In the early days of the internet there was abundance of companies who attempted to become an internet standard. Chief among these was Microsoft who attempted to make its platforms the default web standards, (Internet Explorer came pre installed on all PC’s that used windows as an operating system). Some saw this as Microsoft’s exercising the benefits of its operating systems dominance; others saw it as anti-competitive behaviour. The EU thought it was the latter and landed Microsoft with a staggering $1.4 billion fine
Since then, a number of web browsers have emerged and flourished in the open web environment. In particular, the arrival of Mozilla’s Firefox and Google Chrome have spawned a new way in which we consume web content. Both these browsers are built using open source technologies. This has allowed web designers and developers to innovate in ways that they were previously unable to do. With some of the greatest minds in technology liberated from the rules then innovation becomes inevitable – enter stage right the “Mashup”.
A mashup occurs when a number of seemingly unrelated technologies are mashed together to create a unique hybrid that fuses a synergy of the selected technologies. Essentially mashups are cross-platform rich Internet applications. There are countless examples including Google maps, Layar, Google Streetview etc.
Geoquake, , a mashup between new Map3D class, Google Maps API for Flash and Papervision3D, is one that has us quite excited by its potential future applications, namely web based applications and XBox or PS3 games where you can drive on actual roads, anywhere you like. In time, you could be linked to the online Xbox live community and have virtual races to your house. Now wouldn’t that be pretty cool?
Hello from the RDS, where the morning session of the National Digital Media & Marketing Summit has just finished.
Leonard Donnelly, Chairman of the Digital Hub Development Committee alongside Catherine O’Mahony, Media & Marketing Editor of The Sunday Marketing Editor, opened the summit, followed by the International Keynote Address from Josephine Pike, Commercial Director of Ad2one, UK.
Next up was John Dunne, Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer of Intune Networks who talked about the future of web services and the digital long-tail, referencing the ability for consumers to choose their own specialised local services. John believes that the future of marketing and advertising is the overlap between the global cloud and local networks, of which the Intune Networks will the first tuneable network. He also talked about the creation of a quality digital experience where you can watch digital content at high-definition. This experience is powered by a laser, developed by Intune, that is 100 times more powerful than the most powerful laser currently out there (compare the speed of a tricycle with that of a jet).
John also made us aware that of 33 countries, Ireland is being held up as one of the top four countries that could break through in the next generation technology and marketing field. Intune managed to gain €122 million in private finace last year, the largest in Europe and they haven’t even launched their product yet! Very inspirational stuff for a Wednesday morning.
Next up was Jonathan Forrest, our own MD, who challenged the marketing community to rise to the challenge of positioning Ireland as a leader in the digital marketing field, followed by a fantastic presentation from Morgan McKeagney, MD of IQ Content who talked about the importance of design in creating memorable digital experiences. Tim Hurles of IO and Danny Meadows-Klue, Founder of The Digital Training Academy UK & Ireland followed, but more on that later. In the meantime, follow the summit in real time on Twitter with the hastag #ndmms.
Ashoka, the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, held their annual Irish get together in Dublin this evening.
Hosted by Mark Little, the forum focused on solutions for reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and moving towards a more sustainable use of natural resources. Contributors included Ireland’s first female President and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson. She is currently based in New York and serves as President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative.
The Swede, Karl Hendrik Robert, founder of The Natural Step which now has an Irish operation run by Real Eyes, was an inspirational speaker. Other contributors included Johannes Hengstenberg, who has just brought his CO2 saving methodology to Ireland in the form of CO2 Online, and Rob Hopkins, founder of Transition Towns, an Irish start-up which addresses climate change at community level.
All in all it was a fantastically refreshing evening which further drove home the importance of using digital media to help deliver sustainability and social change. Our agency commitment to driving CSR through digital will continue to prosper.
The Irish Blog Awards were held last Saturday in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Galway.
The overall winner of the evening was “Beaut.ie” which won the best Irish blog 2010 award and also scooped the best beauty/fashion blog prize.
Other winners on the night included Mick Fealty, who was awarded the best political blog prize for “Slugger O Toole” and Suzie Bryne, who won the best news/current affairs award for the second year running for her well regarded blog “Maman Poulet”.
No stranger to the Irish Blog Awards, Niall Byrne won the best music blog for the fourth consecutive year for “Nialler 9” while Tommy Collison a 15-year-old schoolboy from Limerick was awarded the best youth blog after winner the best newcomer award in 2009.
Other winners on the night included Irish Times Journalist Jim Carroll for his “On the Record” blog that focuses on Music. He was joined by his colleagues Donald Claire for “Screenwriter”, Byran Mukandi for “Outside In” and the Newspapers finance team for “Current Account”.
We have to give a special shout out to joint winners of the best technological blog, ‘Pat Phelan’ and ‘Sinead Cochrane’. Well deserved in our books. Both bloggers exhibit a passion for all things digital, and share interesting and thought-provoking perspectives on everything from mobile to gadgets to cyberpsychology.
Cybercom is enjoying its third year as part of the Irish blogging community. The time and effort that go into maintaining a blog is hard but rewarding work. We’re delighted to see our fellow Irish Bloggers recognised for their efforts and dedication. Congratulations to all the winners and contributors of the Irish Blog Awards 2010.
We’ve been speculating internally, (as many others have), about a Facebook move into the location territory. According to a news report from New Media Age, Facebook is to add a feature that includes people’s locations in their status updates.
It has updated its privacy policy to use the term ‘Place’ when describing its location-based service ahead of the launch of the feature. The update will provide a link to any Facebook page possessed by the owner of the location, such as a coffee shop.
This morning, Eircom’s CEO Paul Donovan announced its high-speed broadband service, which will improve the broadband experience for up to 1 million consumer and business customers in Ireland this year.
This Next Generation Broadband (NGB) will move from one megabyte to eight megabytes for all customers in NGB ‘exchange areas’.
Existing broadband customers on 1MB, 3MB and 7MB packages will be upgraded for free, as the programme is rolled out. Initially available in Dublin, NGB rollout will be expanded to all major urban areas including Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford by the end of the year.
Improved broadband is, as we all know, critical to enable Ireland’s objectives as a smart economy.
Great article in yesterday’s Sunday Times regarding You Tube’s decision to pay copyright holders a cut for every view of videos that contain their music. In this landmark licensing agreement agreed between Google (owner of You Tube), the Irish Music Rights Organisation (Imro) and the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society Ireland (MCPSI), musicans will receive a cut every time a video is clicked on in Ireland, even if the music is only played in the background. This new digital revenue generating stream is great news for the Irish music industry, struggling amidst a drop in CD sales.
According to the article, “The collection companies will receive a lump sum payment based on the number of hits to videos. YouTube has agreed to provide data on the hits so that Imro/MCPSI can decide how to distribute the fee to its members. It is understood the deal includes a retrospective payment for content which has been accessed since YouTube became available in Ireland in 2005.”
It is hoped that the Irish deal will see an end to bands demanding that the website remove its songs.
Get clicking folks and earn your fellow musicians some Easter euros!
In January 2010 EA Sport launched a free-to-play online version of Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, the leading golf simulation title. This online game can run independently of a specific platform and be accessible to a broad audience anytime, anywhere, which is a major strategy shift for EA Sports. It appears to have been prompted by the extraordinary success enjoyed by World Golf Tour; a sophisticated photo-realistic in-browser simulator.
Founded in 2007, the key factors in the success of World Golf Tour (WGT) have been the full-featured community, multiplayer and challenge mechanics built around the game. The WGT community now boasts over a million members from 180 countries. Essential to WGTs business achievement is its ability to attract and engage with the broader Golfing demographic who are typically reluctant to play computer games or meaningfully participate in online communities. “More than 50 percent of World Golf Tour’s audience doesn’t consider itself to be gamers” [Venture Beat].
EA Sports have largely emulated WGTs community mechanic in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online, however they have stated their intention to implement, as they put it, “a multi-tiered subscription“. Exactly how this will work is not yet clear.
While EA Sports maintain an exclusive deal with the PGA Tour; World Golf Tour has benefited from a long-term partnership with The United States Golf Association (USGA). In 2009 USGA and WGT co-hosted the first Virtual U.S. Open. The event attracted hundreds of thousands of participants with prize money & goods up for grabs.
World Golf Tour is now using a recent $10M capital injection to expand overseas and further explore social media. A stripped-down version of the game is being publicly tested for Facebook and the initial response has been very promising. According to Yuchiang Cheng, CEO of World Golf Tour they are using Facebook as a “Marketing Channel”. Speaking to Games Beat he stated, “For us, Facebook will be a way to build awareness. It’s a mistake to scrap the original destination site”.
The online community model may provide the Irish Gaming Industry with genuine opportunity in a market that has become increasingly monopolized by the big titles [see 2008 Silicon Republic Article].
http://www.whoismgmt.com/
The music industry was one of the first to be transformed by the impact of digital media. A stream of the highly anticipated follow up album by MGMT taking over the bands website is just another example of this. http://www.electricpicnic.ie/
The eagerly awaited 2010 line up for Electric Picnic was announced on Wednesday. Each year the festival website gets a complete overhaul and this year’s design places a subtle emphasis on social media and sharing.
http://www.wallswaps.com/
Wallswaps is a clever marketing idea by Erskine Design that is executed with exceptional navigation.
http://www.bluebelljeans.com
Here is a site from Wrangler that uses a super cool drag feature that lets you drag and drop almost in real life, really innovative way to display the clothing in motion. We give it two thumbs up!
http://www.pureblacksunshine.com
This site for coffee is a mini movie that begins like a drug deal from Scarface! Movement through the site takes users from a first-hand look at the various roasts and beans on offer right through to the deal, where they’re connected to an online shop to peruse the goods are available for purchase. Players who keep their cool and make it past the imposing steel door guarding the entrance to a seemingly abandoned warehouse are tested to the limits as they come face to face with the dealer, his pure organic stash, and a gun-toting gang of hired thugs.
http://www.uniqlo.jp/uniqlock/
Japanese retailer Uniqlo is renowned for its innovative quirky websites featuring their cool back to basics clothing lines. If you like American Apparel you will like Uniglo. In this evolution, their trademark Japanese dancing girls take location in the uber chic streets of Paris. We especially love the ‘uniqlo blog parts’ that allows users share content and the ‘Location in Paris’ feature shows users the video shoot in a cool map view. A nice way to find some sights if you are planning a trip to Paris. That music is going to be stuck in your head!
In advance of the launch of iPhone within the Vodafone network, the Digital Reach Group (DRG) have just completed some research on the size of the smartphone market in Ireland.
Key Findings:
Approximately 250,000 iPhones are currently active on Irish networks. This represents market penetration of 5.2%, (based on the latest comReg data).
While O2 makes up the highest proportion of iPhone mobile traffic at 35%, 10% of iPhone traffic already comes from Vodafone iPhone devices ahead of the company launching the handset.
The most popular individual smart phone handset is the Apple iPhone followed by handsets from Nokia’s E and N series, and Blackberry’s 8000 series.
iPhone traffic was static between September and November 2009, but increased by 50% in December 2009 versus November. This is most likely due to O2’s free iPhone offer at the end of 2009 and in advance of the end of its exclusive handset deal with Apple.
Apple traffic on the network is divided at 82% for the iPhone and 18% for the iPod Touch.
Google’s Android system is a new entrant into the Irish market and is making rapid inroads at 0.5% already since the October ’09 launch of HTC’s Hero handset on Meteor.
Peaks and troughs in usage are less pronounced for iPhones than other devices, as people tend to use them far more regularly throughout the day. This reinforces the idea that there are benefits to combining usability with an attractive data tariff.
The top five handset manufacturers on the overall mobile network are: 1. Nokia, 2. Sony Ericsson, 3. Research In Motion (Blackberry), 4. Samsung and 5. Apple.
