EirePreneur

My Predictions for 2007

Internationally -

1. 2007 will belong to The Venice Project. I might have said VP will be the new YouTube but, as I've emphasized before, it's a different beast entirely. Following a decade of IPTV hype it will finally become a reality.
2. Google will buy Second Life. Microsoft is already demonstrating Virtual Earth billboards and Google will seize the opportunity to bring AdSense not only to it's own mirror (Google Earth) world but also the virtual world. In that sense Second Life will be, more so than the Venice Project, the new YouTube. I've been dipping my toes in this 3D environment all year but have not as yet bought any virtual land. If I can develop my own properties free of charge in exchange for AdSense billboard space I'll be more than happy to do so.
3. At the same time virtual world alternatives like Multiverse and Croquet will generate alot more interest spurred on in large part by 3D controller innovations like SpaceNavigator and Nintendo's wii-mote (see below).
4. Nintendo's Wii will become the most successful console of all time. In so doing it will change how we think about human-computer interaction and interfaces. It will act as a catalyst for haptic innovation, and the proliferation of wii-mote hacks will see usage scenarios far beyond the console. Ultimately it means that Vista will be Microsoft's last WIMP (Windows, Icon, Mouse, Pointer) based operating system.
5. Google will take on Technorati, TechMeme, Digg and del.icio.us by exposing collaborative tagging clouds and adding annotation to Google Reader.
6. OPML will be the new RSS.
7. The convergence of 'MyStartPage', 'MySpace', 'MyDesktop', 'MyBlog', etc., towards a single online agent will accelerate as the lines between our various forms of digital identity continue to blur and microformats gain widespread adoption.
8. Comments will die. The Arrington/Sethi saga will have heralded the imminent demise of comments across A-list blogs. The B-list will slavishly follow suit. Flame wars, libel suits and moderation will render comments, as we know them today, untenable for much longer. And so Trackback 2.0 will emerge with support for aggregator based commenting and tracking. Sadly this means the likes of coComment will go the way of the dodo. Incidentally I use coComment all the time as it's currently the best solution for a broken system. But it's a band-aid fix and the rug will be pulled out from beneath it's feet.
9. Web 2.0 will die (the phrase that is) and along with it many of the startups working on features masquerading as products. The attrition rate will be high but there won't be any bursting bubbles. And innovation will continue apace.
10. The mobile phone will kill off the UMPC (formerly Origami Project). High end phones like Nokia's N95 with TV-out capability and every comms protocol under the sun will consign the UMPC to the Microsoft graveyard.

On the home front -

1. By the end of 2007 most Irish travelers will be roaming for free and Pat Phelan's next project will eclipse even that success. Nooked and PXN8 will be acquired and their founders will take some well deserved time out. Joe Drumgoole and team will Put other DLAs in their Place. dbTwang will find it's groove. And LouderVoice will be heard across the world as microformats take center stage. Content Labelling will also be big!
2. BarCamp will go on tour. Following on from the huge success of the Cork gig, BarCamp South East Ireland (in Waterford) will be another winner. And Galway, Limerick and Dublin are sure to follow.
3. The Irish Blog Awards 2007 will flare into a mass brawl as those involved in the flame wars of 2006 meet face to face for the first time in a year. It will emerge soon after that Bernie Goldbach had bugged the whole room and recorded the brouhaha for a dramatic soundseeing podcast.

Happy Christmas ComReg!

In Part 4 of his Irish Telecoms Review 2006 Damien Mulley rips into the Telecoms Poodle with Grinch-like gusto -

"To be blunt, my view is that ComReg are a cancer on the Irish Telecoms market. I don’t think it is intentional but at the same time their capacity for constructing grand delusions means they do not believe they have caused great harm to Ireland even when obvious to everyone else.... [they] should win an award for making fiction look like facts. Turning lead into gold... In 2006 more delusions than ever before were released by ComReg."

Oh... and Happy New Year too! ;-)

The Panthius Enigma

Though I've glimpsed various mentions of Dublin based Panthius lately, from Joe Drumgoole, Silicon Republic and TechCrunch UK (may it rest in peace), I'm puzzled as to why this exciting new hosted e-Business Suite has earned such relatively little buzz on the blogosphere.

Care2 News Network thinks "it's quite an achievement for a small Irish startup". Vidblogcast is equally impressed - "these guys must have been writing this thing for years!" Well, actually it seems they have. Though they appear to have been in stealth mode until very recently the company is around since early 2004. How did they keep flying under the radar? Or more to the point why? Though they're now engaging with bloggers (an email from Director of Technology Robert O'Leary prompted this deeper look) you'd have to ask where is their own blog?

I know Robert has posted to Web2Ireland and while that's a good start surrogate blogging doesn't quite cut it for a product like this. Joe Drumgoole and Conor O'Neill have been blogging about their pre-launch startups - PutPlace and LouderVoice respectively - for months now, steadily building buzz and whetting the appetites of tech bloggers. Why not Panthius? They've got a very exciting service, it deserves much more commentary.

Technorati Tags: irish, startup, panthius

Google to take a Digg at Del.icio.us

Steve Rubel points to Steve Mermelstein's prognostication about Google Reader evolving into a digg killer and adds that it could also displace del.icio.us. That's the same point I was making to Paolo Valdermarin regarding collaborative blog tagging - all they need to do is expose the tag clouds. I'm betting they will in Q1 2007.

It wii-lly is a wevolution

For the first time in a decade I'm excited about console gaming again. Christmas cooped up in a house full of kids (big and small) has never been such fun. The Nintendo Wii is a wevelation (okay, I've gotta stop that ;-)

In '96 I bought my first and last console - the Nintendo 64. It brought a real leap in capability and the first true step towards visual immersion. I was instantly hooked on the 3D virtual world of GoldenEye 007.

In the intervening years the console wars have been largely fought with polygons. And little else by way of innovation. But Nintendo has come up trumps again and reinvented gaming. 'Wii' is the more marketable brand but the codename - Revolution - was no exaggeration. Another threshold has been crossed - haptic immersion. And ironically it's the most basic games, visually, which best demonstrate that.

Wii Sports employs simplistic doll-like avatars and the most basic gameplay imaginable and yet it's the best digital fun I've had in years. The really interesting thing to note is how the best two mini games - Tennis and Boxing - are those which require nothing more than a wave of the wii-mote. No buttons, joysticks or combos to worry about, just free-air movement. How amazing it was to see my controller-pad-allergic older sister get to immediate grips with the serve and volley game. How hilarious to watch a middle aged relative beat my nephew's Mii to a pulp in the boxing ring.

Golf, Baseball and Bowling were almost as entertaining but let down slightly by the extra button presses required to play. It was fascinating to see Golf players attempting to align their shots by moving their feet. As if they had wii-motes in their shoes. But such is the effect of forgetting that your avatar is something apart from you, to be controlled and instead growing to think of it as an extension of yourself. The haptic immersion becomes so normal that you stop thinking about it and anything unnatural ruins the illusion.

Such is the case with Red Steel, a visually rich shoot-em-up which despite it's superior graphics disappoints with the movement control. Aiming your weapon is fine, as expected, but the spatial navigation of your avatar is executed via traditional joystick twitching, on the nunchuck. Not that the game isn't still enjoyable but compared with Wii Sports the experience is somewhat jarring.

So what will the next jump in gaming immersion be? My money's on stereoscopic 3D. Together with next generation wii-mote gloves that capability would make Wii-Boxing a wiicked experience ;-)

Technorati Tags: nintendo wii, wii sports

Entrepreneurs taking a LEAP

That's too obvious a title not to borrow it from Silicon Republic who report on Limerick Institute of Technology's new programme for entrepreneurs -

"Called LEAP – short for Limerick Enterprise Acceleration Platform – the 12-month programme is designed to assist people with business ideas for a product, technology or service with export potential, who plan to start a new company in 2007."

Tip of the hat to Walter for the pointer.

Technorati Tags: limerick, lit, entrepreneurship, leap

Nah, na, na, na, nah!

Sorry, it's silly season and I just can't help myself. I find it hilarious that I was able to post my first impressions of the Venice Project last Wednesday while Malik and Arrington are jumping through hoops to get snippets of information and even talking up the 'exclusive screenshots'. Oooooh, woopedy doo! Aren't these guys supposed to be Valley 'insiders' or something? ;-)

Okay, I'm just teasing. Fair play though to Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis for running an honest beta program and not playing favourites. It makes me feel more loyal to the product already. Speaking of which, I'm still amazed at the audio and video quality which if anything has improved since Wednesday - I guess because of more peers arriving on the network. I don't know though if I'd go as far as Gizmodo in calling it a YouTube killer. Sure the quality of video leaves YouTube in the dust but aren't they two different products really - one IPTV for professional publishers and the other a social network for citizen media?


Technorati Tags: venice project, youtube

Step into the Mirror World... virtually

DigitalUrban takes Google Earth one step closer to being a Mirror World. Their Panorama viewer floats spherical mirrors over points of interest on the 3D globe which you can virtually step into for a new perspective on that location. Is it me or is there something kinda creepy about this video, almost like watching the demonic chase sequence in Fallen (man, that was one underrated gem of a movie).


Technorati Tags: google earth, panorama, 3d, mirror world

Havok in the virtual world

Clickable Culture reports that Linden Labs will make a possible announcement in Q1 2007 about an implementation of the new version of the Havok physics engine in Second Life. How fitting that this Dublin based company whose product was pivotal in the making of 'The Matrix' is now powering the virtual world most likely to evolve into The Real Matrix! ;-)


Technorati Tags: second life, havok

A Wildwave flows through Venice

SiliconRepublic reports on a pioneering Irish digital media entrepreneur -

"Stephen McCormack of Wildwave has at least three channels among the first internet protocol TV (IPTV) stations in the world to feature on the latest venture by Kazaa and Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom’s still code-named Venice Project."

Luckily for me I got my beta login for the Venice Project yesterday and some time to browse around this morning. I'm not much of an Extreme Sports or Indie Music fan but McCormack's third offering - the Wildlight Channel - features short films by international directors and contains a number of entertaining gems.

Considering that I'm stuck on eircom's excuse for broadband and my 2 year old laptop barely mustered the minimum requirements I'm amazed at the quality of audio and video. Buffering time is short and playback rarely splutters. I did suffer one crash though and the interface could definitely do with a rethink - it's far from intuitive. Still, after listening to years of Video-on-demand hype it's wonderful to think that IPTV is finally here.

Technorati Tags: venice project, iptv, wildlight, wildwave