Fancy Free Tickets To Web 2.0 Expo In Berlin?

If you’ve thought about travelling to the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin just over a month from today, there’s a great opportunity to bag a pair (yes - two) of tickets which kicks off in Berlin on November 5th, running to November 8th (Monday to Thursday).

The competition stipulation is that you must be an Irish blogger OR Irish-based blogger, the winner being the one with the “best suggestion for an original web applciation with an Irish focus”.

You’ve got until this Sunday, so get the thinking cap on! You’re looking at over €2,000 worth of a prize!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up to date with kenmc.com. Maybe some of my earlier posts will interest you too! Thanks for visiting kenmc.com!

DemoBar To Rock Dublin Tonight

I say it will ‘rock’ Dublin tonight as the event (DemoBar) looks set to be a great one. There’s ten fantastic Irish companies on display tonight, beer, banter and if I was any way closer to Dublin and a little easier with my time tonight and tomorrow then I’d be there with a fine helping of bells on.

Glowday will be launching at the event and handing out a few beta invitations, as will Vinny Glennon’s JustRoutes.com. TouristR should reveal a new facelift tonight with Jan shedding some more light on the upcoming TripPlanr while Walter should be able to show off some new features for Pixenate along with the brand spanking new Pixenate Facebook application - honestly, I think I’ve waited for taxis for more time than it took the application to get online, seriously quick turnaround there!

When and Where

It all kicks off in the Ely HQ on Hanover Quay in Dublin, this evening from 6:30pm. Google Map Here. Rumour has there’s going to be around 100 people there this evening so get in while you can!

So THAT’S What GlowDay Do!

Earlier in the week I posted a preview of the ten companies showcasing their wares at DemoBar next Thursday, September 13th at the Ely HQ in Dublin. Like James, there were one or two names I wasn’t familiar with - GlowDay being one of them. I had added a note that I would amend the description with any gory details available and via Daniel Becker (Founder) comes the following…

GlowDay power embeddable surveys, from simple one question polls to complex multipage questionnaires. Surveys are delivered either as widgets or hosted pages. Survey Designers have full control of layout and presentation and can include images and videos for added impact. A survey can be shared for others to use or improve. Results can be analysed and compared to results gathered by others. Our Service is Free

GlowDay is another service that is expected to be launched at DemoBar.

Tipping The Hat To Blognation

Delighted to see that Conor O’Neill is behind the launch of the Irish arm of Blognation, which kicked off today. As they say in Ireland, “there’s no better buachaill”. The addition of an Irish element to Blognation means that we’ll be more seeing the latest Web 2.0 developments / tech developments from all around the country.

The opening post on the blog covers an introduction to the web/tech scene in Ireland at present and lists some of the great web services on offer at the moment. You’ll get the latest tech events in the calendar (though *ahem* PodCamp Ireland isn’t among them yet - September 29th for FREE in Kilkennny) and a lot more besides.

One thing that jumped out at me from the post is Conor’s mention of the VC scene at present and what some options are.

The single biggest blocking factor for web startups here continues to be access to capital

Reason being in that I had a chat (and a sneak preview at the beta service) in Kilkenny today with a Beverly Hills startup (Kilkenny native) who politely offered his thoughts on the VC scene at present and the reason he’s now set up - with funding - in the US. Having watched in on the Auctomatic boys last week and the upcoming Paddys Valley tour in December I can see some of his points!

The first article though is a great one, well worth the read if you can. Would be a nice place to get some tech company profiling going on if the opportunity presented itself (with Damien currently compiling companies in Ireland) but thats for the editors to decide!

Anyway, tip of the hat to Conor O’Neill and fair play to Sam Sethi and Blognation for opening a door into the Irish market.

Open Source Food

Thought this one deserves a mention on the blog - Open Source Food. Now, its not food for thought in an open source programming kind of way - more along the lines of Open Source recipes, community-driven food from around the world.

I’m a massive lover of foreign foods, any country in the world, and I love spending time in the kitchen (when I have time that is), messing around with different fresh ingredients, cooking up a storm for one, two or a load of people. I’ve been doing some restaurant work of late in Kilkenny (for a client) and I’ve been slowly building a food project of my own since August 2005 (one of those serious back-burner things that should be coming to light in a month or two) but this site is a pleasure to trip around. Hell, the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo in Toronto last year was a good highlight for me.

Big full colour photos of meals prepared by community users, full ingredients, step-by-step guides and a really easy navigation (easier than getting around the kitchen or leafing through a tiny-print cookbook with fancy studio shots). How about some Japanese noodles made in China, some spring onion and ginger crabs, or a banana muffin for that morning coffee?

Give it look, try something out!

Loving Google Calendar

After toying around with Google Calendar for a while, I can finally say I’m loving it, especially the freedom I’m getting in integrating it with KilkennyMusic.com. Using a modified version of the gCalJSON its a breeze to pull out all the calendar details, format them however you want without the need for a Wordpress plugin.

If you’re looking to integrate a calendar feed into your blog or any other web site, give gCalJSON a look, have a toy around with the script, throw in 3-4 lines of code to call it out (including your full Google calendar feed) and you’ll have your dates straight away. I’ve been doing some work on KKM over the last week, tying a few services together and adding Google calendar to back the gigs was a bit of a no-brainer.

The use of Google Calendar is perfect for KilkennyMusic.com though as the access to the calendar is shared between four of us, allowing gig and event updates by any of us from any location. Seen as we all use Google Talk to communicate during the week, everyone’s Google ID gets added to the Calendar admin (invitation) and everyone can get involved. It also helps in taking an iCal output of the calendar as well to allow us keep local copies (3/4 of us are Mac users). Allowing HTML in the gig descriptions is a bonus as well in terms of providing links to bands and venues. Just gotta get some co-ordinates in there and plot the gigs on a map and away we go.

Its damn easy to use as well if you haven’t tried it before…. give it a lash.

Jan Blanchard Podleaders Video Interview

Hey Tom - it works on the video iPod. Currently watching the second video podcast from Podleaders.com featuring Jan Blanchard chatting with Tom Raftery about TouristR.com, currently in private beta for another two days or so before being launched at the end of the week at Reboot 9.0.

While Tom mentions that the video has been optimised for the iPod, you’ll have to convert the download yourself in order to get it into iTunes (download available as .FLV). I used iSquint for my conversion which dumps the FLV out to MP4 and automatically inserts it into your iTunes video library. A quick sync and you’re set to go.

I will say that its a great improvement on the first video podcast, the interview appears much more natural with the ‘over the shoulder’ look; the camera has been locked down for the demo; the branding works well on the screen and isn’t overly intrusive and it is much more enjoyable to watch as a whole.

One thing I might watch out for (and I’m particular about my own podcasts) is the sound quality - some clip mics, or a boom mic or a cheap wireless kit could do well at capturing sound rather than relying on the camera’s internal mic.

Other than that I say kudos on the second video podcast.

FeedBurner Will Sell To Google In 2/3 Weeks

This is one sale that I’m happy to see anyway, the two providers a perfect marriage in integrating FeedBurner’s statistics and feed management with the likes of Google Adwords, Google AdSense and Google’s Analytics. I had mentioned earlier in the week that the sale was rumoured to be going ahead, as first mentioned by Sam Sethi at Vecosys.

Spotted the news breaking this morning though on TechCrunch that the deal has been agreed and looks to be in the region of US$100m which represents a great result for a company going into their fourth year who’ve taken US$10m in capital funding over two rounds two years ago.

FeedBurner really is a quality service and my first port of call when setting up a blog, happy to say I’ve got it managing 26 of feeds from across my own blogs and blogs that I’m managing for one or two other people. I like the stats, like the control over my feeds, republish-ability, friendliness to podcasts - the whole lot. Couple that with the statistics provided by Analytics plus the likelihood of additional revenue generation through your RSS feeds and the whole package looks to be onto a winner from the get go.

Tip of the hat to FeedBurner, hopefully it brings about an improvement in everything as opposed to dropping any parts of the service but I guess we’ll have two weeks or so to wait and see what happens.

LouderVoice Moves Out Of Beta

Looks like the work has paid off for Conor O’Neill and co., LouderVoice has moved out of the private beta stage and been opened up to the world for scrutiny (and use). I’ve got two reviews (here and here) at my LouderVoice review blog which were posted during the beta phase.

Have to say, much rather the final homepage design as opposed to the pre-launch stage. Quite warm and inviting indeed as Paul Watson puts it. The site has plenty of details on what exactly LouderVoice is, so now that its open, why not pop along and register? Posting your review is a breeze, you can also publish to your own blog, grab a Firefox plugin, Wordpress plugin… endless possibilities thought out.

No doubt there’ll be a plethora of blogging coverage to come from interested parties, thought I’d fire in my two cent…

A few tweaks to come but I’m impressed anyway and thats all that matters? Right? Make up your own mind…

Any Spare Joost Invites Going? (They’ve got ice hockey!)

Ok, now I’ve got to get in and check out Joost - anyone have a spare invitation? Reason for this now piquing my interest (taking ‘pique’ courtesy of Conor O’Neill), is that the NHL have announced a partnership with Joost for coverage of the Stanley Cup Final, with the season now currently in the playoff stages.

I did have a look at some of what Joost had to offer a few months ago but if one can get free hockey, without having to fork out a monthly sub to the North American Sports Network or get a Chorus or Sky connection into the house then I’ve gotta see it.

So I ask, anyone have a spare Joost invite for a blogger with a love for ice hockey? If you do and would like to leave a comment, that would be mighty fine

Next Page »