Pure Play

Pigs in Space or Prints in Second Life

Haydn Shaughnessy - a journalist and entrepreneur based in Cork - has a contemporary art gallery.

He also has a fascination for things virtual and himself and his wife Roos are launching a virtual gallery in Second Life. Designed by real world architect Benn Dunkley. Get this (taken from another blog here)

Artists Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern have each been exploring performance and performativity in their archival prints. Kildall restages then remediates iconic performance artworks in Second Life, and Stern straps on a scanner appendage and battery pack, and performs images into existence; both processes produce art objects in the real world.

For Crossing the Void II at Ten Cubed Gallery..they were asked to produce unique virtual art works for sale in Second Life, which mirror their real life prints. In response, they created a series of “Simulate Editions”, where every ‘print’ is individually signed and numbered by hand, making each work ‘technically unique.’ The works are copy and modification protected, but also come with a resize script, so that the new collector/owner - and only them - can grow or shrink their purchase so as to fit into their SL space.

Will I be attending - no. Barely coping with the real world and my 1D interfaces with others - my trialling of Second Life was short and left me wondering why.

Do I will them luck? Absolutely. People with vision are a joy to behold and Haydn and Roos have it in buckets :-)

keith

Widgets my ****

Still you have to like something that makes building one sooo easy :-)

Demo2008 is on (where cool stuff gets shown for the first time) and Sproutbuilder is highlighted by ReadWriteweb.

It is a drap and drop jobbie and does make it easy to build out your widgets (the sometimes annoying things that sit in the sidebar of a website or blog). Mine on the right refers to the barcamp we are running in my home town of Kilkenny in March.

If I was so inclined Sproutbuilder would have allowed me to include video clips and audio in there. I also noticed that Polldaddy are one of the services that will be offered - the Sligo lads are doing well :-)

It is a closed beta but if you get to the ReadWriteWeb page linked here you may be able to get access like I was.

UPDATE - the feed on the published widget appears to wander off-track, pulling posts from Crunchgear at times instead of the Creativecamp blog. Why so I wonder?

keith

Yazoo reunite - personal post

After Depeche Mode and before Erasure was Yazoo time for Vince Clarke - two albums with Alison Moyet. A lady with a very raw and human voice mixing it with a 100% synth man. I loved it then and I still do.

Pic from http://www.yazoo.org.uk/photos/

5 reunion dates are coming up in the UK and myself and Martina will be going to the Brighton gig in June this year. We went to the Erasure concert in Vicars St in 2006 and much longer ago to see Depeche Mode in Birmingham and also the SFX so Brighton fills a gap (for me especially) :-)

keith

Grabbing the blogosphere by the balls

And so a group of female bloggers are lining up for a panel discussion at CreativeCamp on Saturday 8th March in Kilkenny. From the site:

An afternoon panel discussion facilitated by Krishna De on women & technology (as titled above). The panel includes Elly Parker, Sabrina Dent, Martha Rotter & Alexia Golez.

Duck and Cover :-)

Gotta say Ken McGuire is firmly imprinting his mark on this event - a lot of the heavy lifting is being done by him and the populating of the barcamp with faces who are alien to the clicky usual rent a blogosphere crowd will be heavily influenced by his work. Which is deadly.

keith

CreativeCamp - new funky look

The design inspiration of Ken McGuire has been applied to the blog for Creative Camp.

We are going with a blog and not a wiki for this one - there has been regular feedback in all barcamps that people find wiki's a little intimidating at times. So just fill in a form on the blog and you are manually added to the list.

Already 2 speakers up there. Thanks to Niall Kitson in PCLive for the mention in the current issue - hopefully that will attract the attention of people in non-blog land :-)

keith

WTF - snippets from the Forfas Broadband Report Dec 2007

On the train to Dublin and reading the "Ireland's Broadband Performance and Policy Requirements" from Forfas, December 2007.

There are two parts to this - the acceptance that there is an issue that needs to be solved and the solutions to same. The following snippets relate to the issue.

• The fastest speed that is widely available in Ireland (6 Mbit/s), costs 4 to 5 times more than considerably higher speed (ADSL) services in countries such as France, Germany and Hungary.
• While we debate Next Generation Networks (see under for more) fibre connections  accounted for 36pc of all Japanese broadband connections and 31pc of Korean broadband connections. (June 2007).
• For the fastest speed widely available in Ireland (6 Mbit/s) we are the most expensive of the nine benchmarked countries for which data is available.
• Comparing the cost of the 6 Mbit/s service against the 8 Mbit/s offered in other countries we were more expensive than all but two.
• For one fifth of the cost of the 6 Mbit/s service here a business in Japan can get a 47 Mbit/s service.

NGN - what is it?

The replacement of existing copper based legacy telecoms networks with fibre and old exchanges with digital IP-based switches.

Why?

To facilate the delivery of multiple services (eg voice, data, TV) over a single packet-based infrastructure.

What is Ireland doing?

Currently preparing a draft policy paper that will review Ireland's comm's infrastructure...... Analysing policy requirements...... Establishing a forum...... Critically evaluating....... Providing a blueprint.

What are other countries doing?

Countries that already have advanced networks such as Korea,Japan, the Netherlands and Singapore are seeking to build even faster networks which will offer up to 100 Mbit/s capacity.

We are a small country with a dispersed population. We are also touted as one of the richest economies in the world and one which is focused on the "knowledge economy".

People will always be the most important component of our success, and there are many things far more important than technology such as treatment of people who are disadvantaged in any way.

However if we continue to ignore this area we will pay the price. We need innovative and visionary leadership on this Mr Ryan.

keith

(apologies for the lack of links and formatting in the above - written on Treo and emailed. UPDATE - went in afterwards and applied some slight formatting to make it easier to read)

Professional Services for a Start-Up - any suggestions?

Getting the right professional services for your start-up is not a trivial decision. These services are important for the following reasons - and probably more besides:

• Developing a legal and financial structure that can accommodate your short and medium term ambitions for the business (I would say 3 years max as even that timespan is very difficult to call)
• Protecting the founders of the business as they take in outside investors - if that is applicable
• Potentially access to private investors through their networks
• Presenting the right impression to outsiders - that you are positioning yourself to be a credible player in your sector
• Receiving good commercial advice - that is a separate issue from the narrowly focused advice on specific legal or financial issues

At present in dbTwang we are considering Mason, Hayes and Curran for our legal advice (based on my experience in the past with them) and Farrell Grant Sparks for finance and audit. I would welcome comments or offline contact from anyone with strong opinions on this mix?

They are both mid-tier businesses with good experience of working with start-ups so more relevant than smaller provincial firms and still less expensive than top tier players.

keith

To be expected - Global Pandora down

For the last week or so I have been listening to streaming music via GlobalPandora - a hack set up to allow non-US residents to access the Pandora music service. (I prefer it to the music mix I get from Last.fm)

Pandora had been available globally but was forced to restrict access to to music rights issues.

Speaking to Damien during the week he did not give the service long before it was knobbled - and he was right!

keith

37Signals Down - and so are their blogs

Ah no - the poster boys of the online service revolution (or at least the funky, Web2.0 and non-corporate end of things) are down. Offline. Unavailable. Off Air.

UPDATE3 - all back. And the following to correct one of my original comments. Taken from 37signals post on this outage - www.37signals.com/svn/posts/800-what-happened-this-morning

Dan, status.37signals.com is hosted with another provider. That’s how we were able to keep it update during the downtime. Certainly a best practice for anyone running a service like this. Have your status site on another host.

UPDATE2 - Learn from this - while they are hassling their service provider and providing regular status updates the founders are also keeping an eye on the blogosphere. David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Ruby On Rails) has just left a comment here apologising for the snafu. Nice one.

UPDATE - they have realised that their updates should be at the top of the page and have reconfigured it - see the top screenshot. Good call!!

It happens.

What is very, very surprising is that their blogs - where you would expect status reports etc - are apparently on the same service provider. That is a little bit sloppy as you would expect them to be hosted elsewhere. See Update 3 above for more on this.

Come back guys - apart from personally having a number of projects running though basecamphq and highrisehq I have quite a few clients running on your services after recommendations from me :-(

keith

Why So Few?

Sometimes it is appropriate to develop slightly different supports for female entrepreneurs. The FEIW programme in Waterford IT is just that - a kinda Enterprise Platform Programme for women. I received this from Margaret yesterday:

LAST CALL for applicants! Its a new year and many women will be looking at their business wondering how to take it to the next level in 2008. With our intensive tailored 6 month programme women in business in the South East can achieve their growth goals!

There are VERY limited places left so if anyone is interested they should contact us URGENTLY at mdurand AT wit.ie or visit the website www.whysofeiw.com

keith

98% of schools have broadband - hmmm

From Silicon Republic yesterday:

Some 98pc of Ireland’s primary and secondary schools now have broadband connectivity following an investment of €18m by telecoms companies and the Government in the Schools Broadband Access Programme, the Telecoms and Internet Federation (TIF) said yesterday.

Full article linked here - www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single10000

Having read Damien Mulley's take on this and some interesting comments on same - linked here - I decided to email Emer Condon of the TIF with the following questions:

I would be really interested in more detail on how that figure was arrived at.

• Is it based on a representative sample or information from every school?
• What is the definition of broadband used?
• Do you have aggregated figures on the various speeds - ie 14% under 1MB, 45% 1 to 3MB?
• If a school has broadband can it be used on each computer in the school?
• Do you have figures on the different technologies being used to deliver this service?

Looking forward to that detail so that the reality behind the headline can be explored a little. This goes far beyond broadband mind you - the schools themselves need the resources and the will to do something with it. That is up to the Dept of Education.

keith

UPDATE - with no acknowledgement or response at 26th Jan I have emailed Emer again and hoping to have those answers soon.

"Put everything in it's Place" Joe gives out some good start up advice

Putplace is a service for keeping your digital stuff safe (I use the beta) and Joe Drumgoogle keeps a  blog combining business and personal observations.

Yesterday he posted about the Putplace experience so far (only just starting really). A mixture of financial advice and some sanity tips. Post linked here - joedrumgoole.com/blog/2008/01/14/startup-advice-again.

He also has a good word for Enterprise Ireland and points out that a decision not to engage with EI based on disgruntled blog posts may not be the best one.

For a great post from Joe in 2007 on how to deal with Enterprise Ireland click here joedrumgoole.com/blog/2007/10/11/excellent-comments-from-patricia-osullivan-m50-programme-manager

keith

Upcoming Events I intend being at

I am saying intend as opposed to will to allow for last minute changes - all of these are in Dublin and it can happen that client or dbTwang requirements block my getting away to the big city.

Creating the Perfect Public Sector Website, 22 Jan 2008

This one-day conference focuses on user experience, accessibility and inclusive design for the public sector. It is relevant to those who work in the public sector and to those who supply services to the public sector. Gerry McGovern will introduce the keynote and speakers include Reach, Open Interface, Mayo Council, iQ Content and NCBI Centre for Inclusive Technology.

For more information go to: www.iia.ie/events/event/138/creating-the-perfect-public-sector-website

This one I am going to partially because of my involvement with the IIA and mostly because a lot of my work involves semi-state websites.

Techludd, 24th Jan 2008

Come along and meet some of the upstarts from Paddy’s Valley and talk to them about their recent adventures and experiences in Silicon Valley. There is also an open demo area and WiFi so you can show off your wares if you want.

For more information go to: www.techludd.com

On the back of the success of the Paddy's Valley trip it was suggested that an event be organised to allow the participants to share their experiences. Techludd is the outcome. I am looking forward to getting to this  - especially to talk BES and funding to some of the participants there :-)

Irish Blog Awards, 1st Mar 2008

This annual blogfest is where bloggers from all around Ireland get a chance to put faces to the url's and celebrate the best of kind at a totally non-corporate event.

For more information go to: awards.ie/blogawards

I will get to this if at all possible - I am delivering a training programme in Kilkenny that Saturday and so it depends on 1) finishing in time and 2) me not being too knackered to face the journey to Dublin!

keith

Recurring revenues - what impact on valuations?

For a software business with recurring revenues are there any established metrics or multipliers to use when calculating a valuation?

Keith

Staying in Touch - any good family friendly services out there?

Firstly got to say that I am really enjoying the podcasts of the George Hook Technology slot that I have been listening to - both Joe Drumgoole and Karlin Lillington feature regularly and they are great to listen to :-)

My next local radio slot is coming up on Monday and I am taking the theme of families staying in touch after Christmas. Proposals are:

• Free/cheap and easy calls over the internet (www.jajah.com -much easier to use than Skype!)
• Family Tree service (http://www.geni.com/)
• Blogs (Wordpress or Typepad)
• Family Space with blog, media and calendar - www.familysays.com
• Shared private photo and video spaces - the usuals.
  

Anyone any suggestions on stuff that you use yourself for family sharing? Gotta be relatively non-tech please :-)

keith

For anyone who gives an RSS - Newsgator now FREE

Having switched 2 weeks ago to the Bloglines beta for reading RSS feeds I saw on Techmeme last night that one of the best RSS readers is now free.

With a desktop client that syncs with a browser based version and sporting a superb user interface I have to say that Newsgator is now the one I will settle on :-).

Link to their blog with more details - www.rassoc.com/gregr/weblog/2008/01/09/newsgators-rss-clients-are-now-free

keith

Irish Non Technology business bloggers

One element of this blog that I have not posted about in a while is the listing on the left hand side of business bloggers who are writing about non-technical businesses.

I am maintaining the list to give anyone who cares a focused place to find passionate communicators from the ranks of small to medium sized businesses in Ireland. To assist occasional browsers the list now runs in the order of most recently added on top (it was alphabetical) and it has been extended to accommodate all 41 blogs that are currently in the listing.

UPDATE - picked up another 6 food related blogs from Kieran's post here - thank you :-) icecreamireland.com/2008/01/08/links-and-irish-food-blogs

keith