Monday, March 2, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
MJEX - Turn The Magic On
Having bought the latest Messiah J and the Expert album this was easily one of my favourite tracks and had some serious rotation. The video catches the mood of the song perfectly and I cannot recommend the new album "From The Word Go" strongly enough. An Irish band doing it so spectacularly right, vote for them for Best Album in the Meteor Awards here and check out the Monkees inspired video below.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Todays Links
AllThingsD's list of potential tech mergers and acquisitions to jump-start the economy.
Flight of the Concords ripping off Ireland third most popular folk-parody act? Surely not!
Nialler is on the case.
But fear not as comedy will be saved by the Arrested Development movie which now looks set to go. But should we be worried?
And last but not least, not only has he changed the manner in which campaigns are run, people's perception of America and how Washington does its accounts, Obama is now gonna change hip-hop.
Flight of the Concords ripping off Ireland third most popular folk-parody act? Surely not!
Nialler is on the case.
But fear not as comedy will be saved by the Arrested Development movie which now looks set to go. But should we be worried?
And last but not least, not only has he changed the manner in which campaigns are run, people's perception of America and how Washington does its accounts, Obama is now gonna change hip-hop.
Someone Tweet Joe Duffy!
As this being the second post suggests, I am new to this whole blogging thing. When I saw a post on Damien Mulley's blog about Joe Rospars aka Barrack Obama's New Media Director giving a talk I immediately wanted in. Social media is a big interest of mine and Obama '08 was a defining point in the evolution of this medium so hearing from a man integral to such a successful and historic campaign was too good to miss. The event was promoted by Strawberry Media and although registration was closed a pleading email was very promptly replied to by a Damien who told me to pop along anyway. So far so great, interesting speaker, friendly efficient PR and a nice free pricetag attached for these recessionary times.
Upon arrival there were plenty in attendence and there was certainly a buzz about the room. I am new to events such as these so I must confess I have no frame of reference to compare but all seemed quite normal. When the event did kick off I must confess I was a bit taken aback by being welcomed by Fianna Fail?! Now I must confess only a passing interest in politics and certainly have no political affiliations so I had no real idea who these people were. The promotion I saw for the event certainly did not mention anything of FF and I have subsequently found that the prompt reply from Damien was Councillor Damien Blake of FF themselves. Anyway the event continued and Joe Rospars fielded questions in the manner that you would expect Obama's New Media Director to with the brand spanking new FF website in the background. Personally I enjoyed the event but as I said I am new to these things.
Now I am not on Twitter and I certainly wasn't keeping tabs on what all the bloggers in the room were feeling via my laptop or phone. Call me old fashioned but if I've gone along to see someone talk I feel I should listen. Although I must be a lot more out of touch than I thought because apparantly I was sitting amidst some seriously pissed off people! Damien, Gav and many others have blogged about the lack of transparency involved in the situation. I really do have to agree that by not disclosing themselves in the promotion of the event FF are kinda missing the whole point of blogs and how this whole social media thing works. Transparency and full disclosure are inherent to new media, it's about trusting people and accepting that they can be in control. Maman Poulet makes the very good point that a transparent FF online strategy discussion with bloggers a la Bord Gais would probably have been much more valuable and certainly not caused as much fuss. To his credit Cllr Damien Blake has been in overdrive tonight dishing out apologies and even shouldering the blame via his own blog.
While I agree the furore is justified and many people are right to feel confused and annoyed about the situation, at least Irish politics is finally creeping towards it's digital future. Tonights event was certainly not the dawning of a new age of social media engagement from Irish political parties but with any luck lessons will be learned, fingers will not be burnt and politicians will slog on and strive to get it right next time they attempt to engage with the online community.
Upon arrival there were plenty in attendence and there was certainly a buzz about the room. I am new to events such as these so I must confess I have no frame of reference to compare but all seemed quite normal. When the event did kick off I must confess I was a bit taken aback by being welcomed by Fianna Fail?! Now I must confess only a passing interest in politics and certainly have no political affiliations so I had no real idea who these people were. The promotion I saw for the event certainly did not mention anything of FF and I have subsequently found that the prompt reply from Damien was Councillor Damien Blake of FF themselves. Anyway the event continued and Joe Rospars fielded questions in the manner that you would expect Obama's New Media Director to with the brand spanking new FF website in the background. Personally I enjoyed the event but as I said I am new to these things.
Now I am not on Twitter and I certainly wasn't keeping tabs on what all the bloggers in the room were feeling via my laptop or phone. Call me old fashioned but if I've gone along to see someone talk I feel I should listen. Although I must be a lot more out of touch than I thought because apparantly I was sitting amidst some seriously pissed off people! Damien, Gav and many others have blogged about the lack of transparency involved in the situation. I really do have to agree that by not disclosing themselves in the promotion of the event FF are kinda missing the whole point of blogs and how this whole social media thing works. Transparency and full disclosure are inherent to new media, it's about trusting people and accepting that they can be in control. Maman Poulet makes the very good point that a transparent FF online strategy discussion with bloggers a la Bord Gais would probably have been much more valuable and certainly not caused as much fuss. To his credit Cllr Damien Blake has been in overdrive tonight dishing out apologies and even shouldering the blame via his own blog.
While I agree the furore is justified and many people are right to feel confused and annoyed about the situation, at least Irish politics is finally creeping towards it's digital future. Tonights event was certainly not the dawning of a new age of social media engagement from Irish political parties but with any luck lessons will be learned, fingers will not be burnt and politicians will slog on and strive to get it right next time they attempt to engage with the online community.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Welcome
Over recent years I have been informed, entertained and inspired by the many blogs that make up my daily reading. Not a day goes past that I don't pathetically attempt to pass off some genuinely intelligent and innovative persons point of view as my own after stumbling across their latest post. The majority of my favourite new music since about 2005 has been sourced through enthusiastic music fans excitedly raving about their latest find via the now ubiquitous blogosphere. So the majority of my opinions, critiques, like and dislikes in recent memory have at least been highly influenced by living vicariously via RSS feeds.
So while I have had previous abortive attempts at blogging this is my latest attempt to belatedly join the herd and start ranting and raving with all the other lunaitcs. I don't expect many visitors or to be signing any six-figure book deals but hopefully this site will at least serve as a means for me to keep track of interesting links and accredit those whose opinions I'm blatently nicking.
While I have no specific goals or niche topics that I want to tackle, my interests can be broadly categorised as technology, business, music and the weird and wonderful stuff that you often stumble upon on the Internet. I'm sure if I do actually get into the habit of blogging regularly certain themes will become apparent but we will have to wait and see how long I last effectively talking to myself on the Internet.
So while I have had previous abortive attempts at blogging this is my latest attempt to belatedly join the herd and start ranting and raving with all the other lunaitcs. I don't expect many visitors or to be signing any six-figure book deals but hopefully this site will at least serve as a means for me to keep track of interesting links and accredit those whose opinions I'm blatently nicking.
While I have no specific goals or niche topics that I want to tackle, my interests can be broadly categorised as technology, business, music and the weird and wonderful stuff that you often stumble upon on the Internet. I'm sure if I do actually get into the habit of blogging regularly certain themes will become apparent but we will have to wait and see how long I last effectively talking to myself on the Internet.
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