The Dublin Web Summit this October was largely centered around Cloud computing, mobile and Social Media.  Social Media was by far the most enthusiastic and in demand speakers of the show.  The event offered a lot of interesting panelists and speakers but there was nothing really new or groundbreaking throughout the show that hadn’t been said many times already in trade posts.

It was entertaining listening to the panel on Friday morning who were hugely hungover after partying with Bono until the early hours of the morning, they pulled it together quite well.

Ireland cannot be underestimated for the levels of innovation and inspiration amongst tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs who all had impressive ideas and approaches to doing business online and in the digital era.

Many interesting social media professional were well represented and indeed proves that PR and Marketing is moving online and lessening its focus on offline channels and leveraging social media and embracing it more and more.

An interesting and innovation stand from ESB Electric Ireland had a lovely novelty factor, ‘Tweet a Treat’, basically by tweeting a hashtag the machine would open a hatch door and reveal a hot beverage and snack.

It was great to meet so many fellows of the industry and in other trades and plenty of interesting insights and visions among the attendees. I will get in touch with those I had the pleasure of meeting over the coming days.

The State of the Internet

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There is an external access number to the switchboard which is a Dublin landline regular number, so if you need to call Banking 365 with Bank of Ireland, use the following number +353 1 404 4000

Currently in-app billing is the testing phase with Android, with Google to allow full publishing to the Android market in the next few weeks. Up until now Google’s pricing and selling of Android apps was quite limited, but now there is a lot more flexibility, along with in-app billing there will also be subscription billing models.  Games and premium content services are likely to be the first apps to make use of these new developments.

Blue Star are happy to announce that we are now developing Android applications. As mobile platforms become more popular as a means to access content and applications online it is important to cater for these users. This has of course been popularized by the iPhone and the App Store, however Android devices now outnumber iPhone’s in the U.S. and will soon surpass here in Europe also.

Mobile is ‘the next big thing’, it is redefining how we access our data and increasingly more people are using mobile search now.

A lot of modern smartphones have a ton of interesting hardware features that allow for unique applications not possible before with technology at this cost. Fully loaded phones have GPS, Wifi, Camera(s), audio/video recording/playback, G Sensor. These all open up a new field of possibility. Location based services will play a major role in this new landscape of mobile data.

Android development services we offer can complement an existing online presence or provide a new mobile app for an activity that is more convenient to have on the go than requiring a PC.

More information on Android Application development

I have had faith in the Android platform from day one, it is solid, it has a linux kernel, it does what you want, when you want making everything ever so reliable. Admittedly my first encounter with Android was unfortunately with the Samsung Galaxy, it served its purpose yet was a unrefined and a little slow. The HTC Desire on the otherhand, one knows they are dealing with serious hardware here from paper, and the handset actually proves true.  It is essentially a rebranded Nexus One, the original Google-developed phone which was manufactured by HTC, Sony turned down the contract. Bound by the unignorable marketing force of Apple I am obluged to compare to the iPhone. Bye, Bye iPhone, this blows it out of the water.

The phones construction is superior in every way, it fits well in one hand and is light and responsive enough to use single handed. The hardware is quite impressive, 1Ghz Snapdragon, 5MP camera with LED flash, incredible clear 480×800 Sony SLED amongst the usual trimmings one has come to expect in a smartphone, GPS, Bluetooth. The software is HTC Sense on top of Android, this works quite nicely, the widget structure is excellent, 7 home screens to work with for essentials such as Clock, Contacts, Calendar, Mail/Social network updates, Weather, etc. This can be customised anyway you wish.

General operation of the phone is very responsive and lightning fast.  Everything Instant. Everything connected. Everything integrated.  And this is the real beauty of this device, all information on the device is linked, okay you may need to manually link some entries in facebook to contact list, but all contact data from Google/Facebook/Twitter/Flickr are viewable on the contact card.  GPS is incredible fast, and accurate, I have yet to put Bluetooth support through its paces.  Camera is well decent at 5MP with flash, video is also very clear. Battery seems to be above average for a smartphone, and there are a number of options to conserve power, disabling wireless transmitters, dimming screen, amongst other fine tuning. Inclusion of Google Navigation is a nice bonus, and Google Earth is amazing in detail, 3D buildings would be nice however. The G-Sensor and GPS are both incredible accurate, and can be recorded in My Tracks (Google mapping service) and uploaded to Google Maps. There is a Kindle app from Amazon to easily read and purchase books, this is one of the killer features for me, no more lost books! And indeed the convenience of being able to carry a volume of books in your pocket, and yes the books are perfectly readable, its nice to have a copy of Huxley’s Brave New World on me at all times, my Catcher In The Rye.

It is obvious after a couple of hours using the phone that it is a serious iPhone competitor, probably the first handset to give it a run for its money. 

After a little time with this device you know you are dealing with serious high tech gadgetry, just what every aspiring Jack Bauer or James Bond needs to have in his pocket.

Indeed, the only corners cut on the Desire are the round edges on the handset frame.

This is where FBML comes in. It is basically HTML laced with a few facebook api features to display custom written content in a Tab alongside your Wall and Info pages. It allows for a promotional page, an informational page and also more advanced features to further promote your presence as a business on facebook. A particularly useful feature for some publishers is the fact that this new FBML tab can be set as the landing page for when visitors visit your Page.

We are offering FBML page creation for companies who wish to take adventage of this powerful, yet unobtrusive method of customising there Pages to further promote and pursue more advanced control of the content using FBML. It is powerful enough to create a mirco-site within you Facebook Page, i.e. allowing for details of products, google maps, special offers and many more possibilities limited only by imagination.