Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

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

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.

I’ve been interviewed about my opinion regarding Web 3.0 on numerous occasions and thought it was time to write about it here as a way of drawing a line in the sand for future reference. It was actually Jason Calacanis’ twitter message about his definition that inspired me to put my thoughts on paper, so to speak.

According to Jason

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

I remember saying something very similar quite some time ago, but I’ve since changed my mind. There must be more to it than that. Before getting straight into Web 3.0, I’ll start by providing my brief definition of Web 2.0.

From a technology perspective

Web 2.0 can be described as technology which enables end users to create content on the Web more quickly, easily and cheaply. Examples of such technology include blogs, wikis and platforms such as flickr.

From a marketing perspective

Enabled by technology, Web 2.0 can be described as consumer behaviour influenced by consumers. We no longer live in an era where brand owners are in total control of their own marketing. Consumers now find it quicker, easier and cheaper to communicate their opinion about products and services, which in turn, influences other consumers.

What is Web 3.0?

One thing is for sure, it has got to be something more than the ability to do all of the above, better. Let’s call that Web 2.5 service pack x. Gifted individuals who deliver higher quality content is incremental and continuous in my opinion. So I don’t think we should draw a line in the sand to define a specific milestone for people’s ability to do something better.

Jeremiah Owyang thinks that Jason is right just because Google appear to have a similar opinion. He says

By chance Jason’s definition completely matches what Google (his competitor now) just launched. Because this is a Google product, could we expect search results to favor Google products that are correctly optimized to be found over Mahalo or Wikipedia?

Jeremiah’s first commentator responded by saying

To give something a label like web 3.0 there has to be some major innovation behind it. Minus Googles credibility this product is not bringing anything new. This is more like baby steps in that direction.

I agree.

According to Udi Manber on Google’s official blog to which Jeremiah refers

The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities.

What a load of crap. Google doesn’t ‘make information any more accessible’ than Excite did during the 90’s. It certainly doesn’t provide ‘pretty good search results’.

The only thing that Google has done for search is turn it into a mass of untrustworthiness. What they do well is mix organic search results with those that have been paid for. What’s worse, is that Google gives precedence to the highest bigger.

Don’t get me started on Web sites that are created specifically to market products they don’t sell, but instead, redirect you to Web sites that do sell them.

Google could just as easily provide more information about Web sites to allow users make better-informed decisions based on the suitability of content on each Web site. The only information it provides (admittedly the only information that any search engine provides today) is the title and description. How do you know which ones to trust? The answer is, you don’t!

My definition of Web 3.0

There is a philosophy enabled by a technology that’s not yet understood or utilized properly and I think the realization of that, should be referred to as Web 3.0. That philosophy is called the Semantic Web. The technology can be described as ‘interoperable metadata that lies beneath each Web page’ (for the techies it’s called Resource Description Framework). It’s not all about RDF, but it is pretty central to the conversation.

By reading additional metadata about Web sites, Google could provide end users with more information from the search results. Wouldn’t it be useful to know which Web sites are appropriate for minors, accessible to disabled users or mobile friendly? Wouldn’t you also like to know at times, which Web sites adopt advertising and marketing best practices, adopt privacy best practices, or have been independently verified by a medical authority?

This is all possible with the aid of metadata. That’s what I call better content discover based on trusted search results. The problem is, search engines such as Google choose not to read it.

That’s what I call Web 3.0

[Update: 00:50] I forgot to mention that Jason and I have discussed a possible collaboration. I believe there’s a place for Mahalo. I also think there’s a need to improve all major search engines (including Mahalo) based on open standards.

Google, plus top agencies to speak on commercial development and opportunities as the Web becomes widgetised.

I’m looking forward to this event as it involves a trip to Brighton where I’ll get to meet lots of cool people, some of whom I’m already connected with on Twitter. There’s a lot of creativity coming out of that town. What’s interesting is that there are lots of standards gurus, demonstrating that creativity and standards can live under the same roof.

Read more…

I’ve been wondering for sometime, if Ireland is in need of a non-profit professional body or Industry association to represent agencies, freelancers and students who specialise in the Interactive Industry.

Such a body or association would

1. Act as a unified voice within Industry
2. Combat skills shortages by building better relationships with academy to help it better understand what the Industry requires of graduates
3. Help clients better understand what’s required of them, so members could provide pitches which better reflect their suitability for a particular project
4. Educate and encourage clients about the importance of standards
5. Provide clients with a real opportunity to compare apples with apples - whether that’s a big agency going up against a freelance developer
6. Provide Industry with a central source of information and statistics to measure growth and future potential
7. Provide students with an opportunity to showcase themselves in front of agencies and clients thereby reducing the need to look outside of Ireland or use expensive employment agencies
8. Act as a unified voice to lobby government on policies and legislation
9. Host annual awards
10. There’s lots more but I don’t have the time to list everything here.

I was inspired to write this post after taking part in a lengthy thread (which is still ongoing) on Eoghan McCabe’s blog. In short, Eoghan questioned the authenticity of the Spider Awards based on the companies short listed and the judging criterion used to hand out awards.

Please note that I don’t think Eoghan’s post title does it justice as he doesn’t actually care about not being nominated. Please look beyond that if you decide to read his post.

I don’t wish to discuss the content of the thread here as it’s best left on Eoghan’s blog. In one of my comments I explained that I Chair the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA), which represents the above and much more. The BIMA Awards are arguably the most prestigious awards dedicated to the creatives in the Interactive Industry. I went on to explain that although the awards make a profit, all of the money that BIMA makes from membership and events, is pumped back into the association. That is, it’s reinvested in Industry initiatives to help ensure the UK remains as the center of excellence for creativity worldwide.

One of the other commentators’ response to my comment was

@Paul Walsh - That sounds like an honorable and altruistic venture. We could do with something similar here.

So that got me thinking again. I’ve been given the green light to setup the Chapter for the Usability Professional Association (UPA) for Ireland and I came close to setting up IAB Ireland. I still intend on setting up UPA Ireland when I can find 5 minutes to breath. However, does the Industry need something a little smaller than BIMA but a little bigger than the UPA?

Do you think Ireland would benefit from a professional body or association to represent agencies, freelancers and students where each member has an equal voice and together they are unified?

What do you think?