EirePreneur

I want a re Fund

I'd love to know who RTE see as their target audience for The Fund because it certainly isn't entrepreneurs. After sitting through pitch after boring pitch last week I was hoping to see the programme pick up the pace last night but instead we had to listen to the pitches again, not just for a second time as the contestants went through a speech and presentation skills drilling but for a third time as they battled to stay in the competition. Sheesh! Bring back The Mentor please - an infinitely more educational and entertaining programme.

Not only is The Fund repetitive but Maree Morrissey, Editor & Founder of Irish Entrepreneur is extreemely irritating. She's clearly been given the bitchy Linda Martin role and made her mind up in an instant last night that the cocky DJ with the Simulator Driving School idea was an arrogant twit. Well maybe he is but you know sometimes that's what it takes! What's Michael O'Leary if not arrogant? What's Tony Ryan if not arrogant? And you know what Maree? You came across as pretty damn arrogant yourself! But it hasn't done you any harm now has it?

[Aside:] That blows my chance of getting on Irish Entrepeneur ;->

Netflix expanding into Ireland?

From Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection -

"Busy Bee DVD, Ireland's second provider of an online movie rental service, says it has been approached about a takeover from overseas -- even before Ireland's other provider has changed its name to reflect its acquisition last month, according to the Irish Independent. Busy Bee DVD says it has been approached by Netflix and by Screen Select. Meanwhile, says the paper, Dublin-based Screen Click is about to change its name to Lovefilm.ie to reflect its EUR3 million acquisition last month by LoveFilm."

I was a subscriber to Screen Click for most of 2004 and quite enjoyed the convenience of DVDs in the post but eventually realized that I'm just not enough of a movie buff to get value out of it. You'd really need to be sure you'll watch at least one DVD per week and I sometimes only got around to seeing one per month. Which of course was a waste of money.

But we do love our movies in Ireland and I hardly know anyone who doesn't have a DVD player at this stage so it makes sense to me that there could be alot of truth behind this rumour.

New series for young entrepreneurs from RTE Cork

I don't often reprint Press Releases but it's Friday so what the hell...

The Fund is a new factual entertainment series from RTE that searches Ireland to find 9 young would-be entrepreneurs with sharp ideas, and see them compete over seven weeks for a 25,000 Euro prize that will help them realise their vision and start up their own business.

With more and more businesses springing up each month across the nation, the spirit of Irish entrepreneurship has never been so strong.

And that’s what The Fund is all about – building, and more importantly, selling new business ideas.

Show 1 sees the audition process and the choosing of the 9 contestants from hundreds of applicants that will continue on to battle it out for the prize money. The remaining shows see our contestants being set individual business and marketing tasks to enable them to advance their budding enterprises. They are given invaluable advice from industry experts as well as being coached and assessed by a judging panel of some of Ireland’s top business brains.

A knockout competition, the series will follow our young hopefuls over the weeks as their fresh business ideas take shape and they do all they can to avoid elimination – one contestant is eliminated by our judges each week.

Our main series judge is Maree Morrissey, Founder and Editor of Irish Entrepreneur, Ireland’s top selling business magazine. Other judges include Frankie Whelehan, Founder and Director of Choice Hotels Ireland and David Jesse, Managing Director of EBay Ireland

The last three remaining contestants in the competition will battle it out in a Live Final, scheduled for Thursday April 13th from The Millennium Hall, Cork City, where the whole of Ireland will get the opportunity to cast their vote and award the prize to the best business idea.

Prog 1:            Thurs 2nd March       21.00 - 21.30

Prog 2:            Thurs 9th March         21.00 - 21.30 

Prog 3:            Thurs 16th March      21.00 - 21.30

Prog 4:            Thurs 23rd March       21.00 - 21.30

Prog 5:            Thurs 30 March         21.00 - 21.30

* Break for a week in Schedule

Prog 6 & 7:      Thurs 13th April        Ep 6 = 20.30 - 21.00

                                                          Ep 7 = 21.00 - 21.30     Live Programme

                                                          22.30 - 22.45    Live Results show

 

Irish TV schedules via RSS feeds

I've tried a few different screen scrapers lately, to generate RSS feeds from bog standard HTML web pages, but none could compare to Feed43. The capabilities of this service are amazing, if a little confusing at first. Just make sure you read through the tutorial though and you'll shortly be generating feeds for such things as the RTE1 TV schedule (courtesy of their Aertel service). Stay.... ahem... tuned for other channel feeds.....

The Apprentice: a short review

Believe it or not I've never watched an episode of Big Brother, Survivor or any other reality TV. But I couldn't resist tuning into the British version of The Apprentice on TV3 tonight. And I have to say I enjoyed it.

The group dynamics were very interesting to observe and it was clear early on that the girls were going to have a problem with their head strong project leader. I don't care that she sold so many flowers by practically shoving them down people's throats - it was very disappointing to see Sir Alan Sugar's right hand man expressing qualified admiration. How sustainable are such desperation sales tactics? A fine technique for hawking night club tickets to drunken teenagers in Tenerife but how many repeat buyers would she have for flowers day after day in the same location in London? Not many I'd bet. I'd go into automatic acceleration and head down mode every time I saw her.

Much more impressive was the witty charm of the property developer. The program flashed all too briefly through a few profiles at the start but as far as I remember this guy was a 'self made' success. Its easy to see how. He seemed to have a quick fire answer for everyone on the street and with about his task with humour and guile. For someone like me who left my first job because of being moved into a cold calling sales role it was rather amazing to watch.

Alan Sugar seemed very scripted and I'm not quite sure how he came to his firing decision in the end but this could well be the first reality type series I'll be tuning into every week.

New TV series featuring Irish Entrepreneurs

From Irish Entrepreneur magazine comes notice that RTE have announced an up-coming TV series called The Fund which...

...will search Ireland to find 9 young would-be entrepreneurs with sharp ideas, and see them compete over seven weeks for a €25,000 prize that will help them realise their vision and start up their own business.

Application forms are available on the website and the deadines is Friday 30th September.

The blogodrama with a happy ending

First the photos started showing up on Flickr - Adam Curry and Dave Winer, the estranged inventors of podcasting, were sitting at the panel table right beside each other. What was Chris Pirillo dreaming about? Did he want to open the show with a wrestling exhibition? The images were inconclusive - had they made up? Or were they ignoring each other? But then, all of a sudden, there it was - undeniable photographic evidence of a peace deal apparently brokered by Steve Gillmor.

What a extraordinary finale to the first season of this real life melodrama. The curtain went down with Curry's rousing tribute to his old mentor and Winer's epilogue nearly had me in tears.

I can't wait for the new season!

Microtrading conference featured on RTE

Last night's edition of Nationwide on RTE 1 featured a report on "the recent Microtrading Conference in Dublin, highlighting the efforts of small entrepreneurs all across Ireland". I didn't get a chance to catch it on TV last night but was hoping to stream it today instead. Unfortunately though I keep getting DNS errors on the Realplayer stream. :(

Irish TV to debate blogging

Last November I wrote about the David McWilliams brand and how it was great to have him back on Irish TV with The Big Bite on RTE 1's afternoon schedule.

Its terrific then to learn that a number of prominent Irish blogggers will be guests on the show tomorrow for a discussion on the blogging phenomenon. Do us proud guys and girls!

Being a blogger without being blogger

Robert Rodriguez is the cinematic equivalent of a blogger. I haven't been a great fan of his movies thus far but thoroughly enjoyed the Once Upon A Time In Mexico DVD, which had the the best extras I've yet seen. Two featurettes in particular - Ten Minute Flick School and Inside Troublemaker Studios - were an absolute delight, conveying that Rodriguez is clearly in love with the whole process of film making and wants to rub his enthusiasm off on you.

He's on a mission to convince you that its easy to make big movies with modern digital technology. And he infects you with his passion for the creative process. He comes across as a totally down to earth regular guy, inviting you into his home studio to reveal all the 'secrets' behind the eye-candy. Without a whiff of arrogance or superiority, he narrates casually and matter-of-factly, as if he was really talking directly to you. Which is exactly how I'd also describe my favourite bloggers.

So I'm delighted to see Robert's new film - Sin City winning such unanimous critical acclaim. This appears to be his 'Pulp Fiction' and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it on the big screen, before buying the DVD for the extras alone!