Web 2 Ireland

Future of Web Apps is back in London to bring you sessions on the most successful web technologies and business trends of the future along with a chance to be up close and personal with industry professionals.

An event for up to 800 attendees – it’s the perfect place to learn, socialize and make connections. There will be tons going on including the FOWA fair, university sessions, FOWA party and one time only ‘Kevin & Gary Show’ hosted by Kevin Rose and Gary Vaynerchuk.

Speakers include Aza Raskin (Mozilla), Dustin Diaz (Twitter), Francisco Tomalsky (280 North) Lynne d Johnson (Fastcompany) and many more.

We are offering 15% off a 2 or 3 day pass to FOWA to the first 15 readers.

All you need to do is register using promo code: w2i-fowa

Check out the website for everything you need to know

Hugely impressed to hear the latest news from RateMyArea; they have created an augmented reality version using the the Layar Reality Browser which has been getting tons of attention in the tech press recently.

The idea behind augmented reality is that you look “through” your smartphone and it adds lots of contextual information to what you see based on your location and the direction you are pointing in. So for example a famous building will have Wikipedia information displayed.

Here’s a screenshot of the system in action:

Their layer covers over 110,000 POIs (Point of Interest) across 400 different categories in the following cities: Dublin, Galway, Belfast, London, Brighton & Hove, Cardiff, Oxford, Swansea, Bristol and Edinburgh.

At the moment it is only available on Android devices (Oi! Vodafone, O2, Three, Meteor, where are the bloody Android phones already?!) but will be on iPhone 3GS in September.

With Layar and Wikitude launching in quick succession on Android, it’s going to be an exciting 12 months in the world of location based services.

Locle, the location services enabler for social apps, is selected for GigaOm event, Mobilize 09

Locle has also recently launched its API, that allow 3rd parties to leverage our location platform for things like ‘where’s my nearest pub, nearest restaurant and which one of my friends has been there or has left a good review on another site’.

Locle are also announcing a major partnership with a leading social network in the coming weeks.

Interesting initiative from FAS and DMF

FAS and the Digital Media Forum are planning to pilot a Traineeship programme for the digital media industry in the autumn. The Traineeship will be piloted in Dublin with 20 FÁS participants and 20 companies as agreed with the Digital Media Forum.

The Digital Media Forum recently hosted a meeting of interested companies and FÁS made a presentation outlining the key components of the proposed programme. The target audience for the Traineeship is unemployed personnel who hold 3rd level qualifications in a range of disciplines such as: business management; law; human resources; marketing; sales; software development, have a minimum of 3 years post graduate experience and are in receipt of a Social Welfare payment. The purpose of the Traineeship is to up-skill participants with digital literacy and broad management skills which combined with their professional qualifications and experience will enable them to work with digital media companies. On completion of a 4 week training period in a FAS Training Centre, each course participant will be placed with a participating company for a period of 16 weeks structured work practice, during which time they will complete a company specific assignment as defined by the Company. The assignment should be outlined in the attached form.

If your company is located in Dublin and you wish to participate in the pilot you are invited to complete the attached information form and return it to FÁS before the 28th August 2009. All applications received will be forwarded to the Digital Media Forum. Companies will be selected on the basis of the first 20 companies to return the completed form. Therefore, only completed forms sent electronically can be accepted as this will provide a record of date of receipt.

The application needs to be returned to Colin Flaherty at colin.flaherty@fas.ie on or before Friday, 28 August 2009. Participants will be chosen on a first come, first serve basis.

To download the Application Form: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18750091/Digital-Media-Traineeship

Two Irish companies announced deal with Global impact.

Hostelworld.com, the leading provider of online reservations to the budget, independent and youth travel market recently announced the launch of its Travel Store which includes the TravelnRoam mobile SIM powered by MAXRoam.

Now when travellers make bookings in over 20,000 hostels and budget hotels in 170 countries worldwide, they have the opportunity to further save on their travelling bills with a TravelnRoam mobile SIM.

Pat Phelan, Cubic Telecom CEO, makers of MAXRoam said: “We’re absolutely delighted to partner and align ourselves with HostelWorld.com, a massive online success and a brand that’s respected worldwide.

Everyone from business people to backpackers travel the world and TravelnRoam can be there on their phone saving them considerable amounts on their incoming and outgoing calls. If it’s making a business call or in a hostel in China taking a call from Mum back home, we’re there watching that bill for you.”

Santina Doherty, VP of Commercial Development at Hostelworld.com said We're excited to launch our partnership with TravelnRoam. Hostelworld.com is global market leader for hostel and budget accommodation and TravelnRoam will provide a winning solution to our customers when they travel and roam, reducing call costs and staying in touch.

Seedcamp 2009 application closes on Sunday, 23rd August, 2009

20 lucky startups get invited to Seedcamp week – which is an intensive week-long event held in London every September. Check out the list of top notch mentors/advisors/folks.

At the end of the week Seedcamp make a funding decision to invest up to €50K each in 5 teams for a small equity stake (5%-10%) which enables the teams to move to London for at least three months. The goal of this 3-month period is to help grow and nurture the teams by providing the same level of intensity and in-depth focus on developing the product and business.

No doubt we’ll see loads of Irish folks involved in Seedcamp 2009 – Apply Now

Eircom have annouced the winners of their Web Innovation Fund

The four winners are

Diaryplan
SocietyMail
Getitkeepit
Beeherd

Marie has more details at SiliconRepublic

Pat Phelan pinged us earlier to let us know about their latest deal – Buzzroam, which is a strategic partnership between Global Roaming Solutions Ltd (Hong Kong) and Cubic Telecom (Ireland).

“Buzzroam is the only GSM SIM card available in Asia which not only allows you to access cheap voice and data roaming using one dedicated international number, but also gives you the ability to forward your regular mobile number to your Buzzroam SIM card. Using strategic partnerships in over 200 countries around the world Buzzroam has the potential to save thousands of dollars on the cost of roaming charges just about anywhere in the world.”

SiliconRepublic reports on the latest startup to come from the Payzone Alumni, Zapa Technology.

Zapa has also raised €2.5m from Delta Partners, which follows on from Delta’s investment in the MBO of Payzone, Branded Payment Solutions.

The founder of Zapa, John Nagle, has experience of rolling out mobile payment services in stores around Ireland and the UK with Payzone, so it will be interesting to see if the NFC based approach will replace existing in-store payment options.

The article describes this new service as

Near Field Communication is a technology that will feature on every mobile handset in the world within a few years, and will transform these devices into virtual credit and debit cards. One enterprising start-up is ready to pounce on the opportunity.

Zapa is the first company in Europe to deploy NFC technology in a scaled environment via the ZapaTag.

cmypitch, founded by Irishman, Emmett Kilduff, has just launched in Ireland

“It will connect entrepreneurs with investors. cmypitch.ie provides businesses with the unique opportunity to upload their own video pitch onto the secure platform, for a registered network of investors to watch and inform their investment decisions. In addition, entrepreneurs can learn how to become “investor ready” by watching video tips from the best Irish (e.g. Eddie Jordan, Ray Nolan) and international (e.g. Doug Richard, James Caan) entrepreneurs and by downloading the best ‘how to’ guides.

For investors, cmypitch.ie has the potential to open up all of Ireland’s best investment opportunities and makes identifying the most attractive deals more efficient. Investors can save valuable time, allowing them to not only assess the business opportunity but also the people behind the proposition. Pitches can be filtered by size, sector and rating – all key considerations for investors. Investors can also receive email alerts when a new pitch is added that matches their preferred criteria.”

cmypitch.ie will also hold regular offline pitching events called “cmypitch Live”, where entrepreneurs get the unique opportunity to pitch to a room full of investors. Events like these will offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to complement their video pitch with more traditional face-to-face pitching and networking.

cmypitch.ie has been endorsed by some very successful Irish entrepreneurs: Eddie Jordan (F1), Philip Lynch (IAWS, One51), Patrick Brazel (former Chairman of Irish Software Association), James Morris (Windmill Lane, TV3) and Tony Kilduff (Kindle).

cmypitch.ie has already signed several partners: Bank of Scotland (Ireland), Deloitte, The Irish Times, Microsoft and William Fry.