Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Today marks the first anniversary of this website. I found out the hard way when I discovered that my domain had lapsed and I thought that it had been hijacked. Drama over, but I thought I’d take a quick moment to reflect on the past twelve months.

Simply put, the site has been an invaluable tool, it’s raised my stock both in the company I work for and in the Irish PR community. While this website was intended (and still is) as an educational tool to help me progress my career, it’s proved to be an excellent way to profile myself and network. It’s a bit scary when people know who you are before you’ve even met them before.

That being said though, I’ve grown more cynical of the blogging phenomenon. There’s been lots of talk about where this is all going, but most of that has been just talk. I hope people get a chance to read Antony Mayfield’s recent post which highlights a column by Keith Woolcock in the Telegraph. Here’s part of the quote which Antony references:

Now there are some deluded souls on Wall Street who were buying Microsoft’s stock because they thought it was cheap and who still cling to the notion that the company can dominate the internet. They are thinking in terms of empire and hegemony when the Net is all about community and virtual cities.

It’s an easy mistake to make and one most media companies will continue to make. Media companies and giants like Microsoft tie themselves in knots worrying about how to make money out of content. The BBC is one of those who know - a large part of the BBC’s investment will go towards creating virtual city suburbs where citizens can create and exchange self-generated content.

This is how cities create wealth - allow them to thrive as communities, which means not getting in the way of that most natural of human needs, conversation. Too many big corporations are driven by the profit motive, which makes it hard for them to be good virtual city governors.

Unfortunately I don’t see too many communities being developed. People are getting carried away by the hype and it should be worth bearing in mind that Web 2.0 could be less profitable than Web 1.0. At least if we thought like that we wouldn’t be heading towards Bubble 2.0.

I’ve gotten to meet lots of really interesting people like Tom Murphy, Hugh MacLeod, Damien Mulley, Tom Raftery, Dick O’Brien, John Collins, Antoin O’Lachtain amongst others. This is turning into a bit of an Oscar speech, so if I’ve left your name out I apologise, it’s more to do with having five minutes to write this than ignorance.

I have to praise Ed Byrne and Tomas Kozlowski for making this site a success. Ed convinced me to start blogging and got me hooked on RSS. Tomas and Ed set the site up for me, and Tomas recently did a redesign also. I also have to thank my boss Padraig McKeon for being supportive of the blog. Many thanks to Hosting 365 for their free hosting as part of their new blog plan.

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