View - Southern Regional Assembly

Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Louis Fitzgerald Hotel, October 2nd 2008
Connecting with Consumers
via Broadband
Cian Foley: UpTheDeise Enterprises
October 2nd 2008
1
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Overview
 History
of UpTheDeise Enterprises
 Early experiences with Dial-Up
 Switching to Broadband
 Connecting with end users
 Implications of Broadband on my business
 Broader Implications
 Future of UpTheDeise Enterprises
 Conclusion
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Personal History
 Worked
in the TSSG at WIT in R&D
 Key role in several EU and EI projects


Raised in excess of 2M for SE region
Instant Messaging and Web Technologies
 Great
experience with broadband
 In stark contrast to dial-up at home 
 Remember
that screeching sound….
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Seeding of UpTheDeise.com
 Set
up UpTheDeise.com in spare time
 It was an instant hit in Waterford due to
the content on it… e.g.
I
setup a forum on it to encourage repeat
traffic to the website
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Dealing with Dial-up
I used dial-up… S-L-O-W
 I spent a long time each night:
 Initially



waiting for email
waiting for pages to refresh
uploading content
 Most
consumers of the site were on dialup too at that point
 A very frustrating period
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
The Search for Broadband
 Fixed
line unavailable at time in
Waterford
 Temporary solution with Amateur
Group
 No solution only 3 miles from city
 Then came 3G mobile broadband

 Never looked back, but…
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Immediate Consequences
 Broadband
facilitated upload multimedia
content more quickly and efficiently
 Facilitated faster reaction to user needs
 As users switched they began
submitting more of their own content
 Site became self-sufficient
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Ardmore + HDR
Waterford City Courthouse
Lismore Castle Gardens
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Generating Site Traffic
 Site
traffic directly correlates with earnings
via product sales and advertising
 Multi-pronged approach to gaining more
traffic:



SEO – Page Rank, Growing Content DB
Paid Campaigns – Google Adwords
Social networks and Web2.0 used to
interweave content and virally market
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
YouTube Examples
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=sCd8zDzb5lM
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Viral Marketing on Bebo
 Put
up video on homepage
 Viewed by friends
 Friends copy to their
homepage
 Viewed by their friends etc.
 Secret
Ball Video was displayed on 500
bebo accounts each with up to hundreds
of friends!
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Broadband Strengthening Your Business
UpTheDeise Growth Stats
Unique Hits
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
Unique Hits
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Broadband Strengthening Your Business
UpTheDeise Growth Stats
Unique Hits
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
Unique Hits
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Creating the Business
 In
2006 I realised the business opportunity
in online advertising
 I quit full time pensionable job to follow
dream
 I joined the excellent SEEPP programme
to kick start it
 I would not have considered this without
access to broadband connection
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Slang.ie – For Focal Sake
 During
SEEP I created Slang.ie
 Collected slang terms from
thousands
 Published ‘For Focal Sake’
from content
 Modern day cottage industry
 Using techniques utilised by
UTD to promote Slang.ie &
ForFocalSake nationally
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Implications for my business






Slang.ie concept facilitated
Reach consumers in new cost effective ways
Allowed me to rapidly produce products based
on consumer requirements
Resulted in massive increase in productivity
Resulted in more users online on evenings and
weekends
Allowed me to keep website compelling


Content Management System – live edits
Communicate with more people more quickly
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Broader Implications

Allows users to find answers to problems
themselves, teach a man to fish etc.
 Makes the world smaller but increases business
opportunities
 Always on also makes people more contactable
via technologies…


Support, business, training, leisure
Not just an information resource… enjoyable,
educational, cultural, business resource.
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Broadband Strengthening Your Business
OECD Dec ‘07
OECD Broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2007
40
Ot her
35
30
15
Source: OECD
Fibre/ LAN
Cable
DSL
25
20
OECD average
10
5
0
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Hamstrung by Lack of Broadband?
 Ireland
has been / is held back by lack of
broadband penetration / take up
 International companies have had a head
start…
 For example without high-speed
broadband infrastructure, companies like
Skype could not start here
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Alexa Observations
 Alexa
is a website traffic monitoring
website
 0 of top 10 sites in Ireland are Irish
 In comparison in New Zealand,
trademe.co.nz is no.2 after Google and the
NZ Herald is no.10
 RTE, DAFT and AIB are 14,15,16 and
then besides ebay.ie it’s 20s before next
 Encouraging to see boards.ie in top 30
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Future of UTD Enterprises
 Taking
experiences learned from UTD and
Slang.ie and applying them to new project
 Intend to scale up to international scale
 Prototype to be launched in Q1 09
 Will use SEO skills and viral marketing
experience to seed and popularise
Broadband Strengthening Your Business
Conclusion
 Broadband
has made the web a cultural,
educational and business asset
 It allowed me to start my business in
earnest and there are many like me
 Allow me to develop skills at local level In
order to compete in a global market place
 Strengthening our broadband
infrastructure will put us on a level playing
field globally