Two Irish Startups Find Success in San Francisco
Hot on the heels of the announcement by Intercom that it raised €23m in Series B financing, Stripe, the online payments company founded by Patrick and John Collison, have announced a Series C round of $80m dollars which values the business at €1.75bn dollars. Both companies are founded by Irish people and both are growing […]
A Lick of Paint [Audio]
Today’s podcast (40:09, 24MB, MP3) was recorded by Michele and Conn at Blacknight HQ, as painters put the finishing touch to the recent rennovations, in preparation for the official launch of Blacknight’s brand new datacentre (more on that soon!) Michele reports from Namescon, which he attended last week in Las Vegas. We talk about domain […]
Let It Go (Frozen) In 25 Languages
Disney films are popular in the four corners of the globe, so they get dubbed into a lot of different languages. And with the animated films the songs are, in many cases, an extension of the spoken dialogue, so they get dubbed too. Here’s “Let It Go” from the Disney hit “Frozen” in 25 languages […]
Realex Payments Announce Stellar Growth (again)
Realex Payments have announced their Q4 results by way of a nice graphic, as they’ve done in the past. Their growth is continuing with over 40% growth in Q4 2013 compared to Q4 2012. Here’s the lowdown: Nicely done! Related articles What are Ireland’s hottest start-ups: is there a new Google out there? (independent.ie) Congrats […]
Google Glass Could be the Ultimate Sex Toy
There’s a scene in an episode of Black Mirror, where a couple is having sex. In that fictional society, most people have an implant, called a ‘grain’, which records their every waking moment, and can replay any experience for the user, privately, ‘in their mind’s eye’. It turns out that, while making love, both partners […]
The Top Social Brands of 2013
Here’s some more great research on social media for business by Social Bakers. The #SociallyDevoted report is out for Q4, 2013, with Dutch Airline KLM topping the poll for customer service on social media. Airlines in general are better at social media with a 76.4% response rate on Facebook compared with 59.4% average across all […]
Web Summit Expands To US With Collision Conf
The team behind Web Summit is expanding into the US. While details on the new conference “Collision Conf” are scant, we do know that Paddy Cosgrave and his team are organising a fairly ambitious conference in the US later this year. They’ve chosen Las Vegas to be the venue, which makes a lot of sense […]
LogMeIn Pulls Free Service Without Notice
We’ve said in the past and I suspect we’ll have to say it again in the future .. If you don’t pay for a service then you are part of the product .. though treating your users badly probably isn’t the best idea .. LogMeIn sent out an email to their free tier users earlier […]
Chris Byrne on integrating SMS, Email and Social Marketing [Audio]
Chris Byrne is Conn’s guest on today’s podcast (23:48, 14MB, MP3). Chris runs Sensorpro, which provides marketing automation services such as email newsletters and surveys. He’s just back from the National Retail Federation Annual Convention and Expo in New York where speakers included Jack Dorsey and George W Bush. While at NRF, Sensorpro announced the addition […]
Google Nuked 350 Million Ads in 2013
Google is essentially an advertising company. Advertising revenue drives most of the company’s activities, but its policies around advertisers has led to them getting into “hot water” in the past. Why? Because “bad actors” try to abuse Google Adwords to promote counterfeit goods, scams and a range of other illegal or misleading activities. As part […]