I just put the finishing touches on a little web application called TwitEye. It’s a new service that gives you ideas for web applications, new services, or plug-ins based on what people on are asking about on Twitter.

Something I’ve heard quite a bit is how difficult people often find it to come up with ideas for new products and services, and it can be a difficult process. One of the pieces of advice often given in response is to solve a problem that exists. Well, the thinking behind TwitEye was to  make identifying these problems a little bit easier. It’s not going to solve the problem for you, but it might spark an idea for you to run with and develop something new and useful (and I’d love to hear about it if you do!).

TwitEye is built based on the Twitter API; it uses the services that Twitter provides (very kindly) to search for problems people are having, or requests for software & services they asking others about. As I’m told almost daily, figuring out the market is always critical – and if you see something float by on TwitEye, at least you know you have a market of one!

I was watching the stream as I was developing it, and often there are existing solutions to the questions being asked. What you need to figure out is how you can solve the problem more efficiently, more cost effectively, or with more added value than anyone else.

Happy hunting (and, as it’s new, any feedback would be great). Now, go see it in action.

The Atlantis Collective are launching their first book of short stories, Town of Fiction, as part of the Cuirt Literary festival in Galway on April 24th. The group are a collection of graduates from the MA in Creative Writing at NUI Galway.

The Town of Fiction is a great read – there are lots of different writing styles – and you’re guaranteed to be entertained, and have a laugh. The award for Best Start to an Excerpt has to be split between Dara O Foglu, who’s excerpt starts with the attention grabbing “I watch porn all the time.  I didn’t tell Sheryl that though“; and Patricia Byrne’s “Murder can be daunting if, like me, you’ve no experience. The Internet is a great help nowadays…“, both of which I’m sure now have you curious, and will do no doubt bring in some odd things from the search engines.

To go with their new book, the group have a new website (I should probably add the disclaimer here, Ambient Age did the site) where you can read some excerpts taken from Town of Fiction. It also has a Reading Room to help get some of the Collective’s other writings out into the world.

I’ve known a couple of those involved for a long time, so, if you’re interested in a good read, you can buy the book online.

The Town of Fiction launch is in Massimo, Galway on April 24th – if you’re around, you should drop in. The Galway Independent also have a piece on them this week too.

A good news day – Ambient Age has been accepted onto the Midlands and West Enterprise Programme (MWEP). The programme is run jointly by GMIT and Athlone IT, and focuses on helping start-up companies to develop their business. The MWEP is a:

…12-month part-time programme provides mentoring support over a series of business modules to help and encourage high potential entrepreneurs with an innovative business idea.

Following on from being accepted into the Innovation in Business Center at GMIT (Galway), this is another big step in developing the company.

If you are interested in finding a start-up programme in your area, Startup Ireland has a list of those run in the different Incubation Centres around the country.

Related articles (by Zemanta)

• New Start-up Programme Announced for West and Midlands (web2ireland.org)
• Irish Startup Programmes (web2ireland.org)

The Open Coffee Club in Galway has had a break for a while…and now it’s making its comeback. The first one is on in the Westwood Hotel at 11am on Friday April 3rd.

There are active Open Coffee Clubs happening regularly in Limerick, Mayo, Cork, Waterford, Dublin, and Belfast. While there are lots of technology companies based in Galway, it doesn’t seem to have the same level of community as has been developed in Cork and Dublin. In other cities, there are frequent meetings for Tech folk to meet up and have a chat about what’s going on in – bringing back the Open Coffee Club to Galway is a step towards this.

So, if you, or others in your company, are involved in the tech scene in Galway and fancy meeting up with others working in the area, come along for a coffee and an informal chat.

You can find out more on the shiny new Galway Open Coffee website.

I posted a few weeks ago about Bizcamp in Dublin; well, there’s another Bizcamp coming up this Saturday in Limerick. There are 170 people registered so far, and registration is still open.  There are 32 people signed up to give taks, and speaker registration is now closed (but because it’s an informal event, talking to people outside of sessions is just as worthwhile).

I found the Bizcamp in Dublin really useful – there were some great talks, and I met with some very interesting people. What I found most different to the BarCamp events I’ve attended in the past was the mix of people; it wasn’t confined to only a “techy” audience, there were people there from lots of industries which gave it a bit more balance. In particular, I found the contributions by Enterprise Ireland really useful (both the panel discussion by people who have recently secured funding, and EI presentation that followed). For me, these talks brought some transparency to the process EI works with. I also thought that hearing first-hand from people who have been through the process of securing both private & EI funding was also a great help, and that alone was worth attending the event.

So, if you are thinking about starting a business, have recently started out, or are interested in sharing your experiences in business, I’d highly recommend registering for Bizcamp in Limerick…..even though it clashes with the last day of the Six Nations rugby

Copywriting for your new site is a critical, and often overlooked, part of a new development. With this in mind, Ambient Age has partnered with a professional copywriter and proofer.

Jo has almost 10 years experience working in the media, and also offers freelance feature writing, copywriting and proofing services. For those of you who are looking to improve how you communicate with your customers, you should check out her site.

The latest addition to the *camp family in Ireland is Bizcamp. Bizcamp is a free conference that takes place in the Digital Hub on Thomas St., Dublin on March 7th. The idea behind Bizcamp is giving:

…a chance for us all to lift ourselves out of the gloom of the endless bad news stories. It’s based on the fact that each of us as entrepreneurs have loads to learn from our peers. And we have a lot to share with them as well. There are a lot of great things happening in the Irish Economy – especially in small and medium businesses and this day will be a celebration of those. And a great place to come for people who have lost their jobs and are actively looking at starting up.

I’ve been to Barcamps in both Galway and Cork (and both have been great), but the focus is more on the technology side of things; this is where Bizcamp differs. It’s focus is on learning from the business experience of those who have been through starting up before, and finding out more about those who are starting out now.  Its audience comes from both the technology & non-tech sectors.

So far there are over 150 people registered to attend, and a large number have already volunteered to give talks. They’ve also just confirmed the first panel at the event: “Successful Fundraising - a panel of non-tech and tech entrepreneurs share their experience of having closed funding rounds in the last 6 to 9 months”.

So, if you’re not sure if you should be going, the organisers say that the the conference is:

…an opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators to come together, share experiences, and possibly create new value out of the day. It’ll be a chance to meet up with people who’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt – members of the business community, VCs and investors, and representatives from the relevant state agencies. Lost your job recently? Well, FTR! – come along to BizCamp, who knows what new opportunities might present themselves?

Convinced? You can sign up to attend (and talk) at the Bizcamp registration page.

Ina is organising a Twestival in Galway this Thursday (Feb 12th).  Twestival is taking place in over 175 cities around the world and is organised by volunteers:

On 12 February 2009 175+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.The Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers in cities around the world and 100% of the money raised from these events will go directly to support charity: water projects.

It’s taking place in upstairs in Nimmos (by the Spanish Arch) in aid of charity:water

charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need

If you can’t make the Twestival, you can still donate to charit:water on their site. If you’re not in Galway on Thursday evening, there are also ones taking place in Dublin and Belfast.

If you’ve taken a look at the new section of the site on our Web Applications, you’ll have seen that we’re close to releasing our first Software as a Service (SaaS) product. There are lots of web-based alternatives to desktop software now available for managing all types of small (and larger) businesses. I’ve found they offer lots of advantages, such as being more cost effective, more available (access from anywhere & from different devices), and more suited to collaboration & sharing.

When I started out, I spent quite a bit of time looking into the applications & services people were using. I tried out lots to manage different parts of the business; here are some of the ones I settled on:

Communications

There are lots of web-based technologies for staying in touch. Some I’ve found most useful are:

1. Google’s Gmail, which lets you manage a number of different email accounts and has Instant Messaging to others with Gmail accounts. Google Talk is a desktop application that gives you the same messaging options, with the ability to talk to contacts over the web.
2. Skype – while not web-based, it offers a handy service for messaging  & talking over the web. It also provides voicemail & lets you buy local telephone numbers.
3. Fring -again, not web-based, but it gives you access to Skype, MSN & Google Talk, Twitter and more from your mobile; handy if you’re away from your computer.

Project Management

After using the open source version of ActiveCollab for a while (which has now moved to a paid version), I’ve since settled into using BaseCamp. It’s a well designed, easy to use web app that makes managing a project (everything from setting up milestones & to-do lists, to collaborating with others) really easy. For times when tracking the amount of time spent on different parts of a project are needed I’ve used 1time online time tracking; it’s a handy Irish web app that I’ve talked about before as part of the Tuesday Push. Google Docs is also something I’ve been using from time to time when shared or remote-access to word-processing & spreadsheets is needed.

Web Stats

For analysing performance of websites, another Google product, Analytics, features. It’s free and has a wide range of reports available, with the option to schedule sending reports by email – a feature I’ve found really helpful for certain clients.  Another alternative to Analytics that I’ve been using recently is Irish-based StatCounter. I’ve found the level of detail in some of the reports to be great, although it doesn’t look as nice as Analytics, there is a paid version available for access to more information.

Code Management

I spent quite a while developing code on a local machine (while keeping an automated backup…always keep backups!). That was until I picked up on code versioning with Subversion and Springloops. Springloops is a web-based tool that allows you to manage your source code as you work on it, collaborate with others, and deploy it to servers when the time comes. It has made a huge difference to workflow when developing bigger web applications.

Client Management

When trying to keep track of who’s who and what needs to be done for them (CRM – Customer Relationship Management), I’ve been using another web app by 37signals, Highrise. As with Basecamp, it’s a simple & easy to use service that lets you manage contacts, tasks etc. I’ve found it an easy way of keeping on top of what I should be doing for everyone.

Staying in Touch

While not directly related to the day-to-day work, there are lots of other web-based services that are useful for keeping in touch with what’s going on. Doing so helps stay on top of trends, industry & competitor news, helps with learning new skills, and gives a way to plug into the various communies out there. Some of the most useful I’ve found are tools like Google Alerts, Google Reader, Twitter and LinkedIn .

Lots of Options

That gives a small picture of some of the web-based tools available for managing business. Some are most useful to web designers & developers, but many will be helpful to lots of others (and if you’re in the beauty sector, be sure to check out our newest app!). If you’re a linkedIn user you can also connect through LinkedIn.

I published the results of the short survey I did before Christmas on how people use the camera & Internet on mobile phones. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey, I really appreciate you taking the time.

The results are published in two parts, the first part details how people use the camera on their mobile phone, the second part looks at Internet use on mobile phones.