Web 2 Ireland

The Dublin Web Summit events just go from strength to strength. The next one is coming soon on March 8th in Trinity College.

Some of the seriously impressive speakers they have lined up include:

• Stefan Glaenzer, Founder of Last.fm
• Ben Parr, Editor of Mashable
• Dan Cobley, Google’s Director of European Marketing
• Terry Clune, Founder of Taxback.com
• Jerry Kennelly, Founder of Stockbyte
• John Hearne, Founder of Curam Software
• James Whelton, Hacker of iPod Nano

In addition to the main event there is also a Startup Bootcamp during the day and networking drinks afterwards.

Discounted tickets are available to DWS for startups / students and developers. Contact Alex@dublinwebsummit.com for details

Don’t forget there is a Pub Summit this Thursday night in The Odeon. Sign-up is on Eventbrite.

I’ve been finding it hard to keep this news under my hat since the idea was first floated a few months back. There will be an Ireland Pavilion at Le Web in Paris this year! This is just an absolutely brilliant idea and huge kudos goes to all of those in Enterprise Ireland who conceived the idea and then got full support for it both internally and from the IDA.

Le Web is the most important conference about the web in Europe every year. You will not see a more impressive collection of heavy hitters in one place anywhere else. It’s the kind of place where you can meet people like Marissa Meyer or Niklas Zennström or Fred Wilson. My trivial claim to fame is that I think I’m the only Irish person to attend every year since 2006 and I’ve watched it getting better and better.

This year some of the speakers on December 8th and 9th include Dennis Crowley, JP Rangaswami, Toni Schneider and Carlos Ghosn.

The importance of Ireland having its own stand at Le Web cannot be underestimated. The first country ever to have a pavilion like this at the show. One place where global businesses, VCs, other European/US start-ups and leading tech bloggers can see the best of Irish web start-ups. One place where you can point people to in the coming weeks and say “we’ll be there, pop on over for a coffee”.

A problem with giant events like Le Web is that co-ordinating meetings can be a nightmare. People are being pulled in every direction and we are all vying for our own little bit of attention. This stand solves that problem in one fell swoop.

I am convinced this genius move will get a ton of coverage from all the attending press. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by this? After all the relentless bad news about Ireland in the global press where we allowed a cabal of innumerate imbeciles to rape our country, this gives journos a totally new, positive growth story to tell. “Ireland may be screwed now but these start-ups are re-building it from the ground up”.

So, interested?

The EI package is as follows:

• A full LE WEB pass, giving you access to all the seminars, networking events and competitions over the two days
• Use of a dedicated 18m² meeting place/demo area which your company can use to meet with key contacts and demo your solution.
• A drinks reception on the Irish pavilion on the evening of 8th December for EI clients and your guests.
• In the run up to LE WEB, EI overseas offices will endeavour to link your company in with influential people from overseas markets that will be coming to LE WEB.
• Your company's profile and contact details in Enterprise Ireland's Internet marketing materials designed specifically for the event

EI is providing this at a totally knock-down price.

There is really only one limitation which is that you must be an EI client to apply to be on the stand. There are only 14 slots so not everyone is going to get through. To apply, simply contact Karen Hallez in the EI Paris office at Karen.Hallez@enterprise-ireland.com and she will send you an application form and details on the cost etc. They really need to get this wrapped up in the next few days so apply now.

Also don’t forget that this is the last weekend where you can enter the Le Web Startup Competition.

I know I’ve been lauding Enterprise Ireland a lot recently, but with good reason. Of all the state and semi-state bodies I’ve dealt with since the country went to hell, EI and all its staff are the ones that more than rose to the challenge and they are impressing me with every single encounter. Right now, the way EI operates shows the best of what the public sector and private sector working together should be about.

Bill Liao, serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Xing and philantropist has just indicated that he wants to bring TechStars to Ireland!

If you don’t know what TechStars is, in their own words:

Get your startup funded and off the ground while learning from the best. Get up to $18,000 in seed funding for your new company, plus the chance to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program. At the end of the three month program, it’s your company. TechStars is the best way to get your new company off and running and on a path to success. TechStars companies get 40+ educational opportunities during the program. Learn from over 50 highly accomplished mentors.

I’ve only met Bill briefly and have his book Stone Soup on my desk waiting to be read. His energy and positivity is infectious. Given what he has achieved both in business and through his work in Neo/WeForest, I have no doubt TechStars is going to happen and deliver results for the startup community here.

Another superb video by Michael Clyne, this time of Colm Long’s talk. The Facebook stats for Ireland are staggering.

Hot Facebook.com Money Making Applications plus U2, XBOX, DS, WII and Facebook Advertising Options presented by Colm Long from Path Pacific on Vimeo.

Film producer and entrepreneur Lord Puttnam will deliver the keynote address at the SOHO Solo conference called Reinventing Oneself in these Challenging Times in Kinsale next Friday, 20th February 2009.

The half-day conference is aimed primarily at small business owners, entrepreneurs and those with a budding business idea. It takes places at the Kinsale Yacht Club between 10am and 2pm and is an absolute bargain to attend at only €25 including lunch.

Lord Puttnam will be joined by a wide range of speakers covering topics like transitioning one business into another, the importance of making and retaining connections and identifying your businesses strengths.

Other speakers include:

• Shemas Eivers, Client Solutions
• Dr E Alana James
• Bob McCarthy, Leadership Management Ireland
• John Prendergast, Aonach Consulting
• Pat Burke, The Auld Sod
• Kieran Murphy, Murphy's Ice Cream

More details including how to register over on the blog.

Since I can’t find a web-page with this information on it anywhere, I thought it would be useful to publish a newsletter that EI in Palo Alto sent to a ton of people this week to coincide with the Web 2.0 Summit. It does a good job of highlighting some of the activity over here.

UPDATE: This info now on the Enterprise Ireland Silicon Valley blog. I’ll move them from Blogger to WordPress for free if they want

  This week, the world´s web glitterati will converge on San Francisco for the Web 2.0 2008 Summit. Al Gore, Lance Armstrong and other prominent speakers will join internet news makers to examine how the web, its technologies, values and culture, might be tapped to address the world’s most pressing limits and opportunities.  

As a sponsor, Enterprise Ireland will represent the entrepreneurs behind Ireland´s web 2.0 ingenuity and highlight their expanding stake in the global internet economy.

HERE´S JUST A SNAPSHOT OF IRELAND´S WEB 2.0 NEWSMAKERS

PollDaddy was snapped up by Automattic (company behind WordPress) last month. PollDaddy provides polling and survey widgets for blogs, websites and social networks.

Contrast just launched Qwitter an application that alerts Twitter users when contacts “un-follow” them. With 16,000+ sign-ups in less than 2 weeks, the service is adding a new dynamic to Twitter-based relationships. 

dotMobi launched Version 2.0 of DeviceAtlas, the world´s most popular mobile device database. dotMobi is the company behind the .mobi internet domain designed to help consumers find mobile-friendly content.

Muzu TV signed agreements with Sony BMG, Ministry Of Sound, Skint Loaded (Fat Boy Slim’s label), Defected, and hundreds of other indies. Muzu TV is a new music TV website and distribution platform that enables bands and record labels to broadcast their music video on the web and get paid wherever it goes through a share in ad revenue. 

Nooked delivers shopping deals direct to consumers’ desktop, Myspace, Facebook, blog, start page, and mobile phones through widget-based technology.

Dial2Do is a phone-service for drivers. It lets you get things done safely and conveniently by just using your voice. You can send text messages, send and listen to email, create reminders, update your Twitter stream and use a range of other services by just calling a number and saying what you want to do. A winner at the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs Launch:2008 event, Dial2Do was voted as the company most likely to succeed in the Media and Mobility category. 

LouderVoice just made it easier for businesses to turn customer feedback and reviews into revenue-generating word-of-mouth campaigns. The company´s “white label” reviews system can be added to any website, providing a quick and easy way for visitors to review and comment.

PutPlace gathers all your valuable digital stuff [photos, documents, email, music, videos] from all your PCs and laptops. It backs up everything, securely stores it, and organizes it all so you can find or share your files from anywhere. Service features include: Simple, reliable automatic online backup that runs in the background; easy back up of files from multiple computers to the same account; secure access to your files from anywhere; automatically allows you to share the files you choose on services like Flickr; versions all stored files, ensuring that you never lose an old version of a file. 

Finetuna makes it easy to share notes on images, photos and other graphics files. Since its launch just 4 months ago, Finetuna has already surpassed the 50,000 user mark. 

Abaltat’s music creation tools make it possible for anyone to be a composer – creating original, perfectly synched, royalty-free music to match their video. A must for the growing number of creators of video-based content, from TV and film to online video advertising. Behind Abaltat is a group of experienced TV producers, editors, musicologists and the most imaginative programmers in Ireland. The result: a unique software product that has earned the company a spot on the shortlist of the Irish Software Association’s Technical Innovation Award and New Company of the Year Award. 

RevaHealth is cutting healthcare costs for budget-conscious consumers by connecting them with dentists and cosmetic clinics in countries where they can realize savings of more than 50%. Every week, more than 1000 people take advantage of RevaHealth´s comprehensive search services. 

Toddle makes it easy to create pretty HTML newsletters, using an interactive, easy-to-use web app. The product emerged from Beta to rave reviews and is seeing fast adoption by customers in Ireland and the US.

IGOpeople is gearing up to launch its beta service in December. The company provides a network for individuals and small businesses to easily communicate and share information. The service is drawing interest especially from business owners who can now reach highly targeted audiences more efficiently than through traditional advertising and telephone support. 

Hosting365 is a managed services and data centre facility provider and Ireland´s only commercial cloud computing provider. Ranked as one of Ireland’s fastest growing technology companies for the past 2 years, the company recently reported sales for its cloud computing services of €2.5 million for the first six months of the year.

Sxoop Technologie is an imaging software company which specializes in web-based photo solutions.  They recently picked up the ‘Most Innovative Website’ award at the inaugural Irish Web Awards for their web-based photo-editing website http://pixenate.com. Sxoop Technologies licenses their photo-software to social networking and photo-merchandising services. 

Web Reservations International (WRI) is a leading provider of online lodging reservations through its own network of highly trafficked sites (Hostelworld.com, boo.com, Trav.com and Hostels.com) along with 3,000+ affiliate partners. Through its flagship Hostelworld.com, WRI has become the leading online reservations provider to the budget travel sector, while boo.com combines travel search, reviews and social networking in a web 2.0 platform.

  IRELAND: DRAWING THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST  

With a reputation for nurturing internet entrepreneurs, Ireland has long drawn companies like Yahoo, Google and many others who selected the country as a location for their international presence. Last month, Facebook followed suit by establishing its international HQ in Dublin. 
Read more here 

WEB 2.0 WHAT´S NEXT?

To answer that million-dollar question, EI will join forces with the San Francisco Irish Network to host executives from Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Cuil and Skydeck for a spirited panel discussion that coincides with the web 2.0 Summit. Tom Foremski ofsiliconvalleywatcher.com will moderate. Event details are here 

The iFoods guys, who were recently on Dragon’s Den, are looking for a CTO. Job spec below.

Seeking a talented and experience Web Developer (Chief Technical Officer). If you are creative, experience and eager to generate and communicate your ideas – this might be the job for you. You will play an important role and will be responsible for the website development, design clustering Tomcat/Apahe/MySQL, technical issues resolution.

You would need to be proficient in computer science (BA in IT) with a minimum of 5 years experience, have a capability to generate ideas and communicate them to the company management. You would have strong analytical skills, desire to work as a team member and a potential to lead a team.

Some of job tasks will include:
1. Deliver and manage each stage of the project lifecycle of web applications
2. Develop solutions using JavaScript, D/HTML, JSP, Hibernate, MySQL, AJAX, CSS (running on Redhat.Apache, Tomcat)
3. Identify and apply the newest technologies
4. Lead and supervise the team of web developers

We will offer:

* Challenging technical projects in a dynamic environment
* Strong compensation depending on your experience
* Central office location (Thomas street)
* Rapid career progression

Apply via Irishjobs.ie here.