Daily Digest 24 September

24-09-2008

by Emmet Cole

Aisling's Diary up for global award | Single telecoms market for Europe edges closer

Aisling's Diary, an Irish mini teenage series, broadcast by RTE, has been nominated for the C21 Format Awards as the best multi screen format. The awards will take place as part of the MIPCOM TV festival in Cannes on 14 October 2008. The production company behind Aisling's Diary, CR Entertainment, is the only Irish company nominated. Aisling's Diary consists of three-minute-long episodes which air weekdays at 6.30pm on RTE 2. The show has a strong interactive element with viewers invited onto the show's web page, where they can keep up-to-date with what's happening in Aisling's life through blogs, episodes, interviews, behind the scenes footage and interact with the characters themselves. Episodes are also broadcast online. CR Entertainment is a production company with operations in Dublin, Belfast and London, and is opening an office in Los Angeles at the end of 2008.

The prospect of a single telecoms market for Europe edged a little closer Wednesday with news that the European Parliament voted in favour of European Commission proposals to reform EU telecom rules. The aim of the EU Telecoms Reform program is to create a single EU telecoms market by reinforcing competition and investment and boosting the take-up of cross-border services and wireless high-speed broadband. EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding welcomed the vote, saying that a single telecoms market will "level the playing field for telecoms operators in Europe, enhance legal certainty, and broaden consumer choice."

Savvy Irish online auction users are maximising their spending power by becoming "shopping neutral" consumers, according to research published Wednesday by eBay.ie. Shopping neutral consumers "offset up to 75 percent of their spending" by selling items on eBay.ie and using the funds generated to purchase other items. The report is based on analysis of over 3.5 million online transactions on eBay.ie over the past year. eBay identified over 2,000 neutral shoppers on eBay.ie at the end of July 2008, an increase of 595 on the previous year, representing growth of 25 percent.

Meanwhile, Blue Ocean Wireless, the Irish GSM communication specialists for the merchant maritime sector, announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Navarino Telecom, the maritime satellite communications company. The move will see Blue Ocean Wireless bring its GSM solution to Navarino Telecom's customer base of over 400 shipping companies. Founded in March 2007 by Irish private equity firm Claret Capital, Blue Ocean Wireless provides GSM connectivity for seafarers in deep ocean water, where network connectivity is almost impossible to establish without specialised satellite and GSM technology. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Sun Microsystems is inviting small-to-medium size Irish start-ups to join its Sun Startups Essentials Program. The program gives early-stage start-ups special pricing on Sun's systems and storage solutions, partner hosting services and technical support. In order to qualify for the program, companies must be based in Ireland, be in business less than six years, and have a maximum of 150 employees.

ChangingWorlds, the mobile internet data company with 160 staff in Dublin, announced Wednesday that it has launched the new Orange World portal to Orange Austria's 2 million subscribers. ChangingWorlds specialises in personalised mobile content discovery, portal navigation, search, advertising, and content. The new launch includes news, music, entertainment and gaming content.

Finally, Meteor switched on its 3G network for up to 70,000 of its Irish customers Wednesday -- the latest milestone before the company's 3G service is launched commercially next year. Meteor partnered with Ericsson to deploy its 3G network system in Ireland.