Web Summit 2012 Update

10 New Speakers: This morning we're announcing 10 more incredible speakers for October's Dublin Web Summit, including what some believe is the world's hottest startup - see the list.

A Revolutionary Attendee List: If you want to instantly find out whose attending October's Summit, who you know and who you should meet - today we're launching a new app - it's very useful, see the list.

START: Last week we launched START, a "little sister" event to F.ounders. START will bring together 100 of the world's top early stage startups, investors and media. The Next Web previewed START here and you can find out more here.

Cloud & Enterprise Stages: Today we're announcing our first cloud and enterprise speaker, J.P. Rangaswami, Chief Scientist at Saleforce - find out more.

Developer Stage: We've announced 3 super Node.js speakers - for more details see our last post.

Startup Competition: Over 200 startups from around the world have already applied for theElectric Ireland Spark of Genius Competition - apply here or find out more here.

We are Back!

We are back from holidays, refreshed and ready to cover all the events in Ireland.

Europe’s Hope Entrepreneurs

While its politicians dither, startups can take up the mantle of Europe’s economic future. The news out of Europe only seems to get worse. Each government bond auction and economic data release piles on the bad news, exacerbated by a series of summits that overpromise and under-deliver. Meanwhile, the policy debate is stuck between those who blame government profligacy and those who point to underlying structural problems that plague European economies. These problems include rigid labor markets, dramatic trade imbalances among countries, and, in many places, stagnant industrial production. Hope, however, springs eternal, and Europe might look for so-called “green shoots” in an organization called Startup Weekend. Over the past few years, this American nonprofit has quietly but quickly overtaken the continent. Startup Weekend is almost exactly what it sounds like: A 54-hour event during which people compete to form teams and test ideas. On Friday night, attendees take turns making one-minute pitches to the group; following that, teams come together as people choose which ideas they would like to help develop. For the next two days, the teams work as rapidly as they can to build preliminary products, test them in the market (usually by surveys or basic demos), and figure out if they have something viable. On Sunday night, the teams pitch their product to a panel of judges. Read More

Blacknight lead the Market on IE Domains

Blacknight lead the Market on .IE Domains

Annual report shows growth for the Irish domain despite difficult economic climate

July 27, 2012 – Carlow, Ireland – Local domain heroes Blacknight confirm IEDR’s  (IE domain registry) 2011 annual report on the 8% growth of .IE domains.

The IEDR which reports a total of 173,145 registered .IE domains is responsible for the management and administration of Ireland’s official Internet address .IE, in the interest of the Irish and global Internet communities.  Of the 173,145 domains under management,  39,398 were registered during 2011.

There is perhaps no bigger champion of .IE domains than Blacknight (http://www.blacknight.com) , the extension’s most prolific registrar. Blacknight is the number one domain registrar and hosting company in Ireland and serve 39% of the Irish hosting market. Blacknight have given away nearly 5,000 free first year .IE registrations through the Getting Business Online program (http://gettingbusinessonline.ie/) ; an initiative aimed at helping Irish businesses develop their online presence.

 “As a company that is intensely focused on the Irish market, we work hard to help .IE domains thrive,” Michele Neylon of Blacknight explains. “We believe strongly in the Irish community and in .IE as a product and local startups and businesses are showing that they feel the same.”

.IE has a market share of 42% in Ireland. According to their July 25 press release IEDR performed strongly in 2011 despite poor economic conditions in Ireland.

Commenting on the 2011 results, Mr. David Curtin, Chief Executive of the IEDR said; “The past year has been an extremely difficult one for the Irish economy so we are particularly pleased to have been in a position to grow registrations, provide new promotional resources and formalise policy development programmes, while generating operating profit for the Registry.”

.IE domains have become a strong staple of Irish Internet culture and Blacknight intend to continue to strengthen the relationship between the domain and its Irish registrants.

Neylon Continues: “We suspect that part of the reason .IE performs strongly is because the Irish community want Irish domains. Giving them an incentive, like a free year’s registration doesn’t hurt either.”

Visit http://www.blacknight.com/domains.html to register your .IE domain today.
For more information on the IEDR and .IE please visit http://www.domainregistry.ie

About Blacknight:
Blacknight are an Irish based, ICANN accredited domain registrar and hosting company. Recipients of several awards for their revolutionary use of social media, Blacknight are one of Europe’s most cutting edge Internet companies. Blacknight constantly seek to lead the way by introducing innovative solutions for its client base and provide dedicated servers and colocation as well as a comprehensive range of Microsoft Windows and Linux based hosting plans and domain name registration services to business globally.

Dublin Beta 30th July PowersCourt Townhouse Dublin

On the 30th July a startup mixer will be taking place at PowersCourt Townhouse, South William Street. This event will be a mix of coders, investors, techies, designers and much more, or as from the mouth of Dublin Beta

Ireland's Premier Startup Mixer

Dublin Beta is a quarterly get-together for founders, hackers, students, investors, designers, visionaries, media professionals, and more.

Join more than 300 people for a stimulating evening of conversation, cocktails, and interactive demos, focused around Ireland's early-stage startup and technology community. 

Tickets are priced €20 for General Addmission,  2 Tickets for €30 and a bargain €10 for students / acadmeia and non-profit. Tickets available here.

This should be a fantastic event with a great chance to network and have a chat with some upcoming startups.

Startup Demos:

Our fourth event provides up to twelve Irish startups the chance to demo throughout the evening.

	Cast Interactive is a cloud-based startup that allows companies the ability to virtualize communications online in an interactive format.
	Libramatic provide a smartphone and web based library system. Their solution provides a smartphone app which allows librarians and home library owners to manage books. Unlike most library systems, Libramatic does not require information to be manually inputted. All the librarian is required to do is scan the books ISBN using a smartphones, and searches the web for the books information. Libramatic can also be managed on any internet enabled device, such as a tablet or a computer.
	MYiFLi is a web application to allow non tech users create campaign specific mobile landing pages. Pages are interactive and multi media, contain one touch calls to action and customer engagement options. Each page is issued as a short url and QR code.
	RoleConnect.com enables employers to connect directly with IT Contractors. Employers use the search engine to locate contractors with the required skills and experience. Contractors can be filtered based on their location, rates and availability. Quality is assured by our skills testing and background screening processes and employers can now not only locate talent locally but also nationally and internationally. Membership of RoleConnect.com is free for IT contractors. Employers pay a one-off introductory fee to connect with contractors that they are interested in hiring. All connections are lifelong – no cost to the employer to re-engage with a contractor. By eliminating third party fees and costs, RoleConnect.com affords the contractor the opportunity to significantly increase their take home pay while offering the employer a quick, streamlined process at dramatically reduced costs.
	Find that website you read weeks ago, faster than any other tool. SeenBeforeworks across multiple machines, displays results within Google's results and stores the website so if the content online ever changes, you can still read it.
	Siansplan.com represents the future of how we interact with food from an online perspective. Their white label product aims to bridge the gap between online recipes and online grocery shopping. They have had interest from a major brand and are partnering with a family focused website to trial their beta white label.
	SignApps was founded in 2012, and aims to bring ticketing for events into the modern age.
	Snippts is a free mobile app to create, share and discover short multimedia stories from events. Create beautiful Snippts and share them with our community and your friends on Facebook, Twitter and email. Discover new events and discuss your interests with people who share your passions. Sign up and we'll send you the download link after Dublin Beta!
	Thenoticeboard.ie is an interactive digital noticeboard which brings the traditional noticeboard into the digital age. The website provides a noticeboard for each county in Ireland, where businesses and groups can post local notices. They also offer private hosted noticeboards for use by businesses, groups and organisations.
	VideoCrisp is a cloud (SaaS) based video creation tool that allows users to create, upload, edit and share their videos on the browser itself with great ease of use. VideoCrisp empowers start-ups, small businesses and marketing professionals to create professional & interactive videos on their own without downloading any complex software and without any technical skills & knowledge of video creation. It is also developing world’s first and most advanced cloud based video editing software that empowers users to edit and change the background of videos with just one click without the use of a Chroma screen or any video studio set-up.
	It's personalisation as a service. An API that is able to recommend the most relevant content to each user. It will add value to your site by giving users' recommendations based on their interactions and explicitly stated interests.

Sponsors

SendGrid's cloud-based email infrastructure relieves businesses of the cost and complexity of maintaining custom email systems. SendGrid provides reliable delivery, scalability and real-time analytics along with flexible API's that make custom integration a breeze.

We have a number of opportunities for sponsorship. Find out more on our website.

Digital Games industry group can build on existing collaborations

Digital Games industry group can build on existing collaborations

– Discover Science & Engineering

26^th July 2012 - Discover Science & Engineering (DSE) welcomes the launch yesterday by Minister Richard Bruton TD of an industry-led group to drive the development of the digital games sector and the creation of additional jobs there.

In its terms of reference, which are built on the 2011 Forfas report on the jobs in the games sector, the development of talent and in particular the nurturing of technical skills was identified as a key challenge for Ireland to address.

DSE is actively engaged in a number of initiatives to stimulate the take up of maths and other technology and engineering related subjects at second level. During 2011, in conjunction with industry it established the Smart Futures programme which is explicitly focussed on promoting career opportunities in the broader technology sector in Ireland.

Dr. Graham Love, Director of DSE and Policy and Communications at Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) said “Smart Futures highlights the value of collaboration with and across industry. It is effective as a means of showcasing the opportunities for employment that exist and can be created in this market. We look forward to engaging with the Digital Games development group to ensure the benefit of the existing collaboration is effectively harnessed in support of the Group’s objectives.”

Dublin Web Summit Info 2012

Info from Dublin Web Summit

Attendee List: First, you'll now now find a snapshot of some of the first 500 attendees for October's Dublin Web Summit on our website. The list includes some incredible companies, startups, investors and more. It's a truly global group, including attendees from as far away as Amman in Jordan and Omaha in Nebraska, with dozens more from San Francisco, London, Berlin and beyond. See the list.

Startups: Second, today we're announcing a global startup competition, a huge startup village, a special startup price, and an entirely new event which will bring together 100 of the world's leading early stage startups, investors and media. More details here.

Trendwatching Consumer Trend Seminar

trendwatching.com's London Consumer Trend Seminar is now less than two months away (September 17)!

Tickets are selling fast, so don't wait too long to sign up and join representatives from European brands such as Jones Lang LaSalle, Channel 4, VISA, HSBC, Pure Insight, Zurich, IHG, TIU, Imperial, Seatwave, Body Shop, last.fm, Deutsche Bank, Copenhagen Airport, OMD, Akzo Nobel, Kohler Mira, Amaze and more.

Prepare for an intense half-day in which you'll be brought up to speed on all the trends that drive the innovations featured on Springwise, as well as having the opportunity to meet with likeminded Springwise readers and myself.

For full details on the program, venue and how to secure your seat today, (the early-bird price is still valid!), just go here >>>

5 weeks to CultureTech

It's now only five weeks until CultureTech kicks off in the North West featuring four days of tech, media and music in Derry, Northern Ireland. Festival tickets are still on sale and the spekers list is bulging with talent.

Digital Circle will be assisting with CultureTech by helping run the CultureTech Games Arcade being held in Foyleside Shopping Centre. We're asking local companies to come and showcase their projects from the Wednesday to the Saturday.

EVENTS

Belfast Ruby - An Introduction to Spree Commerce

• Tue, 24 July from 18:30 to 21:30 at Rumble Labs, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/belfast-ruby-an-introduction-to-spree-commerce

PyBelfast

• Wed, 25 July from 18:30 to 21:00 at Farset Labs, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/pybelfast

Crafty Coffee - Networking/Meet Up - Fri, 27 July from 08:30 to 10:30 at Crafty Devil, Belfast - http://digitalcircle.org/events/crafty-coffee-networkingmeet-up

GDC Europe 2012 - Mon, 13 August 09:00 to Wed, 15 August 18:00 at TC, Cologne -http://digitalcircle.org/events/gdc-europe-2012

CultureTech Games Arcade - Wed, 29 August 09:00 to Sat, 01 September 18:00 at Foyleside Shopping Centre, Derry - http://digitalcircle.org/events/culturetech-games-arcade

Culture Tech Festival - Wed, 29 August 12:00 to Sat, 01 September 23:00 at Millennium Forum, Derry - http://digitalcircle.org/events/culture-tech-festival

PayLane Launches Affiliate and Referral Programs

PayLane Launches Affiliate and Referral Programs

PayLane.com, an online payments processing provider, is now sharing their income – not just with their clients.

Being aware that running an e-business is based on cooperation of many companies,PayLane has just launched their latest project – Affiliate Program and Referral Program. Thanks to this new offer everyone, not just their clients, will be able to earn with PayLane – even 25% of the company’s income or €300. Both programs have the same general idea – all you need to do it recommend PayLane to a friend. So what’s the difference?

Affiliate Program guarantees 25% of the income that PayLane generates from the recommended client – for every transaction, throughout the entire contract duration. In other words, the more payments the client processes, the more you earn – whether it is €100 or €1,000,000.

Referral Program rewards both the new client and the referring partner – both side can receive even up to €300. There is no limit of referrals, so PayLane pays for every referred company – even if it is hundreds of them.

“Almost everyone before deciding whether to trust a new company or not asks friends or trusted companies for recommendations. Affiliate and Referral Programs are based on such a mechanism. It’s a typical win-win situation – when a business becomes PayLane’s client, both sides gain from it – the partner and PayLane” says Ula Lachowicz, Brand Manager at PayLane.

PayLane offers marketing support with promotional materials, including dedicated logos, banners and graphics. Participation in both programs is available to everyone and can take place at the same time

Crowdcube named one of the UK's hottest start-ups

Crowdcube named one of the UK's hottest start-ups

 
   Crowdcube has been name one of the "hottest, most exciting start-ups in
   the UK" in 2012 by Startups.co.uk. The awards comprise of the most
   "creative, original, disruptive and downright impressive new companies"
   with judges looking for innovative ideas, impressive achievements and
   growth potential.  Not only were we placed at No 11 in the top 100 but
   three companies that we helped to fund in the last six months - Escape
   the City (#46), Righteous Ltd (#54) and Universal Fuels Ltd (#68) -
   were also placed in the top 100.

Youtube release face blurring feature

Amanda Conway (Youtube policy associate)  posted on Youtube's blog about a face blurring feature that was released on the 18th of July. The feature allows for the blurring of faces on a video being uploaded Youtube.

The obvious target of the feature would be those involved in protests and want to keep their anonymity. Even in the blog post it's clear that they see this as initial use of the feature, the video featured in the blog uses a 'Demonstration in Egpyt' video to show how the blurring effect works. However, it can be used wherever a person wants to protect the anonymity in a video posted to Youtube.

PayLane for geeks

PayLane for geeks

PayLane.com, an online payments processing provider, has launched Developer Zone – a website for  programmers with full documentation and code samples needed to integrate with PayLane.

PayLane has become even more developer-friendly and published code samples necessary to use PayLane services. Now, even before signing a contract with PayLane, you can see what the technical side of such implementation looks like. Developer Zone includes a description of two ways of integrating with PayLane – via API and Secure Form (payment form) – with a detailed illustration of the communication flow. Besides that, programmers have now access to code samples including PHP, Java, C#, Ruby, Python, cURL, which demonstrate possible use of PayLane API. What is interesting, developers can now write code in their favourite programming language thanks to PayLane API being based on SOAP.

Requests demo, which allows performing a test payment, generates request and response examples, with which the programmer can see what communication with PayLane looks like – both successful and not.

Every developer gains an unlimited access to full documentation of PayLane, which so far was available only to their clients, such as the description of API, Secure Form, Transaction Notifications and 3-D Secure Guide, which will help choose the optimal service.

For online shop owners, PayLane has prepared the Plugins section, which contains the description of PayLane add-ons for e-commerce platforms and an installation guide. Any shop built on Magento, osCommerce, Zen Cart, OpenCart, PrestaShop or WordPress can now accept PayLane payments on their websites in just a few minutes.

No doubt developers will appreciate a tongue-in-cheek feature – Developer Zone can be viewed in normal and “geek mode”.

About PayLane

PayLane.com is a customer-focused online payments processing provider with extensive experience in European markets. Company currently processes payments in currencies from over 50 countries and is constantly enriching its offerings based on market drivers and opportunities. Its close relationships with carefully selected acquiring banks allow PayLane to provide the best possible terms and conditions for each merchant account. PayLane is an officially registered Visa, MasterCard, American Express and PayPal partner.

Skype roll out hotfix in coming days

Skype has been experiencing a bug where sending an IM to a contact may go to another recipient. Being wary on what you say on Skype will be prudent this week.

Clients affected by the bug are:

Skype 5.10 for Windows

Skype 5.8 for Mac

Skype 4.0 for Linux

Skype 1.2 for Windows Phone

The hot fix will address the following issue outlined by Skype:

Skype client crashes during a Skype IM session, which may in some cases result in the last IM entered or sent prior to the crash being delivered to a different IM contact after the Skype client is rebooted or logged in as a new user.

Full Details of the bug and all details can be found here.

Yahoo - Marissa Mayer new CEO

Google executive Marissa Mayer will become new CEO of Yahoo after her 13 year spell at Google. Yahoo's previous CEO Scott Thompson resigned over a scandal about his CV, which he claimed to have computer science degree.

Belaguered Yahoo will hope the appointment of Mayer will help turnaround fortunes at the company Only time will tell if this is the strategic decision needed by Yahoo.

Dublin Web Summit announce speakers

In case you missed the news from the Dublin Web Summit today, the first ten speakers have been announced and the list of speakers can be found here. The list contains 10 of the top female entrepreneurs from tech and further a field. More speakers will be added and you still have the opportunity to recommend a speaker.

Tickets will go on sale on the 17th of July for the biggest tech event of the year and you can register for the 2 for 1 offer on the the Dublin Web Summit site. We will have more details as they become available.

Dublin Web Summit is launching its very own platform

Dublin Web Summit is launching its very own platform, which includes ticketing, in private beta for the Dublin Web Summit called Trigger, accesible through the Web Summit website.

It coincides with tickets going on sale at 12 noon today, and is our first spin-out product. All feedback is welcome ahead of a public launch later this year. We think it will help change groups and events for the better.

Even More Speakers: We're also announcing 10 more speakers today, including some incredible media and entrepreneurs from around the world. You can find full details in our speakers section and blog. If you missed yesterday's first 10 female speakers you'll find the apparently "controversial" details on our website.

We're also announcing as of this morning our first developer conference running inside the Dublin Web Summit: Node Dublin is a dedicated Node.js conference. You can find out who our first three incredible speakers are on our website.

Finally, for the first time you can nominate anyone to speak at the Summit using our new nomination app. Over 250 new speakers have been nominated so far, and it's helping us rethink our final few speakers out of that 200 that we will be announcing. In other words we're crowdsourcing great new speakers and anyone can nomiante anyone.

Its Holiday time

Well its holiday time, and we will not be posting much over the next 2 weeks. So as we recharge our batteries, we will be back in Aug with loads of news and updates.

Enjoy your summer

News from Crowdcube

New fast and secure online payments method

   GoCardless ensures that your money stays in your account until a pitch
   hits 100 per cent of its funding target. The secure one-off direct
   debit is quick and easy to set up and will automatically be cancelled
   if a pitch doesn't reach its target. So you'll never miss out on a
   pitch and the money stays in your account.

http://www.crowdcube.com/blog/2012/06/26/new-online-payment-option-launched?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Company turns down two VC's and raises £600k on Crowdcube

Escape the City

Escape the City, a website that helps ambitious professionals to
   make exciting career transitions, stunned The City by turning down two
   high profile venture capital firms to use Crowdcube.  Rob and Dom, the
   co-founders, then went on to successfully raise £600,000 in just two
   weeks on Crowdcube.

http://www.crowdcube.com/pg/case-study-escape-the-city-62?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

   The press loved the story too with Wired.com writing 'Start-up shuns
   VC investment, crowd-funds £500,000 in a week' while The Times went
   with the headline 'Taking the alternative approach to raising
   money'. See links below:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/31/crowdfunding-escape-the-city?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/smallbusinessinsights/article3449157.ece?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Pitches on Crowdcube

Universal Fuels
   Fresh after receiving £100,000 from a private investor through
   Crowdcube, and £100,000 loan from a high street bank, Universal Fuels
   are seeking another £50,000 to complete their funding requirement.

http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/universal-fuels-10536?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Frontup Rugby
   Front Up is a UK rugby fashion brand backed by a growing number of
   professional players and a team of experienced retailers. England
   International James Haskell is an investor and member of the Front Up
   board of directors.

http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/front-up-rugby-10623?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Savvy Mummys
   Savvy Mummys is Groupon for mums. After only 10 months we are the UK's
   leading daily deal site for mums with over 80,000 mums signed up to
   receive our daily deals.

http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/savvy-mummys-10632?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Recruiter
   Recruiter Site is a low cost online Job Posting and candidate online
   recruitment solution.

http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/recruiter-site-10518?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Fruit Connect
   Fruit Connect is an online media website and social network, focused
   largely on the English speaking, Gay & Lesbian markets of UK, USA,
   Canada, and Australia.

http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/fruit-connect-10635?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Roland Hayes
   Roland Hayes is a fresh new British brand that challenges the
   traditional high end men's footwear market.

http://www.crowdcube.com/investment/roland-haynes-limited-10633?utm_source=Crowdcube&utm_campaign=e531aac968-Escape_the_City7_11_2012&utm_medium=email

Nominate a Speaker For DWS 2012

Nominate a Speaker: For DWS 2012

The theme of this year's Summit is "The New Architects". Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Skype's Niklas Zennstrom and YouTube's Chad Hurley are just some of those visionary architects who have taken to the stage over the last two years, and some of them will be back this year. But what about the next wave of visionary entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, inventors and investors reshaping our world? Well for the first time, if you'd like to recommend a speaker, you now can using our crowd sourced speaker app.

The Marketing Conference Of The Year... At Your Desk!

The Marketing Conference Of The Year... At Your Desk! Today, customers hold all the cards. They choose when, where and how to engage with your business. So how do you attract, engage and retain them when they're calling the shots? Sign up for the Vocus Virtual Conference on July 19th at 10:00 AM ET and let six top marketing experts show you how. Highlights include: Peter Shankman (HARO) will show you how to create huge word-of-mouth Lee Odden (TopRank) will help you stand out with inspirational content marketing Jim Joseph (Cohn & Wolfe) will teach you to keep customers coming back! Live Q&A sessions with all six speakers after their recorded presentations It's a world-class marketing conference, right at your desk: Reserve your seat today!