As you know Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK & Ireland was in town lately for an event we co-organised with TechCrunch in Dublin. Well the event was excellent with around 130 people in attendance and it was great fun.
He first attended OpenCoffee Dublin in the Digital Depot hosted by Joe Drumgoole and Putplace the intelligent personal online backup solution whose offices are based in the Digital Depot. Mike got the chance to meet a good few people and companies and took some photos and video interviews which he then posted to TechCrunch UK & Ireland. Have a look here.
As you can see left Bernie Goldbach took the opportunity of snapping Mike at the event. (Creative Commons)
There were some brilliant people at the event and some great companies demoed. There has been some great feedback aimed at the demoing companies as well from the perspective of someone who wanted to find out about the products (scroll down a little it’s a post about a few things). Perhaps it’s time to make some recommendations to demoing companies to help maximise their experience and Elly’s suggestions are a great start.
We’ll be reviewing them all in a little more depth over the next while so stay tuned for that. It was great to see an eclectic crowd of bloggers, journalists and startups and even a few investors at the event.
4 Dame Lane was excellent as a venue so thanks to the staff and management there.
Many thanks again to sponsors dev.mobi, Digital Media Forum, Sun Startup Essentials and Tidal Wave Media who’s backing made the event possible. We look forward to working with you in the future.
Hi there folks TechCrunch is coming to town in the person of Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK & Ireland and there is a terrific line up of companies to demo at the event.
Touristr
Presenters Name: Jan Blanchard 
Company Name: Tourist Republic Ltd.
Website: http://touristr.com
City: Limerick
What’s it all about?:
Touristr allows you to plan, share and book trips online. Touristr is full of useful travel tools to keep your friends updated on your trips around the world. Touristr will soon release a trip-planning adviser that, we believe will change the way we all plan and book our trips.
Polldaddy
Presenters Name: Lenny (David Lenihan) 
Company Name: Polldaddy
Website: http://www.polldaddy.com
City: Sligo
What’s it all about?:
PollDaddy is a platform for creating, distributing and aggregating polls on the web. With over 100m widget impression per month PollDaddy is the largest polling platform on the web today. At CruchLudd we will be launching our OpenSocial initiative.
Locle
Presenters Name: Ronan Higgins 
Company Name: Leprecian
Website: http://www.locle.com
City: Dublin
What’s it all about?:
Locle is a new mobile phone (cell phone) application that lets users see where their friends, family and colleagues are without the need for GPS or mobile network operator (wireless carrier) location based services. Locle uses the same methodology implemented by Google Maps for Mobile’s "MyLocation" feature to approximate location based on cell tower (BTS) geo-position.
Locle turns your phone address book into a location-enhanced social network with the option to add your connections from third party social networks such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and LinkedIn.
Locle can work on approximately 70% of phones in the market today, including recent SonyEricsson, Motorola, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, S80 and UIQ. Ports for iPhone, Palm OS and certain BREW phones in the US market are pending.
The Locle prototype won the 2008 Eircom Web Innovation Fund award. The application will be ready for public beta in September.
Toddle
Presenters Name: Alan O’Rourke 
Company Name: Toddle
Website: http://www.toddle.ie
City: Drogheda
What’s it all about?:
Everyone hates spam, but when done right email marketing offers one of the highest returns on investment in online marketing. But getting a newsletter designed, learning an email management tool and knowing the laws about sending email is a headache.
Toddle is a simple entry point for small businesses to begin taking advantage of this powerful marketing area. No need to learn a new application as it works with the tools you already know, Outlook and a browser. Choose a great looking newsletter design, upload your logo and write and watch the finished email newsletter arrive in your inbox to use how you want. Context sensitive best practice and marketing advice will guide you through from start to finish to your first successful email marketing campaign.
Muzu.tv
Presenters Name: Mark French 
Company Name: MUZU.TV
Website: http://www.muzu.tv
City: Dublin
What’s it all about?:
Purpose Built Online Video Platform for the Music Industry that is very artist focused. In Private Beta, currently working with all Sony BMG artists worldwide, ITN, Eagle Rock, The Nettwerk Group and have signed over 200 international labels.
yourPinPoints.com
Presenters Name: Ronan Skehill 
Company Name: Cauwill Technologies
Website: http://yourpinpoints.com
City: Limerick
What’s it all about?:
Search, Send, Navigate. Search for an address online, Send it directly to your phone and using your phone, Navigate to your destination.
1time
Presenters Name: Derek Organ 
Company Name: Time Warden Ltd.
Website: http://1timetracking.com
City: Dublin
What’s it all about?:
1time is a web-based time and expense tracking application that allows you to easily keep track of real time project costs.
It will reduce non billable time in your company. Each employee gets their own login and reminders so you don’t have to micro manage recording time sheets.
As you can see folks that’s a hell of a line up so come along and have a look tomorrow night. 
Mobanode
Presenters Name: Shane McAllister 
Company Name: Mobanode
Website: http://mobanode.com
City: Limerick
What’s it all about?:
MobaNode is an exciting new start-up providing location-based content distribution for mobile devices. Mobanode’s mobile content hotspots enable consumers to download music, videos, games, coupons, news and more to their mobile devices free of charge, and without requiring a data plan. This service provides brands with the ability to connect with people and deliver tailored on-demand content to consumers who choose to opt-in at a location.
Decided to try out a new registration method for our meetup with TechCrunch on the 26th of June. Normally we use a comment hack to allow people to say who they are and that they’re coming. While this was fine I like to think I’m open to using a new service to see how it fits. Enter Amiando, a company operating in the same space as Eventbrite in the US.
I have to say the setup is simple and the features are superb out of the box such as photo upload, carpooling and message boards. Importantly for me is that it’s free for free events, but if you have a commercial event and don’t want to handle the ticketing and payments they’ll do all that for you for a (very) small fee on a per ticket basis.
All-in-all I’m pleased so far but I will update this if anything changes my mind or based on the comments of those who use it.
OpenDemo at TechLudd Dublin
Locle.com
I am delighted to announce Ronan Higgins of Locle.com will be showing his stuff at TechLudd Dublin.
Description:
Locle is a mobile geo-social networking application that lets users see where their friends (facebook) are without the need for GPS or LBS. I’ll be intrigued to hear all about this especially as it seems to be a hot space right now.
The 3G Dating Agency
TechLudd Dublin will be going all swooney as Romi Parmar of The 3G dating agency comes to demo there stuff to an Irish audience.
Description:
Romi says “We’re a MultiMedia Mobile Community and are setting up a Dublin office to start offering Irish singles the chance to safely start taking the waiting out of Dating!” More mobile goodness here and it’ll be interesting to see what there use of mobile is. Looking forward to it already.
Still time to signup to demo…
There are still several OpenDemo slots available to those who want to show their stuff. Please register soon though as it kicks off Thursday…
Getting communication right in this web 2.0 world is absolutely vital. Making sure people not only are involved but know where you’re coming form and where you’re going all goes towards building successful collaborative projects.
Which is why I finally have to revisit the design of this site. The job done by Sabrina Dent in the eleventh hour while severely under pressure (because of me, sorry Sabrina) was admirable to say the least, although Trojan would be closer to the mark. She whipped the whole thing together in a matter of a couple of hours and I for one am truly grateful for that.
Poor planning on my part has meant that this blog was added as an afterthought , I now realise that we may have our communication emphasis backwards. So over the next while I will be endeavouring to push this blog to the front page while keeping the events prominent. I’m not sure how much tinkering we’ll have to do to achieve that but it’ll all come out over the next while. The events are the key focus of the site for sure, but they are static, and if the communication which is updated regularly isn’t accessible then it may as well not happen at all.
Content being king and all tha, I’ll keep you posted…
Hi folks Last minute I know but the IWTC conference run by Irishdev is starting tomorrow. I happen to know that there are 2 or 3 of the Demo slots on the finance track available still on Wednesday afternoon.
If you have a live developed service that you’re looking for finance for to help really make it go, go sign up now. It’s well worth it for the experience, the possibility of making a connection and the opportunity to create a bit of buzz around your product.
Contact barry[at]irishdev[dot]com to signup.
Also on the QT: I hear a rumour that some serious finance and VC folks may be heading along to check this session out. Can’t reveal my source but cool if it works out eh?
TechLudd Limerick: A Rich Blend
The first Limerick event was on last week and it was a great night smaller than the dublin event but it was a first step into this type of informal networking apart form Open Coffee down these parts.
As usual i’d like to thank the sponsors Microsoft and the Digital Media Forum this time for making these events possible. This kind of forward thinking is what’s neeeded to drive our ecosystem. Blue Monster swimming with the fishes eh?
There were some superb local companies demoing as seen in the previous posts as well as one Joe Drumgoole from Dublin. Pat Phelan of Cubic Telecom was there having travelled from Cork and enjoyed the friendly atmosphere as well. We had some late signups from some of the UL research crowd which was fantastic and added 8 or 9 to the crowd if not more. Some of the regular open coffee and blogger coffee attendees Joe Johnson, James Corbett and Gabriela Avram were there too. Unfortunately Bernie Goldbach who I was looking forward to chatting to was unable to join us at the last minute but I’m sure we’ll catch him at a TechLudd event sometime soon. More likely at the next Limerick Open Coffee.
Also there were some of the guys from the LEAP program at LIT Michael O’Sullivan of Oisemer and MacDara Butler of Tricycle Interactive. Tricycle are a very innovative bunch doing extremely cool things with interactive displays. Definately worth talking to if you’ve got a conference coming up and you want something unique for your display.
It was also great to see Neil Mulcahy of MGM accountancy firm there on the night. Neil has a particular interest in the BES funding area and hopefully some people bent his ear about it. He did come quite late so some may have missed him.
There are some nice photos of the night as well and even with the smaller crowd I still didn’t get a real chance to natter with everyone.
It was great to see Conn O’Muineachain of Intruders.tv there as well and he did interviews with our demoers and of myself about the ideas and motivation behind TechLudd.
Last but hardly least is our media partners TechCrunch UK & Ireland for continuing to support the events. WE’ll get them to an event soon.
I’ll catch y’all at the March TechLudd which looks like it’ll be in Dublin. Watch out for it.
Hi there TechLudders and Demoers.
I’m delighted to announce that international technology web tv network Intruders.tv will be a media partner to techludd events. Conn will be on hand at TechLudd Limerick to interview demoers and other interesting folk attending. If you don’t know what and who they are then here’s their own description and please check out their site…
“Intruders.tv is a global network of video blogs covering the web 2.0 and technology ecosystem.
Our main objective is to take you to the major conferences and events around the world, interview entrepreneurs and investors, visit exciting startups and give you a first look at the hottest technology.
We will meet face to face with the major players in our industry and have open conversations with them about their work, current projects, entrepreneurship and whatever else comes to mind!”
ResourceKraft
I am delighted to announce that Frank Casey of ResourceKraft a Limerick Company will be demoing their Automatic Energy Measurement and Targeting product in one of the OpenDemo slots at TechLudd Limerick.
Description:
The products purpose is the management of energy use through remote measurement, reporting and targeting. Developed specifically for SME’s and multi sites it is a complete Energy and CO2 monitoring solution managed for YOU. The product is easy to install, swift to deliver and simple to use, delivering an impressive ROI of less than a year based on 10% reductions achieved. This may be worth the watch with the focus on CleanTech happening right now.
Process Master
Continuing in the local vein, John Gleeson and Alan Crean of Limerick company Processmaster.com will also be demoing at TechLudd Limerick.
Description:
Process Master provides a business process modeling application that is readily usable by business users, business analysts, and technical developers that capture and design business processes. It captures process in text and converts to diagram flow and also outputs in xml. Go check out the site for an idea of their product’s numerous applications.
PutPlace.com
I’m also delighted to announce that Joe Drumgoole of Dublin Startup PutPlace.com one of the Paddy’s Valley participants will be travelling to Limerick to Demo at TechLudd Limerick as well.
Description:
PutPlace is an online service that helps home users manage long term storage of their digital content. We are all accumulating digital stuff at a tremendous rate. Scientific American reckons we will have over a terabyte of data stored in our homes by 2010. That’s ten times what is stored on an average PC today. What’s more we will create over terabyte of data every year after that.
So we have all this stuff, its valuable so lets back it up. But backup has a dirty little secret. Its like buried treasure. Unless you have the map you’ll never find the content you want. We’re not in Kansas anymore, folks, we need a new way to manage our digital content, that supports search and accessibility as well as safe storage.
Enter stage left PutPlace.com.
PutPlace will provide you with an online backup service that backups up all your digital content, across all the devices in the home and recognises the fact that these devices are related to each other.
PutPlace then recreates the relationships between the content in your home, the stuff in your backup and anything you have shared or published on the web. If you ever want to find a file again, where it came from and where it went to is as important as what’s inside it. Every digital copy came from somewhere originally and PutPlace finds that original and links all the copies back to it so that you can track every piece of content you own over its complete digital lifetime.
PutPlace is Digital Memory for your Digital Lifetime.
Still time to signup to demo…
There are still several OpenDemo slots available to those who want to show their stuff. Please register soon though as it kicks off Thursday…
Hi there folks. At the suggestion of many of you the OpenDemo section will be formalised slightly. Mostly so people know that they do have a space if that’s what they want to do.
Online Demo Registration Form is here
The slots will be allocated on a first come first served basis so if you want to show the world your stuff then register now to ensure your spot.
