Fair play to the Germans

As of this morning there have been over 1.3 million .eu domains registered - and fair play to the Germans, they’ve managed to register half of them alone!

Registering my own name went though in a few hours but three discretionary names I’ve attempted to register (and have paid for) are still pending since Friday. The mind wonders…

Update 1 : For your information, as of time of posting, Irish users have registered a total of 17,283 .eu domain names. (Via Eurid)

Update 2 : Kenmc.eu is now live… (and pointing right back here)

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.eu Domains Unleashed

So the .eu domains were unleashed yesterday and I’ve already started shopping. Nice to have a chance at taking a domain to play with that was previously unavailable. Registration process is quite simple and my first domain, kenmc.eu (which will simply redirect to here) was approved within a few hours, being a natural resident of the EU. Outside of that you’ve either got to be a business or have your trading offices in the EU.

Sean McNamara came up with a nice swoop and picked himself up Sean.eu… go figure. No doubt the registrars will be having a fun time with the new wave of domains being rolled out across the web.

New Startup Gearing Up For Launch

A project that closely involved in from a work related point of view is now taking emails ahead of its beta and full launch periods.

dbTwang is a new resource for guitar enthusiasts and collectors which will launch in 2006. If you’re interested, why not pop along to dbTwang.com and leave your email for notification ahead of the final launch.

Great to see it coming along….

GoogleTalk Fancied Up

GoogleTalk has gone all fancy. Chatting away on it this afternoon and all of a sudden there were colours and lights and flashy icons and stuff…. something to keep me entertained over Friday lunchtime, preparing yet another chat avatar!
Its also available on the Blackberry, if there’s a PocketPC version of it doing the rounds I’d be pretty happy. The new PDA is working out quite well indeed!

YouTube moving on up

35 million videos viewed a daily.

Hundreds of thousands of comments. Positive feedback, negative feedback.

View them online, spread them in email, stick them on your bebo or MySpace account, hell, even post them in your blog.

I’m talking about the videos being hosted at YouTube, quite possibly the new internet leader for online video sharing. Whatever about Google Video or Atom Films, YouTube seems to be doing the business when it comes to video, according to SiliconBeat this evening. Its also something I’ve been looking at of late as a means of distribution for another organisation I’m involved with.

But why the big news? Well, they’ve been handed another US$8 million in VC funding - barely five months after receiving a first round sum of US$3.5 million. Seems like things are getting busy on the YouTube front and they’re moving right on up…. read on for the full article.

New podcasting logo?

Is this the face of the new PodCasting logo? Reading MonkeyBites this morning it seems there was a contest held in Germany of all places to determine a universal podcasting logo? The result? An RSS icon wearing a set of headphones….

Not sure how effective this kind of design would be. Personally I would rather see something a little more iconic, in the style of the new RSS icon. Somehow, adding a set of headphones just doesn’t do it for me!

Update

Alan from Spoiltchild / Pinstripe has made this offering (opens in new window) in retaliation. Certainly a lot more along the lines I was thinking…

Dramatic Web 2.0 Transformation

DeviantART, where I house some of my photography and prints are just about to revolutionise their website. And amongst all the Web 2.0-style sites that are doing the rounds at the moment, I’m just not sure that this is a good idea.

If you take a look at the first link in the post you’ll arrive at my profile page, get a feel for the look, the structure, how everything appears and works…. then take a look at the second link. Whatever about new websites and businesses adopting a “web 2.0 strategy” or approach to how their site is designed and run, is it really worthwhile to perform a radical changeover after almost 5 years of the same style of site, a site which currently holds 2m+ users and 20m+ works of art?

If you’re that well established, would you make the move?

Update: Ok, following investigation it looks more like a bad taste april fools joke - but I still think it raises a valid question, irregardless of whether the change goes ahead or not. If you were in their position, with a solid userbase on a particular model of a website, would you still press ahead and make such dramatic changes?

Kilkenny Business Awards 2006

Quiet weekend on the blogging front but just back in the door from the Kilkenny Business awards. Not used to blogging about the business here but needless to say a good night was had. No major awards but nice representation, a great meal, good conversation and all the rest. Needless to say, being nominated for Service Provider Of The Year after just over six months in business isn’t bad considering we were bunched with companies trading over 20 years around the country.

It does have to be said that there are some absolutely excellent businesses operating in Kilkenny in all areas (retail, service, HR, manufacturing etc.) and for small startup businesses its evenings like these that offer a genuine appreciation of the work involved and the role everyone plays in providing business services to the region.
Congratulations to everyone on the night and everyone I’d been speaking to, hope to see you, and ourselves, again next year!

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