Donagh Mc Sweeney

Every once and a while a product comes along that could catches the imagination of many.

Anybody that has travelled throughout the world know that plugs can become a major issue, especially for us in Ireland and UK where the 3 pin plug holds an almighty grip on power.

I just came across the following on Twittter courtesy of @patphelan

Truely inspirational stuff! I haven’t looked into it’s background but I imagine this little beauty will soon be in a store near you soon!

I missed it last night but Pat Kenny’s show the Frontline has made the headlines again today following an angry outburst from an audience member. Kenny couldn’t quieten him so two burly security guards hauled him off, whom apparently congratulated him as they did so. Priceless!

Thirty-eight-year-old Alan O’Brien accused Pat of “pontificating” about people on social welfare, despite collecting a salary of €600,000 for 11 hours work a week.

You can watch the full show here.

Pat’s really getting a grilled from people on the Frontline (It’s supposed to be the other way around isn’t it?). This is what happened last week!

LinkedIn is by far one of the most popular and successful social networking websites on the internet. A popular network with business professionals, it launched in 2003 and just last months it reached a milestone 50million membership.

Along with success comes a responsibility to its users to provide an exciting and beneficial service that enables people to network with others efficiently. Today came the announcement by Principal User Experience Designer, Kevin Bury that LinkedIn is currently in the process of redesigning certain aspects of the website.

According to Kevin Bury there will be four main goals/areas of the redesign.

1. A global navigation bar at the top of the page that provides convenient access to all LinkedIn services.
2. Simplified local navigation within each of the LinkedIn areas (Profile, Contacts, Groups, etc.).
3. More room available for page content. Less scrolling.
4. A cleaner, less-cluttered look.

The most dramatic change is the doing away of the sidebar, with LinkedIn deciding that top navigation is the way to go. Why they feel it’s necessary to change is anyones guess!

There is also a slight change to the profile page, although not that dramatic (bar the already mentioned sidebar of course).

What do you think of the new designs?

Social media analytics is an area that businesses should take a closer look at if they are to fully grasp the power of the Internet.

Over the last 18 months there has been a huge influx of enterprises becoming actively involved online in an attempt to boost the performance of their organisation. Networking approaches can differ from person to person and from organisation to organisation, while naturally results can also vary.

One of the big reasons that some succeed while others fail is because of analytic analysis. Every business knows that for something to succeed you need to know how you are performing and how to better yourself, yet when it comes to social networking many never follow through with this vital requirement.

A major factor that contributes to the lack of social media analysis by organisations is a lack of understanding. People may understand how social media functions, yet not know how to analyse their performance on them. This can be attributed to a new and often complex analyses methodology when it comes to social media. Are you active on a lot of networks? How much exposure does social media bring to your business? How long do you spend online? These are all questions that organisations should be asking themselves if they are to successfully analyses their online efforts.

To help organisations monitor and analyses their social media campaigns Loopthing have launched a new application called OpenScore.

OpenScore is an application that will assist you in your web analytics by presenting you with a detailed breakdown of how your business brand is performing online.

The technology works by analyzing a number of factors and data from some of the most relevant social media sources across the web such as Facebook, Twitter, RSS, Google, Digg, StumpleUpon, Blogs, Media files (video, audio, imagery) to name but a few. Specifically factors such as activity rate/presence on Internet ; time; level of visibility to others; the amount of media files they upload; the amount of information they provide about themselves and the amount of people talking about them on the Internet are some of the most important factors analyzed. Each factor carries its own weight in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of online activity.

Not only will OpenScore show you how you have been doing on the social web, it will also suggest to you where you should be going. Customized advice and detailed statistics will be available to all members that avail of OpenScore that will point you in the direction of a successful marketing campaign online.

Social media analytics is an up-and-coming area within the social media world.  As consumers move online at an ever increasing pace, organisations need to join them if they are to succeed in an ever changing marketing place. Only by knowing where you’re currently placed can you know where you need to go.

Here’s a post that I previously wrote for the Loopthing blog.

Technology has transformed the world of enterprise into what it is today. Walk into any office around the globe and you are 99% certain to see desktop computers, telephones, fax machines, mobiles and printers in operation. The use of these technologies is pretty much a must for any business that wants to succeed in an ever changing market, but it’s also recognised that associated costs can often be high. With businesses concerned with curbing costs like never before, I’m going to explore a number of open source options that can significantly save money when it comes to computing.

Desktop computers are a vital component for almost every business worldwide. Word processing, product development, image creation and research are just some of the common activities associated. However I’m sure you won’t be surprised at all when I say that computers can be by far the most costly piece of equipment for a business. Between the actual physical computer hardware and all the necessary software, costs can spiral. If you’re looking for cheaper alternatives consider the following options.

Operating Systems

When buying a computer the operating system (OS) that runs it can often be already pre-installed, more than likely with a Microsoft OS such as XP or Vista. This can add extensively to the cost. Consider the alternative, buy a computer without an OS pre-installed.

There are many FREE open source alternatives out there such as Fedora which can be downloaded from the internet in minutes. Being part of the open source family means that you can distribute it and install it on as many computers as you want. Simply download it, put it on a disk, pop it into the CD-drive and you can install it yourself. I should say that Fedora doesn’t support all the popular software that you might find on XP or Vista, but it does offer good alternatives (some of which are explored below).

Office Suites

When it comes to office suites the Microsoft Office packages are by far the most popular pieces of software found in offices worldwide. The popular Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Visio and Publisher are words know to every marketer, PR consultant and CEO, but do you know how much Office costs? To buy the most recent Office offering (office 07) as new, Office Professional 07, can set you back a cool €600 ($499.95 in the US). Is it really worth the money?

The open source developed Open Office offers some brilliant alternatives which are really in my opinion just as good. The Open Office suite contains Writer for word processing (instead of Word), Calc for spreadsheets (instead of Excel), Impress for presentations (instead of PowerPoint), as well as Draw and Base (instead of Visio and Access respectively). Again as an open source developed piece of software, it is complete free to use and install on all your computers, whether personal or commercial. Any files you have can be saved in a format that can be read by someone using the Microsoft Office suite so you don’t have to worry about interoperability.

Photo Editing

Photo Editing is something which in the not so distant past was something that only concerned a small amount of business individuals, but now a lot more enterprises are becoming more and more interesting in photo software as social media and new content requirements envelope the web.

If you’re looking for something a bit more advanced than Microsoft Paint, Adobe Photoshop is one of the biggest names out there in the field. It’s a tool which allows you to do pretty much anything and everything with any image. It’s used by designers and photographers worldwide on a daily basis and truly is an extremely powerful piece of software. I’ve used it on many occasions enjoyably. The downside is of course again the cost which is approximately €200 for the latest version, Photoshop CS4.

The Gimp is a powerful alternative to Photoshop. It’s actually one of the most popular overall open source programs. I use on an almost daily basis and I have to say it’s much easier and friendlier to navigate and grasp than Photoshop. It’s also just as good when it comes to photo editing. One of the biggest issues I have with Photoshop is its sheer size and drain on older computers. It’s a product which can kill a computers speed in moments.  The Gimp is by far smaller in size and friendlier to all computers. As an open source product, it’s free to use and distribute under the open source licence.

Servers

Most businesses realise that sharing information is a valuable asset when it comes to communication, PR, marketing and sales. Information can be shared internally in an office block from computer to computer, as well as online through a business’s own website. This is where we come to the territory of servers.  A server is basically a combination of hardware and software designed to provide services to clients. It serves information to them.

When it comes to servers, the open source developed CentOS is extremely popular. It’s easy to manage, incredibly stable and very secure (when configured correctly). On the other side of things is Windows Server 08 which in itself is a good service. It’s popular with many people. In my opinion, when it comes down to it CentOS is by far the better option as it’s free and as already stated, very secure.

Email Client

Emails come part and part with business, particularly office based ones. I come in every morning and my email client is the first thing I open. I’m guessing a lot of you are the same right? Microsoft Outlook 07 is one of the most popular options out there at the moment as it comes bundled in the Microsoft Office Suite. I must admit my usage of it has been limited to only a handful of uses, in which I never quiet took to it.

Thunderbird 2 is the open source alternative which really captivated me. Mozilla, the organisation behind the Firefox browser, offer Thunderbird for free and it’s pretty easy to get it up and running. You can also customise it as much as you want by installing additional add-ons such as calendars and foreign dictionaries.  Both programs will do essentially the same thing, with minor differences in each but if you’re looking at the cost side of things Thunderbird is free while you’ll have to pay big bucks for Outlook.

Summary

These are just a number of comparisons between the most popular open source and closed source options out there. Open Source may not be for everyone. In fact it’s true that the biggest barrier to adoption by businesses is the dominance (in terms is usage) of the mainstream “popular” products already out there on the market. It’s clear though that many businesses are looking for ways to save cash and stay afloat in the current economy, and open source is one option that should be certainly considered.

I’ve been noticing a lot of new words and phrases growing in popularity on social networks over the last few weeks. This seems to be extremely common on Twitter with people basically sticking “Tw” before any word to form their own. Twoto, twestival, Twebinar, it’s never ending!

Well here’s a list of some of the more common words that you’re going to come across on the new “Web 2.0″ internet.

API – An API (Application Programming interface) is an interface provided by developers/websites which allows others to tap into and interact with their services. If you’re not a developer then don’t worry about it!

App – An app (application or webapp) is a piece of software that adds functionality to a service. Apps are popular on social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook while Apples App Store allows users to download apps to their iPhones.

Blog – A blog is basically a website! Blogs are usually personal websites where people express their views. Corporate blogs have become popular in recent times as organizations take to the web. People can view a blog and leave comments. If your blog is popular a lot of interaction will likely happen between people on your blog.

Blogesphere – The blogesphere is a term that refers to every blog on the internet as a whole.

Blogroll – A blogroll refers to the links that people put on their blogs, linking to other blogs.

DM – DM is a term coined by Twitter. It’s an abbreviation of the word ‘Direct Message”. If you want to send someone a private message then you send them a DM. E.g. DM @loopthing Looking forward to launching Loopthing.

Embed – When you take a video from a site such as YouTube and put it on your own website it’s called embedding.

Failwhale – When something goes wrong on Twitter users are greeted by an image of a great giant whale. Since its launch Twitter users have unfortunately being seeing all too many failures, hence the term Failwhale is used by users to refer to when things go wrong. The Failwhale has become somewhat part and part of Twitter.

Follower(s) – Another term born as a result of Twitter. When you want to link to someone on Twitter you are said to become one of their followers.

Hashtag – On Twitter specific topics can be identified using specific words that are preceded by the # symbol. You would use such a hashtag when engaging in a conversation with many people in order to allow everyone to follow the conversation.

Mashup – A mashup is basically the bringing together of a number of webpage or applications to form one.

Meme – A meme is a term used to refer to something that has gone ‘viral’ on the internet. It’s usually a catchphrase, topic or concept. A recent example of a meme is the Balloon Boy.

Microblogging – This is what Twitter is all about. Unlike blogs which can posts of limitless size, microblogs are limited to a specific amount of characters per post. Twitter is a microblog that allows 140 characters per post.

ReTweet (RT) – On Twitter you can take a ‘tweet’ that someone is after ‘tweeting’ and post it yourself. It is common courtesy to give acknowledgement to the original person that posted the message.  E.g. RT @DonaghMc Loopthing is a social network that allows business to grow their online presence.

There is no limit to the amount of ReTweets that can occur for the original post. In recent month, ‘Via’ has emerged as an alternative to the RT abbreviation.

SEO­ – I debated whether to include the next two, but here goes anyway. SEO is a term used mainly by web developers. It’s short for Search Engine optimization, which is the process of developing a website in a manner that search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing will like. The aim of SEO is to make a website rise in ranking on a ‘SERP’.

SERP – Refers to a Search Engine Results Page, which is the page you see in Google, Yahoo or Bing when you search for a specific keyword(s).

Social bookmarking – Social bookmarking sites allow you to save bookmarks online, rather than in your browser. You can also recommend bookmarks to others and social bookmarking icons are found on most ‘Web 2.0’ websites today. Digg, Del.icio.us and StumleUpon are examples.  

Tag – A tag is a word used to describe a blog post, profile, media file, etc. They help to create an association between certain items.

Tag Cloud – A tag cloud is a gathering of ‘Tags’ in one area. Usually tag clouds display tags in different sizes, with the tag that is most popular appearing the largest size and the least popular the smallest size.

Trackback – A trackback is feature found on blogs. When a ‘blogger’ writes a post they may choose to send a trackback to another website/blog that was used as inspiration or for research on the post. The person on the other website/blog will receive the trackback and then decide if they wish to make it public or not.

Trending – Trending refers to hashtags/topics on Twitter that are the most popular at a certain time. The top 10 trending (popular) topics appear at the bottom right of a person’s Twitter page.

Tweep(s) – A tweep is yet another Twitter word. It refers to a person with a mutual following.

Tweet – A tweet is a post/message on Twitter.

Twitterati – Refers to celebrities on Twitter.

Twitosphere – Is a word used to refer to people on Twitter. Similar to ‘Blogesphere’.

Viral – When an item such as a video, image, catchphrase, event, etc takes over the internet and becomes gigantically popular is it said to go viral!

Web 2.0 – Is a term that refers to the new wave of development on the internet. Web 2.0 sites are said to be more dynamic, organized and stylish compared to the old.

Webinar - A webinar is meeting or conference that takes place over the internet. It’s usually organized with plenty of notice and is usually a one-way interaction. Like real life, some are free while others may charge.

Widget – A widget is a piece of code that you can take from one website and display on your own. They can be personalized to your own liking to an extent. Widgets usually display some changing information of some sort. MyBlogLog’s Recent Readers widget is one of the most popular out there.

Wiki – A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number o web pages.

Wordpress – Wordpress is a popular blogging platform. It’s allows bloggers to establish a website quickly with relatively ease using a number of templates and widgets.  This blog is using wordpress!

There’s many more out there so feel free to contribute!

Last night the web was captivated by a breaking story from Colorado. The story goes that apparently a 6-year-old boy had floated off in a homemade helium balloon and was flying uncontrollably across the American skies.

As you can imagine, panic ensued! All sorts of emergency services were mobilized, Denver airport was closed and even the army sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and the mighty Black Hawk to assist! Live pictures were streamed across the American airwaves with most of the major networks following the story and the world was captivated.

With the instantaneous nature of Twitter millions jumped on the story with people expressing their shock while hoping for happy ending! Balloon Boy enveloped Twitter and much of the social web within an hour or so! And in what must be a Twitter first, the story was trending on Twitter under 8 separate tags such as Balloon Boy, #ballonboy and Colorado! Everywhere I went it was the same thing, the same story! It was quiet amazing to see.

After a 50 mile race through the skies the inevitable happened, Balloon Boy crashed. Tweet Tears were shed and shock set it! Was Balloon Boy dead? Injured? Traumatized? Well actually, none of the above! In fact Balloon Boy was actually never Balloon Boy at all! In fact he was actually at home, 50 miles away hiding his attic after receiving a scolding from his father! Mother f**cker!

The boy’s father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon (Balloon Boy) for getting inside a compartment on the craft. He said Falcon’s brother had seen him inside the compartment before it took off and that’s why they thought he was in there when it launched.

It didn’t take long for a tone of viral videos, jokes and even T-Shirts to hit the web. You can now buy your own Balloon Boy T-shirt on Zazzle if you’re interested! Of the lot, CollegeHumour have one of the best videos out there on 50 mile chase across the skies!

Today rumours have started to circle the web that the whole thing was one big hoax! And there might be some truth to the rumours with an interview on CNN raising all sorts of questions. Asked why he didn’t respond to his family calling his name, Falcon says, “you guys [his parents] said we did this for the show.” His parents, seemingly stunned by the answer, quickly try to change the story. Watch it for yourself!