Anton’s Hat

So Pat Phelan of MaxRoam is at it again. The serial entrepeneur and telecoms disruptor has launched a new speech to text service for twitter. It’s not a general lifestreaming tool it’s twitter only and they’ve planned for a million sign ups over the next year.

The investors behind this are Pat Phelan of Cubic Telecom/MAXroam, Sean O Sullivan and Ivan MacDonald of Dublin based Dial2Do, Florian Seroussi of Global Roaming and David Marcus of Zong. The technology behind these companies is what powers twitterfone. Geneva-based VOX telecom provides calls routing, Redwood City, California-based Zong powers mobile enrollment and transactions, MAXroam powers the telephony intelligence system and Dublin firm Dial2Do supplies the core speech recognition which is at the heart of Twitterfone. Dial2Do CEO Ivan MacDonald who I had the pleasure of meeting recently at the Web2.0 Expo said,

“We’ve been involved in the space where the phone system meets the web for a long time now, and naturally we’ve been fascinated by the rise of Twitter. Increasingly, we’ll see “web 2.0″ services that people use primarily from their phones. Projections are that mobiles will become the dominant way of accessing the Internet, and a lot of this will be done via voice interfaces. We are very pleased to see Dial2Do add even more value to an already extraordinary service.”

Pat himself had this to say “We built this because we are all avid users of Twitter and have made some excellent business connections and friendships from it. We decided to see what we could contribute to the service and with our telecoms backgrounds the Twitterfone idea fitted perfectly”.

Like everything that’s cool, Twitterfone is in invite beta at the moment meaning that only those that have been sent invites can join up. I’m told that there will be regular releases of invites and as I said earlier Twitterfone says they have planned for a million sign-ups over the next year. Naturally enough it’s already on TechCrunch and been covered by Damien Mulley (who has had a deft hand in the PR) and quite a few other blogs and I expect there to be a bit of noise about this one.

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops…

(Disclosure: Pat Phelan is an advisor to Benchd)

Hi there folks I’ve been very quiet for a while around here but that’s because I’ve been running around like a maniac with things for benchd. We have some BIG announcements to make regarding people coming on board and our development plans but I’ll have to leave you hanging on that for the moment.

Anyway, if you know me, you know that I am passionate about helping other irish businesses and I’m a huge believer in the value of networking, which is why I decided to start TechLudd in January this year and it’s exceeded all my expectations.

So I’m delighted to announce that, as of yesterday (21 Apr), I’ll be workingwith the guys at the Digital Media Forum to help develop an All-island Digital Media Network. Neil Leyden chairman of the Digital media Forum introduced me thus.

I am happy to introduce our new Project Manager, Anton Mannering, who has joined the companies in San Francisco. Anton will be looking after the All-Island Digital Media Network, a collaboration between the Digital Media Forum and the Northern Ireland Digital Content Panel and kindly funded through Intertrade Ireland. Anton is going to help us build the network North and South and hopefully become a key dynamo in our continuing efforts to build and strengthen the digital media industry on the Island of Ireland.

So apparently I’m a “key dynamo”!! Never been described as such before but it’s appreciated all the same.

There are some very interesting things in the works at the moment so watch out for that and if you’d like to chat with me about it please get in touch.

Edit: I’ll be blogging about the Web2expo Tour and other things for the Digital Media Forum and the Network project here 

Hey there folks just a quick reminder that the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference is on next week.

The guys at Irishdev have surpassed themselves again and the lineup for those of you working with Microsoft technologies, and lets face it that’s quite a few people, is superb.
If you’re going and want something to do on Thursday (the 3rd) evening then head along to TechLudd in the Odessa. It’s come home to it’s birthplace where we had a great night in January.

P.S. The IMTC speakers dinner is on in the Odessa that night as well a little earlier so there should be some interesting people wandering around.

Over the last while I’ve spoken to quite a few people such as Bernie Goldbach and James Corbett (it may have been lost in the blur when I cornered James at Creative Camp Kilkenny and burned his ear about social search, Google and a few other things) as well as quite a few others, about the idea of creating a central list of events that might be of use to startup companies here in Ireland. This is a pain point for me personally as finding out what’s on around the country and even beyond our shores, that might be of use to my business is often a matter of combining luck and knowing where to look. Quite a few of people I talked to about this felt the same way so I commited a while ago to developing the idea. Then during the “beyond open coffee” organised by Bernie, I decided to reveal that it was something we were working on.

I am a great believer in the Nike mantra of “Just do it”, so over the last week I decided to build a version of Ireland Startup Events. It’s not complex or wonderful and not a lot of design work has been done, but what it does do is “what it says on the tin”. It will be kept as up to date and accurate as possible, we may occasionally not know about an event so anyone can register and enter events themselves if they like.

Why?

The idea is to have a list of events which is actively managed, to ensure that it is relatively complete. I feel that is also important that it be quite broad in it’s scope as there are many things which are relevant to startup companies besides technology.

The service is an “alpha” and therefore is not particularly well resourced right now, it will be improved in future iterations if people find it useful. I’d love your thoughts…

http://irelandstartupevents.com

I was in the Digital Hub thursday and was chatting to Joe Drumgoole. He wasn’t around so it was on the phone.

He and Eoghan McCabe have come up with a great idea to recapture the Paddy’s Valley energy by taking a trip to London Open Coffee. This combined with a few days making contacts and meeting investors in another major centre would be fantastic.

The current proposed date is 24th April…  sounds good to me. As things develop I’ll keep you posted.

So I unfortunately had to miss the end of the IWTC and the Blog Awards AND the WebCamp on Social Network Portability and I can’t go to Blogtalk.

I was feeling a bit annoyed about all that so I decided I’d head on down and catch up with a few people at the Bloggers Dinner last night. What a thoroughly lovely evening it was. Relaxed and  sociable with conversation ranging from finance to social network portability to the future of RSS to weddings and of course the inevitable twitter/jaiku conversation (isn’t it a bit like that whole Blur/Oasis thing in the 90s?).

Organised by Tom Raftery via Damien Mulley and Alexia Golez it was a lovely evening with some great people. See who was there on the wiki here. It was good to meet Salim Ismail again as well, always a pleasure, and had a chat about the Israeli Web Tour who went over recently. He’s keeping shtum about what he’s up to over the next while but I suppose he probably has a few options eh?

Apparently there are still some demo places available in the finance track of the IWTC on Wednesday afternoon.

It’s free to Demo and rumour has it that some very interesting people that are in town will be popping in.

If you want to create a bit of buzz around something or you’re looking to get in front of some people then it could be worth your while.

I’m in a bit of a mood right now about all the events that are coming up. While I absolutely delighted at the sheer volume of events that are going on I have to say that I’m frustrated by the fact everything is on at the same time and I can’t go to them all. OK enough whining here’s the lowdown on the next bunch of crazy days.

Tuesday 26th

IWTC conference Launch Cost: €245 (€189 online) | 7:oopm til late | CineWorld complex, Parnell St., Dublin

Wednesday 27th

Xcellerate 2008 Dublin Event Cost: €100| 8:30 to 12:45 | Ballsbridge Court Hotel, Dublin

IWTC conference Day 2 9:15 to 16:45 : CineWorld complex, Parnell St., Dublin

Drive Project conference Cost: €0 | 9:30 to 16:00 | Malton Hotel, Killarney, Co. Kerry - Opened by Michael Ahern, TD Irish Minister for Innovation Policy

Girl Geek Dinner Cost: €? | 19:00 til late | Odessa Club, 14 Dame Court, Dublin 2

Thursday 28th

ISA Conference Cost: €300 (€200 Incubator, €250 member/xcellerator) | 8:30 to 1:10 | O’Reilly Hall, UCD Campus, Dublin 4.

IWTC conference Day 3 | 9:15 to 16:45 | CineWorld complex, Parnell St., Dublin

Friday 29th

Xcellerate 2008 Belfast Event Cost: €100 | 8:30 to 12:45 | Malone House, Belfast

IWTC conference Day 4 | 9:15 to 16:45 | CineWorld complex, Parnell St., Dublin

Saturday 1st

Irish Blog Awards Cost: €10 | 19:30 til late | Alexander Hotel, Dublin

Sunday 2nd

WebCamp: Social Network Portability Cost: €60 | 9:15 to 18:00 | Kingsley Hotel, Victoria Cross, Cork

Bloggers Dinner Cost: € | 21:00 til late | Rossini’s Restaurant, Princes Street, Cork

Monday 3rd

BlogTalk Conference Day 1 Cost: €120 | 9:15 to 18:00 | Kingsley Hotel, Victoria Cross, Cork

BlogTalk Conference Dinner | 20:00 til late | Kingsley Hotel, Victoria Cross, Cork

Tuesday 4th

BlogTalk Conference Day 2 | 9:15 to 17:30 | Kingsley Hotel, Victoria Cross, Cork

Private equity Conference 2008 Cost: €270 | 8:30 to 16:10 | Waterfront Hall , Belfast

Wedneday 5th to Friday 7th

Nothing theres nothing on, take a break.

Saturday 8th

CreativeCamp Kilkenny Cost: €0 | 10:00 to 17:00 | The Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle, Kilkenny

Now if that little lot doesn’t keep you occupied for the next while I don’t know what will.

hi folks I just wanted to tell you about the next TechLudd event in Limerick on the Thursday the 21st at 7pm.For those that aren’t local the hotel is offering a discounted rate. The details are on the site and if you’re going please register as soon as you can so we have an idea of numbers.

Register here

Also there are 8 OpenDemo slots at the event for anyone who wants to show their wares allocated on a first come first served basis. Follow the link to register to Demo.

I hope to see you there, but if not then at another event soon. If you know anyone who might have an interest in technology, startups, entrepreneurs or just socializing then please forward this invite and info on to them. The more the merrier.

Hi folks I’d like to propose another Limerick Blogger Coffee at the Marriot Hotel for this coming Saturday 12th 16th at 12 o’clock.

It’s at the prompting of the brilliant Alexia Golez (who’s idea the blogger coffee is) via twitter the other night that I’ve decided try to get another one going. I really enjoyed the last one and as Alexia points out it was really a slice of life over a cup of coffee. There was no emphasis at all on technology and business and i was delighted that I didn’t have to explain what I do really that much. The conversation rambled from drugs cheats in the sport to what people mean when they ask “where are you from?” (Tim Bunce had some interesting thoughts on this) to urban renewal in Limerick. It really was very social. I would join in Alexias suggestion that other people do this too as it really was good fun. Go on start one up wherever you are, just announce it on your blog. 4 or 5 people is plenty to start with, it’s enough for a conversation isn’t it?

While we’re on the subject of informal meetups worth mentioning as well in this area and really worth attending is the Limerick OpenCoffee Club held the first Thurday of every month in the Absolute Hotel. It usually kicks off around 11 am and is a fantastic place to meet all kinds of technology people and talk about what you’re doing. James Corbett and Bernie Goldbach are the organisers and it’s a really cool event. I missed the first one of 2008 because I was in Dublin, but I’ll be there in March so I’d love to see you there too.

Anyway in the interim if you’re interested in coming along to the Limerick Blogger Coffee please stick you’re name in the comments so everyone can see who’s coming along.

[Edit] Thanks Reena you’re right what was I thinking about the 12th, 16th it is. duh!