Hooray for Fergus Cassidy and his ethos column in the Sunday Tibune

Dangger

I'm not going to type it all out now but Fergus Cassidy's Ethos column in the Buisness Section of the Sunday Tribune (17/11/02) is right on the mark.

Last weekend;s full-page ads in the national newspapers exclaimed '500,000 broadband lines now available'. The ads also stated that 'one million broadband lines will be available in 2003'.

Who would have thought the day would have come? Here's a million telephone lines ready and waiting for people to order something which everyone agrees is long overdue. Build it and they will come. Or will they?

And the no-demanders are just waiting in the wings if they don't. They've even started clearing their throats in readindess, pointing to a dearth of decent content such as videos or music and not forgetting the absence of the magical mysterious killer application. there are all these presumptions being made about the internet and why and how people use it or would want to use it.

It's an old out-of-date notion that belongs more to the era of colour television. Outmoded because it revolves around the broadcast or entertainment and showbiz model, that there has to be pent-up demand before there can be success and that people just want products and that , of course, some industry, somewhere will decide what the product is.

sceptre

That's nice reporting from Mr Cassidy. There's far too much time wasted on the question of the magical killer application. I assume it's because techno journos are so used to making statements like "Visicalc made the Apple II a success", "the IBM PC took off mostly because of Lotus 1-2-3" and so on.

For the record, there's never been a magic compelling application for Internet takeup in the first place (though email is sometimes cited as such), there wasn't one for the increased speeds up to 56k, there hasn't even been a single compelling app for PC speed increases over the past 10 years. Not everyone needs or wants broadband - this is true. Some people are genuinely happy using WordStar on an old XT as well. Most people aren't. The point isn't that x% of people across Europe feel they don't want it and won't invest in it (even ignoring the obvious - pointless asking someone whether they want a product they've effectively never seen), it's that a larger y% feel they do want it and will invest in getting it if the product is available and the price is right. This is the point IOFFL seem to have been hammering home over the past few months. A few journalists finally seem to be realising that it's the case.

mike65

Every week I make sure to read Cassidys column and every week I wish he'd stop being so bloody obscure, even today the article rambled about the place instead of getting in the killer punch. Still
todays piece was better than most which usually consist of musings that do nothing to push the battlefront foward.

Cassidy has a valueble patch in the Tribune and he is'nt making the most of it. He comes across like the kind university lecturer that has his students looking out the windows...!

Still its something...

Mike.

Xian

...noted expert Bob Frankston said recently "there is something fundamentally flawed about the concept of the telecommunications industry as one that defines the services for us and holds connectivity hostage rather than giving us the ability to define our own services".

In other words, "Just deliver the bits, stupid".

Fergus Cassidy

Greetings

I appreciate the feedback.

The column is on my site now at:
http://www.ethos.org

Mike65 please report to the Dean's office first thing in the morning :-)

Fergus

yellum

Welcome to the site Fergus, IrelandOffline is really bringing people together ....

Fergus Cassidy

Thanks Yellum

Though I've been happily lurking around in here for quite a while now.

Fergus

OHP

Hi Fergus,

Welcome to IOFFL. I have to say im astonished? BOARDS.ie take a BOW ok Bluddy hell Dev are you actually paying these people and not telling anyone? LOL!

OHP

mike65

Originally posted by Fergus Cassidy
Greetings

I appreciate the feedback.

The column is on my site now at:
http://www.ethos.org

Mike65 please report to the Dean's office first thing in the morning :-)

Fergus

Feck!:eek: er hi Fergus...Its great you're reading our rantings, but I stand by my main point, only one thing matters in Ireland vis-a-vis the internet, the price and the speed okay thats two things but you know what I mean, if you could get the World According to IOFFL out to the readers of the Tribune on a regular basis that would be great, we're getting there, to borrow a phase but the journey is a long one.

Mike.

morges

Originally posted by Fergus Cassidy
Greetings

I appreciate the feedback.

The column is on my site now at:
http://www.ethos.org

Mike65 please report to the Dean's office first thing in the morning :-)

Fergus

I don't believe it. A "journo" making his presence known in a public internet forum?

Must be the boarding school education!


morges

Fallschirmjager

Well good to see one who stands up and says -- 'this is what i think'. perhaps we could get a few of them to stop lurking and out themselves af Ireland offline friendly... or irelandoffline aware..

jesus i can see the rainbow flags now and the dublin broadband parade..

'what do we want broadband when do we want it now...

you can hear them say...
'i am not a broandbander myself...but i respect peoples choice'..

i mean the jokes here are endless...

you can see the SUN newspaper...

'today Fergus was outed as a...broadbander...' the shame , the family name...he was reported as saying to an undercover reporter...'56k was just not good enough, it doesnt arouse me i prefer broadband'....


Fergus if you woul dbe so kind as to tell the public what is going on a basic report on what information is all about and why it has to be cheap and fast, as i am sick of saying by 2005 the entire government has to be web enabled (forced by EU) -- how the good F**K are we supposed to fill in online tax returns at a dodgey 56k....from eircon

the killer app is there -- its called the internet.

mike65

the killer app is there -- its called the internet.

Fergus Cassidy quoted the above in todays Sunday Tribune "Ethos" colume.

Mike.

Slutmonkey57b

Well it's nice to see the sort of exposure IoffL are currently getting - we have to remember that a large part of the change in ethos that came about in the UK was as a result of bringing the print media on board. There's few things that a good jorno enjoys more than the opportunity to expose a government minister with their bits flapping in the breeze of rhetoric, and we've got more than enough of that here.

On that note, a recent article in the Phoenix gives hope, where it pointed out that part of the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) house agreement with Independant Newspapers is a GUARANTEE that no member of the board (ie the O'Reilly clan) will ever interfere with editorial content in any way, or attempt to bring pressure to bear on staff in that regard.

How useful that is given the article was about Gavin O'Reilly doing just that is debateable but it does give hope that the identity new MD of Eircon won't act as a bar on Independant's various hacks from taking up the issue.

Paddy20

I agree with everything, in this thread?

paddy20:cool:

DeVore

Welcome to Boards.ie in general and IOFFL in particular.

I wish more of the people who lurk around here would follow Fergus' lead and engage in meaningful dialogue.

I think its pretty clear now that people who communicate here reap huge rewards (UTV, Komplett, NTL etc). Those rewards can work for journos too in that you have access to EXTREMELY knowledgable researchers who will work for NOTHING and give you the REAL skinny on emerging technologies.


I also wish that someone would take a look at whats going on here (IOFFL in particular) and on Boards.ie in general. Ack, I have a big rant in my head thats a bit long to type here. Mostly to do with NOT having blown millions of quid and gotten nothing for it, I mean, papers were only to happy to jump on the Boo.com's of the world. nnggggh anyway, mustnt rant, mustnt rant, happy thoughts, blue skies...


Anyway welcome Fergus, hope you are the first of many journos who interact with us.


DeV.

Shinji

hope you are the first of many journos who interact with us

Jeesh. Out of sight out of mind eh? Myself and jmcc (and probably a few others) will just go over and sit in the corner then

DeVore

Ah Shinji, you know we wub you and JMCC is everyones favourite ranter but its not the same as having a column in the Sundays now really

Its just funny that at the same time as I read people refer to Boards as "mad gamers" "angry 16 year olds" and "spamtastic" all the same I watch the ips of the major corporates wander around and stuff we write here turns up in the papers...
The hypocrisy annoys me , that its ok for them to use our knowledge and to provide them with links and info, but not to "sully" themselves by interacting with the Proles?

God, I swore I wasnt going to rant. Now look what you made me do.

DeV.

sceptre

Originally posted by mike65
Fergus Cassidy quoted the above in todays Sunday Tribune "Ethos" colume.

Humpf - not online yet (he seemed to have last week's online Sunday night last week)

Chips Lovell

The hypocrisy annoys me , that its ok for them to use our knowledge and to provide them with links and info, but not to "sully" themselves by interacting with the Proles?

Well, that got me going. There are a couple of reasons why a journo may wish to remain anonymous. First of all, they don't act as a spokesperson for their publication and trouble may arise should their remarks be taken as their employer's view. Secondly, they may not wish to be mistakenly seen as promoting their own work/publication.

DeVore

Originally posted by el tonto
Well, that got me going. There are a couple of reasons why a journo may wish to remain anonymous. First of all, they don't act as a spokesperson for their publication and trouble may arise should their remarks be taken as their employer's view.

This is the same for any of us. And should be LESS of a worry for them as their job IS to write on behalf of their company.

Secondly, they may not wish to be mistakenly seen as promoting their own work/publication.

They are humans too you know. I didnt think about Fergus Cassidy promoting himself when I saw this thread, I thought "yay, heres a responsible journo who's taken the time to dig a little deeper then the pressrelease and who is interacting like any normal human would!"

DeV.

Chips Lovell

Good points DeVore. I guess, given the discussion, I should say I am a journalist. I work for Silicon Republic. We do a lot of the tech coverage in the Independent (E-Thursday and Digital Ireland) and also recently launched our own site (www.siliconrepublic.com).

I hadn't said it before because I was perhaps a bit over-cautious and secondly, it didn't really come up.

Dick O'Brien

Dustaz

Welcome to boards Dick

Originally posted by DeVore

I think its pretty clear now that people who communicate here reap huge rewards.

Jaysus dev, will ye ever stop pimping your bloody website


*cough* ill get me coat ...

Paddy20

Seconded,

Welcome aboard Dick,

Just had a look at your siliconrepublic site, even became a citizen.

Interesting piece about Internet costs by a Mr Kennedy.

Best wishes.

Yours,

paddy20:)

dahamsta

Jaysus dev, will ye ever stop pimping your bloody website

He's as bad as jmcc.

Dustaz, get mine while yer out there?

adam

Chips Lovell

Thanks for the welcome guys.

Dick

DeVore

His doesnt have nearly 4 million page impressions a month

Anyway, welcome Dick glad to see siliconrepublic represented here. I wish more people who are representing companies would come forward and say who they are. Its not like I dont already know
Maybe *then* we could actually start to interact in a meaningful way with each other through technology! Hey, what a great idea!!

DeV.

DeadBankClerk

Originally posted by DeVore
I read people refer to Boards as "mad gamers" "angry 16 year olds" and "spamtastic"

i think i fall under 'all of the above'

:rolleyes:

DeadBankClerk

Originally posted by DeVore
I read people refer to Boards as "mad gamers" "angry 16 year olds" and "spamtastic"

i think i fall under 'all of the above'

:rolleyes:

jmcc

Originally posted by DeVore
His doesnt have nearly 4 million page impressions a month

Bloody good thing too - I don't think I could afford that kind of bandwidth. Still though IEDR seems to be the single biggest reader of one of the sites at the moment.

It is nice to see Siliconrepublic in the game. The SBP and ENN need a bit of motivation.

Regards...jmcc

topgold

If you've been here a long time, you might forget that most people consider boards.ie to be a subset of the community with the loudest voices. Those loud voices come from the gamers, the group I credit with starting this push for always-on Ireland. Anyone new to the Internet who visits boards.ie for the first time will think they've stumbled into a grope-fest of lads sitting in darkened rooms, fondling their crisps, communicating over keyboards instead of f2f over pints.

Working with first year third level students and community groups under county IT training schemes, I've watched newbies react when they arrive here. It's hard for them to decide which door to use and hard to determine what language everyone is speaking because of the acronyms, syntax, and shortcuts to hidden bits of conversation that have gone before. For those who think they've copped the Internet only because they've earned their ECDL, falling into boards.ie is traumatic.

The IOFFL citizenry here dampens some of this intimidation, but it's still fair to say that no matter what the moderators do and no matter how the site's architecture is revised, lurker minutes will always outnumber poster minutes. You can assume that at least four radio and television researchers trawl this forum. They represent stories gestating for the air time.

I would ask that we make it easy for all the media whores stumble into the mix. (I fit this job title, so consider this a declaration of interest.) When you start a thread, give it a title that sounds like a proper headline. Show visiting writers and researchers a top-placed summary of pertinent issues on the front page of this forum. This summation should also link to the syndicated feeds at http://www.irelandoffline.org/home/backend/geeklog.rdf and above all else, the backend feeds should always be operational -- they stopped working in Newzcrawler yesterday.

I've been rummaging around connected communities since I got my first ARPANET modem in 1974. There's a spirit here as dynamic as in The Well's connected community. It's remarkable that this interpersonal and issue-based connectivity has oozed into the social fabric of Ireland.

What we have to do is ensure those on the outside know that the disturbance they feel in the Irish Broadband Force comes from IOFFL. That means getting snippets of broadsheet coverage every month and radio or television soundbites every fortnight. That starts by quality posts, headlined by meaningful topic summaries, containing real-world evidence that another group can use as a case study or as evidence of a notable trend.

There's a wonderful compilation of authentic always-on experiences here. As the numbers show, this forum is one of the most active places on Ireland's Internet map. Thanks for reading and contributing.

Fallschirmjager

jesus bernie...i am remnded of the Peanuts joke with charlie brown and Linus


charlie and linus looking at the sky..

LINUS: Charlie what do you see in the clouds?

CHARLIE : Hmmmm....

LINUS: LEt me tell you ...look there is Bethoven 7th symphony , there is the discovery of the doule helix ...and if you look there... you will see ...


CHARLIE: i was going to say i saw a doggie and a cat....but i am not sure now

I feel for the moment, i am Charlie

also as for the angry 16 yr old...i havent been 16 for 21 years...but i am angry -- does that count...