Inside View from Ireland

Short News and Long Read

I'VE ONE LONG READ, five minutes of news summaries and one question this week after reading two Irish Sunday broadsheets.

I recommend setting aside some quiet time to read Charles Murray's take on the increasingly sharp polarisation of American society. [1] He asks, "How much run does the American project have? as he unpacks a civic culture so widely shared that it's more like a civil religion.

Of all the tech announcements and government hype, the initiative I admire most lands on page 9 of the Sunday Times. It's John Handelaar's FixMyStreet project, one I hope goes the distance. [2]

And Ireland's Social Media Awards ramps up into the submission phase this week but I wonder how in the world you can apply a standard of effectiveness to a Twitter account since few people ever agree on communications protocols in tweetspace.

Some News, a Long Read and a Question

See the five-minute video below the break.

Facebook Needs to Make More Money Out of Me

I AM STUNNED by the market capitalisation of Facebook and the way I see things, Facebook needs to make a lot more money out of me. Or go pop.

Facebook will get more money from my eyeballs, especially if Mark Zuckenberg's vision to connect everybody on the planet comes to fruition. It's not important that half the planet doesn't have modern electricity or phones. Most of the other three billion people have access to mobile phones where they're going to find Facebook powering their phone books and notification client.

Around a year ago, Marc Andreessen put my value to Facebook at "one or two dollars per user"($1.53 to be precise), which sounded perfectly acceptable to him. Last year, "each of the 845 million active members brought $4.39 in revenue and $1.18 in net income. Even better, based on the $3.9 billion in cash and marketable securities on FB’s balance sheet, each of these users generated a cosy cash input of $1.53 dollars," according to Frederic Filloux of Monday Note.

If the stock market values Facebook at $100 billion, my Facebook subscription is worth $118. I won't have to pay that money but that's what the market thinks my attention and my presence is worth (alongside every other Facebooker too).

Frederic Filloux cranks some other media property numbers for comparison.

Talking Points

SEVERAL SUNDAY BROADSHEET ITEMS are likely talking points for early February in Ireland, beginning with the new-found prosperity some working in Facebook's Dublin headquarters may soon enjoy. Facebook enjoys the same corporation tax breaks as other multinationals operating with services in Ireland.

The Sunday Times Magazine is also worth a long read, covering 50 years of themes and photos from its archive. I'm handing it to the grandparents because the coverage pays fair tribute to life in the Sixties in both England and Ireland. I recorded a five-minute clip with my Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and let it automagically upload to YouTube. I'm doing these weekly clips because I hope they can give my children an idea of what we were talking about in this decade of austerity. I've embedded the video clip below the break.

The economists in both the Sunday Business Post and the Sunday Times point out compelling flaws with the economic austerity imposed on the country. I don't think the current imposition of deflation stimulates recovery.

Fresh Sunday News

Special Shout-out for Sean Sherlock TD

I DEDICATED MY SUNDAY NEWSROUND to making a shout-out to Sean Sherlock, the Dail deputy empowered to hammer home the Irish version of SOPA that will damage the innovation culture of Ireland. I'm unsure whether the Deputy is listening to the chorus of advice emanating from the Irish tech sector.

I've made a YouTube clip about the problem, using the excellent points raised by Adrian Weckler in his Sunday Business Post columns. Without being hyperbolic, I believe Ireland is at the same point in transitional history as the world was when the Church was trying to constrain Gutenberg from printing copies of the Bible for the common man.

Closer to the present, I know how easy it will be for a big business to get a court order that constrains a small company from displaying information on its website. With a well-argued copyright allegation, the music business could obtain a court order shut down a URL if the judge felt the alleged offender hadn't paid the market rate for a music sample in promotional material on a website. This happens now whenever This Week in Tech plays certain video segments about contentious issues on YouTube. If the TWiT newsclip merely repeats a portion of a video clip while a panel of experts discusses it, a rights holder can simply petition YouTube to pull the clip. With the Irish version of the law, a judge could be persuaded to shut down the entire website, not just an infringing video clip. This is wrong on so many levels. And yet, that's the kind of judicial power that Sean Sherlock and friends want to cede to the judiciary.

Don't Irish politicians see the immense harm they will inflict upon innovative creatives in the start-up community if they pass this law?

Shout-out to Sean Sherlock TD

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Watch this on YouTube by clicking on the image or listen to it on Audioboo.

Stop SOPA in Ireland.

Text browsers can listen at http://www.insideview.ie/files/shout-out-to-sean-sherlock-td.mp3

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Long Reads from the Sunday Times in Ireland

TODAY'S SUNDAY TIMES includes more long reads per inch than most issues I've purchased during the past 12 months. Its contents today will keep the paper on my kitchen table for most of the next week.

The Backlash Against SOPA

Camilla Long talked to Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia to find out why he shut down the global encyclopedia to protest against privacy laws. Perhaps a more compelling piece comes from Adrian Weckler in the Sunday Business Post. [2] Weckler believes "the Irish government's new statutory instrument threatens to do some of the same things as SOPA, mainly introducing the power to force ISPs to block websites suspected of having copyrighted material on them." This is wrong-headed mainly because of its lack of due process. If this Irish law is rammed through the Dail without the benefit of primary legislative review, it will damage the attraction Ireland has held out for companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter. In my mind, the legislation outlined to Adrian Weckler by the Minister for State Sean Sherlock gives major record labels Gestapo-like powers in Ireland. In the world defined by draft Irish legislation, when a content creator issues a complaint to an ISP, there is no discussion. There's only a takedown (or shutdown). This is bad legislation for Ireland and as toxic to innovation as SOPA and PIPA in the States. These points percolate out in discussion at Boards.ie.

Long Reads on a Sunday

Sunday Newsround

IRISH SUNDAY PAPERS are flying a lot of kites this weekend with speculation rife about more swinging cuts to be made in the national fabric. The papers normally start to offer platforms by advocates opposed to the cutbacks.

I've made an eight-minute extract of Irish news that an American like myself finds most interesting on an unseasonably warm Sunday morning. The video clip shows a rose trying to bloom and three red chili peppers ready to harvest. Inside the papers I take a look at photography from Timbuktu by Brent Stirton, commentary about NAMA by Matt Cooper, Kindle affection by Catherine O'Mahony, and a campaign for the United States of Europe by Declan Ganley. Dick O'Brien makes a good case for the digital hub of Dublin, one of the so-called quangos that may be sliced and diced in one of the iterations of change ahead for Ireland. One thing that won't be removed from the Irish bureaucracy is the CAO system, although increased third level costs are certainly on the Cabinet table sometime during the course of the current government.

Irish Sunday News from an American

Is This a Happy Sunday News Year

I HONESTLY DON'T BELIEVE the Irish Sunday broadsheets will offer a lot of happy news in 2012 and I explain why in a short newsround of the Irish Sunday broadhsheets.

If the FT Weekend took its front page question about the prospects of a happy new year into a review of the prospects for Ireland, its analysts might offer the same conclusion as the Telegraph: Sure, the Irish have Jedward to distract them from their austerity. Similar fiscal restraints blow across the UK, putting several regional airports under threat. Those little airports directly affect regional prosperity. For example, Manchester Airport brings £570m per year to the local economy there.

Will Sunday News Be Happy in 2012

Big Props to Adrian Weckler

EVEN THOUGH I HAVE the Sunday Business Post iOS app, it was a string of pre-dawn tweets from Dublin that told me the news that Adrian Weckler had moved up to a well-deserved position of assistant editor. This is good news for Ireland's business press.

Adrian knows the time is right for standard newspapers to transition into the digital space. More importantly, Adrian knows mainstream broadsheets won't survive without stepping confidently into digital subscription zones. I'm watching how he helps the Business Post evolve its revenue base with a cash flow coming from people who may want to read Irish business news from one foot away (on their phones, as compared to a two-foot viewing angle with the pages spread out in front of them). I'm in with a subscription to the new app but because the digital experience doesn't feel complete to me, I also buy the Sunday Business Post in the print edition. I doubt any other third level lecturer in Ireland pays as much for the Sunday news.

Irish Christmas Market and Some Sunday News

I LEARN A LOT by trying to reduce three Irish Sunday broadsheets into a 15 minute slot and this week, I learnt Ireland is going to continue to find rough economic waters ahead.

The Sunday papers continue budget coverage today, outlining which sectors of Irish society escaped with the fewest scars of austerity after another service-cutting national budget. I don't focus on austerity in my short take of the Irish news. Instead, I've a few ideas about Christmas gifts that are shared by journalists as well as some ideas about how social networking will slot into both the Irish Green Party and the Obama re-election campaign.

The video this week is blurred because I needed to avoid a light rainshower and that meant accepting more video compression than I normally allow in the making of these weekly clips. You can see the embedded video below the break. Or just listen on Audioboo.

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Watch on http://youtu.be/C_gIhBIUJD4

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Sunday News Pink Pages

I SPENT 10 MINUTES flipping through both the Financial Times and the Sunday Business Post, seeing a vision of a cold year ahead because everybody is putting the interests of the banks first. There are tough times ahead in Ireland, even for bankers.

Somehow, reading makes it easier for me to muddle through these very challenging problems. And I count on the pink pages of the Financial Times to give me focus and to put me into a dream state when I flip through the over-sized How To Spend It magazine--what a different world than mine! I made a short audio clip that went magically up into my Audioboo cloud before setting my laptop into a render job that will automagically result in a clip being uploaded to my YouTube channel. If you want to see what I was reading, I suggest subscribing to me on YouTube. You'd see my stuff on your mobile screen shortly after it's produced by YouTube. But if you'd rather just listen to my musings, there's a clip attached to this blog post. And there's more below the break.

Sunday Pink Pages