Web 2 Ireland

Congratulations to Irish startup Plink who were recently acquired by Google.

We’ve covered Plink in the past, and well done to the founder team of Mark Cummins and James Philbin, who are both Phd Candidates at Oxford University.

Despite some other media coverage, Plink is very much Irish (registered company in Ireland), and is a past finalist in IQPrize. Colin Farrell has suffered from same confusion as Plink

Hopefully its the first of many acquisitions by Google in Ireland/Europe.

Interesting to see references to local Web2Ireland community in IDA Ireland Horizon 2020 strategy document

The ICT sector in Ireland is already playing a leading role in showing this model in operation, with Facebook connecting with local application developers through its
Developer Garage programme and Google's Code Jam engaging in a similar way.

One of the sections is very interesting – titled – Connect with Tomorrow's Twitter

High growth technology companies have impact hugely disproportional to their size. They are often first to market with new ideas and new business models in digital media, life sciences, mobile technology and financial services. These young companies are the seeds of tomorrow's multinationals whether through organic growth or in mergers or acquisitions, often with more established firms. IDA will increase its emphasis and focus on these high potential companies in support of the development of
Ireland as a global innovation hub. IDA has established a dedicated team focused on the needs of these companies. Working with sister agencies and other stakeholders, we will assist these emerging companies with financial support and in making connections in Ireland. These high-growth firms
will become an increasingly important part of Ireland's innovation ecosystem, linking up with established multinationals in ICT and globally traded businesses; third level institutions and their talented graduates; and indigenous companies of similar scale and potential.

Via the Google Blog:

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 had a pleasure of attending LeWeb last week – and here are the top 10 takeaways

Meeting Irish in attendance
Very low Irish presence – Pat Phelan from Maxroam, Conor O’Neill from Loudervoice [who also covered event for ReadwriteWeb]
- Brian Bastible and colleagues from IDA

Connecting with People
Lots of great folks attending from the US, UK, Germany, France and Spain.

Old School is best school
Got to meet and chat with Dennis, Doc and JP.

Glimpse of future
Dave Morin – facebook connect, Marissa Mayer – Google, and Susan Wu – Virtual Goods

Startups – no Irish… come on !!
Startup Competition – some interesting startups – and very worthy winner – some Web2Ireland companies would have done well at this event….

Failure – true stories
Morten Lund was one highlight of the event – off the cuff – very honest in his story.

Funding is hard in Europe
Lots of VCs in attendance [none from Ireland] – and the VC panel was interesting – see video. Key themes – build products that VCs will use [Fred Wilson, Martin Varsasky, Jeff Clavier] – and they don’t really believe Govt intervention @ funding is key [more on that later] – and NO doesnt mean NO.

Go Big or Go Home
Lots of usual talk @ valley versus Europe and can we build a big European web company.

Annual LeWeb bitch fight
Great fun from the sideline

Next Year
Rumour has it that the International D Conference will happen in Dublin next year

And no doubt LeWeb 09 will be another enjoyable event.

Damien has a great post on Platforms: Interested in building apps on the Force.com platform? – which relates to the Salesforce.com event – Tour De Force

Also check out Bill de hÓra’s post on some of the technical smarts that Salesforce.com and Google used in their recent hookup.