Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

The Web Mission is taking 20 UK Web Entrepreneurs out to Silicon Valley at the end of April this year. The point is to enable the successful entrepreneurs to build relationships with great people in the US and to explore opportunities for their companies.

The Web Mission is supported by UKTI (UK Trade and Investment), Microsoft and Make Your Mark (the National campaign for enterprise). It’s organised by Oli Barrett (also found at http://dailynetworker.co.uk ) and by Polecat.

The trip itself will be a blend of organised activities from drinks receptions to a one day ‘Momentum’ event at Microsoft, one-to-one meetings and opportunities to visit companies in Silicon Valley, from VCs to start ups to high growth success stories. It is designed to coincide with Web 2.0 Expo, so there will be time to drop into that if this is interesting to the companies. They will be working with colleagues in the US to help populate a ‘local calendar’ of coffee shops events and informal drinks, the vibrant business scene for which San Francisco is rightly famous for.

Agenda

Day One. Saturday, 19 April
Arrival and welcome drinks

Day Two, Sunday, 20 April
Digerati Lunch and Optional Event

Day Three, Monday, 21 April
Momentum Event at Microsoft Campus

Day Five: Wednesday, 23 April
Web for Good Event: UKTI

Day Six: Thursday, 24 April
Optional Event: Meet an international Web 2.0 company located in the US
Wrap up Drinks

Day Seven: Friday, 25 April
Depart

Today, they’re opening up the application process to companies all over the UK. The entries will be filtered by UKTI, and individuals who have agreed to feed into that process include Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK and entrepreneur Doug Richard. They will be looking at the organisation’s market potential, technology, traction, go to market strategy, management team and commercial viability.

Polecat will be assessing the applicants’ sustainability impact. The successful companies will pay a nominal fee which will cover flights, accommodation and passes to Web Mission activities. This will come at a subsidised rate, thanks to the sponsors.

Below are some views from a selection of people who they asked to give their take on what they’re doing.

The Web Mission represents an amazing opportunity for the best of entrepreneurial UK talent to visit Silicon Valley, and learn for themselves the differences that make the US a breeding ground for innovation and more importantly successful execution of ideas. With a spark of inspiration the UK has every opportunity to replicate that success on UK soil.

Michael Birch, Founder, Bebo

Innovation is global, and what better way to help than Web Mission: get the disruptors from both sides of the Atlantic to meet and discuss how they are creating the future. A great initiative!

Fred Destin, Atlas Venture

San Francisco is the world’s leading startup centre. The importance of building ties with the web community there can not be underestimated. I congratulate all involved in this hugely positive initiative.

Robert Loch, Founder, Internet People

I think The Web Mission is a great idea. The best businesses are global from day one and initiatives like this help entrepreneurs build the networks they need to grow their companies internationally.

Nic Brisbourne, DFJ Esprit

In reaching across the Atlantic, the Web Mission is leading the way in networking key talents here with great opportunities in the USA. Good luck in Frisco!

Mark Prisk MP Shadow Minister, Enterprise & Competition

When we create a web business we create it for a global marketplace, we source our products globally, and we’ll probably end up being acquired by a global company or listing on a worldwide stock exchange. It’s absolutely right that we encourage the hottest web talent to look to the unequivocal pace-setter- Silicon Valley – for opportunities, inspiration, and partnership as we build Europe’s answer to the Google, Microsoft and Facebooks the other side of the Atlantic.

James Murray Wells, Glasses Direct

Successful in business comes from meeting people, sharing ideas and creating partnerships. ViaPost has benefited greatly from a close relationship with key partners in the UK such as our Accelerator partnership with Microsoft and we are really excited about the upcoming Web Mission in April.

Simon Campbell, CEO ViaPost

The Web Mission couldn’t come at a better time. The entrepreneurial spirit in the UK is more electric than ever, with communication channels to the US improving all the time. The current climate is one of collaboration and networking, with passionate individuals going out of their way to connect other like-minded peers so they can build stronger relationships, leading to more business.

The Web Mission is testimony to the kind of thought leadership that the UK could do with more of. Again, people going out of their way to help other entrepreneurs to build stronger ties with the US. This is a fantastic opportunity for the UK’s top entrepreneurs to build their businesses by either securing investment, collaborative, partnership opportunities. This is also an opportunity for the Americans to see exactly what the UK has to offer.

Paul Walsh, Chairman, BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)

As you can see from my quote above, I had way too much to say as usual. Please note however, that the opening of my second paragraph is dedicated to the guys responsible for putting this initiative together and driving it forward.

Hat tip to Oli Barrett, Bronwyn Kunhardt and Jim Lawn

The Paddies have done something like this before

I just wonder when Damien Mulley (my new Head of Communications at Segala) is going to arrange the next Paddy’s Valley. He managed to pull this off last year with the help of Conor O’Neill and James Corbett. Whats more, they did it without sponsorship and state agency support! The upstarts, I mean, startups, that went out from Ireland included mysay, Loudervoice, Glowday, Nubiq, PutPlace, justroutes, pixenate, Pix.ie touristr, polldaddy, Eoghan McCabe, Spoiltchild, CoClarity, Bench’d, Relevant Media, Mobonode and Lukulu.

This is a call to Ben Metcalfe and any other Valley based person who would like to help, please do

Register now for the UK entrepreneur mission

According to InfoWorld, Facebook took a new step into the mobile realm on Thursday, launching a platform for operators designed to make its social networking application work better on mobile devices.

Vodafone is the first operator to use the Facebook for Mobile Operators platform and has started services in the UK and Germany, said Jed Stremel, Facebook’s director of mobile division. Vodafone will soon expand the program to Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal.

The platform involves giving operators a set of technical specifications intended to resolve some frustrating hang-ups when using Facebook on a mobile phone rather than a PC, such as smoothing out login problems and opening up other features, Stremel said.

The move by Facebook, which ranks next to MySpace as one of the most popular social networking sites, is intended to grow its user base, which the company estimates at 64 million users. So far, the company says it has 6 million users of Facebook Mobile, an unsupported mobile version of the Web site that will now get full support, Stremel said.

At the moment, the mobile site does not have any advertising. Stremel would not reveal the financial details of Facebook’s deal with Vodafone, although he said operators will be able to generate revenue from data services as their subscribers access Facebook.

It sounds like Vodafone are likely to build a Facebook application, not provide mobile Web version of Facebook.

The company is hoping to lure more operators by the simplicity with which they can enable Facebook, Stremel said.

Facebook has created special Web pages with instructions on how operators can set up their systems, he said. The instructions, for example, let operators add system settings that will let their subscribers send MMS with photos or video to their Facebook profiles, Stremel said.

The platform also includes other specifications designed to stop abuse of Facebook, such as spamming, Stremel said. When someone sends their first MMS with a photo to their profile, the user is sent back a confirmation message with a code or a link. That confirmation then links that person’s phone with their Facebook account, Stremel said.

My thoughts

I’m confused. Why would Operators do anything to enable a better user experience for Facebook? They don’t do it for any other content provider, at least not without taking a large percentage of the revenue. This won’t be possible with Facebook unless they charge for access. It’s not as if they’re going to make anything from picture messaging as they suggest.

Does this mean that Vodafone is going to charge users to access a mobile version of Facebook? Why doesn’t Facebook simply build a mobile friendly Web site that works, like every other company that cares to make their site more mobile friendly.

As I’ve said, I’m confused, so please let me know if you have better insight, or a theory to support the relationship.

Source InfoWorld

A fellow Twitter buddy asked for feedback regarding the hardware and software we use. I twittered my answer but it’s something I’ve been meaning to write a post on, as I think it says a lot about who we are in the context of our working environment. Drew Buddy is the Head of ICT at his college and I think, he’s using this feedback to collate a report.

So, what does the picture above say about me? Well take a close look. It’s a sticker of the Microsoft Blue Monster eating the head of Mozilla on my Apple MacBrook Pro. That sums it up nicely; I’m happy to use the most approproate hardware and software as long as it meets my requirements.

The picture should demonstrate that I’m open minded because although I’m a known standards enthusiast, I like to use the proprietary technology produced by Apple and products produced by the perceived monster and non-standards compliant Microsoft.

My hardware

• Apple MacBook Pro
• Apple iPhone
• Apple iPod
• Cannon Ixus 950
• N95 for Qik streaming

Software

• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Vista (but don’t use it often)
• Waiting for Live Writer for the Mac (blog authoring tool)
• Apple Mail (the ‘geniuses’ at the Apple store recommend Entourage)
• Apple iCal

Internet

• BT Broadband (they are the most reliable!)
• Google Docs (but don’t use it often)
• Google Reader for keeping up to date on blogs
• Gmail (but only as a backup for my POP account)
• Wordpress for Corporate Web site and personal blog

My Social

• Facebook (for connecting/communicating with non-geeks)
• Twitter (for community building with early adopters/geeks)
• Qik (for live streaming my presence)

Office environment

• Home office
• Adam Street private members club

The fact that I’m happy to work from home demonstrates that I’m overly generous to my staff as our HQ is in the heart of Dublin’s most affluent area and designed by John Rocha

This post is intended for Drew, but please feel free to help him collate enough data to produce a meaningful report by leaving a comment about the stuff you use every day. I’d like to know also.

[Update. After actually seeing the paper for myself, I can tell that my blog wasn't 'awarded' anything as the title of this post suggests. It was featured in Blogspot of the week, which I'm just as happy with.]

I’m absolutely over the moon about this. We all like our egos stroked from time to time and I’m no different to anyone else. This is particularly true because Segala (or I) have never been nominated and therefore have never been in with a chance, to win an award. Segala has purposely stayed below the media radar until now. My partner in crime, Asheesh Dewan and I have spent the guts of €1m on our new business model and technology so that it would be fit to take to investors. I’m hoping that 2008 is the year that everyone will be talking about Segala and our method of enabling more trust on the Web.

To win best blog of the week by the Irish Times is a great start to 2008. My thanks go to Damien, my new Head of Communications for suggesting that I decouple it from the Segala blog (notice I didn’t say Marketing Director, that’s old school). I must admit, I felt liberated when I started writing here. It’s as if I felt that bit closer to you, as a reader/contributor. Kamrul also did a great job building it within 2 days of Damien’s suggestion. Let me know if there are any features you particular like or dislike or if you think I should implement something.

Read more…

My new Head of Communications has advised (eh, no, he has told me) to create a new blog under my name and move my non-Segala related posts with me. I must admit, this is something I’ve been pondering for ages as the Segala blog has attracted a great audience, but one that is perhaps, a little diverse for it to gain real benefit.

I think Dennis Howlett will agree that this has been a good move as I’ve asked him for advice on this matter in the past. I should have plenty of real estate to include my buddy’s gapingvoid widget too.

By splitting my posts between the Segala blog and here (oh, and BIMA), I hope to make my writing a little more relevant for you. Mind you, my writing skills aren’t likely to improve, I’ll continue to use poor grammar and spell things as if I’m looking in a mirror. I’m likely to cross-post where I feel my thoughts where relevant also.

I’ll continue to post on the Segala blog about the Semantic Web, Accessibility, Mobile Web, Standards, W3C, Content Labels, Trust, Search and anything else that’s relevant to Segala. This should make what we’re launching in 2008 much more prominent.

On this blog, I intend to cover everything else that I used to cover on Segala’s blog, such as Social Media, Web 2.0, Web and Mobile Trends, Twitter, Facebook, Networking, Events, Connecting People and anything else that I have an opinion on. I might even write about some personal stuff.

Kamrul, our Wordpress and PHP guru, is currently working on an Semantic Web application for Aido, but I’m hoping to squeeze a couple of hours out of him today to get some minimum functionality added to this blog, not to mention a little branding.

I don’t expect many comments left on this post because my mother doesn’t even know about it yet. However, if for some reason you stumble across this post before it falls off the edge of the blog with the introduction of new posts, please provide some feedback on what functionality you’d like to see?

Would you like to see any of the following on the sidebar

1. Most recent comments and who made them?
2. A summary of posts with the highest number of comments?
3. Digg?
4. Photographs of the people who left comments?
5. Recent Readers (MyBlogLog)?
6. Tag cloud or Recent Posts?
7. My last Twitter message?
8. My followers twitter messages?

Please ignore any design or layout changes (breakages) as Kamrul and I make changes on the fly to get this blog off the ground. We’ll transfer all my social media and entrepreneurial type posts from Segala to here, along with the comments next week. That should be fun.

I look forward to building a wee community here and hope you can be part of it

To subscribe to this blog, click here

Third person bio

With 15 years of International experience as an advisor within the Digital Industry, Paul is a published authority on the architecture and future of the Web, board member on international and regulatory bodies and a successful entrepreneur and owner of multiple businesses. He founded Segala - the industry’s most revered provider of Web standards compliance testing, which generated £1.6m in year one and was profitable within months. He also founded Wubud, a mobile social network that secured early-stage funding from Bebo Founder, Paul Birch.

Paul was one of the first AOL employees in 1995 - as a core member of the new technologies team. From 2006-2008 Paul served as Chair of the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA), the longest established association for the digital industry.

Paul has been instrumental in the creation and outreach of Web and mobile industry standards worldwide. He is one of the original founding sponsors of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative and helped to instigate the formation of the W3C’s first incubator project; which recently became the industry standard for certification/content classification - replacing PICS, the standard currently in use by Microsoft Internet Explorer for filtering content on the Web. With the odd exception, his speaking gigs are now restricted to hot countries.

Welcome to my personal Web site. I’m a CEO, Chair, Executive, Advisor and Mentor who loves to influence and connect likeminded people. When bored, I like to host networking events and parties.

Company stuff

• Segala, Founder / CEO
• Wubud, Founder
• BIMA (British Interactive Media Association), Chair
• Jaipur Restaurants, Partner
• Newspepper.com, Non-executive Director
• 3 Dynamics, Mentor to the CEO

Blogs I scrible on

• Personal * Segala * Wubud * BIMA

A little more detail

• Founder and CEO of Segala, industry authority in content classification and Web standards compliance certification.
• Founder of Wubud, a social network application for mobile people. In September 2008, we raised £160k in Angel funding from Paul Birch, Co-founder, Bebo - sold to AOL for $850M.
• Former executive at Eqos, a pioneer in the development of Web technologies for the B2B retail industry.
• One of the first to join AOL as a small startup in the mid-’90s. Key member of the team developing AOL’s UK presence and assisted with the launch of other AOL European territories.
• 10 years International experience within the telecommunications industry and have consulted companies such as Vodafone, O2, Orange, CMG and ADC Metrica.
• Chair of the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) since 2006.
• Advisor to the British Council, helping to build and improve a digital pioneer program with Hong Kong and a 3 year entrepreneurial related project with India.
• Non-Executive Director at Newspepper.
• Mentor to the CEO of 3 Dynamics, a Hong Kong based games company.
• Partner in Jaipur, a group of award winning, Michelin-rated restaurants in Dublin.

Contribution to Industry standards

• Instrumental in the formation of the W3C’s first ever incubator activity, to review Content Labels as a formal method of classifying and labelling content
• Segala’s W3C Advisory Committee Representative
• Original Founding Sponsor of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative and member of the Steering Council

I wrote a blog post recently entitled ‘Facebook doesn’t spam you, your friends do’. In the comments, I thought I’d argued the point well, by demonstrating with examples, how to disable email notifications. This wasn’t to be the case as Michele and Joe continued to disagree with my view.

Today, via Twitter, Christine Lu complained about receiving silly email notifications even though she no longer had a ‘Fun Wall’. So, I gave her a couple of tips to resolve the privacy issue. I seem to do this quite alot, so rather than continue to type them each time, I’ve decided to write a short tutorial in the hope it will help more users manage the noise to a level that suits them.

Email Notifications

Let’s start with email notifications as that seems to be a bone of contention for a lot of people. Facebook notifies you by email whenever actions are taken on Facebook that involve you.

Each application has its own email notification settings. From your home page, select edit to view the settings for each application.

Selecting edit will take you to the screen below. Click edit settings on the right of each application to change the settings for that application.

Selecting Edit Settings will present you with the screen below.

As you can see from the screen shot above, it’s possible to switch off email notifications. It’s also possible to switch off other forms of notifications such as news feeds.

You can reach the preferences page via unwanted email notifications. The screen shot below shows what a typical email looks like. Most people probably ignore or delete their emails, which is why they don’t know it’s possible to put a stop to them.

Scared of people seeing you in a compromising position?

Facebook’s privacy settings are the best I’ve every seen on any type of platform or application. They’re so granular you can display pictures to certain friends, whilst hiding them from others. You can choose who can see your wall or status updates and who can’t.

Below is a screen shot of your home page. Choose privacy at the top of the page so you can set these preferences.

When you’ve selected privacy, the privacy page will display as you can see from the screen shot below.

Without going through the entire page, I’ve highlighted what I deem the most important; pictures, videos and personal contact information.

Facebook notifies you each time a friend tags you in a picture or video. But if you’re still worried about being caught running down the high street dressed as a chicken, there are precautions that you can take (apart from the obvious; don’t get caught).

1. You can remove the tags as soon as you’ve been notified by Facebook.
2. If this still makes you feel uncomfortable you can always change your preferences so that only your friends see pictures and videos that you have been tagged in.
3. You can even make sure that nobody sees any pictures or videos that you have been tagged in.

Note people who are not your friend, are unable to tag you.

Everything within a private group remains private to members of that group. However, as soon as you tag a picture or video, they become public. I’ve had a friend caught out by this feature.

Do you want people to find you?

Your profile is set to open by default. This means anyone can search for and find you. Your profile may even appear in Google search results. You can either leave your profile completely open, or, you can decide exactly what information you’d like displayed. You can even make your entire profile private, so that only your close friends can see it.

As you can see from the screen shot above, you’re in control of what people see, not Facebook. They leave it open because to close everything by default, we’d end up with a very boring static Web site. It certainly wouldn’t be ’social’.

Show your friends, hide from your colleagues

Some people may not want to be completely open with everyone. If, like me, you like to keep certain things private, such as your wall, status update, pictures, groups, friends, posted items or personal information, then these preferences will be of interest.

Below is a screen shot of the page where you can completely block individuals whilst displaying specific information on an individual basis. You may want to block your boss, show a limited profile to your line manager and allow your work colleagues to see everything.

As you can see from the screen shot below, it’s possible to display as much or as little as you like to specific people.

I haven’t gone through all of the preferences available, but you should be well versed by now and be able to protect yourself from SPAM coming from your friends.

Conclusion

1. You own your data.
2. You are responsible for controlling how much of your data is seen and used by other people.
3. Facebook does not SPAM you.
4. Your friends SPAM you.
5. If you don’t want your friends to SPAM you, ask them to stop or change your preferences.
6. If your friends don’t stop or you are too lazy to change your preferences, remove them from your friends list.
7. Facebook is responsible for protecting your data so other organisations can’t harvest and SPAM you.
8. If you don’t like any of the above, leave Facebook and read a book

Before I ask the question, I’m 100% behind any initiative that supports open standards and best practices. Segala’s entire business model is based on it. I also support the idea of being able to port your data from one application/platform to another application/platform.

Ok, so now that I’ve got the disclaimer out of the way, what exactly, is the DataPortability group going to do?

I’ve noticed that the Web site provides hyperlinks which point to pages that say ‘contribute to the various standards communities’, but those pages just point to a list of links which point to wikipedia entries.

Then you have Robert Scoble’s video (opens in a different window) on the main index page. The explanatory title says ‘Watch Robert Scoble explain the DataPortability story’, but all I see is Robert talking about his removal from Facebook. It doesn’t tell me what the DataPortability group is going to deliver apart from goodwill.

I’m not against this group or the ideas they hold dear to their heart, but unless they actually put something more meaningful together, they’ll continue to have circular conversations that everyone is in agreement with. Getting organisations to agree to the concept isn’t good enough in my experience.

My recommendation

What I’d like to see, are some best practice guidelines which organisations can sign up to. Perhaps create a Trustmark (visual badge) to demonstrate their commitment and conformance to those guidelines. Otherwise it’s just a one-way conversation with no proof that organisations intend to permit the seamless portability of users’ data.

I still don’t want Facebook to change my email address to text as that’ll make it way too easy for companies like Plaxo to harvest and SPAM me. Please note that I’m not referring to Robert here. I believe he used a test account to demonstrate a point. Plaxo is in the wrong, Robert just made a silly mistake in my opinion.

Remember that Facebook is protecting users by not allowing people to easily port information, whether that was/is their motivation or not. If none of us have the answer, how can we expect Facebook to make such a massive change over night.

Protecting our privacy and enabling us to extract our data from an application are two entirely different things.

When I received an email entitled ‘2008 Predictions’ from a contributor to the Mobile Monday London forum, I didn’t for a second think about predictions. All I could think about was ‘huh, can we just fix some of the crap we’ve got first’.

I’m a believer in looking forward and I’d like to think I’ve got good insight to the future of mobile technology and trends, so my thoughts and conversations are nine times out of ten, positive and forward thinking. However, the mobile industry is the least collaborative of all industries so before we can push forward, we need each stake holder to work together to enable interoperability.

I was reminded of the email thread when I read a note by Alexia Golez on Facebook. So, rather that write my predictions for the mobile industry, I’ve decided to paste my email below for your review.

Alexia’s note on Facebook

Time and time again, I read blogs and hear the tech industry talk up how convergence is the name of the game and that every gadget we will own in the future will do a hundred things. Why can’t we stop, take a breath and say, “I don’t want a hundred poorly-sketched features, I want ten well-thought out tasks that I can execute on”? Is it greed, advertising, company PR?

I just want a gadget that does things right. A phone with decent web browsing. Bin the camera. Go back to basics Gadget Industry.

My response on the Mobile Monday London forum

Could we start with some basics. For example, it would be nice if my mother could send me a picture message of her new puppy. She’s on Vodafone Ireland. I’m on O2 UK. Heaven forbid should I be able to view it on my phone. I’d almost be happy with an SMS containing a link to a site which contains the picture.

I received a link as predicted but when I visited the site it didn’t recognise my UK number. So, I didn’t get to see any fluffy pictures of her puppy - I was devastated as you can imagine.

Vodafone Ireland, please take note as I’m very confident it’s not a problem on the O2 network. At least print the picture and send it in the post.

MMS was 5 years old last year and we still can’t get the basics right.

Click here to leave a comment on Alexia’s Facebook note.

My mobile orientated posts appear to attract the most comments, so feel free to disagree with me.