NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 26 February
26-02-2010
by Cian Ginty
Dublin seeks to woo Google on fibre project | Digital Media Awards winners announced
Dublin City Councillor Eoghan Murphy has said he plans on urging the Dublin City Manager to touch base with Google with a view to proposing Dublin as a participant in the "Google Fibre for Communities" project. Google is currently planning to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the US. There has been no indication yet as to whether the internet giant will expand the project to Europe. "Dublin is the ideal overseas location for a possible expansion of the project given that Google's European, Middle Eastern and African HQ is located here... At the very least we should make our interest known and start a dialogue with Google," said Murphy.
Dublin-based software company Onformonics said it is to create 22 new jobs following the receipt of EUR600,000 in a round led by AIB Seed Capital and co-managed by the Dublin Business Innovation Centre. Additional funds were raised through Enterprise Ireland and private investors.
Thursday's Digital Media Awards winners included MUZU.tv for ultimate digital provider; Cybercom's My Everest Challenge for best in social media and networking; Three Mobile for best in mobile internet innovation; and Moving Media's Metalabs.tv for best newcomer with international potential. The best in blogging award was won by Ronanlyons.com, while Diageo and Elevate at the Digital Hub picked up the best podcast for Memoirs of Guinness. The full list of winners can be found at http://www.digitalmedia.ie/categories.html
Telefonica O2 Ireland said it gained 15,400 bill-pay customers in quarter four of 2009. The company said it is leading the Irish bill-pay mobile phone market with a bill-pay subscriber base of 691,765. However, its pre-pay subscriber base declined by 18,590 in the same quarter. O2 said it has a total of 1.714 million users, down from 1.717 million in the last quarter. The combined monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) was EUR39.46, down from EUR39.90 in quarter three and down from EUR42.55 for the same period last year. The ARPU for bill-pay subscribers was EUR58.85, down from EUR62.11 in quarter three and down from EUR69.17 for the same period last year. Pre-pay ARPU was EUR26.49, up from EUR25.77 in quarter three, but down from EUR26.73 for the same period last year.
Ad2One has secured the Irish advertising rights for business networking site LinkedIn. Ad2One will sell LinkedIn ad space targeted to the Irish market. The company works with media buyers and advertising agencies. It also provides support services including web design and search marketing. Other websites represented by Ad2One for Irish targeted ad space include Ryanair, Disney, Guardian, MySpace.com, Wall Street Journal, Hello Magazine and Marie Claire.
Facebook and Twitter have faced fresh security problems. Twitter was hit on Wednesday by what was reported to be its second phishing attack in a single week. Security firm Sophos said users were sent a fake login page. Once Twitter users entered details, the attackers were able to take over accounts and lead more users to the fake login page. Meanwhile, a glitch on Facebook led to users receiving hundreds of private messages and friend requests aimed at others. The social networking website blamed the problem on a bug in code it had updated.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 