In an unusual turn up for the books the Euro 2008 final didn’t go to penalties and Germany didn’t sneak a win despite being truly awful.
Spain were good value for their win though and arguably finished the tournament with their best team on the pitch after David Villa was injured allowing Cesc Fabregas an opportunity to shine.
Viva la Espagna! There is a God… 
Hi there folks. there have been a lot of goings on in our little company over the last few months and it’s taken up all of our time.
We’ll be sharing some sad and some exciting developments on the personnel front too. Some great guys have left due to other commitments and some great guys have joined the team.
If you really want to know the scoop stay tuned.
K, luv u bye!
There are probably a few people thinking. C’mon, you’re making it up now! But I assure you that beerpong is real and not only that but the 3rd World Series of Beer Pong is on in Las Vegas at the moment with a top prize of $50,000 dollars. Check it out…
There aren’t really any drug cheats though.
The Dakar Rally was cancelled for the first time in it’s 30 year history yesterday on the eve of the event.
It’s a real shame that a sporting event would be threatened by terrorists especially one of the Dakars historic significance. Apparently direct threats against the race were received.
The “War on Terror” whichever side you’re on has created a real “them and us” attitude on both sides which only leads to innocents being harmed.
They say sport and politics shouldn’t mix, but I think that’s an unrealistic expectation. Hitlers Berlin Olympics, Apartheid Franco’s support of Real Madrid and Mussolini’s Lazio (and an honorable mention to Irish sport) show that as sport is a part of life that this is inevitable. Those who hold this unrealistic ideal should get ready for the possibilty of more instances like this if political tension doesn’t improve.
I hope I’m wrong but in hard times sport does become a political football, if you’ll pardon the pun…
Andy Murray the British number one (and world number 11) is the “Great White Hope” of british tennis these days. After the faux Brittania power-serve of Rusedski failed to have anything to back it up and now that Henamnia is no more…
He plays in the Qatar open final today where he was a finalist last year. There he’ll face Stanislas Wawrinka a young Swiss player who was expected to get inside the World top 20 last year but a 3 month lay off with injury put paid to that dream. Murray has lost his two previous encounters with Wawrinka but will be hoping to turn the tables on him today.
The world number 11 told the BBC that
“I lost to him twice, but we play at a much higher level now. Maybe I’m a bit more experienced in finals than him.”
Wawrinka has a formidable backhand and hasn’t lost a set on the way to the final so it’ll be interesting to see how this one turns out…
Engadget has just annouced Ambient Devices has just released it’s baseball scoreboard and it’s a great device. MLB fans can simply input their team and track the game stats. It uses the infocast system which it gives it 90% coverage which is pretty nifty and updates every half inning. It isn’t the first such device either the SportsCasts Wireless Football scoreboard was announced back in September and Vroops retro bluetooth based baseball scoreboard announced before that in June.
All these types of devices leave me thinking “Why?”
Don’t get me wrong the idea of keeping up with a game while you’re not there is a fantastic idea but what about the radio or calling a friend at the game or who’s watching it on TV. I know the geographic proportions of the USA mean that thats difficult but surely someone does sms updates. Is no-one deveoping mobile apps for this market? I mean why sell people a new device, why not sell them a service for a device they already carry around and which has far near 100% coverage wherever you are? If a mobile baseball game can be produced a scoreboard can’t be that difficult.
This leads me to another question, one that bench’d hopes to serve as a focal point to help over the next few years. Are sports communities cut off from the technology community? Is this part of the smart kid/jock divide that started in school? Is this part of our societal norm? Does technology have to enter the mainstream first to be adopted by sports people?
I think that to a certain degree they are cut off. The crossover in uses for technology for sports media coverage and interaction has MASSIVE potential. Sport related transactions online are already in the multiple billions, but the truth is most transactions occur at non sport specific sites. You didn’t book or find your flight to the Manchester Utd. game through a sport website. The problem to date has been that most people at the cutting edge of new media don’t understand the sports community and from the other perspective most people involved in sport are not tech savvy. Thankfully though this is changing. As more social media tools become everyday tools understanding is increased on both sides. I also don’t believe that the sports community needs to wait for social tools to become mainstream to start using them, if anything here is one community that mirrors the tech industry where the fans, (if not the big corporations) believe in working for the greater good and really believe in having their say.
So lets leave off the uni-directional devices and lets plug into whats really going on and what sport fans really want. Interaction!!!
I will say this though the Vroop baseball scoreboard is a pretty cool retro looking gadget so I can’t be too hard on it.
What is happening with the Irish football managers job?
At first it was El Tel then it wasn’t, then Souness was in the mix then he was out because El Tel had been offered it already Roy Hodgson got bored and joined Fulham instead presumably because El Fayed was less insane. Now King Kenny is short odds for the job. What the hell is going on?
Dan McDonnell has a great take on the pantomime of Irish football and uses his Crystal ball to predict 2008.
There is one other candidate who cannot be overlooked though.
I have to admit I cried a little when I heard this news and I’m still a bit stunned. I first heard of him while visiting relatives in hamilton at the age of 15. He was already bombing up and down between penalty areas then and someone mistook me for him on the street. (Idon’t look like him). I’ve followed his career since then and in a way he lived my footballing dream, playing for Celtic being Captain of his hometown club and respected by his peers and fans alike. It’s Boy’s Own stuff apart the injuries that plagued his career.
So I raise a glass to Phil and his family and outline a bit of his career and why he was loved.
Phil was a free running box-to-box midfield player. He was born in Hamilton up the road from Motherwell where he became much loved player during his two spells there. I met him once and saw him play many times (although i never played against him) due to my connections with both Motherwell and Glasgow. My favourite moment was his diving header in the Scottish cup final when he was still a young player. Phil played for his hometown team and then his boyhood heroes (Celtic) winning trophies with both. His career was plagued by injury and at a time when he should have been demonstrating his ability as one of the best midfielders in the UK he was languishing on a treatment table. He left Sheffield Wednesday to go back to his hometown club in 2004 and was made club captain shortly after. He comes from a footballing family and with 3 or 4 nephews playing both at Motherwell and elsewhere in the game in Scotland and lately had become known as “Uncle Phil” a nickname he took in good spirit. He collapsed while being substituted during an SPL match against Dundee Utd at Fir Park last Saturday. He died at 5:15pm that day. You’ve probably never heard of him, but then all he did that was newsworthy was play football.
In an era when too often footballers are in the headlines for the wrong reasons he was truly one of the good guys. And the world is a little colder for his loss…
Here is a nice tribute to him by a Celtic and Accies fan.
The B-Team Returns from Paddy’s Valley having some great experiences in networking and some absolutely fantastic contacts and advice. I’ll be putting some more articles up here In the next few days outlining specific experiences and how they relate directly yo us. The type of application we are building and it’s model fit almost perfectly into what people see as the social media model that is most likely to be successful. Ok this is my interpretation of what people were saying. But our strategy of development and the features we are building kept being mentioned with the terms ideal mentioned after them.
Ok enough bouncing around no my seat, I’m getting a bit excited! Keep an eye on here and I’ll fill you in over the next few days.
Oh and a few of the Paddy’s Valleyers have blogged about this already so I’ll reference them too.
The Mid West Entrepreneur Showcase in LIT on Thursday 4th October was a fantastic event to see the blend of sartup industries in the region. The event was organised and hosted by the Enterprise Acceleration Centre as part of Limerick Business Week 2007 and was sponsored by MGM on of the city’s leading accountancy firms. I was talking to Neil Mulcahy a Partner in MGM and their positive input into the entrepeneurial scene can only be a good thing.
Exhibiting at the showcase were several interesting startups at various stages and some more established businesses joined the fun too.
Bench’d was there of course and the buzz around our products and ideas was superb.
There were about 30 exhibitors on the day and they ranged hugely but in our type of space the most interesting were Tailteann Games who released Bainisteoir hurling a “Champ Manager” style game for hurling earlier this year. Tricycle as mentioned below and YouBookIn a web based scheduling and resource planning tool for any business that books staff’s time, from “Doctors to Beauticians” to quote them. John Reilly of Information Delivery Solutions has an interesting product delivering location based audio info, so it’ll tell you things based on where you happen to be standing whih is pretty cool. One last exhibitor worth mentioning is El Paladar, a new restaurant in Limerick. It combines a Spanish Style Tapas Bar, a Cuban Cocktail Bar and a Latin Dancing Club. What a fantastic idea, I’ll be checkin it out…
These guys launched their new websites…
Tricycle Interactive: One of Irelands first interaction design companies, they design interactive products and services that are easy to learn effective to use and enjoyable. They launched their website www.tricycle.ie at the event too. I know these guys and their stuff is very exciting.
ARV Excellence: Another Web launch on the day was Eoin Barry’s ARV Excellence. Using Lean SixSigma tools to help with regulatory compliance and improved standards in the Medical Device Industry.
For the full list of exhibitors go here
The range and quality of speakers at the Seminar was excellent, ably hosted by Dr. Maria Hinfellar, director of LIT. Some highlights were news of Bank of Irelands “ring fenced” fund for small businesses. It’s great to see banks supporting indegenous business at last as that is where future good investments lie. Martin Corry of EI outlined what supports were now available for small businesses in Ireland and together with BES and the Banks the framework looks good for the future..
The highlights of the conference (apart from Bench’d)were though, Dave Boland of Documatics and Jerry Kennelly formerly of Stockbyte.
Dave took us through his experience creating a software tool and how he had to change focus in his business to take it to the next level.
Jerry Kennelly’s story of taking Stockbyte from a small company to being a major global player was superb. More interesting was his take on how much time startups have to develop. He reckoned most Irish startups, that have potential, have just three years from start to getting to the point where they need to be taken to the next level by someone else on that global level. He believes that we as a nation have’t yet developed the pool of talent to take businesses to that global level. A fascinating insight from a man who just sold his business for over €130m.
So on that note…
…we better get cracking.