Congrats to Patrick, John, Kul and Harj for the launch of Auctomatic. Let the selling begin!
Author Archive
Auctomatic launches!
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007Fear of Google while Google has Fear of Facebook
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007Most tech companies and apparently non tech companies too have something called “Fear of Google” where some of them are just frozen to the spot about Google coming along and obliterating their business. Up to a few months ago, Google probably didn’t fear anyone but now, well now it is becoming quite apparent that Facebook is scaring the absolute shit out of them with the leak that they are going to open up some of their systems and bring out their own social graph. Remember this is the company that killed off the API they used to have for search and replaced it with a very shitty AJAX version. Now they are going to be open and start releasing APIs again?
Here’s the brilliant Techcrunch scoop:
On November 5 we’ll likely see third party iGoogle gadgets that leverage Orkut’s social graph information – the most basic implementation of what Google is planning. From there we may see a lot more – such as the ability to pull Orkut data outside of Google and into third party applications via the APIs. And Google is also considering allowing third parties to join the party at the other end of the platform – meaning other social networks (think Bebo, Friendster, Twitter, Digg and thousands of others) to give access to their user data to developers through those same APIs.
And that is a potentially killer strategy. Facebook has a platform to allow third parties to build applications on Facebook itself. But what Google may be planning is significantly more open – allowing third parties to both push and pull data, into and out of Google and non-Google applications
Starting with the godawful Orkut though? We’ll see. I really can’t see Google being as open as has been mentioned above though. There’ll be a twist no doubt and where does this feed into search or more importantly, spamming people with ads? Still, this looks like it could be a lot of fun. If they are opening to everyone, hell maybe Facebook can suck it all into their site too. Thanks for getting us even more traffic Google! That would be funny. 🙂
Update: Great comments from Danny Sullivan. Google is YEARS away. Maybe too far for catchup?
Q+A
Friday, September 21st, 2007The Next Q+A is on October 19th, which is a Friday at a new venue: The Vaults, Connolly Station.
One of my favourite indy nights in Ireland, always fun and nice to see it turn into something like Freakscene. They now also have a Facebook Group too. Doubt I can make the next night as I have too much travel that week. Ah well. I’m just going to have to move to Dublin. (Oh no cry the Dublin OCCers)
Demetri Martin on Social Networking
Friday, September 21st, 2007Cheers Dan!
Bolton Trust celebrates 20 years with conference on ‘Indigenous Entrepreneurship’
Friday, September 21st, 2007Got a press release on this yest, never heard of this Bolton Trust crowd, but they’ve been around a while. Might be worth going to:
Entrepreneurs to Celebrate 20 Years of the Bolton Trust
The Bolton Trust, which was established in 1987 to encourage and promote new business enterprise in Ireland, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a one-day conference on ‘Indigenous Entrepreneurship’ on Thursday 4th October 2007.The conference will be held at the Docklands Innovation Park on Dublin’s East Wall Road which is currently home to some 70 companies.
A number of speakers including Frank Ryan, Chief Executive, Enterprise Ireland and two of Ireland’s best known entrepreneurs, Chris Horn and Liavan Mallin will address the event. Also attending will be architect and broadcaster, Duncan Stewart, who was involved with the foundation of the Bolton Trust. President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, will close the Conference with a presentation to four of the Trust’s founding members and afterwards will meet with delegates, speakers and members of the Trust.
To register attendance for the conference, contact CairÃn O’Connor at 01 2401377, email info at boltontrust.com or visit the website:www.boltontrust.com
About The Bolton Trust
The Bolton Trust encourages and promotes new business enterprise in Ireland. It is an independent voluntary trust actively committed to assisting people to create sustainable business. The Bolton Trust was established at the height of Ireland’s ‘brain drain’ in 1987 by staff of the Dublin Institute of Technology to promote an enterprise culture and to offer young entrepreneurs an opportunity to develop their business ideas in Ireland. The Trust currently has over 200 members. This membership is largely drawn from the various disciplines of DIT, Ireland’s largest third-level technological Institute and also from Ireland’s entrepreneurial community. Visit the website: www.boltontrust.com
And now number 1 for the phrase … “star trek porn”
Friday, September 21st, 2007I thought ranking first for “Irish Sluts” was interesting but noooo, this is more interesting alright. Number 1 on google that is.
Not so fluffy links – Thursday September 20th 2007
Thursday, September 20th, 2007And Irish Technology Museum? Yeah why not.
The first of the free review wine from Sublime Wines was sent out this week. I see Michele got his. You can still apply to be a reviewer by the way.
Black Button, a philosophical question:
In case of emergency, break glass and take out press card
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007I was reading a blog post recently from Jay Rosen about the press people belonging to the U.S. President’s Office who are there to give coverage if nobody else is present for some event. One or two of the more interesting snippets from someone that works on that team:
Well, there are two phrases that I’d like to pass along to your readers. They mean more or less the same thing. “Body watch†means covering an event that will produce zero news on its own because you need to make sure the president doesn’t collapse. The other is SSRO — “suddenly shots rang out†— which is basically equivalent, just a bit more dramatic.
When I emailed this to my friend, he asked whether we were responsible for the president’s safety, so I assume that others will have the same question. What we are responsible for is making sure that, if he collapses, or is shot at, we are in a position to get that information to our viewers/listeners/readers.
Think about how much JFK, RFK, MLK, Wallace, Squeaky, and Hinckley have shaped the logistical reality of White House coverage. The history of journalism is littered with stories of reporters who called it a day a bit too early, like the guy from the New York Times (if memory serves) who decided to head back to NYC hours before Wallace was shot.
This kind of ties into some of the stuff that Jeff Jarvis has been on about lately and supporting Journalism at the source and building new newsrooms etc. He’s spot on that journalists should reference and link to their sources. Blogs work very well doing that. With this idea of citizen journalism which seems to scare the shit out of traditional journalists, I do wonder is there a niche though for people who are like voluntary emergency workers, needed in case of emergencies or times when nobody else is about. Sky and the BBC are kind of doing this with footage and pictures but I wonder could it be done for actual reporting too. It’d be interesting to see media outlets train people on how to report in case they are needed. This works with first aiders and hell Switzerland gives everyone a gun, why not train all citizens in the basics of reporting and build a nation of good communicators. Might make for an interesting knowledge economy.
Fluffy Links – 19th September 2007
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007Arrrrrrr, it be talk like a pirate day, annoy all yourrrrr co-workerrrrrrrrrrs be talking like one. Arrrr.
Also today, the smiley face turns 25. 🙂
Check out Gordon’s latest web app, Yell If It Changes. It alerts you by email if a website changes or if their pagerank changes. I want RSS feeds of it too!
As a not so bitter Cork person, this quote on the Kerry slaughter of Cork rings true.
An excellent idea if you want to draw cartoons of certain deities but fear retribution.
Anthony Bourdain rips a new one into the latest trendy “gourment” creations.
Fiest – Mushaboom:
Feist – I feel it all. (Live on a bus)
Rememble – J’adore
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007Gavin O’Carroll sent me an invite to his digital lifestyle aggregator called Rememble.
It’s a pretty simple idea but lots of fun. Upload all your digital data, emails, text messages, music, photos and tag and comment on them, date them and share some or all or none of them. Current supported filetypes are: png, gif, jpg, avi, mpeg, mp3, wav, wmv, mov, mp4, 3gp and amr
You can upload from inside the site, you can email stuff to the site and you can text to the site as well. Additionally you can import from your Twitter and Flickr streams. Like it, love it.
Of course the coolest feature of this is that it builds a timeline for all of these items. This is like a Tumblr blog for all your digital bits and pieces. Scroll through your timeline and click on any object for more details about it. It has a really nice interface too.
I actually think this is a tool I’d use, I’d just like to be able to export it all in some standard format. Is there a DigitalLifeStyleML format out yet? 🙂 Overall the service is good and I think some minor UI tweaks would make it better again. I hope Rememble gets more attention as I certainly think it deserves it.
By the way, I have five invites to give out for this, as does anyone that’s signed up, so if you want one, leave a comment.