May 24th 2008. The venue is the Engineering Research Building between 10-6pm. This themed Barcamp will focus on virtual worlds (Second Life, the Metaverse), mirror worlds (Google Earth and Virtual Earth), mapping mashups, GPS, Location Based Services (LBSs), haptics (eg. Wiimote hacks), 3D modelling (Blender, Sketchup) and all things 3D. Essentially the internet beyond the 2D browser.

Registration is now open, as are speaking slots. As is the spirit of Barcamp please consider participating, if not as a speaker then in any way you can. Remember Barcamp is free and open to all. We look forward to seeing you on the day.

I’m very pleased to see that it@cork have arranged for Amazon Web Services Evangelist Mike Culver to talk in Cork on April 1st. There appears to be a distinct uptick in the use of EC2 and S3 here in Ireland and I’m interested to see what’s coming on the roadmap.

The title of his talk is “What's possible in a post Web 2.0 World?” and will cover Amazon’s cloud and utility computing initiatives with at least one demo. I wonder if Sxoop/Pixenate or other AWS users in the region like to get involved in the session?

The venue is the Kingsley Hotel in Cork from 4 6pm on Tuesday April 1st.

The fee is €30 per person for members. If you book a group of 4, you get a 5th place free. Please register on the it@cork site.

Application development on social networking platforms was the hot topic this week at the Graphing Social Patterns conference in San Diego. Ironically it’s like the wild wild west of a few hundred years ago – lots of prospectors in an undefined territory where the opportunity is massive.

Here are the key challenges and recommendations I collected from the speakers and conversations I had at the conference:

Challenges:

• Applications and widgets are hard to monetize. Traditionally brand advertising is related to the web CONTENT (e.g. target “Grey’s Anatomy” watchers because they appear to fit with the brand). Essentially the new world of social network advertising is trying to monetize NEW types of experiences and context-free environments. Since users can create any type of group, profile, page etc. there is some fear over what the ads will be placed next to.
• There are low barriers to entry. Anyone and their dog (who knows a bit about PHP) can create an application on Facebook rather quickly at very low cost. This has lead to low quality, low utility, disposable, spammy apps but the good news is that the trend is quickly moving towards high value, engaging, quality apps.
• The metrics for measuring and analysing applications are minimal. This is an evolving area in itself.
• There are multiple APIs. OpenSocial vs. Facebook/Bebo platform – different audiences, channels, usage patterns etc.

Recommendations:

• Develop apps that have utility and meaning. Facebook is changing the rules of the platform to protect its users and provide an experience that increases communication and improves user engagement.
• Ensure your app is: 1. Clear in its proposition and easy to use, 2. Measurable – track growth, engagement, advertising etc., and 3. Flexible – many crappy trials beats deep thinking/planning (Note: I believe this was the case for the low quality apps but the future apps require significant planning to make them of value. The main point of this is to get it out there early to see how users react – “perpetual beta”)
• Apps have three distinct stages of development: 1. Marketing – use appropriate channels to spread your “call to action”; 2. Growth – tune and track virality; What are the other apps in your category doing?; 3. Engagement – increase page views and time spent on site
• The level of trust must be improved between the users, applications, networks, and marketers.
• Plan for a portable ID. The industry trend points towards a future that allows for an ID that’s shared between applications/networks but will be controlled by the users (e.g. permissions)
• For social games the “social” aspect is more important than the “game” – it’s better when your friends are contacting you to “play”. You still must implement typical aspects of gaming – level/goal progression, turns, leader-boards, incentives/rewards: gifts, unlocking features etc.

Barry at IrishDev has just let us know that he has ten free tickets for tomorrow’s Irish Web Technologies Conference session. First ten people to mail patricia AT irishdev.com will get them. Everyone else can get in at the special price of €50 just for tomorrow. There have been some fantastic sessions here over the past few days. Tomorrow will see talks by:

• Krishna De
• Tom Raftery
• Greg Ryan
• Russell Nelson
• Maureen Daly
• Robert Hogg/Matt Steeples
• Sean Hanley
• Bill de Hóra
• David Rook
• Paul Walsh
• John Breslin
• Shaun Anderson
• Ivan MacDonald
• Laurence Veale

The topics will range from the Sematic Web to SEO to IPR

Unfortunately I missed the keynote speech at the opening of the Irish Web Technology Conference given by Fergus Burns of Nooked. Luckily the PPT is now available on Slideshare.

Quite simply, what he said.

A much needed wake-up call.

I hope to see lots more like this over the next few days at IWTC. It’s not too late to get a ticket.

Update: Video of talk available – Thanks to Martha

The buzz around the IWTC conference is massive at the moment. There are going to be tons of heavy hitters from Ireland and the UK there. The organisers still have a few demo slots open for tomorrow afternoon. Why not apply? You’ve nothing to lose and maybe your app will catch the eye of someone looking for an investment opportunity. At the very worst you’ll get some great feedback. Contact barry AT irishdev DOT com if you want to apply for a slot.