collab.ie

Yesterday, a colleague of mine pointed me over to Collab.ie as a neat resource to check out for Entrepreneurs. Upon arriving at the site, I was surprised I hadn’t come across it before but I think that’s because it’s quite new. The first thing that jumped out at me was its simple, yet elegant design. After playing with the site for a short while, I had to say I was impressed. Then this morning, while checking my rss feeds, I see that Collab.ie is part of the Tuesday Push. I had to write something.

The site has been set up by SmartCube and the design was done by Lee Munroe who is a freelancer web designer in Belfast. I’ve come across Lee’s work a few times over the past few months and have always been impressed. Another good job done here too.

Their own description of Collab.ie:
Irish entrepreneurs seeking skills and resources now have access to a new free online service that puts them in touch with like minded people. The website, created by Irish start-up software company Smartcube, aims to bring ideas and skills together. Collab is a simple, easy to use, free online tool to help bring ideas and skillsets together. If you have an idea and you need to find a person or people to work with you or if you want some feedback on a project you are considering collab is for you.

Collab.ie in Feed a Fever RSS

Get the RSS Feed:
Without further a do, I advise you to subscribe to their RSS Feed so that you’re getting a constant stream of new projects and businesses looking for skilled people/advice/etc. And indeed if you have a project or business in the pipeline (or even just floating around your head) and you are looking for skilled people to work with, why not post it up and see what comes of it. I’ve just added the RSS feed to my lovely shiney new RSS Reader called Fever. I’ll not miss any new entries on their site now. Oh, they also have a twitter account.

Best of luck with the site guys. Good idea, good design. Credit where credit’s due!

p.s. Ben Dunne should have come to you guys to build TenderMe.ie!!!

IQ Prize

We’re only 11 days into June and what a month it’s turning out to be!!

My freelance business has been successfully rebranded as Web Together. Next, we move into our bright new offices in Ashbourne. Then, we get some really nice weather…

And now, the icing on the cake, we have been shortlisted for the IQ Prize! We’ve been shortlisted for our Freelancer Web Application called Octopied.

249 entries and we are now in the final 8. Happy Days! We now have a Dragon’s Den style pitch to prepare for July 8th but we’ll start worrying about that next week. Last night and today are about enjoying the moment!

Accompanied by Ronan Morris and Michael Flanagan, my associates on this, I went in last night for the shortlist announcement and it was great to meet the guys from IQ Content. They had chosen the aptly named Sky Bar to hold their reception. A great 7th floor view of the city. Great venue for an event.

The Charity auction raised €1,300 for Barnardos which was great. Sale of the night was a €200 voucher for Patrick Guilbaud’s that sold for about €300!

What an unbelievable number of entries to the contest! I hope Enterprise Ireland are watching. It’s great that the Awards have highlighted this potential innovation area which has up to now been pretty much under the radar.

The no-strings-attached-funding prize is a great idea because what normally stops these web application ideas from getting  to launch is the very long lead in times before you start generating any cash.

• First, you need to build your app
• Then, (in most cases) you have to offer a free trial period
• And finally, you have to gradually build up your customer base.

I’m not sure what this adds up to but it feels like about 12 months. The very guys that have ideas like this normally can’t really afford to take the required cashflow hit in order to make it happen.  Anyway, so hats off to IQ Content.

Anyone know where you can get a box set of Dragons Den, Series 1 – 7??? I need to brush up!

Munster Rugby

It’s the Tuesday Push and Munster Rugby is on the agenda with MyMunster.com featuring this time round. I’m going against my own team (Leinster) by supporting this push, but I had the pleasure of meeting Catherine from MyMunster.com, at the Blog Awards, and on this occassion, I’ll let it slide.

MyMunster.com is a rugby social media network that connects you with other Munster Rugby supporters. The site allows users to:

• Converse with other Munster Rugby supporters
• Catch the latest Munster Rugby photos and videos
• Follow the latest news and discussions
• Catch up and interact on the Munster Rugby Blog
• Get their hands on some sought after prizes
• Follow the MyMunster Twitter Account

So, if you’re in to Rugby (or unfortunate enough to actually support Munster), you should check out the site. I’m looking forward to seeing the upgraded version that has Leinster flags and colours all over it. Best of luck to Catherine and the crew over there.

Looking to find out more about the Tuesday Push or want to get involved?

If you’ve every been to a barcamp, I’m sure you’ve an idea of what bizcamp is about. If you haven’t, bizcamp can only be described as an un-conference set up and run by its attendees and targeted at business topics. Here’s the official description of what bizcamp is:

A free conference/ gathering which is happening in Dublin on Saturday 7th March. The venue is the Digital Hub on Thomas St.
It’s a chance for us all to lift ourselves out of the gloom of the endless bad news stories. It’s based on the fact that each of us as entrepreneurs have loads to learn from our peers. And we have a lot to share with them as well. There are a lot of great things happening in the Irish Economy – especially in small and medium businesses and this day will be a celebration of those. And a great place to come for people who have lost their jobs and are actively looking at starting up.

There’s loads more information about the conference, the speakers, who’s attending, etc. on the conference website. Places are filling up fast so if you’re interested in going, you should get your name down under the registration page.

I’m looking forward to meeting old and new faces – I’ll be doing a talk or running a workshop on the day so say hello if you’re there.

Golden Spider Awards Finalist

Well, it’s Golden Spider time of year again (this coming Thursday, 20th November actually) and this year we’ve got one of our websites up for an award – MurtaghBros.ie has been shortlisted in the Best Property Website category. Following the success we had in 2006 and 2007, we’re hoping to make it a hat trick of wins. The competition is tougher this year I believe and some big names are in the same category so it’s hard to tell whether we’ll win it again. The other websites up for the award are:

• www.belmayne.com
• www.chesterfieldblackrock.ie
• www.lisney.com
• www.osberstown.com
• www.owenreilly.ie
• www.privateseller.ie
• www.sherryfitz.ie

Best of luck to all the above – looking forward to meeting some of you on the night too.

We’ve built on previous years experience and added new functionality to the Murtagh Brothers website that will hopefully make us stand out from the crowd. With this property website launched earlier this year, we added some AJAX functionality to enhance the user experience, especially in property listing browsing. We’ve been able to speed up the navigation and browsing of properties by loading the most important part only – the actual listings – without having to reload the entire page. The result is a smooth transition between pages, making browsing the website a much better user experience. You can check out this feature on the Murtagh Brothers website by viewing one of their listing pages and clicking through the paging (next/previous buttons that are top right of the properties). Fingers crossed, with features like this, we’ll be coming home with our third Golden Spider on Thursday.

I’ll be attending the event as well as Dillon Murtagh so if you’re going, keep an eye out for us and say hello if you get the chance. I’m looking forward to meeting lots of new people and saying hello to people I met in previous years. Best of luck to all nominations too.

Oh, if you haven’t voted for the publicly voted category yet, you shoud do so by the end of the day.

BarCamp Cork

BarCamp is coming to Cork for the second time and it’s being held in the Webworks building on Eglinton Street, on November 1st. If you haven’t been to a BarCamp before, they are really good for learning new things, getting advice and meeting people in the industry. I’ve been to a couple so far and it’s always a good event. It’s definitely a great networking event and from the talk I’ve seen on twitter and around a number of the blogs and forums, it looks like there should be a really good turnout. Oh, there’s no cost to attend the event.

I Might Be Giving a Talk

Yes, I’ve put my name down to give a talk on how to sell websites (well, sell anything really). Basically, I’m just going to share my experience and give advice on drumming up business, sales calls, sales meetings (incl. body language basics), proposals, contracts, closing the deal, etc. It’s my first talk on such a subject but I’m looking forward to it. Now that we’ve moved into a recession, it looks like most industries will need to get back to basics when it comes to selling. I hope to see a good turnout of new and familiar faces.

Pre BarCamp Dinner & Drinks

A number of us have been talking about the possiblity of dinner and drinks the night before the event and it looks like it’s going ahead. Pat Phelan is organising a dinner the night before, so if you’re interested in coming, get your name down quick. The guys from the Irish Webmaster Forum are also meeting up for drinks so we’ll all probably end up together the night before.

Accommodation

We did some research on the hotels in the area and here’s a couple of links with pricing. I’ll probably be staying in Jury’s Inn as it close to the venue:

• Jury’s Inn – €129
• Jury’s Cork Hotel – €129
• Clarion Hotel – €140
• Cork Int’l Airport – €150

Carpooling

If anyone is interested in a lift down on the Friday afternoon from Dublin, I’ll probably be heading down with Michele and I’ll be driving back on the Sunday. I’ve space for 2 more so let me know if you want to join us.

Well, that’s it. Hope to see you at the event. If you see me wandering around, don’t hesitate to stop me for a chat.

The Internet for Consumers in the Recession

With everyone needing to become a lot more conscious of their spending habits and how much they are spending, more and more people with be researching and even making their purchases online, looking for better deals. Hence, I believe that although we are in a recession, there may be a shift of spending from traditional sales channels over to the online sales channel. During the boom times in Ireland, we didn’t really care what we were spending on items because there was always more cash coming our way (I’m generalising here but not always the case). I’m constantly reminded that I don’t know what it is like to live in Ireland during a recession and it’s a different mind set. The last recession in Ireland was in the 80’s and I was too young then to notice. With the Internet available to all in this ecomonic cycle, I wonder how much it will influence people in their buying habits. Spending figures may go down but I think the percentage of spending online will go up.

The Internet for Businesses in the Recession

So, it’s no longer the spending frenzy that as it has been in years gone by and I’ve found that a lot of businesses that previously didn’t need to do much marketing for the business to sustain their size and also grow, are now looking at new ways of bringing in the business. A recession pushes businesses to get back to basics and focus on sales and marketing to keep their businesses alive. This is where the Internet comes in to play. Utilising a business website to help market your business and generate sales leads or indeed direct sales can be a cost effective approach compared to traditional sales and marketing methods. Take a one day full page ad in one of the national papers that can easily cost upwards of €10,000 but it only lasts a day. By putting €10,000 towards your website, you’re looking at a sales and marketing tool that can last at least 2 years. Any subsequent traditional advertising can be directed to your website to pick up where they leave off, and generate those must needed sales leads. If you haven’t embraced a website for your business or your current site is looking a bit dated, now is definitely the time to look at how a strong web presence can benefit your business in these difficult times.

The Effect on the Industry

Both of the above lead to one thing for our industry, we are definitely getting busier. I’ve talked to a number of other professionals in the industry and nobody seems to be feeling the effects of the recession just yet. Everyone is saying the same thing – they are busier than ever. Will this last? I’m not sure but if businesses all come to realise the strengths a good website can have for their business during a recession, our industry will continue to grow. We’re working with lots of new clients on their new approach to online business as well as upgrading existing clients with new techniques to improve their presence. We would definitely recommend companies that need a new sales and marketing strategy in this unsure time to look into this further and contact one of the many companies out there that can provide a good service. Finding the right company can be difficult though so in addition to ourselves, I’d like to recommend a few web companies and individuals off the top of my head, that I know in the industry and believe they can do a great job:

• Ken Stanley – Standards guru with a good team around him for some exceptional work
• Contrast – They mainly build web apps but also design some very unique websites
• Sabrina Dent – Designs some great looking websites that have also achieved some great success
• Spoilt Child – Probably one of the best design companies in the country with an excellent portfolio
• Click Stream – Have a wide array of clients and producing some very good work
• Red Fly Marketing – For when you need to market your website in the online world

Do you need some advice?

We love talking to businesses and offering any advice we possibly can. Feel free to call me directly on 046 – 9072998 for a chat or email me at info [at] davidbehan.com.

It’s the first year of the awards set up by Damien Mulley, following the success of the Irish Blog Awards. We’ve made the long list in the Best New Web Application / Service category and we’ve got some tough competition:

Irish Web Awards

• Pix.ie
• PutPlace
• Locle
• Mortgages and Loans
• Nooked
• BookMeetingRoom.com
• Next Action
• Url.ie
• LouderVoice
• Twitterfone
• Zignals
• eWrite
• Album Shopper
• Edenbee
• PropertySwap.ie
• Poll Daddy
• Decisions For Heroes

There really are some great web apps and services in that list. I think it will be difficult to make the short list with such a competitive category. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I felt a little cheated that I wouldn’t get a chance to judge any of the categories in this years awards as we had a nomination. However, I just read on the awards.ie blog that Damien is doing something quite unique with our category. He’s getting us to judge all the other nominees in our category, which will then be added to the other judges scores before the final short list is announced. A great idea Damien.

Well, I just want to wish everyone the best of luck and looking forward to meeting familiar faces and new ones on the night.

Amazon.com

I was talking to a client this morning about mobile phones and he directed me to the amazon.com website to check out some prices. I’m not usually a visitor to their site. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever bought from them in the past. The first thing that jumped off the screen at me was an Irish flag and a message: “Shopping from Ireland? Visit Amazon.co.uk”. I really found this strange from such a large organisation. They have amazon.ie, they have it redirecting to the .co.uk store, why not just put amazon.ie in the message?

Ok, it’s probably a branding thing and they don’t have a .ie store, but it still looks strange to me from such a big company. A lot of smaller companies trading in Ireland and the UK try to secure both .ie and .co.uk domains (or get a .com to cover both) and target their sites towards each country. This has just got me thinking about how perception might effect the purchasing decision of a customer in country A, buying from a website with a domain extension from country B. The .com seems to cover all countries but should you have the different country extensions for your online business when you are targetting them in particular? This probably doesn’t effect Amazon due to their size but smaller online businesses, are they losing revenue on a global scale if they only advertise through their .ie (for example) website?

Anyway, food for thought. I didn’t buy anything in the end.

iFoods.tv

Last night saw a new episode of Dragon’s Den on BBC2, this time featuring the guys behind iFoods.tv, who were looking for £100k investment in their cooking video social network website. Unfortunately, they were not successful in taiming one of the dragons and getting them to invest but at the same time, I think they did extremely well in what they did achieve. They had a great pitch, came across very well, and achieved the respect of the dragons. However, their only fault was that there is a similar type website with a very similar name, and the dragons felt they could loose a number of visitors if users accidently found the rival site instead of their own.

I’ve known of iFoods.tv for awhile but I must admit, I’m not one for cooking too much at all so it hasn’t been a website I would visit often. I have just had the opportunity to have a closer look through their site and watch a couple of their cooking videos. Ignoring the fact that I’m now craving a BBQ’d T-Bone Steak, the site is very well done… nice design, great content, and quite unique. This post is really to help boost some sort of link love for iFoods.tv and give them a little more exposure than they have already gotten. I’m sure by appearing on Dragon’s Den, they’ve gotten their name out to so many potential visitors. I’d love to know how many visitors they have gotten to their site over the past 24 hours.

I just want to add a well done to the guys for going on Dragon’s Den. It must have been a nerve wracking experience but they seemed to handle themselves very well. If I ever aim for that stage, I may knock on their door for some advice.

All the best in the future!