Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I wrote a post earlier in the week with my travel plans for the 3GSM Congress. I can now provide the names of those of us having a get together on Tuesday.

Attendees confirmed so far

Paul Walsh
Pat Phelan
Sean O Mahony
Florian Seroussi
Jenny Callicot
Bhaskar Roy
Loren Feldman
Oliver Starr
Paul Walsh
Frank Hannigan
Dennis Howlett
Daniel Appelquist

Time: from 7 pm till 9 pm
5 mins from exhibition

Institut del Teatre,
Plaça Margarida Xirgu, s/n
08004 Barcelona

Join us for a beer and a snack, lots of surprise guests, relax with some of your fellow mobile twitter peeps. (I got lazy and did a copy ‘n paste job on Pat’s post)

Watch all the news live from our dedicated 3GSM video channel

Please leave a comment here or on Pat’s blog if you wish to attend. Hope to see you there.

James Corbet made a wild assumption which I’d like to address. In summary, James blogged that I violated a friend’s privacy by streaming live to the Web using a mobile video service called Qik.

I’ve pasted James’ blog post along with the comments left by other bloggers. I’ve done this because James doesn’t have email subscription to posts which means commentators aren’t informed of other comments being left. I really wish all blogs had this feature, including TechCrunch.

James said

So you’re out with a group of friends in a pub, enjoying a few drinks, letting your hair down. As you do. And then one of them pushes a camera phone in your face and starts streaming video live to the web. And immediately announces the fact to 518 other people. Not only that but he’s oblivious to your protestations and pleas to stop.

I don’t mean to pick on Segala’s Paul Walsh because I’ve certainly enjoyed and appreciated his video coverage of events like the inaugural Irish Digital Industry Association Dinner in Dublin recently. But Paul is a guy who writes regularly about online privacy and is CEO of Segala, a company developing technology which, among other things, is designed to help you find websites which follow best practices for privacy and copyright.

However, it seems to me that during last night’s broadcast Paul crossed the line by invading the privacy of at least one friend. If someone asks you to stop, puts their hand in front of the camera and looks clearly uncomfortable when you refuse is that not a blatant violation of their privacy? I don’t presume to know Paul’s friends so perhaps I’ve misread the situation but if someone did likewise to me I’d be very tempted grab their camera phone and dunk it in my drink!

Comments left by other bloggers

In particular, the live aspect means there is no opportunity to undo the posting of something you immediately regret doing. I can imagine a similar problem with Shozu when people are out on the tear. Qik Content Labels? “Warning, this video may contain scenes of drunk people”

Posted by: Conor O’Neill | Feb 6, 2008 12:26:35 PM

Damn, that last line would have been a much better post title than mine! Yeah, I only bring the issue up for discussion because I think it’s something that we’re going to have to be increasingly concerned with. As I say I thoroughly appreciate informative videos like Paul’s other ones and your Cork OpenCoffee ones and Pat Phelan’s travel ones, etc. But I’m thinking ahead here and realizing we’ll probably have a few QIKers at the Irish Blog Awards and similar sociable events this year and wondering if we’re going to have people streaming video from inappropriate situations? What are the ground rules? What etiquette applies?

Posted by: James Corbett | Feb 6, 2008 12:47:48 PM

It’s a discussion that has to happen and I think it’ll be a major issue as services like Qik are adopted by the greater web community. Over time, though, people will become comfortable with such invasions the same way we don’t think twice now about the plethora of CCTV cameras watching our every move.

Posted by: Eoghan McCabe | Feb 6, 2008 1:09:17 PM

Having had people shove cameras into my face and say “Can I put you on my Flickr?” I’m pretty used to this, but there is a time delay between the act of recording and the act of uploading. Qik, and others like it, destroy that delay (as you point out), and without immediate web access - like in a bar - you can’t delete something that fast, and even if you could it would be already online. Once on the the Internet, always on the Internet, right? Mind you grown-up, ‘digital savvy’ people in a bar will pale beside what will happen when more nefarious people get hold of this mobile tech. Interesting post!

Posted by: Mike Butcher | Feb 6, 2008 2:20:59 PM

My response

@James - I think you’re right. We do face a potential problem and a lot of care should be taken when streaming live to the Web. I’ve since removed my videos of last night but for different reasons.

Please note that everyone around the table were aware up front, that I was going to stream live. In fact, I spent about 5 minutes trying to change the SIM from my iPhone to the N95 so I could do it. With this post in particular I think you should have asked if anyone genuinely didn’t want to be filmed.

Some people put their hand in front of the camera when in fact, they love it. No, I’m not saying that no means yes or maybe

Do you use Qik and if so, do you worry about the privacy you just happen to capture in the background?

Here’s some good coverage of our kickoff dinner to discuss the creation of a new Industry Association in Ireland. I must point out that I wasn’t actually negative towards the IIA in anyway. Maria did a great job with the article but it looks like I was constantly comparing what I have in mind for a new Association, with the IIA.

We need more of this kind of press, to help raise awareness amongst the organisations that need help with digital. Why? Well because they’re not likely to read blogs, or at least, the ones which have been covering this topic so far.

Original article starts here.

There is a need in Ireland for an organisation that can represent the entire digital industry including web, mobile and any medium that digital content can be delivered through, says Paul Walsh, chair of the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA), which plans to set up a like-minded body in Ireland. Walsh said he would like to have a body that would act not only as a way of connecting and representing all those involved in the digital industry but one that can set standards and best practice also.

Ideally, such an organisation would not only give pricing guidelines to clients and freelancers but also act as a body of endorsement for future digital technology or digital media courses.

Through BIMA, which has been around since 1985, Walsh has been putting all of these practices in place: “I changed it from what it used to be – it was perceived by people as an IIA (Irish Internet Association)-type organisation – and I have turned that around so it is seen as more engaging and really out there in the industry.”

Walsh, who is also founder and CEO of web standards specialist firm Segala, said he would like this new association to position Ireland on the global stage in terms of the digital sector because he feels the country is too reliant on the service-based companies here for tax incentives.

“There are enough intelligent people and companies already in Ireland to change things so that we’re not reliant on the IDA bringing in big companies. We could encourage an ecosystem so that we have Irish-grown businesses.”

While the IIA has been around for quite awhile, Walsh says that the organisation looks at only one piece of the digital pie, the web, and even at that smaller players in the industry tell him they don’t feel catered for.

“I think we need a fresh approach because most IIA members are the bigger companies.

“What I’m hearing from smaller members of the IIA is that it focuses on specific areas like search marketing while they would like a voice for the smaller company or the freelance developer so their interests can be represented as much as the big players,” said Walsh.

“It would be nice to have an association that would bring other organisations together, like the IIA and the Agency for Direct Marketing, to endorse and embrace the stuff that they do well,” he added.

Key members of this new association should be diverse enough to represent the interests of each of the stakeholders, says Walsh.

This would mean including someone from academia, a representative of a big organisation like Microsoft or Google, someone who has set up a couple of small companies and who has the entrepreneurial instinct, as well as individuals with expertise from the mobile, television and broadcasting industry.

Some freelancers and small Irish firms say a number of initiatives to encourage the growth of the digital industry here in Ireland have a bias towards US companies and tax incentives.

The Digital Hub, an incubation space for such development, has 55 desk spaces reserved for US companies yet one Irish entrepreneur said that he found it difficult to secure a single desk space.

The inaugural dinner of the for-now-named Irish Digital Industry Association was held last week and attended by various members of the digital industry community, including Boards.ie founder John Breslin and Joe Drumgoole of digital storage firm PutPlace.

Original article on Silicon Republic by Marie Boran.

Twitter is where I:

1. Scrape all the news that’s relevant to me, without having to read a blog or even glance my RSS Feed. This covers news about stuff which happens offline as well as online. I heard about the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! before most, whilst the bad news included the death of actors.
2. Solicit opinion from an audience of people I trust thereby reducing my dependence on search engines. This has included asking for information on open WiFi hot spots in Dublin, to asking for the phone number of someone with whom I had a meeting with in London.
3. Learn about new initiatives and events
4. Learn who’s going to be where and when
5. Highlight where I’m going to be in case people want to meet up with me
6. Inform people of events I’m attending or hosting
7. Promote specific blog posts that I’ve written
8. Answer questions to help others in the community
9. Meet new people
10. Strengthen relationships with people I already know, and with those I’ve met through Twitter

However, as Rob Loch pointed out on one of my previous posts, it’s difficult to see how Twitter will gain mass adoption. I’d like to add that it’s difficult to see how Twitter could gain mass adoption in its current form.

I can’t ever see my parents using Twitter for example. Yet they send picture and video messages. If however, Twitter was bought and used as an engine it could be a different matter.

So, when you open your address book on a mobile, you’d find out where your contacts are and what they’re doing. This would enable us to create communities around our address books seamlessly.

If you don’t use Twitter, why not give it a try. You need to sign up and communicate with friends before you can make an informed decision though.

How do you eat your Twitter? 

A client has asked me to attend a meeting on February 12th (Tuesday), so I’ve moved my diary around to suit and I’m not attending 3GSM. I’m not sure what time our meeting will end but I’m likely to be free from 16:00 onwards - 18:00. I depart on the 13th (evening) so I’ll have time in my diary during that day also.  I’m not sure which event I’m attending on Tuesday evening just yet.

My travel plans

Flying with BA from Gatwick to Barcelona. My details on Dopplr.

BA Flight 2486
12th arrive at 12:12

BA Flight 2491
13th depart at 20:35

I haven’t booked a hotel yet so please drop me a comment if you know of a hotel with spaces, minus ripoff prices. Failing a hotel, Pat has offered his sofa (that’ll please my client as it comes cheap)

Are you going?

If yes, would you like to hook up during the afternoon on the 12th or 13th?

Venue and time to be decided.

One of Damien’s posts about Google’s response to the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! was the first post to grab my attention in my RSS reader this morning, as it’s a story I commented on last week.

What started as a simple post about Google’s response, turned into an epic message about how Apple, Google and Mozilla are not all good and Microsoft is not all evil. They are all pretty much after the same thing; market dominance. They just use different tactics. All of which are good and evil.

Google’s response

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?

Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?

We believe that the interests of Internet users come first — and should come first — as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored.

I’m playing devil’s advocate here and certain to attract a retort from standards enthusiasts. If you’re one of them, please take a look at the contribution Segala (and I) make to open standards.

In my opinion, Google’s response has been childish to say the least. In fact, I’d like to call bullshit, which is a little stronger than Dennis Howlett’s ‘Pot, kettle, black’ post.

The truth about Google

I’ve had enough of Google’s so-called ‘no evil’ policy. Google may have started off with a best endeavours approach to add value to the Web, but it now seeks to increase its revenue share at the expense of relevant and trustworthy search results.

Did it ever start out to do no evil? A little company called Overture invented a means for combining search and advertising, with auction-based keyword targeted text ads. Yahoo bought Overture, then proceeded to sue Google, whice made sense: Google had completely ripped off Overture’s concept, and was liable for every dollar it earned using that form of advertising.

Rather than aggressively fight the small search company, which was clearly infringing on Yahoo-owned patents with every dollar it earned, Yahoo settled, agreeing to take 2.7 million shares of Google, just over 1% of the company (at the time). Yahoo sold those shares as soon as Google went public, for $82.62 a share, or $223 million. Thanks to InsideMicrosoft for the stats and Steve Clayton for pointing me to them via Twitter.

How can Google say it ‘does no evil’ when it filters search on behalf of an oppressive Chinese Government? (Ok, I’ve now given reason for the Chinese Government to ban this blog, like it did with the Segala blog when I posted about a Chinese blogger who was killed by government officials.) If it had people’s best interests at heart it wouldn’t place advertising above freedom of speech.

How can Google say that it is a company with the Internet’s interests at heart? If it did, it wouldn’t make the highest bidders more prominent in search results. Instead, it would present to users, the most relevant and trustworthy Web sites. Paid search is not obvious to the vast majority of end users.

While I’m at it…

The Yahoo! takeover would enable Microsoft to compete with Google’s monopolistic search engine. Google has approximately 80% of the global search market and doesn’t permit anyone to see what’s inside the box. Why? Well, because it gives them a competitive advantage, which it’s entitled to. It only provides open access to APIs because it benefits them in the long run. They even provide products for free to help compete directly with Microsoft. I don’t believe Google want to move to the desktop. I believe they just want to hurt Microsoft.

Android is another example. It’ll be fantastic for the Mobile Industry but, the open source framework comes with Google applications preinstall. That’s no different to Windows coming with Real Player embedded.

So what do I mean by monopolistic? Well, take a look at Mozilla Firefox (a non-profit do-gooder). Firefox is Microsoft’s main competitor in the browser market. Google and Firefox couldn’t be snuggled up any closer in bed with Firefox acting as Google’s hot water bottle. I say this because Firefox has approximately 12% of the global market and its default search engine in the toolbar is Google, from whom it generates the majority of its revenue. Mozilla is now a $300m business.

Search engines such as Excite (my all time favourite) Altavista and Lycos all provided honest search results. That is, prominence was given to the Web sites which provided the most relevant content to search terms. Ok, so they had flaws, but at least they didn’t sell out to the highest bidders like Google. Google in my opinion, hasn’t added any value whatsoever to search. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

What I’d like to see happen

1. I’d like to see Yahoo! owned del.icio.us (what a dumb ass domain) given a face lift so it’s easier for the longtail of users to adopt, thereby encouraging scale. Give users the option to integrate browser based bookmarks with del.icio.us bookmarks so we end up with a more extensive database of relevant search results.
2. Keep the Yahoo! brand but turn it into a search engine. Use the bookmarks as described above, as an engine to help provide more meaningful search results.
3. Use Yahoo! as the default search engine for Internet Explorer
4. Improve IE8 so it’s more standards compliant, without introducing yet another tag to make the assertion about compliance
5. Embed all the cool Yahoo! stuff such as Flickr into IE
6. Employ or appoint better products people to take over Yahoo! properties
7. Adopt Content Labels in IE to enable more trust on the Web
8. There’s plenty more to talk about regarding their email and IM properties, but I’ll leave the commentating about those to others. Feel free to leave your opinion.

Why do people continue to take a shot at Microsoft when companies such as Apple, Google and Mozilla are out for themselves just like anyone else? Microsoft has, and continues to be in trouble regarding their market dominance, but none of it is based on their new products. It’s old news so move on.

So, the kick off meeting is to be had over a curry and a few beers. I don’t intend to provide an exhaustive insight to what I have in mind with this post. Instead I’d like to provide a very high level overview to provide attendees with a little insight, so they can collect their thoughts before sitting down to dinner. Naturally, if you’re not attending but have an interest in this conversation, please feel free to leave a comment and possibly get involved in the future.

Who will the association represent?

I intend to setup a new non-profit independent association to represent the interests of each stakeholder within the Digital Industry. Stakeholders include students, graduates, academia, brands, technology providers, agencies, freelancers and government. Membership fees for each stakeholder will be based on their ability to pay.

The association will focus on the digital mediums that provide enabling technologies and applications so content can be delivered to the consumer. Such mediums include mobile, desktop computer and TV. You could argue that kiosk is another type of medium but that level of detail should be left for another time/post.

Read more…

[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…

The Top Cats are in town and meeting again on the usual hot tin roof this week.

Each month I host a very exclusive invitation-only event with Robert Loch called Top Cats in London. The goal of the event is to forge stronger ties and greater collaboration between the internet start up, mobile, interactive marketing, TV and advertising communities.

Check out the cool venue and take a look at the 4 minute video that newspepper.com shot at the last event.

[Update, names marked with ** were added after the post was published]

- Alex Hoye, Chair, Faction/Buildersite
- Alexis d’Amecourt, Head of New Media, 19 Entertainment
- Andrew Doe, Founder, PCIQ
- Andrew Romans, General Partner, Georgetown Ventures
- Ann Jameson, Director, Pricejamieson - an Aquent company
- Aoife O’Sullivan, Partner, Gates & Partners
- Caspar Craven, Co-founder, Trovus
- Catherine Toole, MD Sticky, Content
- Cathy Grimes, Marketing Manager, Equifax Personal Solutions
- Charles Billot, Marketing Director, Soup
- Chris O’Rourke, Founder / MD, User Vision
- Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone Group **
- David Hart, Director, Codegent Ltd
- David King, Director, APCO Online
- Edward Charvet, Co-founder, Trovus
- Elizabeth Varley, Editorial Director, Online Content UK
- Ellie Kaye, Marketing Manager, Soup
- Felix Velarde, Founder, Underwired
- Giles Palmer, Managing Director, Magpie.net
- Grant Currie, MD , Inferno PR
- Gurpritpal Singh, Director, of Emerging Microsoft Technology Developer & Platform Group (DPE)
- Hugo Burge, COO, Cheapflights **
- Ian Wallis , Editor, Growing Business
- Jasmine Birtles, Founder / MD, Moneymagpie.com
- Jemima Kiss , New Media Reporter, Media Guardian
- Jon Watts, Founder, MTM London
- Justin Champney, Head of Brand Innovation, EMEA, McCann Worldgroup
- Justin Cooke, Founder / Fortune Cookie
- Mark McDermott, Director, Codegent Ltd
- Matthew O’Riordon, Founder, The Lemon Foundation
- Matthew Thomas, Editor, Startup.co.uk
- Mike Butcher, Editor, TechCrunch
- MT Rainey, MD, Horsesmouth
- Neil Hughston , Managing Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive
- Neil Svensen , CEO, Rufus Leonard
- Nic Brisbourne, Partner, DFJ Esprit
- Nick Farnhill, Partner, POKE
- Oli Barrett
- Paul Birch, Founder, Cominded
- Richard O’Connor , Founder, Tablina
- Richard Titus, Acting Head of UX&D, BBC FM&T
- Rob Corradi, Founder, Preloaded
- Robin Howard, Client Services Director, BT
- Roger Thelwell, Founder / Operations, mook
- Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology Correspondent, BBC
- Simon Murdoch, Founder, friendsabroad **
- Stephanie Bouchet, Head of Marketing, Joost
- Steve Schlenker, Chief Investment Officer, DN Capital
- Syd Nadim, CEO, Clock
- Tom Holmes, Founder & Chairman, Creativebrief
- Tom Nixon Founder, Nixon, Mcinnes
- Will Jeffery, Managing Director, Maverick Media
- Will McInnes, MD, Nixon McInnes
- Yoyo Allalouf, Director, Allalouf Investment Group

Hosts

- Robert Loch, Founder, Internet People & Founder, That’s Useful
- Paul Walsh, Chair, BIMA & Founder, Segala

Thanks again to Soup for sponsoring this month’s gather of the Top Cats. Thanks to them, we’ll be nibbling on Sushi and drinking fine wine.

And the winner is… itweet

Today I asked my Twitter friends to recommend the best way to access Twitter on my new iPhone. The response was immediate and extremely helpful. Thanks to everyone for their feedback.

I’ve listed below each recommendation along with the people who rated them.

http://pockettweets.com - @mbites
http://hahlo.com - @laurenceveale @davidjrice @builtbydave
http://m.twitter.com @eoghanmccabe @christinelu
http://itweet.net @PaulMiller

To try these out, visit each Web site on your iPhone as you would with Twitter.com on your desktop. There’s no application to download.

My thoughts with my rating from 1 to 4

1. itweet is the site I’m going to use. It’s by far the easiest on the eye. User names and hyperlinks are easily identifiable with the use of high contrast colours.
2. PocketTweets was a close runner up. If first impression was to be my last, this would have been the winner with its slick UI. However, after 3 attempts to get a feel for each one, I felt the itweet was more pleasing on the eye and much easier to read.
3. halo does what it says on the tin. It’s simple to use, but pretty boring.
4. m.twitter is Twitter’s ‘mobile’ version. Don’t bother. It’s complete crap, boring and doesn’t even fit on the screen properly. Guys, what were you thinking?

Which one do you prefer? If you’ve already recommended a Twitter site, have you since changed your mind after seeing alternatives?