Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I was asked today by Lisa Green from Common Crawl, what I thought of a blog post written by Stephen Wolfram, where he talks about the possibility of creating a .data TLD for

highlighting the exposure of data on the internet—and providing added impetus for organizations to expose data in a way that can efficiently be found and accessed.

I’ve been working on trying to solve a simple problem for the past six years; Google and other search engines don’t provide enough information about the content or its suitability, before visiting each site. To this end, I’ve been helping to create a new technology and methodology that exposes additional information that consumers will find useful. Couple this with MetaCert’s partnership with ICM Registry for the provision of labeling every .XXX domain and my early involvement in the W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach Programme and you get an interesting mix of feelings and emotions.

I replied to Lisa’s email, but I was so compelled by the subject that I thought I’d write a post about it. This post doesn’t express the opinion of Lisa or Common Crawl in any way.

When reading Stephen’s ’s post, I couldn’t help but feel he’s trying to reinvent a more complicated concept than the Semantic Web and then making it even more complicated by adding in a new gTLD to the mix. If the Semantic Web hasn’t seen mass adoption with the backing of the W3C over the past 15+ years, what hope does anyone have in creating a new complicated standard for trying to achieve the same thing with a new TLD. If he was talking about a slick user interface for “consumers” to access such information more easily, without knowing/caring for the jargon, he’d be onto something. In fact, he’d do exactly what MetaCert is aiming to achieve. When I was Chair of the British Interactive Media Association for three years I rarely met a designer or developer who understood the purpose of the Semantic Web - let alone what RDF is, or any of that stuff about metadata. All they care about is making sure current/existing search engines expose their customers’ websites.

Why create a new gTLD for the data that lies beneath websites? What would the domain look like? data.data, awesomecontent.data OR, is the idea to sell a .data domain for each site that wants to expose the metadata that lies beneath - I certainly hope not. In the end it would cost about $1m for the new gTLD application. $180k is the base application fee but as any TLD expert will tell you, that’s likely to jump to a million bucks easily with all the legal fees etc. Stephen is much better investing that money in MetaCert - which has a six year lead, its method of labeling content is a W3C Full Recommendation, some partnerships that will help enable adoption, but more importantly, focus on what consumers need and sometimes want. I say sometimes want because they don’t always know what they need or want - that’s why we need to innovate.

MetaCert’s mission is to become the IMDB.com for the Web - providing consumers with more information about the content and its suitability before visiting a website. The first step was to help instigate the creation of a new standard for labeling content - this doesn’t guarantee adoption, but it certainly helps - and that piece of the puzzle alone took four and a half years.

The team is now building data sets, but only so tools can be built to make use of them - data alone is worthless unless it can be interpreted and easily consumed. The first data set we created is for the benefit of parents - they can now better protect their families from sexually explicit content. Adults who wish to find that type of content, but avoid it at work also benefit.

We have the largest data set of sexually explicit content worldwide, with an index of over half a billion webpages. The data by itself is worthless. Does a mother/father know what a data set is? No. Most don’t know what a browser is, let alone a browser extension or a plug-in (they are different). So we are building family safety tools that are easy to use. We are also in the process of encouraging mainstream players to update their existing family safety controls with our data set - as browser extensions etc. aren’t scalable across the entire web. We will build data sets for other useful purposes as soon as we have provided a whole product for family safety.

Going back to Stephen’s post, the aspiration/goal is admirable and similar to mine - but they require very different implementations.

A little insight to what most consumers would like to know about websites before visiting them.

• Is it child safe / safe to open at work or in front of my kids?
• Is it secure?
• Does it respect my personal information?
• Does this site really belong to this company?
• Is everything on this site free or do I need to pay for stuff?
• What’s the track record of this company (a little more tricky)
• Is this website accessible to me (can I increase the size of text for example)
  Etc.

I’m providing examples because it’s important to always keep the consumer in mind. How do they benefit? What difference will it make to their life? Protecting children online, making our parents feel more safe and secure, helping people with disabilities find accessible content, are all benefits.

Where does the time go?! I know, it goes into researching and developing a new standard, technology and company.

With Symantec’s acquisition of VeriSign for $1.2bn and Intel’s acquisition of McAfee for $7.7bn, the trust/certificate market has started to consolidate over the past couple of years. So it’s now time for a new player (MetaCert!) to enter this fast growing market and provide an alternative technology. Check out the new website. You can’t yet buy a product, but it will give you some insight to what MetaCert is all about.

Following more than 5 years of research and development, we are almost ready to launch a new technology company that will offer a brand new revenue stream for Web Hosting Companies, Internet Service Providers, Registrars, Agencies, Application Service Providers, System Integrators, and Value-Added Resellers, by enabling them to resell trust and standards compliance certificates direct to website owners.

Our method of classifying, labeling and certifying content is based on the open standard POWDER, which we helped to create back in 2006. Rather than launch yet another proprietary technology, we helped to instigate the creation of a W3C working group, chartered with creating a new industry standard for labeling content. Following four and a half years of the usual W3C review process, POWDER became a Full Recommendation, formally replacing PICS - the now-out-of-date standard still in use by Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Content Advisor!

This method of labeling and certifying content is more flexible and granular than any other technology or method of tagging in use today. While SSL certificates and labeling methods such as PICS only allow website owners to make a claim about an entire website, POWDER allows you to classify and label entire websites and individual web pages.

It’s not easy and it takes a developer about 4 hours, to write the POWDER metadata, create the visual certificate and do all of the linking etc. However, at MetaCert, we have built a web application that enables a non-techie to classify and label a website in less than a couple of minutes. And for resellers, the process is completely automated through our suite of APIs.

Our products will be sold in a similar fashion to SSL Certificates. Although, our products are much easier for website owners to implement - no tags or scripts required - making it easier for partners to resell them.

I’m extremely proud to announce JP Rangaswami as our Chair, with Geir Rasmussen and Angus Bankes as Advisors. Sheetal Mehta Walsh is heading up International and Partnerships and Graham Anderson is our Technical Product Manager. I’d like to thank David, Aido and Kamrul for their continued hard work - 5 years is a long time to work on a project under the radar.

I’d like to thank Phil Archer. When Phil was the CTO at ICRA, he approached me for advice in how to increase the confidence in the ICRA brand by providing a Segala-verified label for child protection. (Un)fortunately we signed a contract with ICRA, but I later decided to wait and do a better job via MetaCert. ICRA has since stopped labeling sites altogether, which means the new Internet Explorer 9 is not only using an unsupported standard, it’s also using a standard that is no longer in use by Industry. I’d also like to credit Phil with coming up with the original idea to replace PICS. Together we kicked off the W3C’s first incubator project to get POWDER under way. And the rest as they say, is history.

You can sign up on the site if you would like to be kept informed of our launch date.

If you are a potential partner and looking to become one of the first to resell MetaCert’s trust certificates, please get in touch with Sheetal (sheetal@metacert.com).

Please let me know if you find any issues with the site.

Check out the new website

Dear reader, it has been almost four months since my last blog post… and here I am writing about something that couldn’t be less important to me or my businesses. Perhaps I’ll write an update on what I’ve been doing of late, in case there are any readers still subscribed - and who are still interested in my blurb. And to think that this blog had a decent number of readers at one point. Shame I didn’t continue to embarrass myself with bad grammar and typos in every post

Anyhoo, back to this post… I picked this one up from the founder of my favourite hosting provider (Ireland’s only ICANN Accredited Registrar). It’s about ICANN’s use of a leprechaun in a promotional picture (see above). Personally I really don’t like it, especially because the leprechaun is holding a pint of beer. It’s imagery like this that prolongs the perception of all Irish people being alcoholics. I don’t mind this kind of banter generally, but I dislike it because it doesn’t do any favours for Irish entrepreneurs in this space. Would they be as quick to use a golly wog?

But guess what?! The use of this image doesn’t even come close to the imagery used by an Irish person on a site entitled “Techludd, Doin’ it Valley style”.

Now. That. Was. Embarrassing.

I’m not sure if it’s worth me asking “what do you think?” as I kinda feel like I’m writing a letter to myself instead of a few thousand smart commentators. Anyone out there [echo... tumble weed blowing across the screen]

I sent a tweet this morning to say I was going to do a ‘#followfriday’ for the very first time. A number of people asked me what that meant, so I’ve decided to write a short post to explain.

#followfriday is a way of recommending people you follow, to other users on Twitter. The idea is that those being recommended will gain new followers.

I feel so strongly about my recommendations that I’ve decided to write why I’m recommending them as potential people for you to follow.

People I recommend and why

@Sheetalmmehta (London)

Helping companies to go global, Innovation, Social entrepreneurship, Technology, Investment…

Sheetal is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Sheetal is the UK Dealmaker for the UK Trade & Investment. She sits on several advisory panels including Shelter, UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women), Digital Diaspora Network for Africa, and the LSE Alumni Mentoring Committee. Her volunteer work is extensive and she is currently writing a book on Social Venture Capital. One of her most notable accomplishments is her new foundation that enables developing communities to access cutting-edge technology based on a social enterprise model.

@Mikeyfletch (London)

Technology journalist, Events, Networking

Mike is an established business & lifestyle journalist. He’s launched three magazines on behalf of UK publishing house Haymarket Media Group & specialises in marketing, media & live events. He is Contributing Editor for Visit London and also owns a part-share in digital networking company Net.works. Mike is also one of the best connected, if not the best connected person in the entire UK events industry.

@PatPhelan (Cork)

Technology with a bias towards mobile, Connector, Innovation

Pat is the founder and President of Cubic Telecom, a well known disruptor in telephony circles and one of the leading voices of Voice 2.0. Pat has developed a number of unique products for the USA, UK and Irish markets including MAXroam, and is a board member of Global Roaming, a NASDAQ listed company (OTCBB:GRDB). Pat has a genuine passion for connecting people and has been responsible for connecting me with some truely amazing people.

@JackieDanicki (San Francisco)

Marketing (true expert in the use of new tools, techniques and trends such as social and Web 2.0), Connector, Writer

Jackie is an extremely direct person who always speaks her mind. She’s an incredibly insightful marketer which is difficult to come by. Almost every marketer and PR expert think they know how to make best use of Web 2.0 tools and techniques. Jackie does - which is why she’s the Director of Marketing at Qik; one of the most innovative mobile products companies in the world. Like Pat, Jackie has a genuine passion for connecting people and has been responsible for connecting me with some truely amazing people.

@Jobsworth (London)

Technology, Social Enterprise, Innovation, Writer, OpenSource,

JP has  spent most of his life working in the space where finance meets technology, for a number of very large firms. Since 2006 he has worked for BT, as part of BT Design, where he is Head of Innovation and Strategy. He has a passion for how work is changing: the paradigms created by globalisation, disintermediation and the web; the implications of virtualisation, service orientation and commoditisation.  JP is an inspiring speaker and writer, who I admire most for his passion for how technology can be put to good use for the benefit of society.

If you decide to follow any of these great people, or you do already, please feel free to retweet my message - they all deserve to be heard by as many people as possible.

You can also leave a comment with the people you recommend on Twitter.

I’m on a TechCrunch panel tomorrow entitled ‘Balancing Tech Culture: Getting more women involved in tech startups’. I’m likely to be a little controversial, but then again, I’ve never been known to sit back and clap other panelists or speakers on the back for the sake of it. You never know, some of the panelists might agree with me - I won’t make assumptions.

It’s my opinion, which I’ll articulate tomorrow, that the books of males vs females doesn’t need to be balanced in favour of more females. Why? Well, because there are plenty of females in tech and those that aren’t, don’t want to be. Ok, so there might be a small percent who would like to be in tech, but don’t make it. But can’t the same be said for any industry?

Are we trying to balance the books to encourage more males to become nurses?

It’s panel discussions like this one that does little to help - they’re likely to do more harm than good by devaluing the females already in tech.

To sidetrack for a minute; it seems I’m being called into the female-tech world - I’m heading to Greece next week to give a talk about entrepreneurial stuff to over 100 geek women and I’ve been invited to give a talk to a group of convent girls about entering into the interactive industry. So I guess I get to speak to the before and after. More about the Greece talk next week.

To summarise, I think females are as likely to go into tech as males are to enter into the nursing profession. What do you think?