Apologies for the lateness of this post but we’ve been too busy grinning from ear to ear since the finalists were announced for the Irish Blog Awards. We’re in the Best Technology Blog/Blogger category along with these fantastic bloggers:
Fergus Burns started this blog for the Irish Web Community way back on the 17th September 2005. I did my first post on 31st July 2006 and we’ve had posts from tons of people since then, including James Corbett, Walter Higgins, Joe Drumgoole, Sean O’Sullivan and David Lenihan.
This is the 872nd post here since 2005 and we hope the blog has been of use to all of you in the web biz whether in Ireland or elsewhere.
As always, this is a blog by the community for the community, so if you’d like to be a contributor, give us a shout on web2ireland.editor@gmail.com
That’s why we are excited to announce Google Code Jam 2010 to the true die-hard coding fans. Google Code Jam, powered by Google App Engine, is our annual programming competition, where thousands of coders around the world attack algorithmic problems in several 2.5-hour online rounds. If you make it through the first four rounds, you’ll be flown to our on-site finals, to be held for the first time at the Google office in Dublin! Once there, you will compete with 24 other top coders for the $5,000 first prize — and the coveted title of Code Jam champion.?
All the important dates over on the blog. Should be an amazing event. Let’s show em all what we’re made of over here.
I usually have these posts written within a day or two of Le Web but other commitments slowed me down this year. 2009 saw the 6th Le Web (my 4th) and it was easily the best ever. Loic & Geraldine can rest easy knowing 2010 will be totally over-subscribed.
People go to Le Web for a couple of reasons:
Networking
Meetings/Deals
Learning
Pitching
I went as an official blogger to the event but with intentions of doing all of the above. It was a real pleasure to be on the official blogger team and a big thanks to Stephanie Booth who organised all of that brilliantly.
The Irish contingent was tiny with Joe Drumgoole, John Peavoy, Colm Long of Facebook and myself flying the flag. Whilst I know the tickets are very expensive, it’s a pity there wasn’t a bigger showing. The IDA attended last year but I didn’t spot them this year. Le Web is the European web business/tech event and I happily skipped every other pay-for event this year to ensure I could go.
The opening session with Jack Dorsey set the perfect tone for the two days. The guy who created the global phenomenon of Twitter showed off his new startup Square. This is P2P payments with a credit card swipe that plugs into the headphone socket of your phone and an application which allows others to pay you. I didn’t quite get how revolutionary this was until I saw it in action (despite the terrible demo problems he had).
There are often complaints that they have too many Americans speaking at the event. I take the opposite view, since this is one of the few opportunities for those of us who don’t regularly travel to the US to see these guys speak and perhaps meet them. Standout highlights for me were Tony Hsieh from Zappos and Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV but there were plenty of others including David Hornik from August Capital and Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital.
I have ordered the Zappos Culture book that Tony mentioned (just email ceo@zappos.com and they'll post you a copy) and downloaded the Tribal Leadership audiobook from here (use California 90210 for your address in the registration screen). Wonderful stuff.
Gary (NSFW audio):
Those who worked best on stage were generally the contrary bastards. In that batch I’d include Mike Arrington, Lukasz Gadowski, Andrew Keen, Paul Carr, Dave McClure and Martin Varsavsky. Guys who are not afraid to call bullshit on things but who also see potential in the most interesting of places. The sessions that they were involved in were far more useful and fruitful than the usual cheerleader echo-chamber gang.
In fact, the echo-chamber gang were the only real let-down of the two days. We’ve all heard their schtick non-stop for the past few years and it’s grown old and boring. I’d love to see a bunch of new US faces coming over next year who have something new to say.
The real-time theme of the event did become a bit of an unbearable Twitter love-in at times to the detriment of many other exciting things happening in the real-time web. As someone pointed out on a TWiT podcast recently, more people play Farmville on Facebook than are users of Twitter.
For those who think Irish startups can’t compete at the highest levels on an international stage, just watch Joe Drumgoole’s pitch in the Startup Competition. I was shocked that Cloudsplit didn’t get the win but rumour has it that Thierry Henry was one of the judges
Over a couple of days I met entrepreneurs, bloggers, VCs, techies and business people. That’s why I go. The energy in that room recharges my batteries and reminds me that fantastic startups are being built all over Europe and we all have more in common than we think.
Even if I didn’t get to announce our first US customer.
Joe Drumgoole from Cloudsplit has just announced that they are finalists in the startup competition of Le Web in Paris in December.
This is a great achievement for Joe and Eamonn Leonard and we’ll be live-tweeting and blogging the entire event from the day before to the day after.
We know of at least one Irish company that secured investment after their appearance at Le Web in previous years. Let’s hope we hear similar from the guys.
It’s been a quiet year for many people on the conference front but there is one event that many of us just can’t miss, and that’s Le Web. It’s not just the brilliant speakers that Loic and Geraldine manage to get, it’s the battery recharge we need to prepare us for the new year.
Despite the venue hiccups last year, I still find myself referring to Le Web 2008 regularly. Marissa on the importance of local to Google, Dave Morin on Facebook Connect and Christine Lagarde on startups in France.
Just check out this year’s speakers and tell me you’re not excited by that line-up. It’s the style of event where you can easily chat to many of these people and meet them year after year. Apart from the learning and general networking, Le Web is a place where deals are done.
We’ll be covering the full two days on Web2Ireland and let’s hope we don’t take down Twitter with the volume of updates!
If you are interested in going, make sure to use the discount code BLOG09 to get 10% off.
Michael Clyne from Path Pacific who did the wonderful Facebook Garage Videos has put together a Vimeo Video Channel for Enterprise Ireland. It kicks off with all the talks at the recent EI New Software Economy Seminar and speakers include Chris Hofmann of Mozilla, Jim Cuddy of EI, Joe Drumgoole of Cloudsplit and Fergus Gloster of Thomond Technology.
It’s that time of year again where start-ups all over the island are busy tweaking their business plans for the Seedcorn competition. There is still enough time if you start now and you’re missing out on a big opportunity if you don’t. There is €360,000 in prizes up for grabs.
Do you meet the following criteria?
In the seed, startup or early stages of business development
Incorporated on the island of Ireland
Not more than 5 years old at Friday 25 September 2009
Have a new equity requirement of at least €100,000 (or sterling equivalent)
Have cumulative sales targets of less than or in excess of €5m by year 3,4 or 5
Sligo is home to many up-and-coming tech startups along with the awesome PollDaddy.
If you are interested in becoming part of that cluster then you should attend the free Information Evening being held at the Business Innovation Centre in IT Sligo. It’s on Monday 21st September 2009 from 6.30 p.m. 8.30 p.m. and will hopefully answer some of the questions you might have about forming a tech startup.
Contact mary.boyle AT enterprise-ireland DOT com or + 353 (0) 71 9159700 if you wish to attend.
Fans of cloud computing will be happy to hear that there are two events coming in the next couple of weeks.
First off is CloudCamp Sept. 17th in IBM’s Innovation Centre in Dublin. It’s a proper *Camp Unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. It’s a free night for all to discuss anything “Cloud” and is sponsored by Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Hosting365, flexiscale, rightscale and emailcloud. Registration from 6pm and talks, discussion, food etc from 7pm-11pm.
Then the Cloud Computing Summit is on in Croke Park from Sep 22nd-23rd. There is a big line-up of speakers and yours truly will be on an end-user panel talking about our experiences with EC2 in LouderVoice. Sponsors include IBM, Eircom, ISA and the NDRC.
24th of March 2010 by conor
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