Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Here are some cool tools for Twitter users - thanks to Philip Wilkinson

1. TweetWheel - Which of your followers know each other? Tweet Wheel helps you find out visually.
2. TwerpScan - If there are opportunistic marketers following everyone under the sun in the hope those good souls will just automatically follow them back, this tool might help identify those whom you may want to block.
3. Summize - Good, fast Twitter search engine
4. Twitt(url)y - Does a nice job of providing a Techmeme style representation of up and coming URLs that are mentioned in individual Tweets.
5. TweetBeep - as Google alerts but for Twitter

Let me know via the comments if you know of any more and I’ll add them later.

My stay in Dublin a few weeks ago was kicked off with Curry 2.0 - a new networking event that Aido and I are working on. The t-shirts below were picked up for the Firefox party to help promote the event. I must admit, the photo is a little cheesy and opens the door for a slagging from friends. Go for it guys! You probably can’t read the writing but it says “Curry 2.0 makes you shit hot”

The first few networking dinners will be free for attendees, at least until we can demonstrate value for money - i.e. value for membership fee and the cost of a curry. Thanks to Hosting365 and BT for sponsoring the kick-off dinner.

With 17 hungry executives, a great lively debate was had by all. I met Sorcha, a Segala ex-employee, at 6:30 and as a direct result of her bad influence, we started drinking wine at around, er, 6:30. Needless to say I can’t remember much about the evening. Apparently it was a great night.

My second night in Dublin was just as much fun, but strangely, with a lot less alcohol. In fact, I was completely sober at the end of the Firefox Party that Aido and I hosted. Our thanks go to Aido, Fergus and Conor via Web2Ireland, Laura and Marie Boran from Silicon Republic for helping to raise awareness through their own networks and Web sites. While I’m at it, I should thank BT, PutPlace, Blacknight, Segala and wubud again, for sponsoring the party and Barry from IOTC (check here for video footage from the live streaming) for arranging the venue.

It was the biggest out of 771 parties worldwide - not bad. Even Mozilla sent us a picture of them celebrating our celebrations!

Read Marie’s review on Firefox 3 to learn more about the new features. It can’t all be about parties. So I’m told.

My mother was telling me on the phone how she found pictures of me using Google. I asked her for more detail and came across pictures I didn’t particularly like. They’re stored on someone else’s flickr page, so I was unable to do anything to stop others from finding them. The same can be said for almost every Web site - the content is controlled by the author (not necessarily the owner). As soon as someone uploads a picture of you to the Web, it automatically becomes discoverable.

However, if someone uploads of a picture to their Facebook profile and tags you in it, at least you get the option to remove the tag, rendering it impossible for people to search specifically for you. In fact, you can set your preferences to block people from searching for pictures with you in them.

Facebook gets a lot of bad press because of its lack of privacy preferences and because it makes it easier for people to display their life in a digital format for the world to see. The fact is, it has always been possible - it just hasn’t been easy for everyone.

Doesn’t this mean that Facebook is in fact, more supportive of your privacy, helping you to control what’s uploaded by others?

Feel free to connect with me on Facebook.

I’ve just published a post on the BIMA blog to announce a call for entries. For the first time ever, ‘Best blog’ and ‘Best Network Application’ are on the list.

Here’s a little more information

Social Media - Awesome Little Bit of Wickedness Award

A piece of work within the category that either has a detail to be revered and highlighted for all its gloriousness, or its just that damn good that you don’t want to put a finger on it…It’s just wicked. This could be an uncategorised piece of UGC, a wondrous widget that sits within a social space or just the most incredible piece of social media that’s incredibly wicked!!!

Social Media - Best Blog Award (Personal or Corporate)

A blog within the category that is innovative, informative and entertaining. Open and honest a compelling read that inspires and engages visitors to return to day after day. Whether the content is incredible personal and poignant or just good fun, this is blog is championed by a loyal audience who share this site with friends and contacts both online and off.

Social Media - Best Network Application

A piece of work, within the category, that has been adopted by a broad audience. An audience that recognise the benefits that this innovative application brings to their day-to-day lives. Whether it is just about connecting people or staying in touch it will make everyday online tasks ‘easy’ and ‘convenient’ whilst generating huge page impressions!

Social Media - Viral Campaign

The online destination, site, video clip, tool, application or experience that everyone is talking about and visiting, that taps into popular culture. Cutting edge, this experience is so compelling, emotional, edgy, mysterious and exciting that the advertisers work is done for them when an online audience begin to share it with friends and colleagues and it goes on to join a pantheon.

Enter for an Award

This post was inspired by a debate taking place on the Mobile Monday London forum. It has never been this easy to predict mobile. It has become increasingly easy since the first release of MMS (picture messaging) in 2002, which almost revolutised how users consumed content on mobile phones.

We have some historical data to go from when trying to predict the next few years of Mobile - in terms of connection speeds to help mass adoption of Mobile Web anyway.

Trying to predict mobile in 2015 is a little too far for my liking. I’d have to lay on a bed and dream about something so far stretched that most would probably laugh at. Some of my greatest failures include not having the balls to execute ideas because of colleagues laughing at them - such as charging hotels and restaurants for online advertising. Long story which I won’t bore you with. Instead, I’ll bore you with another story about connection speeds. For the sake of the record, I’m not bragging - it’s easy to say you had ideas, it’s another to execute them.

Some historical data which may help.

During the early days of the Web I remember writing modem strings to help get the best out of 1200bps modems. Before that I was using them to download interest rates from a bank in Paris to a bank in Dublin - all I knew was that some machine made noise and it all just happened.

We were delighted to eventually see the delivery of 33.6k modems after having 28.8k for so long. We were told by BT that it was *technically impossible* to get anything faster down a phone line. Then, one day, BT came back and said “hey, we’ve managed to squeeze 56k by reducing the line noise”.

1200bps to 56k happened between 1995 (roughly) and 1997. That’s just 2 years.

In 2002 the rollout of Broadband helped to achieve a major spike in users on the Web. I wasn’t involved in that, but some of my friends were, and still are.

So, it took about 5 years to make a huge jump in speed to help accelerate mass adoption of the Web. If we consider that the growth in mobile technology (and possibly technology in general) today is just twice that of Internet technology during the mid to late 90’s, we should see a major spike in mass adoption for mobile web in about 2 to 3 years. This argument is boosted in my opinion, by our generation’s knowledge and experience and the newer generation’s expectations.

Explaining the benefits/possibilities of the Web during the early days was much more difficult than it is to explain the benefits/possibilities of accessing the Web via a mobile today.

The future is bright, the future is not Orange or any other Operator. If this isn’t realised soon, Operators will end up like AOL - i.e. going out of business holding onto old business models

I read a post by Nic Brisbourne entitled ‘Small boards are usually better’ and it reminded me of numerous, frustrated conversations I had with a few Founding CEOs over the past couple of years. I’ve often heard them say “I think it’s a brilliant idea and I really want to do it, but my board isn’t sure because they don’t get it”.

I tend to hire people who are much smarter than me, mainly because it makes my job much easier, the team much stronger and the company more likely to be the best in its field. And naturally, they’re much more motivated. So, I get the importance of listening to the team and going with the majority. Most of the time anyway.

But, when you feel very strongly about something, I personally believe that as CEO, you should go with your gut feeling and ‘just fucking do it’. I make no apology for swearing by the way - I recently heard that it’s the same motto held by one of the few people I look up to, Richard Brandson. So if he can say it, I can say it.

Meanwhile, back at the Brisbourne ranch and his thoughts about the size of an ideal board…

I was on a call yesterday with a subset of one of the boards I am on and one of the directors was talking about how difficult it is to add value on boards.

I agree with that. It is definitely difficult. Also definitely possible, but it usually requires a lot of care and forethought.

I should add at this stage that the director in question has been brilliant for us, and that he has an awesome track record of entrepreneurial success behind him.

One of the reasons I favour small boards is exactly because it is hard for NEDs to add value. Despite their best intentions many fail, and it is also common to see people destroying value by chewing up management time precisely because they are trying to help.

Read his full post here

I totally agree with Nic. ‘Decision by Committee’ for everything just doesn’t work. You either get very little done or you’re too late to deliver. That’s why we created working groups in BIMA. By creating working groups, appointing a Chair of each one and importantly, giving them the responsibility to make decisions without reverting back to the 12 Executives, it means the ship is much more productive. There are lots of other benefits but I don’t want to go too far off topic.

Instead of having 12 Executives making decisions about everything, it now has 9 working group Chairs with teams of no more than 5, making the decisions. Moreover, each team is focused primarily on areas in which they truly specialise. Not only does this mean they’re likely to deliver based on their expertise and experience, they’re less likely to cause delays where they’ve got less experience than others.

What are your thoughts?

It took just two days for HSBC management to resolve this issue. They were extremely helpful and apologetic for the miscommunication and misunderstanding.

It’s not company policy to refuse bank account applications from social networking or mobile related companies. However, there’s a little more to it than that simple statement - look at my vblog if you wish to learn more.

Download the video to your iTunes (2:77MB; 01:42 minutes)

To be clear, I didn’t do this as a way of ranting about my situation with a particular bank. I brought attention to this subject to help ensure some change, however small, took place, so that others would benefit.

Take a dozen Irish technology entrepreneurs, digital enthusiasts, marketers and journalists. Place in a large Indian restaurant. Sprinkle in a smattering of venture capitalists, Government representatives, Enterprise Ireland executives. Add wine liberally. Stir vigorously for two hours. Result: curry 2.0.

curry 2.0 is a new regular networking event based in Dublin. Each month, top-tier executives will meet over delicious Indian food to connect with peers, to share knowledge and discuss/debate hot topics of interest.

Primary goals are:

• Learn about startups, technology and industry trends
• Meet and connect with interesting people
• Eat, drink, & have fun

Membership of curry 2.0, which includes invitations to dinners each month, is just €150 per annum. The first networking dinner is June 18th and sponsored by BT and Hosting365.

Networking dinners for members will cost €40 and €55 for non-members. I’m not expecting many to become a member for a while, so I’ll try to secure sponsorship for the first few dinners - to give attendees a taste for the event.

I’m hoping to turn curry 2.0 into a regular event like Rob Loch’s Internet People in London. I didn’t even come up with the idea to copy someone else’s idea. Fergus Burns suggested I evolve curry 2.0 so it was more inline with Internet People - thanks to them both for the inspiration

Feel free to get in touch if you’d like to learn more about upcoming dinners, or how to become a Founding Member for €50. Founding membership is open until end of September.

Look who’s coming to dinner on June 18th - this one was invite-only

• Brian Caulfield, Non-Executive Director, PutPlace
• Caelen King, Founder/CEO, RevaHealth.com
• Campbell Scott, CEO, IGOpeople
• Daniel Becker, Founder, GlowDay
• Dylan Collins, CEO, OMAC Industries
• Ivan MacDonald, CEO, Dial2Do
• Joe Drumgoole, Founder/CEO, PutPlace
• John Collins, Journalist, Irish Times
• Marcus Macinnes, Founder/CEO, pix.ie
• Martha Rotter, Technology Evangelist , Microsoft Ireland DPE
• Martin Kelly, Partner EMEA, IBM Venture Capital Group
• Mary Rose, Consultant, Brightspark Consulting
• Paul Walsh, Founder/CEO, Segala & wubud
• Sean Sullivan, CTO, Dial2Do
• Sorcha Moore, IA/UI Designer, Pocketkings
• Stephen McCarron, Founder/CEO, Hosting365
• Tom Murphy, Head of Public Relations & Citizenship, Microsoft Ireland

• 200 registered attendees
• 5 Sponsors: BT, Blacknight putplace, Segala and wubud
• Popcorn provided by Cineworld! (party venue - arranged by IOTC)
• Lots of drink and nibbles
• Good coverage online

Guest post by Kamrul Hassan.

WordPress 2.5 (A.K.A. Brecker) made its delayed debut nearly 2 months ago (March 29, 2008), after spending almost six months in development and is a major milestone for WordPress. WP 2.5 not only added dozens of user-requested features, it included a performance boost on both backend and frontend. WordPress 2.5 branch released WP 2.5.1 just one month later - it includes over 70 bug fixes, performance enhancements, and one very important security fix. Naturally, the feature list remains the same as WP 2.5, so I will keep the discussion focused on WP 2.5.

The list of new features is long (better to read Matt’s post to get the epic) but above all there is the cleaner, faster, semi-customizable, less cluttered administrative interface. The dashboard i.e. the administrative homepage, is a bunch of widgets you can customize to show anything that uses RSS feed (you can’t edit two widgets-Recent Comments & Plugins). Plugins can also hook into this dashboard, for example the WordPress.com stats widget adds a handy double-wide stats box.

The file upload feature received a major makeover, with progress meter and multi file/folder upload capability. When you upload images with EXIF metadata, WP 2.5 will extract all the data into custom fields, for use on the posts - this is great news for people who uses digital camera. While I am on this topic, I should also add that WP 2.5 now has its own built-in Gallery system. You might want to check this documentation for advance usage.

Two of my personal favourite features are the built-in tag management and salted passwords -the phpass library based password hashing and storing (bye bye brute-force for pass). Another notable feature that authors of most multi authored blogs (e.g. Segala blog) will welcome, is concurrent editing protection. Only one person and edit a post now, so no more overlapping each other’s work.

A new WYSIWYG editor is a major improvement. Unlike the old one, it won’t break your code (Paul was for ever breaking the code for embedded video/audio and then turning to me to clean his mess :)) inserted on code-view when you switch back to Rich editor. You will also notice four fancy add media buttons on the top-right corner of the editor. This allows you to add images, audio, videos and other media (ex. PDF) to your posts/pages. The video adding feature is sweet for those who are into YouTube or hosting their own video, just two clicks and you’re done.

Other new features include Password strength meter (like Gmail and MSN Passport), ability to Search posts and pages etc. What you see is sometimes determined by your hosting provider.

If you’re geek you’ll enjoy  the Shortcode API to make southend bracket-delineated strings which can keep the complex embed code intact, optimized DB structure that makes WP db faster, easy argument base taxonomy and URL creation, secure cookies and $wpdb->prepare() like function that allow almost all of the SQL on WP to be prepared first, to prevent SQL escaping.

I know WordPress 2.5 isn’t perfect or complete, there are and will be issues. But the most important thing is that WP 2.5 is a milestone of commitment to the open source community. The development team are constantly making improvements and are extremely quick to react to implement security fixes

Note: You should upgrade to WordPress 2.5.1, unless you applied just the security fixes through custom hack.