August 30th, 2007 by Jason Roe
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Something a little bit different, I decided to post a few of my photographs taken with my DSLR Canon 400D.
This photo was taken while I was staying up in the D Hotel, Drogheda. The picture is a close up shot of a really nice free standing light that they have in all of the rooms.
What I love about this photo is the way that light radiates warmth from beneath the colder outer shells. Natural light from the window also seems to bring out vivid textures.
This photo was also taken in the same hotel. The shot is much darker but radiates from a lamp shaped like a glowing orb. I love the way that the grain in the wood is drawn out, this is also helped by the unusual angle.
August 28th, 2007 by Jason Roe
A quick reminder that the findings from the coworking survey are available over at coworking.ie.
August 22nd, 2007 by Jason Roe
I have been a bit bogged down with work over that last month. After picking the winner of the co-working competition (ended on the June 29th), I somehow couldn’t find the time to announce our findings or a winner..
That’s no excuse! … So I’m going to increase the prize pool to €150 cash and a €150 donation to the registered charity of the winner’s choice.
On Friday, we will present the findings from our survey and announce the winner.
June 28th, 2007 by Jason Roe
A quick reminder to everyone that the coworking.ie survey prize draw will be closing tomorrow. The results of the survey will be made public some time next week on the coworking.ie website.
Click here to Start the Coworking Survey.
If you haven’t already done so, please fill out our coworking survey.
May 25th, 2007 by Jason Roe
A big hello to all of my Irish Election visitors. The guys over at irishelection.com have a live update of the Irish Election count that is currently in progress (Well nearly!).
I helped the guys set up a Live SMS feed for the website. The feed and SMS instructions can be found on the top right hand column of the Irishelection.com home page.
While your here make sure to subscribe to my RSS feed.
Alternatively you can stick your email address in the “Subscribe� text box on the right hand column. Make sure press the “Subscribe Me!� button. We will then send you email alerts when my Blog is updated. You can opt-out at any time.
May 24th, 2007 by Jason Roe
In April, Dave Davis from redfly marketing reported on the impact of MySpace registering their trademark with Google. This trademark caused many home grown MySpace fan sites to take a hit because of the lack of Adsense opportunities.
Issues like this highlighted the risk surrounding niche bottom feeder sites. Brand feeders tend to latch onto popular online tends, many feeders leverage bigger brands and target unexplored brand niches. Large corporate brands face this problem on a daily basis.
Feeding your brand.
In the MySpace example, many of the Feeders where not trying to directly compete with MySpace. Smart brands are aware that keeping your brand space busy can sometime be a good thing. A busier brand market place means that the cost for competitors to leverage your brand will often be quite high. This brand cluttering concept will result in competitors costs being driven up.
The downside of brand cluttering is that when a brand becomes too cluttered it can be hard for your clients to see through all of the smoke. While your competitor’s costs will rise, so will the cost of maintaining your brand.
Allakhazam and the brand revolts!
Accountants and CFO’s are the kryptonite for any brand marketer. As soon as a good accountant sees that the maintenance of a brand is becoming too high, they will often look for a solution to the problem. The simplest option is always the first route that will be taken. Simple is not a word I would normally associate with the registering a trademark with Google. Anyone that has been faced with challenge of registering a trademark with Google will understand that the process is long and arduous.
You own the trademark but not the brand
Most companies are unaware that their customers control their brand. This was covered in a book entitled Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth
. Alex suggests that the role of a brand marketer is to guide a brand not control it.
The interesting thing about a “simple” solution to a problem is that it will often backfire on the brand marketer. After Dave highlighted this issue, I decided I would keep an eye on void that the Myspace trademark saga left behind.
As brand feeders could no longer buy some of the pie, they were forced to invade the organic space. Using the Mark Alert tool from Domain Tools, I tracked the rate of new domain names being registered with the term “myspace” somewhere in the domain. In total over 2421 domains where identified with matching criteria. The Graph below tracks the rate of growth over a 40 day period. The graph peaks at 229 and dips to 14 at its higest and lowest point.
“Sometimes it is better to guide a brand rather than control it.” - Jason Roe
May 19th, 2007 by Jason Roe
It’s been a very busy month for me. Fear not, Im back!
Coworking Ireland has really taken off over the last month.
We now have 4 active bloggers contributing to the project. Pop over to coworking.ie and take a look at some of the interesting topics being discussed. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Coworking blog.
James Corbett (EirePreneur) reports on Business Class Network looking for locations.
The inside track on Adam Street - Private Members Club in London.
Paul Campbell, Reported from Citzen Space San Francisco!
Irish Independent also got a facelift!
A lot of work went in by the team to get the site up and running. The site migrated fairly smoothly from unison to independent. Personally I don’t see the guardian resemblance with the new indo design.
The layout is much better than the 7 year old design. The site is a lot more accessible and each section now has an RSS feed. Mandatory registration has been removed unlike some other papers.
With a fairly bold move for traditional media, public comments opened up on the site! Make sure to post your feedback on the We Have Changed page. Your opinion is very important, Bad or Good.
LoadzaJobs changed a bit too!
I’m not sure if anyone noticed but Loadzajobs also got some minor cosmetic changes on the front page. The site now has a clearer Featured Recruiters, Popular categories & locations, and a handy list of Industries / Categories down the bottom of the page. I have dug up a snapshot from April of last year to help you compare the changes, Before & After.
More to come next week!
April 9th, 2007 by Jason Roe
It looks like Google has implemented a new “Note This� feature into the SERPS (Search Results Pages) over the weekend. The handy little feature allows you to quickly and easily take note of search results for later viewing within Google Notebook.
This could be a big blow for some of the social bookmarking services. Form a data mining point of view, this might be another key tool that could be used to identify the value of a page link or service.
From The Google notebook homepage
Clip and collect information as you browse the web.
- Clip useful information.You can add clippings of text, images and links from web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window.
- Organize your notes. You can create multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, and drag-and-drop your notes to stay organized.
- Get access from anywhere.You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.
- Publish your notebook. You can share your Google Notebook with the world by making it public.
April 5th, 2007 by Jason Roe
When I heard about this Hotel Ballymun project, I was slightly torn on if it was a good idea or not. The idea of converting the top floor of a derelict building into an interactive art exhibition slightly amused me. The fact that some benefit came to the local people involved also showed a sign of change in the area.
On the flip side, the area itself was ripe with poverty for decades. Many people were forced to live there and had no real alternatives. Many lives where destroyed because of social deprivation. The idea of “Poverty Tourism” doesn’t really appeal to me in the slightest.
On that note, here is Hotel Ballymun - “Poverty Tourism”.
Home Seamus Nolan:
From 31st of March to the 27th of April 2007 the top floor of the Clarke Tower, one of the last remaining tower blocks in Ballymun, will open its doors to the public in the form of a unique short stay hotel.
Artist Seamus Nolan was commissioned by Breaking Ground, the Ballymun Regeneration per cent for art scheme, to undertake a new work in this changing suburb of Dublin.
April 4th, 2007 by Jason Roe
It seems that 3v have finally copped on that charring a €5 euro premium for a prepaid voucher is just nuts. For a limited time 3v are giving you your 5 euro fee back in the form of credit.
With a €2.5 fee to get money back, you might actually lose out ..
