Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I’m going to deliver a presentation on how Content Labels (AKA POWDER) will enable more trust on the Web. I’ll have with me, a tin of Heinze Baked Beans to help me demonstrate how Content Labels help consumers make better informed decisions about the suitability of products before making a purchase.

Read my Segala blog to learn more.

I hosted a tech dinner last night to solicit people’s feedback regarding my idea for a new independent association to represent the interests of the Digital Industry. There were a lot of good questions and concerns raised and the general consensus was that Ireland would benefit from such an association.

Rather than provide you with what I thought about the evening, why not check out what those who attended thought. Below are some links to posts already written. If you’ve written a post please let me know and I’ll link to it. Check out the Qik video too to see who attended, I got everyone to give a quick introduction. It’s a little long so you might want to grab a coffee before watching it. Can’t wait to see the bill for that data usage

Look at who attended

Read what they had to say

Maryrose Lyons

Paul Campbell

Joe Drumgoole

Thanks again to Microsoft and Blacknight for their kind sponsorship and support.

Next

The next thing to do is come up with a name so I can setup the legal entity. Do you agree with Fergal from the IIA that the Irish Interactive Media Association would confused people because the acronym would be IIMA? Suggestions welcome so get your thinking cap on please.

I’d like to arrange a slightly more formal meetup in February. Perhaps a lunch meeting with a few presentations. Please let me know what you think and importantly, if you or someone you know would like to sponsor it. Are there any dates I should steer clear of?

Yes! Another conference for me to Chair. This is definitely my last conference of the year. Well, the last one that I’m going to Chair or speak at anyway. Looks like I’ve got about 5 hours sleep ahead of the gathering so I hope they have plenty of coffee on standby with my name on it.

So, here’s the breakdown…

Interview with Ofcom

• How are the quad play and triple play offerings affecting regulatory strategy?
• Managing spectrum: ensuring that auctions are fair and technology neutral
• Protecting the customer: does convergence mean more complexity?

Ed Richards, Chief Executive Officer, Ofcom
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Media Editor, Financial Times

Panel Discussion
What legislation and regulation is necessary as convergent services increase?

• What will be the impact of the spectrum auctions?
• Rights and content: how should content be protected?
• How should next generation networks be handled?
• Will competition issues arise as a result of M&A activity?
• Assessing the degree of competition: how will regulatory strategy develop as markets change?

Yvonne Fern, Regulatory Counsel, T-Mobile UK
Andy King, Director of Regulatory Policy and Compliance, Virgin Media

Understand the customer: The key to success
Communicating communications: how telecoms marketing must move with the times

• Challenges facing telcos in understanding customer needs
• Multi-channel marketing in the move to multi-play services
• Beyond churn – the pitfalls of a badly balanced campaign
• Winning new customers whilst growing existing relationships
• The winning formula: telecoms best practice

Clare Morgan, Director of Telecoms and High Tech, Acxiom UK

Panel Discussion
Reaping the rewards of convergence: exploring opportunities for advertising

• The power of the Internet: how has advertising changed?
• Is advertising effectiveness more measurable and consumer behaviour more measurable in the digital world?
• The red button: increasing the impact of interactive TV advertising
• What is the potential for advertising on mobile TV and IPTV?
• Will revenue splitting for user-generated content increase?
• Which services should be funded by advertising and which should be subscription based?

Tess Alps, Chief Executive Officer, Thinkbox
Jim Marshall, Chairman, Starcom MediaVest Group & Chairman, Media Futures Group, IPA
Jimmy Maymann, Chairman, GoViral
Clare Morgan, Director of Telecoms and High Tech, Acxiom UK

The next generation of communications

In this session, three panelists will give short presentations to explore the potential of next generation networks and assess what the communications landscape of the future will look like.

Exploring the potential of 3G
Professor Ed Candy, Chief Technology Officer, Hutchison ‘3’ Group

Understanding 21cn: how will Britain’s communications landscape change?
Cameron Rejali, Managing Director Products and Strategy, BT Wholesale

Exploring the potential of WiMax
Brendan O’Rourke, Chief Operating Officer, FREEDOM4

Questions and discussion forum

• What investments need to be made if media and communications services are to succeed?
• How is current infrastructure coping with delivering convergent services?
• Just the beginning: where next for 3G services?
• How will the growth of social information structures affect communications operators?
• What will be the impact of WiMax?

I’ll then bring the afternoon to a close with my enlightening overview of the day. I’m glad I didn’t have it as easy as Michael Nutley who Chaired today. Michael had straightforward presentations. Actually, I take that back. Talk about shuffling the pack on Walshie!

A debate has started on Vodafone’s BetaVine. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that Vodafone provided me with exclusive rights to seed interest in the wider industry to help launch the Portal, after providing advice prior to its launch. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find the time to continue commentating about it. Anyway, it’s doing exactly what I had hoped. It’s stimulating and supporting conversation within the industry. In this instance, it’s a heated debate which is likely to raise more awareness for the Portal if nothing else.

Luca Passani is the culprit (I mean that in the nicest possible way) responsible for starting the debate. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s starting a debate. Unfortunately he doesn’t know how to agree to disagree, or even respect the fact that he can sometimes be wrong.

My intention here is not to discuss the debate itself but instead, get people to use the right terminology. Ok, so my post about the correct spelling of Web site was a bit of a joke, but knowing the difference between WAP and the mobile Web is not, as it impacts end users for the worse.

It was a TechCrunch post that inspired me to write this note. I was about to post a comment but quickly realised that my message is important (and long) enough to warrant it’s own post. I’ve written about this previously where Luca has commented along with Google, Microsoft, .mobi, Opera and others. See here and here.

In my opinion, Luca has absolutely no interest in seeing the Web as we know it on the desktop, come to mobile phones. He is in favour of WAP and is an expert on the subject. WAP is not the mobile Web though, they are two entirely different technologies and he doesn’t have an appreciation for Web trends.

• WAP = sites built only for mobile phones
• Web = sites which should work on any device

WAP browsers and Web browsers look the same but what they display is completely different. One generates revenue for Operators and Content Providers and the other provides end users the ability to search and browse the Web. That’s why most end users don’t know the difference between a WAP site and a Web site. However, it’s not good enough to assume that they don’t care. It’s also wrong to assume they don’t want a choice.

In more detail
WAP sites are sites which have been built specifically to work on mobile phones. They do not work on desktop computers. This means if you come across a WAP site on your phone and wish to email the URL to a friend so they can see it at home, they can’t unless they’re using a mobile.

I used to own an LG Chocolate phone to demonstrate this point when giving presentations at conferences. I’d ask someone for the URL of their company Web site and then explain that it was impossible for me to view it on my new cool phone because it didn’t have a Web browser capable of displaying it.

Not all mobiles have browsers capable of displaying Web sites. Some phones come with a Web browser but it’s sometimes removed or hidden down the menu system by the Operator (not the manufacturer). Operators have always been extremely keen to keep it this way as they make money from WAP through revenue share deals with content providers.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Content Providers to which Luca and TechCrunch refer, are not likely to want users to access the Web (as invented by Tim Berners-Lee and harmonized by the W3C), as you do on a desktop computer. Otherwise they’ll stop making money through their commercial agreements with Operators. This means end users get whatever WAP sites Operators believe will generate the most revenue. This is not in the best interest of end users today.

It made sense to only offer WAP sites when mobiles were unable to display Web sites. It also makes sense to continue building WAP sites while mobile devices continue to improve, standards are adopted, prices come down, speeds improve and developers build Web sites so they work better on mobile devices.

In my opinion, we’re almost there. You only have to look at the recent launch of the iPhone to see what’s possible. It won’t be long before this capability is more widespread across more devices and the above points are addressed. As I keep saying, I’ve heard all the same arguments whilst at AOL in the mid 90’s. People use to say that online marketing would never take off because the Web was too slow, yada yada yada. The same type of people used to say that TV would never take off because it was so much smaller than the cinema screen.

End users do care about the difference between the two, or at least they would if told they were restricted to what the Operator wants them to see. Mobile stake holders make too many assumptions about what users want. That’s why the industry is so crap at getting it right.

So, can you see the difference between the two? If you had a mobile which stopped you from accessing the Web, would you care? Would you be happy to only view the WAP sites that your Operator forces upon you?

Please stop referring to WAP as mobile Web, it’s not. Just call it WAP.

From a customer point of view, you buy a mobile so you can surf the Web as you do from your desktop computer. Would you be happy to learn that you’re only able to use iMode, Live or other WAP sites?

Apologies for not posting as often as I should. I’ve been too busy drinking Champaign, attending networking events and going to parties. Naturally, I’ve also been striking up compelling partnerships with companies who will soon help Segala in its mission to scale and gain mass adoption for Web accessibility standards compliance and Content Labels in general.

The purpose of this post is to tell you what I’ve been up to over the past couple of months whilst name-dropping to highlight the people I think are cool and worth knowing. If you’re a partner or friend, it’s very likely that I’ve already introduced you to at least one of the people mentioned. Hopefully I’ll also give a little insight to my 48 hour day which enables me to run Segala, Chair the UK’s interactive trade association (BIMA), advise a few internet companies in the UK, mentor the CEO of one of Hong Kong’s top 5 mobile games companies, and present at various conferences and seminars.

From left to right.
1) Me and Oli Barrett
2) Hugo Greenhalgh, me and Michael Smith
3) Simon Woodruffe, me, Sabina Ali, Michale Smith and Anna Melville-James
4) Me with a group of people at a recent a Creative Out event supported by BIMA

There are lots more photos but you’ll have to do a search on Flickr to see the ones which don’t place me in compromising positions. Ok, so I looked a bit pissed in the second last one above. I wasn’t going to include it as it almost puts me in a compromising position but hey, if you can’t show that you’re human and able to enjoy yourself then what’s the point of it all?!

I had dinner recently with Robert Loch and Paul Birch. Paul asked if I did any work or if I was just very good at giving off the perception that I didn’t. The answer is yes on both accounts. What’s the point in doing all this work if you can’t have some fun at the same time?! That said, I’m finished my quest in getting Segala to the top of the mountain. That is, we can now demonstrate the company’s full potential to venture capitalists (VCs) without giving away internal organs as part of the deal. I’ll publish more information about our system that automatically generates Content Labels soon.

Presentations and Keynote Talks

I present at events regularly. I’d like to share with you, some of the most recent ones as they’re relevant to the content on this blog. Initially I was going to cover everything here but have decided instead, to write a post for each of my presentations in case you’d like to commentate on something specific without it being lost in a sea of information.

Parties and Champagne tasting

Well, what can I say, it’s the second Web boom and I want to ensure I’m in the middle, celebrating it as it happens, with a laptop in one hand and a glass of bubbly in the other. Note that I didn’t say ‘Internet bubble’; that would conjure up negative connotations based on the bubble burst which happened a few years ago. I don’t see anything about to burst as startups nowadays need very little money to get off the ground, they can deliver products and services more easily by collaborating with likeminded people/companies and it’s much cheaper than ever before, to market and sell via the Web.

It does make me wonder though, when an Enterprise Ireland consultant who’s being paid by the tax payer to evaluate Segala’s business model, says to me, “… but Paul, I honestly can’t see how you can possibly sell over the Internet without the need for loads of sales people knocking on doors…” This was about 2 hours into an extremely frustrating meeting so my only response was “I think it’s time for you to leave my office as you’re wasting my time and I’m wasting yours”. Hopefully Einstein is back to his day job, rounding up sheep in a field on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, where he can’t damage less experienced opportunists.

Anyway back to the positive stuff; the parties have been and continue to be, brilliant – as seen on Channel 4 news recently! The report also covers OpenCoffee London. If you’re an entrepreneur, investor, journalist or simply interested in networking with smart business people looking for collaborators and partners, then ensure to get your ass down to an OpenCoffee meeting! OpenCoffee meetings are taking the world by storm thanks to Saul Klein from Index Ventures. Click on the image to see the actual report.

The party featured in the report was attended by likeminded folk, such as

Michael Smith, Firebox.com co-founder, Mindcandy Founder, Second Chance Tuesday co-foundder (busy chap!)
Judith Clegg, Second Chance Tuesday Founder
Robert Loch, Internet People
Paul Birch, Bebo co-founder, Cominded Founder
Jim Lawn, POLCAT co-founder
Bronwyn Kunhardt, POLCAT co-founder
Chris Mooney, FHM International Editor
Scott Rutherford, Cominded Shareholder
Hugo Greenhalgh, Sharp Edge Editor
Farzad Jamal, MIVA Commercial Director
Oli Barrett, Rainmaker , Shareholder
Ben Way, Rainmaker, Founder
Ryan Carson, CARSONSYSTEMS Founder (FOWA, FOWD etc.)
Simon Woodruff (one of the original Dragons from BBC’s Dragon’s Den)
Jasmine Birtles, Moneymagpye founder
Tom Boardman, Firebox.com co-founder
Mike Fletcher, RSVP Editor
Richard Moross, Moo.com Founder
and many more equally cool personalities who I haven’t mentioned by name.

Networking events I’ve attended

Where do I start?! First on the list is Rob Loch’s regular gatherings of smart and creative individuals. These events are a mix of intimate dinners and informal piss-ups where people just talk and possibly follow up on drunken conversations about collaboration and partnerships the morning after. This is how Segala has sealed many of its compelling partnerships; starting with a mutual belief that alcohol and hot tubs is the basis upon which all deals should be made.

Then there are the BIMA events. For those of you not familiar with BIMA, it stands for the British Interactive Media Association. It’s the longest established trade association for the Interactive industry (est. 1985), with a bias towards the creative type. I’m Chair for the second year and am (thankfully) supported by 13 strong executives.

I try to go to as many BIMA events as possible, so I can been seen as ‘eating my own dog food’. It’s important to attend your own events, if only to demonstrate that you believe in them (which I do wholeheartedly!!). BIMA and Internet People are joining forces to run a new regular event (more information soon). BIMA’s events include intimate dinners which are always oversubscribed, dialogs and soon, ‘Breakfast Bites’ at the Ivy. I’m sure to get a kicking from my networking events Chair; Julie Lane as the venue has yet to be agreed internally. I’m hoping they’ll come around to choosing the Ivy when they see it in writing and everyone comments that it’s a great idea
I’ve also had the pleasure of hooking up with the likes of Steve Clayton , David Rowe and Claire O’Hallaron from Microsoft recently.

There are plenty more networking events to mention but I think I’ve covered enough for one post. In future I’ll write about upcoming events as they happen.