February 10, 2009 – 11:35 am
Next up in the Tuesday Push series is the Twitter Mosaic by Sxoop Technologies. If you’re a Twitter user, this service gives you a mosaic of all your friends or followers.
I first saw this being linked to on Twitter when it started out a while ago, and since then, Sxoop have gone into Twitter merchandising by adding a way to get your mosaic printed onto a t-shirt, coffee mug or bag, or having your Twitter profile information added straight onto a business card.
While the service isn’t pretty, it’s a nice & novel way of bringing together people’s growing use of twitter with life away from the computer. This is the second app I’ve seen by Sxoop to do with Twitter – the first was responsible for putting lots of Santa hats on people’s Twitter profile pictures in the run-up to Christmas.
Watching the development of the service from the outside was also a nice look at how an innovation develops – I’m not sure that they had selling merchandise in mind when developing the application (but maybe I’m wrong). Creating a simple application like this that ties in with inexpensive products and that will appeal to the millions of Twitter users was a great idea. Also, given the promotion that Twitter is receiving in the media, I’m sure user numbers will keep rising, which is good news for Sxoop and other companies offering services like this.
Staying with the Twitter theme, if you’re in Galway this Thursday, check out Galway’s Twestival; it’s on upstairs in Nimmos and is part of the global Twestival that’s being run for charity in over 175 cities.
[Update (12/2): I said above that the service isn't pretty.....well it is now, after some work by Sabrina Dent it's looking way better.]
February 9, 2009 – 10:46 pm
Ina is organising a Twestival in Galway this Thursday (Feb 12th). Twestival is taking place in over 175 cities around the world and is organised by volunteers:
On 12 February 2009 175+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.The Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers in cities around the world and 100% of the money raised from these events will go directly to support charity: water projects.
It’s taking place in upstairs in Nimmos (by the Spanish Arch) in aid of charity:water
charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need
If you can’t make the Twestival, you can still donate to charit:water on their site. If you’re not in Galway on Thursday evening, there are also ones taking place in Dublin and Belfast.
January 27, 2009 – 11:52 am
It’s been a while since the last Tuesday Push. The idea behind it is to develop the Irish Tech industry in a coordinated way, by giving companies that launch a new product or service a bump in coverage. A great idea that brings welcome coverage to those trying to get their businesses off the ground.
The first pushee in this welcome return is the Irish-based social networking site IGOPeople. The IGO stands for Individuals, Groups and Organisations, and their pitch is: Read More »
January 19, 2009 – 11:40 am
Running in the opposite direction to the usual approaches to Intellectual Property protection, Damien is giving away copies of his Online Marketing Documentation for free.
I was emailed a copy this morning, and its well worth a read if you’re interested in figuring out how to get your business talking to (and more importantly, listening to) the customers you have online. It covers lots of material including Search Engine Optimisation & Marketing, the use of Facebook advertising (which was a new area to me), and the various tools that help you to hear what customers are saying about your products or services online. There are lots of companies whose service would benefit with setting up some Google Alerts or a Twitter search on their company name.
Coming from a different angle, Iarfhlaith posted his analysis of his Real World Networking for 2008 today, which shows where all his business came from for the year. He reckons that Referrals have been the key to new business.
Two things strike me about these two posts:
1. Damien’s document is about implementing a strategy for communicating and developing relationships with customers & users online; while Iarfhlaith’s post highlights the value of relationships in bringing in new business. Not a coincidence.
2. The openness of both. It’s unusual for businesses to disclose where their business comes from; and its more unusual for a company that offers training to freely offer its materials to anyone that wants them. Even in universities, where training is not being sold (directly), learning materials are often hidden away in systems such as Blackboard. Free distribution & openness of information has worked as a business model within Open Source Software, so why not for materials of other types of knowledge-based business?
January 15, 2009 – 11:18 am
I had an idea a few of weeks ago for a web / mobile application when I had a quiet afternoon. Rather than leave it in the idea pile, I thought I’d test the waters and see if there might be any demand; so I put together a simple survey to find out how people use their mobile phones. Here are the results.
I’ve decided to split the findings into two parts due to their length. This first part gives details of peoples’ use of the cameras on their mobile phones, the second part details their use of the Internet on their mobiles.
152 people were good enough to give me a couple of minutes of their time, and this is what they had to say for themselves: Read More »
January 15, 2009 – 11:17 am
This is the second part of the results of a survey I carried out on the use of mobile phone camera & Internet usage. This part looks at how people use the Internet on their mobile phone.
The first part of the findings look at mobile phone camera usage and profiles survey respondents.
How do you access the Internet on your Phone?
Key points:
- Only 6% don’t have Internet access on their phone
- Just over 20% never use it
- 34% use WiFi on their phones
The high proportion of respondents using WiFi surprised me. However, it is unlikely to be representative of the population; instead it is likely due to bias in the sample where the sample are generally technically-aware early adopters, (Twitter & RSS adopters). It should be noted that multiple answers were possible, which is why the figures exceed 100%. Read More »
January 12, 2009 – 10:38 am
[Note: Techy / Programming content]
I spent a while on Friday searching for a way to replace the Euro symbol (€) in content pulled from a text area, using Javascript (jQuery). As it took me some time to track down an answer, here it is:
var theContent = $('#theTextArea').val().replace(/\u20ac/g, 'Euro');
This replaces using a global search to find instances of the euro symbol, and replaces them with the word “Euro”. Using the actual Euro symbol (€) as the search pattern doesn’t work – so, for example, this won’t work:
.replace(/€/g, 'E');
Instead, this needs to be used: "\u20ac"
January 5, 2009 – 2:53 pm
One of my aims for the new year was to post more of what I’m up to. I’ve been pretty lax on my reading of late; while I spend lots of time reading blogs, I’ve been spending far less than I used to reading books. So, I’m going to try and use the blog to motivate myself to read more of the stack of books I’m accumulating (another 15 unread over Christmas!).
I just finished “On Writing” by Stephen King, a great book for anyone that’s interested in writing. It gives lots of practical advice and insights into his writing process. It’s aimed at those interested in starting out writing fiction, but lots of the advice he gives is useful no matter what subject you’re writing about. While I wouldn’t be a huge fan of his fiction, I thought On Writing was a fantastic read.
Oddly I found parts of it related very well to web design / development, for example, when talking about the use, and overuse, of descriptive language :
“….if [the setting] turns out not to be a major part of the story, I’d do well to revise the descriptive stuff down by a few lines in the next draft. Certainly I couldn’t keep it in on the grounds that it’s good; it should be good, if I’m being paid to do it. What I’m not being paid to do is be self-indulgent” (emphasis added)
Another great point I took away was that:
“Life is not a support system for art. It is the other way around”
I think you can substitute the word “work” for art and still be left with something you’d do well to remember.
Next in the pile of books is In Exile by Billy O’Callaghan (2008); it’s a book of short stories that’s been a good read so far, although I’m not far into it.
If you’ve got any recommendations for other good books you picked up over the Christmas I’d love to hear them (so I can add them to the growing mountain of reading I’ve got to do).
January 3, 2009 – 6:21 pm
I’ve seen lots of posts reviewing the past year, and predicting what’s likely to happen in the coming year. So I’m jumping on the bandwagon.
For me, 2008 saw a lot of changes, mainly related to work. I reached a big milestone when Ambient Age hit its first birthday in October; at times in the first few months, I wasn’t sure I’d see that day. In November I moved into the GMIT Business Innovation Centre, another big step I was really happy with. The change from working at home has taken some getting use to (no smoking cigs & listening to loud music while I work)…but it’s been really positive so far with some great advice and new found motivation to develop the business. I also learned lots from people, including some great media stuff in a course by Damien, and lots of good stuff during Barcamp in Cork.
So, what’s to come in 2009? Here are a few things high on the list: Read More »
December 19, 2008 – 1:53 pm
UPDATE: The survey is now closed with 151 responses (waaaay higher than I had expected!). Thanks to everyone who took the time to fill it in – it’s a great help. I will be publishing the results here soon, so if you’re interested you can subscribe to the RSS for the blog. Thanks again everyone!
I’m doing a small survey on mobile phone Internet & Camera use; it’s 10 questions that you’ll have done in less than 2 minutes. It’s for something I’m working on, and it’d be a HUGE help if you could do it!! You can get it here.
I’ll be publishing the results here, so if you don’t already have the RSS feed, you can grab it now!
Thank you!
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