John Breslin's blog

Congratulations to WebCamp India!

Posted Sun, 02/24/2008 - 19:37 by John Breslin

The first WebCamp event in India was held yesterday in Chennai. By all accounts it went very well, and congratulations to organiser Prahbu on its success! It sounds like there are more Indian WebCamp events in the pipeline as well...

Co-founder of Last.fm to speak at BlogTalk 2008 on 4th March

Posted Sun, 02/24/2008 - 18:45 by John Breslin

I am happy to announce that Michael Breidenbrücker, co-founder of Lovely Systems and of Last.fm Ltd., will be our fourth keynote speaker at BlogTalk 2008 in Cork (he will speak on Tuesday week).

Five days left to register online for BlogTalk 2008!

Posted Fri, 02/22/2008 - 23:43 by John Breslin

Please note that online registration for BlogTalk 2008 (and WebCamp Social Network Portability) will close next Wednesday, 26th February 2008.

You can register at Amiando.

DataPortability and me, JB

Posted Wed, 02/20/2008 - 23:07 by John Breslin

As part of the DataPortability initiative, I've put together this video explaining why I think it's important and how it fits in with the Semantic Web and SIOC:

Semantic Web for Dummies

Posted Wed, 02/20/2008 - 13:06 by John Breslin

20080220a.jpg I referenced this on the SIOC-Dev mailing list recently, and when I pasted it on the DataPortability.org steering group chat this morning (in parallel with our first phone conference), Drum

"A funny thing happened on the way to the forum": Article in Indo about 10 years of boards.ie

Posted Fri, 02/15/2008 - 19:54 by John Breslin

20080214a.png Irish Independent > Business > Technology > A funny thing happened on the way to the forum
After 10 years, John Breslin’s online forum on everything from personal relationships to motors and mustard, boards.ie, is still blazing a trail

By Marie Boran
Thursday February 14 2008

Want to know where you can buy the cheapest digital camera, or how to go about claiming rent relief, or maybe if buying cowboy boots would be a fashion disaster?

The world relies on Google but the Irish have boards.ie. On this online bulletin board no question is too trivial or too bizarre and with an average 900,000 visitors to the site every month, there are plenty of answers on offer.

It is hard to believe that a decade ago, on 12 February, 1998, boards.ie founder John Breslin wrote expectantly: “The first of many messages, I hope.”

Read more...

Of course, there are four other people who have made boards.ie possible: Tom Murphy, Dan King, Gerry Shanahan, and Jerry Connolly. Without them and our amazing team of voluntary moderators, I doubt boards.ie would even exist today. Original questions and answers follow.

10 years of posts on boards.ie today!

Posted Tue, 02/12/2008 - 18:19 by John Breslin

It's been 10 years today since that historic first post on the Quake board, and to celebrate the event, we're running a competition on boards.ie for a big screen TV worth €1202 (it's the date, get it?). To enter the competition, have a read of the instructions here. The screenshot shown below (from the board in 1998) may bring back some memories...

"Sound byte" faoi eolas pearsanta agus an Idirlíon ar TG4 aréir

Posted Tue, 02/12/2008 - 16:43 by John Breslin

20080211a.png

Bhí mé ar Nuacht TG4 aréir, ag caint faoi eolas pearsanta ar an Idirlíon. Tá tú in ann é a fheiceáil anseo, ag 12 nóiméad agus 52 soicind.

10 years of post history on boards.ie next week / why do people use it?

Posted Thu, 02/07/2008 - 15:47 by John Breslin

As you may or may not know, it will be ten years since I made that historical first post on the Quake board on the 12th of February 1998. We're planning to run a competition on boards.ie to celebrate our 10 years of history; details will be forthcoming.

In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy this tag cloud compiled from a survey we did last year which asked people "why do you use boards.ie?":

xCellerate 2008: "Bringing Silicon Valley to Ireland" (IWTC clash)

Posted Wed, 02/06/2008 - 15:58 by John Breslin

Via Gareth Coen, I just heard about two events being held later this month - on the 27th and the 29th of February in Dublin and Belfast respectively - called xCellerate 2008. The central theme is "Bringing Silicon Valley to Ireland" and it is geared towards Irish technology startups. There will be angel and venture capital investors attending from both sides of the Atlantic, as well as successful Internet entrepreneurs on the panel.