Ireland’s two top bloggers are having handbags over on twitter. What a hoot!
TechLudd is Today
Is this new ? iTunes can't be used as Ringtones
I note in a new version of iTunes terms and conditions,
Usage
(viii) You may not use The Products as a musical ‘Ringer’Â in connection with phone calls
First of all this is fair use, second of all its unenforceable, third of all its a classic example of the record company regouging for every new format of a piece of content you already own.
Music executives should have their eyes taped open while they watch Larry Lessig’s talk on copyright at TED.
Breast Cancer Care in Ireland Gets a Voice
TwoTitsAndaVote.com launched this week to give a lobbying voice to women in Ireland who are at risk from breast cancer.
We’re pleased to announce the launch of our first campaign: Better Access to Breast Health Care. With diagnostic services in hospitals being suspended and discussions of four month waiting lists for breast ultrasounds in the Oireachtas, it’s time to let our politicians know that we, as women voters, demand better access to breast health care, now.
The site design is excellent and a lobby organisation in this area couldn’t be more timely.
Camtasia Studio – Save yourself 50 Euro
Goto the Camtasia Store and get a quote for Camtasia studio, USD $299.00. (This is an electronic download price). Now select your country as Ireland, and get a new price in euros of €259.50.
Now go to xe.com and get the current dollar/euro exchange rate. hey presto, the actual price in euros (if you do a straight conversion) is €201.22.
Now return and reselect your country as the US and let your credit card do the exchange instead. Even with VISA’s crappy rates you still save money on the Camtasia rip off.
Startup Advice (Again)
I had a long conversation with Niall Larkin today in the Digital Depot. We ranged over a bunch of topics and as part of it I found myself talking a little about the PutPlace journey. Some of this may be useful to people starting their own companies so I repeat it here (at the risk of boring Niall ;-)). I’m pretty sure I’ve said most of this before I one place or another still it bears repeating:
- Incorporate: Create a limited Liability company at the earliest possible opportunity. It gives you the opportunity to write of a bunch of costs against future tax payments, allows you to claim back VAT easily and gives your a track record. People much prefer a 2 year old company to a 3 month old company for all kinds of good reasons. There are plenty of companies who can do grunt work of CRO filings so shop around.
- Get on an Incubator Program : Anybody who tries to start a new company these days without joining one of the many excellent incubator programs has rocks in his head the size of Gibraltar. In Dublin I know of two, the M50 program at Tallaght and the HotHouse program at DIT. Both are excellent. (Please add a comment if you know of others, I came across this list via Google). What does an incubator give you? A space to think in the company of like minded individuals, training, sometimes money and a fast track to HPSU status with Enterprise Ireland.
- Get a CORD Grant: Most incubator programs have access to CORD (Commercialisation Of Research and Development) grants via Enterprise Ireland. If you can tick the “I plan to generate exports and employment” boxes for EI CORD funding should be straightforward. Its important to get CORD early as it is essentially a refund of tax paid in the previous tax year. If you wait you may end up trying to claim for a year you spent navel gazing without any tax payments to claim against.
- Get Seed Capital Relief: If you are investing your own money and you fit the EI profile for a HPSU then you can claim back 40% of what you invest from the Revenue Comissioners, tax free under the Seed Capital Scheme. The other key stipulation is this is a refund of tax, so you have to have paid the equivalent amount of tax in the previous 5 years and have the evidence, i.e. your P60 to prove it.
- Get Your Own EI Development Advisor: I can’t begin to tell you how important it is to engage with EI early and often. Within 8 months of kicking of PutPlace I was asking for my own DA as opposed to the group DA assigned to my incubator program. It took another 12 months before we recieved EI grant approval. EI learns by omosis so you need to meet and pitch them several times before your idea will stick. Top tip: Go and meet EI rather than listening to the Blogosphere, everybodys experience is different and people are ten times more likely to complain than praise on the web.
- Find a Co-Founder: Yeah, its cool to be the man, I own my own company, I’m the CEO and CTO… Well actually it isn’t. All you one man bands out there need to find another person to complete your skill set. If you are an uber-techie, find a business development person, if you are in sales, find a geek to build your system (and make sure you don’t blindside him/her) etc. etc. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have every trip you make to the toilet be on the critical path.
- Ship Something Small: Build the smallest thing you can. No smaller than that, no even smaller. Have a big vision, write it down, put it in a box, put the box in a cupboard and think what can we build in 6 months, then aim to build it in three.
TechLudd: Paddy's Valley Comes Home
Antoin Mannering (of Benchd fame) has done all the heavy lifting (with help from Sabrina Dent on the webside) for TechLudd. An event designed to generate some of the energy and enthusiasm that we all found in ourselves over on the Paddy’s Valley tour to Silicon Valley.
Kick off is at 7.00pm at the Odessa Club on Dame Court. (Opposite the Stags Head). The Odessa Club is a very discreet doorway so you need to hunt around for it and ring the bell. You should register here for the event so they can gauge numbers. Who knows, there may even be a few drinks in it…
Government ICT Targets "Unrealistic"
From the Special Report on eGovernment,
“In 2002, the Government set a target of having all public services capable of on-line delivery made available by 2005. This was clearly unrealistic”
Right lads, I know what to say at my next EI audit review.
There’s more,
The Public Services Broker was planned as a single website which would facilitate data sharing between public service providers and link together all the public services associated with significant events for members of the public, such as the death of a relative or setting up a business. The aim was to make it easier for members of the public to find and use services. No budget or timetable was set for the Broker project when it got initial Government approval in May 2000.
The Broker concept was innovative and ambitious. Its feasibility, however, was not examined early on and planning was weak. A review of the project in 2002 led to a scaling back of the proposal. In May 2003, a less ambitious project was approved with estimated development costs of €14 million. This project was due for completion in August 2004 but was not completed until December 2005 at a cost of €37 million. Annual running costs for the Broker are in the region of €14 – €15 million.
37 million? For a project that essentially failed to deliver. With 14-15m annual running costs. Can you say return on invesment?
Hands up here any software startup that would be happy to share in that 37m in chunks of less than 100,000? Who would leap at a chance to implement a Government system at cost just for the experience and referenability.
The Irish government needs to scale down the size of its IT ambitions untils it learns how to manage them properly.
The Thin Red Line
Just caught the last few minutes of The Thin Red Line, Terence Malik’s movie about the American Troop experience of invading one Island in the Pacific during WWII. Its amazing how resonant that movie is. I’ve seen it several time by now, but everytime I see a snippet, it drags me in pretty much like my favourite work of non-fiction about war, Dispatches. Its something about the “loud/soft” quality of both works and the essential humanity of both auteur and author, that leaves you feeling vaguely haunted.
Shot From the hip – 2008 Predictions
- Facebook will fade and we will all wonder what the fuss was about (You took money from hedge fund, you dolts!)
- Somebody new (not Microsoft, Google or Yahoo) will capture over 30% of the search market place (and it won’t be Mahalo, sorry Jason)
- Apple will increase its market share of the PC/Media Centre market to 20% (thank you Vista)
- Apple will release a version of iLife for the PC (Because twisting bills nuts is Steve’s favourite game)
- The wholesale price of online virtual storage will drop below 5 euro cents a gigabyte a month (Just need one more big player alongside Amazon and Nirvanix to make it interesting)
- Tape storage will make a big comeback (expect an Amazon style offering in this space, with an infrastructure play for all those social networks full of inactive replicants)
- Video blogging will continue to not take off (apart from the self referencing circle jerks who will keep telling us video blogging is taking off)
- I will be able to use my phone as a broadband connector for my PC over bluetooth (Finally, thanks for nothing Vodafone et al.)
- Jabber, AIM and MSN will finally complete their instance messaging interoperability dance (And nobody will care)
- Google will become a Network Operator
Copacetic 