Hugh Durkin, Irish Internet Guy

The weather and internet traffic usage patterns

I meant to blog about this ages ago (years in fact), but I’m a scatty brained lazy arse who clearly forgot.  I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to statistics of all shapes and sizes - be it daily website traffic reports from Google Analytics, or checking up on how any of our servers are performing.  I’m especially nerdy with new sites I launch, checking in more often than usual to see where i’m getting traffic from, what content is working best, and so on.  But one thing that amuses me more than most is the weather factor.

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‘The Script’ have their Wikipedia page defaced

Never a nation to ever pat anyone on the back and say ‘well done’, i’m not surprised to see that some Irish begrudgers have defaced the Wikipedia page of Dublin band ‘The Script’.  This is pretty representative of the general Irish attitude to anyone who has some level of success, be it in business, music, or sport.  No wonder the boys have pissed off to London to further their careers.

Anyway, fair play to them.  Their music wouldn’t be at the very top of the pile for me, but they’re excellent songwriters and producers, and deserve every bit of success they get.  The Wikipedia page is here, and in before someone changes it back to normality, below is a screenshot of the handiwork of a begrudgering Irish scrote.

Affiliate Networks - Sell Your Wares!

I thought it might be interesting to invite UK and Internationally based affiliate networks to ’sell your wares’.  Affiliate marketing is still in its infancy in Ireland - for no good reason - so perhaps if you could respond below with your details, it might be a handy point of reference for Irish ecommerce retailers to give affiliate marketing a closer look.

For those of you who don’t know the Irish market, we ARE in fact huge spenders online - people outside of Ireland seem to think we’re in the dark ages and are scared of buying online.  We’re not, so don’t let that be a reason for you to ignore us!

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More Irish online advertising sales agencies can only be good for the market

I’ve been watching with interest the ‘under the radar’ launches of some new Irish online advertising sales houses.  For as long as i’d care to remember, the Irish market consisted of just two main players, Sales Online and Generator.  Ad2-One launched an Irish office here in Dublin in 2005, but they seemed to lose their way after the loss of a key member of staff.  Sales Online and Generator have been squabbling for the same clients for quite some time now, Generator losing Eircom to Sales Online earlier this year, and some other ‘musical chairs’ type deals.  But now we have some serious competitors in the marketplace, with the arrival if i-Believe, Tradedoubler Ireland, and Electric Media.

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Google Apps + Salesforce.com - me likey

Back in the day when I was starting out with my first business, keeping costs down was a bit of a priority, and for that reason we relied heavily on open source and free software to get us going.  We used OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office, used Modernbill for our billing (it was rubbish, and didn’t suit us at all!), and used SugarCRM to accommodate our CRM requirements.  However, with SugarCRM in particular, the cost vs reliability factor was throwing up all sorts of problems, and between Thunderbird clearing my inbox and the newest version of SugarCRM being a dog, something had to be done.  Along came Google Apps and Salesforce.com.

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Preparing for Christmas - in August!

It feels slightly crazy, but i’m actually already doing work on various bits and bobs in preparation for Christmas 2008!  I’ve just put the finishing (nearly) touches to eToys.ie, so any feedback would be appreciated

Delayed commission approvals - an easy way to piss off publishers

Across all my sites, I work with various merchants in several verticals, and the majority of the time things run reasonably smoothly.  Invoices get paid promptly, merchants and affiliate networks keep the lines of communication open with great offers, and the odd ‘thank you’ present arrives through the door.  But one problem still looms large day after day - delayed transaction and commission approvals.

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iRobot Roomba - coolest gadget ever made!

A few months ago my flatmate arrived home with one of these, the iRobot Roomba 560.  It’s basically a hoover for lazy people, and you can either turn it on by pressing a button whenever you want your gaff cleaned, or you can set a timer on it.  Using the timer method the lil fella (that’s what I call the Roomba!) will switch himself on, drive out of his little base station, and bash around the place till it’s nice and clean.

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