Digital Media Island

We’re delighted to announce the next Digital Island Meetup. We’re heading to Derry to the Awakening Creative Entrepreneurship Conference Next week. This is a brilliant event and the Noribic guys have exceled themselves in putting it together. Check out the schedule here, and you should see some of the fantastic speakers participating here.

If you haven’t signed up already then go do it now. Register here.

The ACE event in the Maiden City looks like it should be great fun and we’re delighted to support it with a fringe event. Should be a bit of fun

What:
Digital Island Meetups are part of the IntertradeIreland funded All Island Digital Media Network and are completely free thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, and open to anyone who wants to attend. Come along and meet new people, and make new contacts and have some fun too.

When & Where:
26th March from 7PM • Halo pantry & Grill • Derry

Dress code, for people who care about such things, is whatever you like.

The OpenDemo will return for those who want feedback on cool stuff they’re doing right now only 8 spaces but if a lot of people are interested we might expand it. Go register to demo now slots are allocated on a first come first served basis.

Sponsors:

Sponsors get to support a great event but also will get promotion with links and logos via posts on Digital Media Island and via announcements at the event itself although we’re flexible and willing to work with people to run the best events possible.

We’re looking for sponsors right now so please drop me a line at anton [at] digitalmediaforum [dot] net for details.

[EVENTR REGISTRATION 4]

[EVENTR ATTENDEES 4]

Digital Media Forum is getting together with web2ireland (who’ve organised a great API Wars and Opportunities and Facebook Garage Ireland event earlier in the day) to arrange an Irish Pre FOWA meetup on Thursday evening.

Where: Dakota, South William Street, Dublin 2

When: 8:30pm, Thursday 5th March.

What: Come as you are for some drinks and networking with the folks from the Irish community.

Signup here and I’ll see you on the night. I’ll be the man in the Flat cap.

Ryan Carson contacts us to say he’s releasing 20 more tickets to FOWA Dublin on Friday.

So if you want to go along go signup now.

Hey folks we’re in the countdown to the first FOWA Dublin and there’s a whole bunch of things going on around it.

On Thursday afternoon it’s kicking off with web2ireland’s API Wars and Opportunities from 2pm to 4pm in the Digital Exchange where we’ll be discussing the various APIs and platforms. Some interesting folks from the foreign climbs are rumored to be attending so get yourself there if you can.

Following that is the first ever Facebook Garage Ireland sponsored by Intel from 4:30pm to 6pm followed by drinks sponsored by Enterprise Ireland. All very cool.

Then later for networking for the people at the events that day and also for the pre-eventers we’ll be having a Digital Island/web2ireland Irish meetup in Dakota at 8:30pm til late.

Event Home        Event news        Schedule        Registration        Attendees        Location

Wow what an amazing response to the Innovation Accelerator event. We’ve reached our 200 capacity and despite me removing some people who said they couldn’t go last night we’re back up at our capacity again.

So we’ve begged, borrowed and stolen and it looks like we can release a further 50 places today.

If the previous places are anything to go by then these places will go fast so please hurrry to avoid dissappointment, click here to register or go to http://short.ie/innovaccellreg

We still have a couple of places for those wishing expose their product to 250 people in the industry to take part in an Expo

If you want to then Register for the OpenDemo Expo here

Event Home        Event news        Schedule        Registration        Attendees        Location

Hey there I recently announced the schedule but as we have so many of the local tech community and quite a few investors attending we’d like to really drive some value for startups. So we’re having an expo as well during the event.

We should have space for 10 startup companies (we might make this more if there’s a big response) in an expo space jammed right in the middle between our 2 main conference rooms to guarantee the most exposure we can give. It has limited space but is absolutely free for startups. The slots are assigned on a first come first served basis and there may even be some press and high profile people at the event too. So get your entry in as soon as you can I’ll be operating the first come first served rule as usual. The only qualifying criteria is that you are a startup company. The demoing companies will be notified on Friday afternoon 3pm at the latest.

Register for the OpenDemo Expo here

Demo companies will have a 36″ Cocktail style table to showcase their product. Signage can be erected behind the table. Please contact me if you have any questions. anton[at]digitalmediaforum[dot]net

Event Home        Event news        Schedule        Registration        Attendees        Location

Hey there folks I’m delighted to announce that the schedule for the Innovation Accelerator event on the 24th of February is now live. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a great lineup with some great speakers drawn from a wide area of the business, software and startup communities.

As you probably know this event is aimed at helping people get the business part of their technology business going. There will be talks on marketing, sales, company setup and HR as well as talks form startup founders about their experiences and lessons learned.

There will also be an opportunity to Demo your technology business at the event. More on that soon…

You can check out who’s attending and register through the links at the top of this article.

Someone is making some money from Twitter even if they aren’t, and while he’s at it @Walter from Sxoop Technologies has given a great demonstration of how to sell to the long tail and use a mashup of existing services to create real value.

He’s created a great little app called Twitter Mosaic. It’s one of those “Ronseal” apps that does exactly what it says on the tin. It makes a mosaic of all your Twitter followers or those you’re following.

IT’s not complicated and you don’t need to reveal a password. Just input your username and hey presto… your very own twitter mosaic. Choose if you want it to be those you follow or those who follow you as well. Great for use on a blog post or a website, embed codes provided. Cool.

That’s when it gets very interesting. A few clicks take you to a Zazzle merchant page where you can get a very unique and personalised mug, T-shirt or bag with your twitter friends on it, and even a business card with your twitter details. This is very clever and very cool because by definition no two peoples items will be the same. Mixing Twitter, Sxoop’s own tech and Zazzle, it’s the very definition of long tail marketing.

Go here to see it in action.

Oh and here’s mine

24th Feb should be a great day. As time draws nearer for Innovation Accelerator more of the line up is being confirmed. It’s great to get to work with some of these people but as if the group of speakers already confirmed wasn’t good enough, we have another group now confirmed who are absolutely brilliant. Check these guys out…

Niall Harbison – Niall Harbison started his career as a chef in Ireland’s premier restaurant at the time, Peacock Alley, under the guidance of Michelin Star chef Conrad Gallagher. Niall became the youngest Head Chef in Ireland of a fine dining establishment in 2001 when he took the reigns at Lloyd’s Brasserie at the age of 20. Niall is now the resident chef and co-founder of ‘Look and Taste’ website which provides free online video recipes with professional chefs and a social community for food lovers. It has already won a web award in its native Ireland by receiving a Golden Spider in late 2007 and in May 2008 it was recognised as the 3rd best European Web2.0 startup this year.

Pat Phelan – Pat Phelan has been involved in the telecoms arena for over 10 years and has deep experience in both the US and European markets. His first step into the market was the building of the first callshop and internet café software, a successful product still in use today by over 100 internet cafés worldwide. Pat launched Ireland’s first independently owned phones cards in 1999 and continues to trade in this market in a numbers of countries, with the business hitting 5-7 million minutes termination per month. Over the past three years Pat has run back end on a number of incredibly successful products, including one which sells to this day onboard Ryanair. He now sees himself as a telecoms disruptor and a champion of the underdog against the ruling telecomms companies. He lives in Cork, Ireland but spends almost three months per year on the West Coast of the USA. His numerous contacts at telecom’s highest levels in the USA and Europe enable him to flirt between the boardroom and the coalface.

Emily Tully – Emily Tully is a former newsreader, editor and reporter with national radio station Today Fm. After more then 6 years receiving PR material as a journalist, Emily decided to return to Public Relations, where she first began her career in 2001. To date, Emily has worked in the newsrooms of East Coast FM, Newstalk and Today FM. She has trained as a Public Affairs Officer for Irish Aid’s Rapid Response Corps. In the field of PR, she’s worked with clients such as Sustainable Energy Ireland, Ryanair, Independent Newspapers, BlueMetrix, Embassy of Brazil, Louth Local Authorities, the International Puppet Festival of Ireland and Omniscout Ireland. Emily provides advice and expertise on all aspects of public relations, media activity and online PR, specialising in in PR campaigns for smaller budgets and for start-ups.

Joe Drumgoole – Joe Drumgoole is software industry veteran with over twenty years experience in building commercial software at companies both large (DEC, Nomura, Oracle) and small (CR2, Cape Clear, PutPlace). His most recent venture is as founder and CTO of PutPlace.com, an online backup service for home users. Joe is a regular speaker at conferences and was one of the first users of Amazon’s Cloud Computing services when they launched in 2006. PutPlace.com is now completely hosted in the Amazon cloud and continues to reap the benefits of being architected from scratch for “cloud computing”.

David Petherick – Described by the BBC in 2007 as the world’s first Digital Biographer, David Petherick has co-founded several companies in his home city of Edinburgh, including Russian Communications (1993), NewsBase (1995) and Clarocada (2005). All focus on making words make sense. He currently is UK Contributing Editor for http://TheNextWeb.com, based in Amsterdam, blogs at http://digitalbiographer.com and improves online reputation and visibility for ambitious entrepreneurs and savvy corporations. He is one of 237 authors of the ebook, hardback and paperback ‘Age of Conversation 2′ the proceeds of which all go to Variety, the childrens charity.

Mark Simons – Mark Simons has helped some of Ireland’s most successful software companies to grow sales over the last 20 years. Mark spent eight years at IONA Technologies, where he opened and ran offices in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. At Kindle Banking Systems, Mark led sales efforts in a number of emerging markets in Eastern Europe. Previously he had been sales and marketing director of Trintech, where he established its original sales operations in Ireland and Germany.

Gordon Wilson – Gordon Wilson is a Chartered Accountant, working as a Director of Corporate Finance and IT Development at Hilary Haydon & Company. Gordon heads up a dynamic team of accountants in providing professional advice and consultancy services to a broad client base on a diverse range of issues, from mergers, acquisitions and disposals, business start-ups, corporate restructuring and refinancing, to consulting on IT and Management Information Systems for clients.

The event is really starting to look like it’ll be a bit special and I for one am really looking forward to it. I’m buzzed about hearing from an incredible range of speakers on a huge range of subjects for early stage businesses.

Head on over here to register or check out who else is going here.

See you there.

The Digital Media Breakfast is making it’s debut in Belfast.

Meeting in the Ten Square Hotel at 8am on this coming Thursday, this is an informal networking opportunity for those who can’t make later events or who just want to get some buzz going before they head to the office.

Come early and bring your business cards and have your elevator pitch and a smile ready as we’ll be doing some short video interviews and hopefully getting your day off to a good start.

Ten Square Hotel on the South Side of Belfast’s Donegall Square at 8am. You bring the conversation and we’ll get the croissants and coffee.