Editorial

As another year draws to a close, it is always worth casting an eye over progress made. Throughout the 2007, the Digital Hub Development Agency has continued working to establish and develop The Digital Hub’s Enterprise Cluster. From a zero-base in January 2003, the cluster now comprises nearly 90 Irish and multinational digital media companies consisting of over 700 people located at The Digital Hub.

These companies are working right across the digital media sector, including mobile/wireless, gaming and animation.  The National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) is also now up and running at The Digital Hub and is already set to take its first influx of research projects. 

Apart from attracting some international household names, such as Amazon and Riverdeep, the DHDA has successfully created an environment in which digital media start-ups have blossomed. Part of the ongoing activity of The Digital Hub is to try and support the indigenous growth of digital media enterprises in Ireland. Recently, the Digital Hub Development Agency was the sponsor of a new award for “Best use of Film/Animation/Motion Graphics” at the annual Golden Spiders, an industry event that honours standards of excellence in the digital media industry. Dr Stephen Brennan, Director of Marketing and Strategy presented the awards to the winners, powerofone.ie by Agency.com. The site is part of “the power of one” government campaign to provide education content about energy usage. The site’s interactive animated features were singled out for praise by the judges for using the online interactive visual medium so as to engage, educate and entertain its target audience.

A number of other Digital Hub tenant companies were short-listed for awards such as Podcastingireland.ie and Gaumina.ie Most notably, Web development agency Lightbox, located in The Digital Hub since 2004, won the award for “Best Web Design & Development Agency”. The Golden Spiders are considered an important benchmark for distinction and excellence in web based business strategies. This year’s awards ceremony took place in the Burlington Hotel on Thursday the 24th of November 2007

Business activity in the cluster has also been brisk for Digital Hub companies during 2007 with the purchase of Havok, the games middleware developer, for $100 million by Intel and mobile services provider Zamano acquiring its Dun Laoghaire-based rival, Red Circle for €24.4 million. This was its second acquisition this year since being listed on the AIM in London. 2008 looks set to be an even more interesting year with new tenant companies coming on board and many existing tenants scaling rapidly.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger – Daft Punk and the User-Generation

In order to understand the thrust of this article, The Hub would ask you to do the following before reading any further: Firstly, go to www.youtube.com and type in the search box the words “Groovy Dancing Girl”. Now select the first video that comes up in the Search Results and watch it…

Now that you’ve done that, there may be a number of thoughts and emotions going through your head. If you are of a certain age, you may be smiling and wrestling with the inescapable desire to start dancing. If you are of another certain age, you may be experiencing a more forlorn feeling, encompassing a nostalgic regret for the passing of youth and a hopeless longing to be able to dance like that perhaps just once. If you are a member of the Daft Punk electronic music duo, you may well be calling your lawyers. Either way, welcome to the world of user-generated content…

Groovy Dancing Girl - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2JneittqQ&feature=related

The video you’ve just watched is one of a multitude of user-generated videos that are uploaded to YouTube (and many other sites like Revver, MySpace.com and Facebook) everyday. This one in particular is Irish in origin and is one of so many being uploaded by Irish users, that Google felt the need to set up an Irish YouTube portal at www.youtube.ie to showcase them. So what has brought about this sudden influx of user-generated content?

Well to understand that, we have to go back to 1965 and an observation made by one, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel Technologies (now one of the largest technology employers in Ireland). This observation, now commonly known as Moore’s Law, noted the exponential growth in the number of transistors per integrated circuit and predicted that this trend would continue year on year. In layman’s terms, this meant that since 1965 the processing power of microchips has doubled every 18 months. As a result of this, personal computers have gotten - to paraphrase Daft Punk - “harder, better, faster, stronger.”

Gordon Moore, 1965

We have also seen since 1965 (and particularly in the last seven years), increasingly complex integrated circuits appearing in everything from mobile phones and cameras to dishwashers and key rings. More importantly, these devices have become cheaper year on year, putting them into the hands of a larger and more sophisticated customer base.

So what we have seen since the start of the new millennium are a number of phenomena that has led inescapably to this explosion of user-generated content. These phenomena, which could be encapsulated under the catch-all phrase of “convergence”, include increased global access to broadband internet, the ubiquity of cheap content creation tools and devices such as digital cameras and camcorders, the availability of cheap and often open source freeware for content creation and distribution (such as audio-visual editing tools, peer to peer file sharing applications etc.) and the increased processing power of computers, both desktop and laptop alongside increased storage capacities.

To see just how precipitous the fall in price of storage capacity, just compare, for example, at the price of 1GB USB Flash drive key rings to the previous year. This happy convergence has led to Web 2.0 sites such as Youtube.com and Facebook managing to attain such massive valuations as they take advantage of these phenomena and provide destination sites (including social networking and storage facilities) for this new “connected” audience.

“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” – 1GB Flash drives

Meanwhile, the traditional broadcasters are sitting back immobilised by the frightening pace of change and watching the rapid erosion of their young audiences whose eyeballs are flocking to the immediacy and interactivity of the online environment. They are also watching with increasing disdain at the flagrant abuse of copyright that this audience engages in.

To some extent, the broadcasters have a point when they attack the pithy disregard that this new generation has for intellectual property as they helplessly watch their valuable back catalogues being ripped, posted and shared on these destination sites like You Tube. But it has taken a technology firm - in this case Apple - to prove that an equitable digital distribution model can be developed and that users are willing to pay for content online – when the price is right and the service is good (or at least stylish!). Broadcasters are paying dearly for their sluggish response and the large Hollywood studios (many of whom own the large broadcasters in the US) have yet to provide a digital distribution system that embraces the flattening of the world and does not try to cling on to the outmoded “regionalisation” of the globe (such as they do with DVDs) in order to maintain control of the content.

If there is anything that will characterise this era, it is the ability for individuals to connect with other individuals online – and that suggests a level of audience empowerment that society has never witnessed before. One need only look at fact that we use the term “user” as opposed to “audience” when discussing this relatively new phenomena – when does the “user” become the “audience” – and vice versa?

But let’s get back to Groovy Dancing Girl. What we see with this video is all of the above phenomena in action. An Irish student records a video of herself dancing in the driveway at a party to the track “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”. She has digitally slowed down the music to allow her to speed up the video later and thus create a visual effect that makes it look like she’s dancing at an incredibly fast speed at times. The digitally shot footage is taken from the camera, manipulated using an editing software package like Final Cut Pro, the music track is overlaid and the entire video is compressed and uploaded to YouTube to a potentially global audience (the video has received over a million hits). Carefully chosen metatags and word of mouth have dictated whether it will be a success with the audience or not. The video can also be easily shared from YouTube to any number of online social networking sites ensuring that it can travel instantaneously to an audience unimagined before the age of the internet.

Other examples of user-generated content incorporating this song have cropped up on the internet at the same time, such as Daft Hands. Whilst in the mainstream “legitimate” medium, Kanye West has sampled the track for his song “Stronger”. Rap music and hip-hop artists are perhaps early progenitors of the User-generated content craze, when they started sampling parts of James Brown vinyl’s into their live shows. With digital, it became easier and easier for them to manipulate break beats and sample tracks. Now the technology and software is available to anyone. The challenge for the record industries (and studios as a whole) is how to take advantage of these phenomena in an equitable and profitable way.

Our point here is that we need to realise that we are dealing with a totally New Medium, one where the distinction between the “audience” and the “user” is irretrievably blurred. It may not replace the stylish, content of the broadcast channels but it will certainly give them a run for their money. A meeting of minds is what is required, not litigation. And as much as this new generation must learn to respect the value of copyright and ownership, the large studios must realise that they are no longer in control. The audience are.

“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”
Groovy Dancing Girl - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2JneittqQ&feature=related
Daft Hands - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq--Nw
Kanye West - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZd1Js0QaOI&feature=related

News

A Small Hours Picture Show

A Small Hours Picture Show, an evening of music with visuals by VJ and Today FM DJ Donal Dineen, returns to The Digital Hub this December. Like last year, these promises to be a very chilled out evening with mulled wine and great music and its all for a good cause – Proceeds will go to the following local organisations: Fountain Resource Junior Youth Club, Oliver Bond Youth Group, Little Flower Homeless Project.

The full line up will be announced soon so check back for updates.

Event: A Small Hours Picture Show
Date: Sunday 16th of December
Time: 7.30pm (Doors open at 7pm)
Venue: Digital Exchange, Crane Street, The Digital Hub, Dublin 8. (Directions to venue)
Bookings: 00 353 1 4806200
(Tickets €23, or €15 for students/unwaged)

For further details please go to www.thedigitalhubexhibit.com

Call for entries: DARE2BDRINKAWARE Film Competition
Deadline 14/12/07

The DARE 2B DRINKAWARE Competition is now calling for entries from 3rd level students. Entrants are challenged to creatively explore the relationship between Irish culture and drinking through considering the values, attitudes and behaviours that young adults have in relation to alcohol. Films should also prompt the viewer to consider their own alcohol use. The winning films will be chosen based on their creativity, insight and opinion on the topic. A prize fund of €5000 will be divided up and awarded in five different categories at the awards ceremony in April 2008.

Friday 14th of December 2007 is the deadline for receipt of your team’s online registration.
Monday 31st of March 2008 is the deadline for receipt of your completed short film.

For further information on this competition, including guidelines, information on the sponsors and the online registration form please visit www.dare2bdrinkaware.com

Projected Weekends:

From November 2006 to March 2007, The Digital Hub ran a series of outdoor projections from their premises in the Dublin 8. This successful pilot project attracted participation from many national and international artists. Submissions are now being accepted for this year's series that will run from Sept 2007 through to March 2008.

- This is an open call, there is no deadline for submissions.
- All work of any subject and discipline will be considered.
- As the areas that are being used to display the projects are residential areas, sound will not be played on the street. For further details please

More info:  exhibit@thedigitalhub.com www.myspace.com/projectedweekends
contact Elaine Tel: 01 4806200

Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund

The Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund is funded by Irish Aid and run by Connect-World. It is a grant scheme aimed at assisting and promoting more and better quality media coverage of development issues in the Irish media. For more information, go to www.connect-world.net and follow the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund button.

Upcoming Deadlines are as follows:

TV Seed Grant Monday 3 March 2008 

Standard Grant Round I Wednesday 30 April 2008 

Standard Grant Round II Tuesday 30 September 2008

Connect-World will host workshops to help applicants prepare an application for the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund. The workshops will introduce participants to a range of development issues and provide information on how to make an application for funding. There will be a workshop on the Standard Grant and another on the TV Seed Production Grant, with a buffet lunch in between. The workshops will take place on Tuesday 18 September at the Mercer Hotel, Mercer Street, Dublin 2.

Places at the workshops will fill quickly, so please book your place as soon as possible by emailing mediafund@connect-world.net or calling 01-4806222.

Alice Davis appointed to the board of Digital Hub Development Agency

Alice Davis, manager of the LIR Anti Racism Project based on Meath Street, was recently appointed to represent the local community on the Board of DHDA. Alice has made a significant contribution to the development of the project since its inception, and in particular played a significant role in shaping the Development Plan from a community perspective. In 2006, Alice accompanied Philip Flynn, Chief Executive of DHDA to receive an Inside Government/Eircom award for The Digital Hub’s consultation process from An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD.

Community Organisations locate in The Digital Hub

The South West Inner City Local Employment Service and the Dublin 8 Community Education Centre (D8CEC) are two of the newest arrivals at The Digital Hub. They are the first two local organisations to join our cluster. Both services are located at 108 James’s Street, and they are working closely with The Digital Hub to ensure that the local community can maximise the employment and education opportunities offered by the location of the project in the South West Inner City.

Consultation @ The Digital Hub

The Digital Hub consults on an ongoing basis with its community, public sector and private sector partners through the Community, Public, Private Partnership (CPPP) process, which is overseen by a Steering Group of 13 – Peter Cassells, independent chair, and four representatives of each sector. The process ensures constant referral back to the community for their views and opinions as the project accelerates. The process is facilitated by Dermot Ryan.

More info: Dermot Ryan
Tel: 01 4806200
email: dryan@thdigitalhub.com

Support The Simon House of Cards Appeal

Join Ireland’s top companies by supporting the Simon House of Cards appeal this Christmas
For more information please visit  http://www.dubsimon.ie/fundraising/houseofcards.htm
email: Houseofcards@dubsimon.ie

Events

Dec.5th: Identity Management - Bringing It All Together (Live Demo)

Location: Sun Microsystems, Boole House, East Point Business Park, Dublin 3.
Time: 10am
Price: Free

Understand why the integration of identity and access management, provisioning, auditing and security is good for your business. Attend our half-day (morning) seminar to see why Gartner positioned Sun in the leaders quadrant of the User Provisioning Magic Quadrant. Featuring a live demonstration of Sun Identity Management Suite, the market and technology leader for solutions that can transform your business.

More info: http://www.hos.horizon.ie/events

Dec.6th: Voice over IP: IP Telephony for the Enterprise
Location: The Westbury Hotel, Dublin 2.
Time: 8am
Price: EUR20 Members (EUR35 Non-Members)
The IIA introduce an innovative seminar on the emerging technology of VoIP and what it means for business today and introduce speakers from eircom, Glantel and Bookassist. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a hot topic. On the radio, on the internet and even on TV there are ads now for low cost residential VoIP services such as Skype. But what does it mean for business? VoIP now offers an entirely new level of clear, true voice quality, reliability, easy set-up and maintenance as well as security features for protection from fraud and other attacks. This means that VoIP offers business cost savings and a competitive advantage.
More info: events@iia.ie
Tel: 01-542 4154
http://www.iia.ie/events

Dec. 6th: Desktop Virtualisation: Virtualise To Optimise (Live Demo)
Location: Sun Microsystems, Boole House, East Point Business Park, Dublin 3.
Time: 10am
Price: Free
Start plotting your move to achieve higher levels of security, cost reduction, business agility, flexible working and eco-responsibility. Find out why virtualised desktops are not just an IT project - it's a business imperative. Attend our half-day "5 reasons" seminar with live demonstration and you'll see why a virtualised desktop has been delivering solutions to our customers, in many different areas of their business. Just as importantly, you'll understand the critical steps in planning a virtualised desktop deployment that works with Windows, Linux and Solaris!
More info: http://www.hos.horizon.ie/events

Jan. 18th: EnterpriseSTART Programme
Location: DIT, Aungier Street, Dublin 2, Dublin.
Price: EUR275

Enterprise Ireland is now taking applications for its EnterpriseSTART programme for January 18th 2008. Delivered over six weekends, this programme offers a unique, realistic market-place perspective on what is involved in creating a competitive and sustainable enterprise. With minimum academic involvement, each topic is brought to you by business people and entrepreneurs with specific expertise in starting and developing new businesses. The heavily subsidized cost (75 percent) per participant is EUR275.

More info: eva.murdoch@enterprise-ireland.com
http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/startbusiness

The Wee Adventure Film Festival

The Wee Adventure Film Festival is an amateur film festival that will show adventure sports films made by people who do adventure sports. If you are into MTB, rockclimbing, free-running, kayaking, caving, skiing, parachuting, skate boarding, bouldering, BMX, surfing or any other adventure sports we invite you to participate in the Wee Adventure Film Festival by submitting a short film (up to 10 minutes long) to the festival. The best of these films will be shown at The Wee Adventure Film Festival 2008.

Closing date for film entry is 10th January 2008!

More info: www.waff.ie