Damien Mulley

The Government have are holding a public consultation about broadband demand. They’re basically framing the consultation as lack of demand being the reason why Ireland is one of the worst developed countries for broadband usage. Naturally the word bollox is in neon in my mind. The consultation closes tomorrow. I greatly encourage anyone that reads this to send in their views. Even if you have broadband already it is well worth telling the Govt it is not a demand problem it is a supply problem. We all know people that want broadband and cannot get it. Below is an email I sent to the IrelandOffline mailing list.

Minister Noel Dempsey and the Department of Communications have initiated a public consultation asking you, the consumer, for your opinions on broadband in Ireland. We in IrelandOffline greatly encourage you to view the consultation and send your thoughts to the Minister on this.

The Department are framing this consultation as if there isn’t enough demand for broadband and that is the reason Ireland has one of the worst records in the developed world for broadband usage. We think they are wholly incorrect and our own submission that we will send in next week will say this in no uncertain terms. If you are unable to get broadband and think the Government should be addressing this need then please reply to the consultation.

You can read the consultation here.

There are 33 questions and suggested answers/discussion points but you do not need to answer any or all of these. You can simply give your experience and demand change.

Your submissions should be marked ‘Broadband Demand’ and emailed to the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources at information@broadband.gov.ie by 1st March 2006. Please also ask for them to confirm receipt of your submission.

Please send a copy of your submission to info@irelandoffline.org too

The more I re-read the piece the more I think it was just written to give some love to Edelman and their new booklet on blogging. Where was Michele Neylon or Tom Raftery, where was Fergus Burns from Nooked or Eirepreneur James Corbett? I’m not bothered they didn’t mention the blog awards but I am bothered that they didn’t even do a little bit of research into business bloggers in Ireland. There are a few you know.

Mark Cahalane from Edelman was quoted extensively. Hi Mark, I’m guessing you’ll see this blog entry soon enough. Do you have your own blog Mark? Did the Business Post approach you guys or did you approach them for this story?

The SBP piece was inspid, mundane and about 2 years too late. In fact it reads like a template. “Insert name of country this is being published in” and bang it out all over the world. It was irrelevant to Ireland and a downright shame when it could have done a lot of the growing business blogging community.

and don’t worry we’re sure the scum of the earth, who are probably already drunk, will not fire things they pick up on the street.

Amazing how we had a field day when the English yobs tore up seats in Landsdowne so many years ago. Welcome to yob nation. Again the Gardai let violence happen first and then come in for a fight. Prevention anyone?

Some Flickr pics.

Dave advices on how to gently get people to blog. Simple and so right.

And that’s blogging, and that’s all it is.

Damn right. Well said Dave.

I emailed Hugh Macleod this week about Stormhoek providing some bottles of wine for the Blog Awards. Hugh’s probably up the walls and hasn’t got time to tell me piss off but why not try and get his attention by blogging about it? If you would like the opportunity to go home with a free bottle of Stormhoek wine after the blog awards then blog about it. (We’ll be charged corkage if we drink it in the hotel and I think it would be nice to enjoy it at home, nearer to where you make the magic happen on your blog.) So blog saying you’d like some wine. Link to this blog too.

Make sure to link to Hugh’s blog and the Stormhoek blog too and see will it get picked up and noticed by Hugh. This is a way is an experiment in blog power. I’m not going to email Hugh again as I think it impolite but I also want to see will all these blogs get his attention. The pre awards tech event almost fits nicely into his geek dinner idea.

So go on, do that thing you do and some of you do so well. Blog.

Congrats to BifSniff for making Screenhead. Screenhead is part of the Gawker Media Empire so gets a lot of eyeballs, which is apt for the cartoon in question.

Paige contemplates the blogging life and how she is distracted by the blog awards nominees. Welcome to my world! Please visit Paige’s site and comment on her posts. Some great stuff there. Send her more traffic.

The Tech meetup going on before the Blog Awards is going really well. Good to see some of the bloggers with passions for certain projects are going to be presenting.

Malcolm Gladwell of Blink and Tipping Point fame is blogging. Go subscribe and buy his books. What a great segway …

Speaking of tipping points, I think blogging will reach its Tipping Point when Sliabh’s idea about a less serious counter to the blog Awards occurs. I really like the idea but I fear we’re too early with it yet. There’s some 1000 blogs or so that we can deem as Irish. When we get to 5000, then maybe we could do this.

I’m being called a monster in work because I had rainbow trout for work today and ate it all including the head and eyes. Pfffft. Pics are on the way.

iWent
iBought
iPlayed
iRipped
iWenttoJail
iReland + iRMA + iPod = iACriminal?

Free the MP Three!

Bernard is having problems getting t-shirts printed because Café Press are acting all lawyery. I think he should look for another crowd to sell his t-shirts. Café Press are not going to fuck with Apples lawyers. Find an Irish source and print them locally.

If anyone wants to steal my idea of text for an mp3 campaign, work away. Just send me a free t-shirt. Black, large, soft material (Hey, I’m still a tough guy!).

Free the MP Three!

James mentions the pre-Blog Awards tech event being planned. I’ve handed over planning of this to Bernie or rather I suggested it to him that he do it and I legged it. The plan is that the geeks have a small tech event talking about a few things. James will talk OPML and feedgrazing, John Handelaar will talk about his Fax My TD/Vocal Voter project and someone from Microsoft will present IE7 and RSS integration. Bernie will line up one or two more people as well. Hopefully there’ll be a wiki up where people can register to go. I doubt I’ll be able to make it as I have the Awards themselves to play with.

Time will be 1500-1700. Location yet to be decided though it could be in or near the Alexander Hotel as the Blog Awards are moving there.

EDIT: Thatgirl suggests a more social get together for the non-techy people before the Awards. Having half the audience drunk will give it an authentic Jerry Springer feel. Nooooo!