Digital Media Island

In budget 2009 back in October that slipped under the radar for a few people so I thought I’d review it again here. I find it amazing that this has been discussed so little amongst the startup community. From the Budget.gov site

3 Year Tax exemption for Start-up Companies

New start-up companies which commence trading in 2009 will be exempt from tax, including capital gains, in each of the first three years to the extent that their tax liability in the year does not exceed €40,000.

This measure is being examined to ensure it is in compliance with EU rules on State-Aid. Further details of this incentive will be contained in the Finance Bill.

What this means is that a new company starting to trade in 2009 can earn up to €320,000 in profit per year (tax liability of €40,000) without paying corporation tax. It’s important to note that that is profit NOT turnover and it also includes capital gains tax. This is a per year allocation so, as I understand it and please correct me if I’m wrong, this means that a startup commencing to trade next year could make €960,000 in profit in the next 3 years and not pay corporation tax.

I’ll be watching this to see how it runs through the compliance stage but it’s definitely good news for the startups and entrepreneurs. Might even encourage a few startups from abroad to locate here. Admittedly it doesn’t help those who’ve already started trading but we rarely get everything.

This brings us back to a popular subject of late which is what can be done to foster innovation started by Pat Phelan on his blog in the run up to our panel on the subject which had some more interesting feedback on the ranging from the lack of angel investment, lack of venture capital, difficulties in dealing with Enterprise Ireland and the huge issues of lack of adequate broadband coverage. I’ll be interested in hearing what Joe Drumgoole of Putplace has to say on the subject at an upcoming IIEA roundtable.

Neil Leyden has ideas regarding a Digital Content Sevices Centre which is an interesting idea and one I’d be interested in hearing peoples views on.

How can this and other measures help foster innovation in Ireland? What measures would you like to see specifically? Can we use innovative homegrown companies to navigate the country to calm waters in these stormy economic times? I’d love your thoughts…

I saw this tweet from Ryan Carson and I had to give him a call to ask him the story about it.

Ryans been a big Fan of the Irish Scene since the FOWA roadtrip and Web2ireland Demobar last year. So I guess he final got himself an excuse to come back.

When: Future of Web Apps comes to Dublin Friday March 6th 2009! 10am - 5pm

Where: Liberty Hall Theatre Eden Quay, Dublin

After Party: The Dandelion Club and Digital Island Meetup should be doing something with them for that.

There will be a limited number of seats at €115 on a first come first served basis then it goes up to €175.

This is the event link but it’s not live till tomorrow (Thursday 13th): http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2009/dublin

They really have some great speakers too!

• David Heinemeier Hansson - 37signals and Ruby on Rails
• Blaine Cook - ex Twitter & Yahoo! Brickhouse
• Mike Butcher - TechCrunch
• UK Contrast.ie - UseQwitter.com
• Ryan Carson - Carsonified and DropSend
• Matt Ogle - Last.fm Simon
• Simon Willison - Co-creator of the Django web framework
• Emma Persky - TrampolineSystems.com

It’s great to see these kind of conferences coming to Ireland and shining a light on some of the really great things going on here. I hope to see you there.

Here’s some of the ingredients for the event on Thursday the 6th. You can catch the other details and register to attend here. It’s free as usual with some refreshments thrown in.

6:45-7:15 – Opening presentations from

• Dr. Jimmy Devins, Minister of State for Science and Innovation
• Paul Rellis, Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland
• Cliff Reeves, General Manager of Microsoft’s Global Strategic and Emerging Business Group.

7:15-7:45 – Panel Discussion:- ‘How can we foster start-ups and innovation in Ireland today’. Panel members include:

• Cliff Reeves (above),
• Brian Caulfield, Irish Venture Capitalist;
• Pat Phelan, MAXroam, entrepreneur and winner of the IIA Net Visionary Award 2008
• Anton Mannering, CEO of Irish Startup Udoogoo, Organiser of Digital Island Meetups, Network Facilitator All Island Digital Media Network at Digital Media Forum
• Pat Brazel, CEO of Irish startup Zignals;
• Conor O’Riordan, CEO of Irish startup Tradefacilitate

7:45 Presentations from Mobile startups

• Locle
• Justroutes

From when their done we’ll have the usual networking featuring OpenDemo. WE should have some interesting companies opening up their laptops to demo at the event stay tuned for announcement of who’ll be there later on.

Here are some sample questions for the panel discussion but arm yourself with your own for the night.

• What are key drivers of innovation in other market places – how can we replicate that in Ireland?
• What are the biggest blockers to innovation? How can we overcome them?
• What assistance is available to help bring technical solutions to market in Ireland? From government bodies / corporations?
• Please comment on the drop in computer science graduates – will this negatively impact our efforts to become a centre of tech innovation?
• What do you see as the big opportunities in the IT sector in the next 5 years? Future areas of investment?
• Web 2.0 has seen a lot of start-ups with an ad-based business model – what are the drawbacks to this model – any recommendations from the panel about alternative business models?
• How can small businesses attract investment?
• Any tips for expanding your business into international markets – what support is there from government bodies / corporations?

Hi guys just to update you that the Digital Media Breakfast tomorrow morning will be on in Cafe Urbano in the IFSC starting around 7:30ish but don’t stress out if you’re not bang on time. (There’s a map on the original post if you’re not sure where it is. Please stick your name down if you’re going to pop along.)

Agenda will be some informal networking then a (VERY short) talk about the All Island Digital Media Network and what it’s aims are followed by some discussion on that. Then I’ll be looking for some feedback on what you guys think formats for breakfast events should be in the future.

We’ll get the coffees and the croissants you just get yourself there.

The Digital Media Forum have been asked to submit proposals to government to outline potential new engines for the Knowledge Economy. Together with Calico Media, we have written an article outlining a Vision for an International Content Services Centre - effectively, the Digital Media equivalent of the IFSC.

You can view the article at www.calico.ie

We are looking for your comments on the article so that we can build upon and add to the ideas suggested within and submit as part of a larger proposal. 

You can post your comments on the blog at www.calico.ie (just under the article) or if you prefer, send your thoughts privately to us at: neil@digitalmediaforum.net

Please let us know if you want your comments attributed to your company in our submission. 

Thanks.

Fantastic list of winners of last nights IIA & Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary Awards.

Winner of the Overall Netvisionary Award was Cork Entrepreneur Pat Phelan. Pat is the behind Maxroam and twitterfone to mention a few and is always forthcoming with advice for young entrepreneurs. Well deserved.

Here’s the full list of winners

Overall Net Visionary
Pat Phelan, MaxRoam

Web developer excellence
Jennifer O’Brie, Webtools Software

Web design excellence
Karen Hanratty, www.pixeldesign.ie

Social Contribution
Niall Devine, MyCharity.ie

Mobile Internet Innovation
Johnny Beirne, downloadmusic.ie

Journalist Award
Marie Boran, Silicon Republic

Internet Marketer
Michele Neylon, Blacknight Solutions

Internet Entrepreneur
Derek Quinn, MyAddress.ie

Innovation
Niall Devine, MyCharity.ie

Educational Contribution
Paul Whelan, Lichens.ie

eGovt
Cathy Clarke, www.itsyourmoney.ie

Best Use of Social Media:
Marcus Mac Innes, Pix.ie

Best Online Trader Ireland
Brian Fallon, www.daft.ie

Best Online Financial Service:
Martin O’Leary, RaboDirect

Online Exporter
Lulu O’Sullivan, www.4giftsdirect.com

Best Online business use of Irish
Niall O’Driscoll, vStream

Best Business Podcaster
Alex Gibson, www.thepersuaders.com

Best Business Blogger
Michele Neylon

I’d like to add my congratulations to all of these guys. Well done to to the Irish Internet Association and all involved.

Ok folks two things. First of all there’s a change of venue for the Digital Island Meetup on the 6th of November. We’re heading to the (very posh) Four Seasons Hotel in Ballsbridge for the meetup. Sorry for the late change but it’ll be worth it.

The second thing is that Microsoft will be launching a new program for startups at the Digital Island Meetup. Details of the program are under wraps at the moment but Paul Rellis, GM Microsoft Ireland and Cliff Reeves, GM Microsoft Global Emerging Business Team will be there to tell us about the program. So we can safely assume that this is a big announcement for Microsoft.

Here’s some of the admittedly vague details of the program. The announcement is at 6:30pm so get their early to get all the juicy bits and don’t worry it won’t drag on.

Members of the program will get

1. All the software and tools they need to both develop and deploy their solution,
2. Technical and business support
3. Lots more visibility to potential customers, partners and investors.
4. The program also offers start-ups in Ireland and Northern Ireland some great discounts on hardware and hosting packages

After they do the launchy thing we’ll be having a short panel discussion on fostering start-ups and innovation in Ireland, featuring some local start-ups, and representatives from industry bodies and even a few VCs as well. Come along and grill them if you like…

Then we’re back to MoMo territory with some short presentations from three mobile startups and then we’re into OpenDemo and networking.

Go signup to come along now so we know who’s coming.

Hi there folks I’m delighted to announce the launch of the Digital Media Breakfast events which will roll out to smaller places over the next while.

Where: Cafe Urbano, IFSC, Dublin – Tuesday, 4th November, 7:30am-ish

We do evening events regularly but we want to offer more. We want to run a smaller event at the other end of the day for Digital people who can’t make it in the evenings.

The theme of the event is open for now but there will be a Q&A about the progress of the network project and the Digital Media Forum and I’d love your suggestions ideas and inputs for future events and initiatives.

We will be running another breakfast in Dublin for Enterprise week on Friday 21st on the theme of “Funding in a tightening economy” more details to follow on that one.

The format will initially be relatively free flowing with some networking and informal discussions. That’s not fixed though so we’re open to the idea of this becoming seminar based or otherwise. We’d love your input into what type of event this eventually becomes. So come along and add your views.

Coffee and pastries will be provided and some good networking to boot. See you there…

Please leave a comment below if you’re coming. (Gives us an idea of numbers)

Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials program has run for some time in the US and more recently, in 2007, it kicked off in Europe. The program is aimed at helping Startups get going and then to help them scale their activities as they grow in a cost effective way. I ran into Sun Startup Essentials EMEA head Stewart Townsend recently at the FOWA conference and here’s what he had to say about the program and their reasons for targeting Ireland as one of the first places to come to as they spread the program across Europe.

AM (Anton Mannering): Hi Stewart you run Sun’s Startup Essentials program in the EMEA region. How long has Startup Essentials been going elsewhere?

ST (Stewart Townsend): Globally it was launched in November 2006 in the US and came to Europe on December 5th 2007.

AM: Who that we’d know has been a client? Give me a few examples..

ST: People like Last.fm, Glasses Direct and fav.ot.it are just some of the services people might know that are Sun Startup Essentials clients.

AM: What problems do you help solve or alleviate for startups?

ST: Discount hardware down to a startup price, so that they can gain access to Enterprise class engineered servers at startup prices, with a global support practice, thus you can ring up, if there is a problem and talk to an engineer. (Here’s Fav.or.it CEO Nick Halstead talking about his experience with Sun and the support they’ve given him)

We also give startups who require hosting, access to discounted hosting for cloud computing, colocation, dedicated and managed hosting, making it easy to scale from Day 1, and we’ll continue talking to them about how to scale their company. (Stewart lists what they offer, I’ve listed it here so you can read it easily)

• FREE technical support, ask a Sun engineer questions on MySQL, Glassfish, and get an answer, to your problem
• Introductions to investors and capital houses.
• Discounts on the latest events…..
• Community hosting offers - FREE hosting for FB, MySpace, Opensocial

Each startup is different so I try to offer as much as I can then tailor where required, if someone wants to grow their business or a channel, I can introduce them to our sales team or channel to market.

AM: Why are you getting into the irish ecosystem now?

ST: We have been running the programme in the UK, France, Germany and Israel for 8 months to trial it, and make certain we have the right offering for the market, now we have all in place,then we are growing out across EMEA over the next two months, and I made certain that Ireland was on the first growth output, as it has such a hot vibrant startup community, that Ive wanted to help and support for such a long time

AM: What is Suns philosophy on this? What are you trying to achieve?

ST: In terms of Startup Essentials, we want to help support the community at large and give them access to our Open Source stack and Enterprise class offerings, so that when they grow and scale, they are prepared for it, and have an infrastructure in place that will mean they wont fail, whilst also by introducing them to our large startup network they can grow as a business as well, and thus benefit not just technically but commercially as well.

AM: And do you have any specific goals for the program in Ireland?

ST: Help grow and support as many startups as possible.

AM: Will there be some sort of official Launch in Ireland? When will it be?

ST: The programme is live in Ireland now at http://ie.sun.com/startupessentials/. We just need to organise a launch event or activity to officially wet the babies head.

AM: Well we’ll see if we can give you a hand with that…

END

So the program is live now in Ireland and it’s free to sign up. It’s definitely worth checking out as their definitely seem to be some great benefits to the program as described here. I’ll certainly be keeping a keen eye on the developments here and I’d love your feedback on any wins and losses.

Thanks to:

We’re delighted to partner with MoMoDublin to bring you another of our joint events. Digital Island Meetup combined with Mobile Monday Dublin on a Thursday night of great mobile, web and Digital Media in general.

From Digital Media Forum and the Digital Circle and partnering for the first time with Mobile Monday Dublin, and open to anyone who wants to attend. There may even be cash behind the bar on the night! Come along and meet new people, and make new contacts and have some fun too.

Update:

Because we’re having the Launchy Thing with Microsoft at the start of the night we’re going to have a discussion panel where I’ll be joined by Brian Caulfield, Cliff Reeves - Microsoft Head of Global Emerging Business, Pat Phelan – CEO Cubic Telecom and some Startup CEOs to talk about technology and innovation in Ireland, this is one not to be missed.

We’ll still have the Mobile speakers too. Some of them will be speaking from around 7:30pm and may be Demoing during OpenDemo running from about 8pm along with other startups. With networking till late…

When & Where:
Thursday 6th November from 6:30PM • Updated: The Four Seasons Hotel, Ballsbridge • Dublin
Dress code, for people who care about such things, is whatever you like.

OpenDemo is now a fixture at DIM for those who want feedback on cool stuff they’re doing right now, only 8 spaces but if a lot of people are interested we’ll expand it. Go register to demo now slots are allocated on a first come first served basis.

Sponsors:
Sponsors get to support a great event but also will get promotion with links and logos via posts on Digital Media Island and via announcements at the event itself although we’re flexible and willing to work with people to run the best events possible.

We’re always looking for new partners and sponsors so please drop me a line at anton [at] digitalmediaforum [dot] net for details.

Who’s coming?

Name	Company	Talk to me about…
Anton Mannering	Digital Media Forum.	Digital Media Forum, Events, Udoogoo, Benchd. Sport, Networking and social network theory and the future of search and social networks. Oh and of course what you’re doing and what you need…
Jimmy Costello		Content, innovation, mentoring and the outlook for Drogheda United with Anton as a center back…
Neil Leyden	Digital Media Forum	Digital Media Forum or my own company Calico Media – a digital media consultancy for content creators. Check out my site: www.calico.ie
Eddie Callaghan	Jinny	Mobile marketing and advertising
Cian Ginty
Keith Bohanna	dbTwang	raising money, pre-startups, a non-tech in a tech world
Paschal Nee	Mobile Travel Technologies	Mobile travel technologies
Jessica Mannering		Holistic Nutrition, natural health, Udoogoo, and what you’re up to…
Peter Crowley		sharing with me a good idea that I can get involved with
Pieter Oonk	Locle	The price of butter
Frederic Herrera	Institute of Art Design & Technology Dun Laoghaire	Collaborations with media and design college in relation to planned business development/training and mentoring. – R&D collaborations with media and design college.
Neil McCall	Digicc	Flash / actionscripting. CSS / XHTML, php/mysql, Adobe products.
Timothy Hawkins	RevaHealth	Clouds
Cristina Suarez	Digital CC	CSS, HTML, standards, usability, accessability, Javascript, Ajax, Design, programming, social, media, free booze…
Naomi Kelly		The recession. And… Front-end dev, twitter.
Marie Carroll	cvizz.com	eh, anything, my first time at this event so i’ll talk to anyone…about anything
Stan Kuznetsov	MiTAG	Mobile technologies. Contacts with MNOs
Adrian Cafferky	MiTAG	Mobile technologies. Contacts with MNOs
Mark Cahill	Consult Mark	Business strategy, IT strategy, online Social networks and marketing.Software, Web 2.0
Matt Johnston	Infurious	Digital Comics / Multimedia delivery on the iPhone, iPod touch, Android. The Digital Content Sector in Northern Ireland. Co-Working.
Irene Kavanagh	Digital Media Forum	Digital Literacy - Learning
J.D. Fitz.Gerald		bears
Pat Phelan	MAXRoam	Mobile tech, emerging mobile tech and telecoms
Liam Lowe	PayByMobile	mobile & payments
Fergal Breen		Mobile & Technology
Conor Lynch	connector.ie	making connections online & offline
Liam Connoly	Small World	Mobile Advertising
Oran Kelly	PayByMobile	Paybymobile, Java, Spring.
Niall Smart	Cloudsync.fm	Ruby, clouds, music, 42, and of course, Ireland’s newest tech startup: CloudSync.fm
Russel Cooper	Changing Worlds	The mobile internet. Or anything else.
David Kelly	Digital Signs	Digital Signage Content and installations.
Ronan Higgins	Locle	your solution for mobile app provisioning over-the-air
David Doherty	3G Doctor	Mobile Health and Lifestyle technologies
Robin Blandford	ByteSurgery	Social Innovation
Karl Deeter	irish mortgage brokers	finance/blogging/ideas
Michael Walsh	GlobalDMX	Digital Media Exchange – trading legal content online
David Hayes	Edenbee	collaboration, carbon calculation, social networking, Ruby, development
Eamon Leonard	echolibre	Building web apps & coworking
Barry Alistair	IrishDev	At IrishDev.com we publish Tech news – Your News
David Coallier	echolibre	Technology, Voip, APIs, Architecture, Music (Traditional),Travelling… Something interesting really.
Ben Sykes	Module Minis	Creating rich user (human) experiences using flash, and javascript based web applications.
Paul Philllip		how the recession will make me richer
Daniel Becker	GlowDay	What ever you like… Ideas/Challenges/Web2.0/Widgets/Technology
Niall Harbison	iFoods	What the food is like!
Ronan Skehill	Cauwill Technologies	Smartphones, PinPoints, GPS and everything related!
Joseph Johnson		IMS, fixed and mobile telecommunications
Campbell Scott	IGOpeople	social media, marketing, mobile, food and beer
johnny Beirne	Opportune Media Ltd.	Selling music via text message, Internet start-up International, Expansion Networking
Ian Rice	Cauwill Technologies	location based services
Iarlaith Kelly	Webstrong Ltd	Building web applications, running your own business, blogging and how to avoid the big ‘R’.
Ger Hartnett	coClarity Ltd	coordination technology, collaboration, startups, funding, ruby rails, adding to coclarity team
Darragh Doyle	Blogger	Charities, using Social media to promote what you do, how posh the Four Seasons is and how out of place I look.
Niamh Smith		Start-ups - advice, necessities and interests.
Enda Madden	Outcomeinformed.com	health 2.0
Brendan Madden	Outcomeinformed.com	Health 2.0, applications, facilitating patient feedback on progress in treatment
James O’Sullivan	Gymlockr	Online Marketing, social media, sport..
Ronan Cremin	dotMobi	mobile internet, anything
Marie Boran	Silicon Republic	anything. I’m listening. Although it helps if you’re also on Twitter!
James O’Leary	Gymlockr	Getting your site SEO friendly quickly or die trying compdadre!
Christian Le Jalle	Ericsson	mobile technologies
Ciaran Bradley	Sentry Wireless	mobile, SIMs. Any cool stuff you are doing in mobile.
Diego Solorzano	Locle	The amazing Locle architecture

RSVP:
This event is absolutely free as always so please register below so you can let us know you are coming and we can ensure we know who you are. Thanks, and we’ll see you there..