James O’Sullivan’s Blog

Last night I attended BizSpark - a Digital Media Networking event at the four seasons in leafy south Dublin. The event was well organised by Digital Media Island and I certainly enjoyed the few pints of Guinness. There was a good panel discussion followed by presentations from locle and justroutes. During the Q&A session Michael Walsh from GlobalDMX made a very candid point that we(Ireland) are the backwater of broadband services. I certainly agree with his point, the government need to step up to the mark and deliver the infrastructure needed to support digital services in Ireland. One of the issues we have is users don’t understand what real broadband is and what services could be offered. It’s really a case of chicken and egg. I would call on hosting companies in Ireland to come together on this issue and lobby for greater broadband services. Another discussion point was the support for start-up companies and role Enterprise Ireland can play. Start-ups mentioned that they find it difficult to find the information they’re looking for and how they can find it.  However there is a project called M50 which aims to solve this challenge with speed. I personally find it amusing that the project is named M50 since the M50 is car park at the moment where people get highly frustrated! BizSpark was a fantastic event where I met some great people such as the lads from blacknight (Irish Hosting Company) and Iarfhlaith Kelly a freelance web designer from Dublin
There’s another digital media event organised my Connector next week which I’ll try to attend.