Thanks to the people who nominated me for this year’s Blog Awards. I’m humbled. A friend of mine calls this blog a bit of a Bunty adventure. And of course, he’s right. So, thanks for being my Three Marys.
I’ve been long-listed with lots of amazing writers in the Best Technology Blog, Best Personal Blog and Best Newcomer Blog categories. Good luck all.
Homemade equals money? Etsy raises $27 million in a Series D round.
Possible breakthrough for Alzheimer’s patients.
I see someone emailed Bill about his broken Xbox and got a spanking new Xbox.
My Fake Baby: Living Doll. Missed this on Monday night on Channel Four, but here’s a taster of ‘My Fake Baby: Living Doll’.
The European Court of Justice came out yesterday to rule that telcos cannot be forced to release the identities of file-swappers using their networks. The court upheld a ruling?that said Telefonica could not be forced to hand over records identifying KaZaA file-swappers to Promusicae, a group representing Spanish producers of music and movies. Promusicae had been after the records so that it could kick off a round of civil proceedings against file-swappers.
The court ruled that:
In the light of all the foregoing, the answer to the national court?s question must be that Directives 2000/31, 2001/29, 2004/48 and 2002/58 do not require the Member States to lay down, in a situation such as that in the main proceedings, an obligation to communicate personal data in order to ensure effective protection of copyright in the context of civil proceedings.
So, the holders of identifying information?are not obliged to pass it?onto entities looking to start civil cases.
However, Community law requires that, when transposing those directives, the Member States take care to rely on an interpretation of them which allows a fair balance to be struck between the various fundamental rights protected by the Community legal order. Further, when implementing the measures transposing those directives, the authorities and courts of the Member States must not only interpret their national law in a manner consistent with those directives but also make sure that they do not rely on an interpretation of them which would be in conflict with those fundamental rights or with the other general principles of Community law, such as the principle of proportionality.
However, on the other hand, EU states can?introduce and intrepret their own laws governing the protection of copyrighted content, but need to do it carefully lest they tread on the privacy of their citizens.
So, cases by rights holders can continue, it’s just that telcos are not obliged to hand over identity information where the?national law of the state does not compel them to do so.
ECJ press release is here?and the judgement details are available here.
A nice read on regular expressions.
Virtualised data centres, a walk through the concept.
BBC announces content sharing site for kids stacked up with CBBC libary.
Twenty kills the dreams of another one of those idiot door to door pedlers. Good. One less in the wilderness, I hope.
Some people know how to build buzz and then there is the Irish Blog Award team that build a leaky, leaky boat and leave the buzz-builders miles behind.
Strange, kitschy find - Yoga Toe Stretchers. Via Irina.
[video has been removed from Youtube] I caught Sweeney Todd last night in Dundrum. Good movie, if a bit gory. Felt it was a faithful Broadway reproduction. I’m always surprised by the mileage Helena Bonham Carter gets out of wild hair movie roles. She really has that niche licked.
Okay, I complained about this year’s Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and got a response from the CEO saying they were fixing things on the site. After generating?a lot of buzz that the programme would be released on the 29th of January at midnight, the programme is still AWOL. Worse than that, clicking on the calendar on the left-hand-side of the page causes timeouting and?an expected?500 error.
Like, get pull yerselves together DIFF and please get the site up and running again. I’m not the only one waiting for your sexy-looking site to go live. At least get your programme and ticketing into gear. It’s just costing you money at this stage.
Update: Just checked now. It’s 9:07am, it’s working. * claps *
I’m following Bernie’s lead and publishing the people I twitter most. Where do you stand? Check out Tweetstats. Careful, it takes a while if you have a lot of updates.
As use of social networks steeps deeper into everyday usage, the birth of smaller niche networks is inevitable. There’s lots of talk about how the current online habitat favours a social network to rule them all (like Facebook) and how niche communities should shoehorn their way on the computer screens of these gigantic networks using widgets and custom applications.
While the discussion rages on, small niche social networking sites are cropping up like mushrooms hoping to capitalise on specialised hobbies and interest groups.I came across Ravelry just recently. It’s a crafting community dedicated to knitters and crochet-makers. Every member has a notebook that they use to aggregate their Ravelry presence. A fancy crafting profile of sorts. In the notebook, they can publish their projects, swap patterns, advertise what materials they have and if they are willing to sell these materials. There’s also a whole bunch of groups to get involved in. Blog posts and Flickr pictures can be imported into Ravelry notebooks as well. It’s all very interactive.
One of the best features about Ravelry is the way that members can share patterns. So, for example, as I’m knitting a sweater, I can publish the pattern I’m using. I can take photos and keep you abreast of how I’m getting along. If you like what I’m doing, you can check my pattern and the materials I’m using. If you decide that you’d like to make the same sweater, you can queue up the project. The sharing of experience from the beginning of the piece to the end, is where I think Ravelry shines. You get a palpable feeling that crafters are sharing their know-how, the yarn recommendations and the needles they use. Crafters share experiences from planning to finish. Almost like how crafts we taught for hundreds of years, by the hearth of the fire and by the side of the experienced teacher.
Going beyond member interaction, look at the direct marketing traction that small suppliers can have on community site like Ravelry. Ravelry has it’s own advertising model. Small pane ads that sit under member notebooks. The nice thing about Ravelry’s community from a marketing perspective is the fact that members publish what materials they have bought for projects. A free and easy way to see how grassroots customers responding to product and to track breaking trends in demand. Yes, Ravelry may do this on a small scale, but grow the community in a loving and progressive way, like it is presently at about a thousand new users a day, and you have a sizable group of plugged in customers. Add in advertisers offering nice freebies and sponsored content valuable to crafters - like patterns, recommending material or expert tips and there are some real opportunities on show for advertisers, crafters and Ravelry alike.
What would be nice is if Ravelry build out more formal relationships with Etsy and other craft shopping sites so that crafters could pool their products easier and push them out to buying public. Ravelry could make a small but tidy percentage based on this relationship, for very little outlay. This would make Ravelry a bit more sticky to crafters also.
The real mettle will show itself on return users to Raverly and other niche networks. Crafters are notoriously dedicated, if Raverly pulls them in the right way, I can see the community grow from strength to strength. The jury is still out on niche social networks. There will be winners and losers along the way. I wonder where Ravelry will stand in the shake-out.
Ravelry is still in Beta. Check out Raverly.com and sign up for an invite.
So, get thinking - Dublin Tweetup 3 is?definitely happening in February. Initial thoughts say a weekend. Ideas on venues? Dates? What do you think? Blog to follow. Soon.
Just came across free Wifi access info on the Dublin City Libraries site. Interesting. Anyone have any feedback on this service?
Learning to network and enjoy it.?
Get out your telescope. A cosmic close shave with an asteroid is happening tomorrow morning. Circa 8:30 am GMT.
A peek at the long list of the Food and Drink Category for the Irish Blog Awards 08 over at Gastronom.ie.
Suzy goes all DJ with Michael Lynn’s songs.
Yes, I’m biased. Here’s my sister Klaraflame with her new anime and manga blog. Her first post is on Samurai Champloo.
Updated: Fixed the link to the long list of the Food and Drink nominees. Just got told this evening. Whoops. Apologies. Was everyone too afraid to tell me? 