EI Web 2.0 Presentations Available

Joe Drumgoole has kindly made available on his blog the presentation material from the recent Web 2.0 meet in DCU including presentations by Tablane, Nooked, Sxoop and speakers Jeff Clavier, Marc Canter and all others involved.

You may pick them up right here…

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Anyone Blogging The IIA?

I’m getting some phone updates during the day from the IIA Congress… Is anyone actually blogging it? Or can it be done? Rumour has it there’s wireless access going….

Update: Michele is blogging from the Conference, while Aidan is filling me in via google talk

Text Link Ads Calculator

Text Link Ads (affiliate link) have added a calculator to their service, detailing what you can expect to get from them finance-wise if your ad space sells. Interesting to see the combination of pagerank and content category (e.g. gambling earns more than real estate which earns more than technology). Check it out here (not an affiliate link). Interesting what it throws up…

Technological First for Irish Music

So here I was gearing up a lovely music tech piece and I read Keith’s post, kudos to Mr. Bohanna for also unearthing this gem.

For the first time ever a music artist has launched an entire album exclusively on a mobile phone. Majella, has preloaded her new album “Brave New World” on the Sony Ericsson Z530i available exclusively from O2 Ireland. The album, which includes three live acoustic tracks will not go on general digital release until July 2006. Speaking in Dublin today, Pat Hughes, Sony Ericsson, said, “As a world first, both Sony Ericsson and O2 are delighted to play a role in launching Majella Murphy’s album exclusively via mobile phone. This marks an exciting time for the collaboration of music and mobile phones. Partnering with mobile technology provides a vital opportunity for gifted artists such as Majella to connect with audiences in new and more immediate ways”.

Its been a busy year to date for Ms. Murphy, launching her website (ColdFusion based) back in February, coupled with appearances in the Olympia and at the IRMAs. Plus, she’s from Kilkenny (my lovely hometown) - yet not featured on KilkennyMusic.com, will have to have words there.

Personally, I think its a fantastic move in the right direction for both mobile technology and Irish music. Its great to see artists and creative minds branching out and making the most of the technology thats available, in particular mobile services. Beats the hell out of a tacky free DVD.

If you’re up for a listen, her current single is also available to download directly from MajellaMurphy.com and is well worth the listen.

Update (Tuesday) - To announce this release Majella will be in studio with Pat Kenny (RTE Radio 1) this morning (10am-12noon) talking about recording “Brave New World” her deal with Sony Ericsson and O2.

Beginning Your Business Blog

If you’ve decided that blogging for your business is just for you… or you’re STILL debating whether or not to do it, then try a read of this article. I’m in the throws of starting blogs for a few different groups in my spare time (what little of it I have) and they’re all seeing the upsides of it.

All things said, its always useful to have something to refer to….

Evaluating Your Domain

How do the Irish stand out?

Seemingly kenmc.com will fetch me $14,702 if I’m lucky (any other Ken Mc’s interested in blowing 14k on a domain, email me)…. KilkennyMusic.com should fetch me €16,854….. Damien Mulley is looking at over $48,000 for his domain (happy days…)

Fancy pricing your own, with yet another domain appraisal service - though this time its a freebie…. Check out LeapFish.

Because Charity Feels Good

Update - the ball has started rolling and long may it continue… seems like he’s managed to rope in a few extra jumpers as well!

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Off the topic today and for a good reason too -  John is doing some fund raising for a most tremendous cause to help raise finance for a course of treatment for his girlfriend who suffers from a rare degenerative disease called Freidreichs Ataxia.

Anyway, Mr. Butler is going to throw himself out of a plane (with a parachute) to start the proceedings and has set up a website, CharityFeelsGood.com to take donations. If you’re interested, and I hope that you are, you can contribute $2 via PayPal or sponsor more if you wish.

There’s a long road to go in trying to raise the total amount given a complete lack of funding by the HSE or Irish Government so hopefully this will set things on its way.

You can read John’s own post here, or visit CharityFeelsGood.com

Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Spend Ad Money

Launching the business last year we spent a certain amount on repeat advertising in the local press - black and white ads, full colour ads, single column, double column, large ads, front page, back page…. it all adds up and doesn’t get you a real return. I don’t really agree with newspaper advertising to be fair, I see it more like a necessary evil. Papers gotta fill space, you gotta advertise your services.

With Kilkenny Music, I keep the advertising spend to near null. It might cost me 20 euro to financially promote an event or gig where I can generate several hundred euro in return (providing people turn up of course). I could look at running promotion in the newspaper of course, and pay up to several hundred euro and still end up with the same amount of people in the venue.

So the numbers might be a bit different. Small business, with big products, and another venture with small products but massive repeat business and massive longevity.
So Dane Carson’s recent article, guest authored by Matthew Lesko in his crazy blue question mark suit raises a point…

“Anybody Can Spend Money On Advertising But Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Pay Rate Card, And If They’re Real Clever, They Figure Out A Way Not To Pay Anything Up Front At All”

While I consider myself a beginner to the world of business and looking after your own business ventures, I like the final quote. If there is a way not to pay anything up front at all - or anything at all for that matter - you will find it, and should find it.

Go out and get a little creative if you can! Or just read the article…. goes down well with a cup of tea and some of those large Cadbury’s cookies we got this morning

Radiation Warning For Motorola

OK… so this may be a little more applicable to US phone models, but despite the difference in numbering, checking out the pictures you will likely recognise some of these phones from passing your local Carphone Warehouse or O2 store…. (not to implicate either I might add…).

But, a recent study has revealed the ten highest radiation mobile phones, in the US, and low and behold - Motorola are up there with 8 out of 10 phones. (Insert applause here). I see the Treo 650 made its way onto the list as well for you PDA fans…
Check out the list here…

Textorizer….

Surprised that it has an ‘er’ at the end and not just an ‘r’?

Textorizer takes a raster image in a format such as png, jpeg or gif, detects edges using a Sobel convolution filter and replaces them with supplied lines of text. The output from textorizer is in SVG, which can be viewed directly in the Firefox 1.5 browser or using the Adobe SVG Plugin.

Had a play around with it earlier on and took a look at some of John’s images all textorized and its pretty damn impressive with what it can do! Give it a lash yourself.

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