Inside View from Ireland

Widgets Now Mainstream

WHILE DEBATE STILL rages about Flash as a truly accessible front end for web sites, the side discussion about Flash players and widgets has taken a different tack. I believe Flash players that make widgets work have become a new paradigm for content distribution and consumption. Every week brings another widget to the Six Apart content management servers. But beyond the servers, I believe people with broadband connections will drop Flash widgets on their desktops well before Windows Vista is firmly established in the workplace.

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Net Visionaries More Brands Than People

ON THE WAY back from the 2006 Net Visionaries Awards, I was struck by how the evening was more about brands than people. It's not a detraction, just a reality of running a glitz event when you need to accommodate the reach of the brands who pony up to pay for exposure. This is something Damien Mulley needs to consider when ramping up the Irish Blog Awards because the more buzz you give to an evening with friends, the more it normally costs. And if you tap into company money, you have to spotlight a company brand.

There was a harmony in the air among the hundreds who gathered for the Net Visionaries in Killiney. By the way, true visionaries read this blog. There were no losers. It was hard to pick out the gate crashers because they didn't have a seat during the awards or the dinner. Only a few were hanging in the wings, clutching free wine, watching the proceedings. It's very difficult to crash a seated affair nowadays. We actually haven't paid for our seats yet. We'll return to Killiney Castle because it was one of the best evening outs we've ever enjoyed in Dublin.

Notes from Table 32

WHILE AT THE Net Visionary Awards in Dublin, my notes of the evening include some interesting things worth tucking away for future cross-reference. Along with Stacey (shown at left) and Tanja, we'll have a podcast that encapsulates the evening from our Tipperary perspective.

Please visit podcasting.ie

WHILE WE ARE away in Dublin and Limerick, traveling without our mail-to-blog Nokia Communicator, we're noticing traffic to this blog is bubbling around 10,000 real visitors this week. Why not trade your visit for a click into podcasting.ie where you can hear some emotive comments about driving safely on Irish roads? Or offer audio feedback on reformatting an iPod. I hate it when I have to rebuild my legacy content on my iPod. The thing is so helpful when listening to material for future show segments.

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Shola discusses freedom and Irish road safety.

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Most popular camera on Flickr

AT THE NET VISIONARIES without a decent camera, I see my Fuji workhorse no longer qualifies on the short list of most popular cameras used by Flickr photographers, including images snapped by those using my Fujifilm S602. I need a new camera. I have to focus on getting a digital SLR camera instead of buying a new laptop. As a result, I won't be entering the realm of videocasting anytime soon because I don't have 10 gigs of scratch space on anything I own. And I'll keep snapping images the way 40% of all Flickr cameraphone users--by snapping them with my Nokia cameraphone. If I wanted better resolution, I might agree to get the most popular cameraphone used to snap photos for Flickr.

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Stefan Constantinescu -- "2 of the top 5 cameraphones used by Flickr users are made by Nokia"
More from Irish Net Visionaries Awards.

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Hens Zimmerman Talks MP3

FEW PEOPLE have the pedigreee of Hens Zimmerman so when he offers inside information about producing audio files, those halfway interested in podcasting should listen and learn.

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Hens Zimmerman sounds good.

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Michael Fitzgerald on Drink Driving

COUNCILLOR MICHAEL Fitzgerald met third level college students from Tipperary Institute today to explain his unfortunate remarks about driving while over the limit. In a 50-minute conversation, he covered material about properly framing a message that will educate students, politicians, organisers, presenters and anyone in a public space. It's all part of a podcast from Ireland that should automagically appear here after it's compressed as an MP3 file. Recommended--you don't need an iPod.

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Photo of Michael Fitzgerald by Katie Conway.
Podcasting in Ireland -- "Michael Fitzgerald on Driving Safety"
Damien Blake -- "Irish road carnage"

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Construction Workers

AN ITALIAN, A SCOTSMAN and a Chinese fellow are hired at a construction site.

Talking about Irish Road Safety

CONTROVERSIAL TIPPERARY Councillor Mick Fitzgerald is sharing a pizza while talking to third level students about driving on Irish roads with four social pints in your belly. If you want to join this conversation live, please text +353 86 8278287 between 1130-1300 on Wednesday 15 November. The researcher will take your point to the table during a face-to-face conversation with Cllr Fitzgerald and the college students.

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You can slice right into students musing about this issue at the 13:30 point of Underway in Ireland #55.

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Playing with Media Convert

MEDIA-CONVERT offers free online conversions of media files between various formats. You select input/output formats and submit a web form to start the conversion. The input format can be detected automatically and file sizes up to 50 Mb are allowed. You can also enter the address of any website to automatically create a screenshot. You can do this from a mobile phone. I wish I could convert MSV to MP3 with the system. The WAP uploader for transferring files directly to mobile phones via a generated URL looks like http://media-convert.com/wap (code=abcdef). We're playing with it to convert a backbeat of commonplace noises that you can hear on Underway in Ireland #55 [18.1 MB 96 kbps MP3 file] into a ringtone.