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Ireland's First Boo.com?
Adornis.com - Rising From The Ashes?
0600 Hrs 09 November
Adornis.com may still be running and could possibly be viable on a tighter budget. Such a resurrection would require a re-engineering of the web site and a leaner and more effective sales operation. Ironically, one of the ideal tools in this recovery would be Nuaīs NuaPublish software suite. Full Story
Irelandīs First Boo.com?
Adornis.com Online Jewelry Store Offline
1700 Hrs 08 November 2000
Online Jewelry store Adornis.com has apparently become Irelandīs first high profile casualty of the dot.bomb shakeout. The site has been offline for a few days now. According to a report in the Irish Times, all the staff in the US has been laid off and the operation has reverted to the Ganley Group. The high profile management team that had been but together to run the operation at the height of the dot.com insanity have been let go. The reason for the layoffs and the site being offline is apparently the failure of Adornis.com to secure enough capital to continue operations. It was claimed that Adornis.com would be up and running soon on a new platform. Full Story
Irish I-News
Eircom ISP Crack Update - Some Users Still Without Access
0645 Hrs 21 August 2000
Chaos followed in the wake of Eircom.netīs decision to change all 30,000 of its paying subscribersī passwords. Though Eircom has assigned more people to its helplines, the demand for new passwords means that it could be Monday afternoon before service is restored to all paying Eircom subscribers. A two hour outage on IOL on Friday night brought further pressure to bear on the Eircom helpdesk as some IOL users thought that Eircom.net was responsible for this as well. Full Story
Irish I-News
Eircom ISP Cracked - 30000 Users Affected
1445 Hrs 17 August 2000
The Eircom.net ISP has been cracked and the passwords of at least 30000 of its subscription users have to change their passwords. This is not the first time that Eircom.net have had security problems as itīs websites were cracked in December. This latest crack apparently allowed access to subscriber records. This is also not the first time that subscriber records have been cracked - a few years ago a password file containing new Indigo subscriber details was accidentally left on a public FTP server. Speculation is still rife about this crack and it seems that Eircom may have only recently discovered that it was compromised. Full Story
Online.ie
More Acquisitions By Online.ie?
0530 Hrs 18 August 2000
In an article on ENN, it was stated that Online.ie is intent on making at least four aquisitions this year. It has already purchased the Irish Abroad portal in the US. This acquisition was seen as largely a numbers deal in which Online.ie acquired the Irish Abroad siteīs 38K subscribers. However gaps in Online.ieīs services could point to the types of acquisitions that it is likely to make in the short term. Full Story
OpenSource
Is NuaPublish Really GNUapublish?
0730 Hrs 04 August 2000
It has long been suspected that Open Source and shareware software formed significant parts of Nua's Nuapublish software. The original version seemed to hype the Ultimate BBS as a core feature and had advertising and traffic reporting aspects that looked to be based on Open Source PHP software. A simple test on the search engine on the Nuapublish site has confirmed some of these suspicions. It identifies itself as Udmsearch - an open source search engine. The question has to be asked: Is NuaPublish really GNUapublish? Full Story
A Real Portal
Online.ie - The Future Of The Irish Internet?
0700 Hrs 20 March 2000
When online.ie launched last week, it did so slightly late and with parts missing. However the launch sent a shiver through the Irish web business and specifically through the ISP management. In publicity, it was claimed that Online.ie would be to the Irish web what AOL or Yahoo is to the rest of the world. At the moment, there is no competition to Online.ie and certainly most ISPs are incapable of competing on the same scale. Online.ie will be more akin to Yahoo than AOL. Full Story
PortalLaunch
Could "Technology Journalists" Kill online.ieīs Technology Channel?
0700 Hrs 20 March 2000
The technology channel on http://www.online.ie/technology/ has the capability to be good. But what happens over the next few weeks will decide matters - will it be another drivel riddled press release site with clueless "technology journalists" misreporting and misunderstanding events or will it be an example of what a really good technology news site should be? Full Story
Still Clueless
Local Ireland - Still Clueless
0700 Hrs 20 March 2000
A roughly rewritten press release on Electricnews.net indicated that Local Ireland was about to launch a big PR campaign in the US to have Local Ireland taken seriously. Obviously the combined might of Eircom and Nua had failed drastically in Ireland. After all these years, Gerry McGovern of Nua, the self-proclaimed Internet philosopher has copped on that the internet is a global event. Or as the press release puts it "I don't think there is a viable business that looks only at the on-line Irish population as its primary target market." And the name of the site again? Full Story
Portal Wannabe
Unison - The Sound Of One Hand Clapping
2000 Hrs 27 February 2000
When the pompously titled Regional Media Bureau of Ireland, with a totally forgettable domain name (rmbi.ie), started out, it had intended to put the regional newspapers of Ireland on the web. Many of them had websites. This operation was eager to build a portal on other peopleīs content. However to anyone with a knowledge of regional newspaper publishing, it was clear that these guys hadnīt a clue. The main reason that people buy local newspapers is for the adverts first and then the local news. The RMBI sites seemed to have very few adverts of local relevance and the news was, in some cases, a month or so out of date. The webdesign was competent though. Full Story
E-whotsit
The Rise Of The E-jits
1530 Hrs 25 February 2000
The coverage of E-commerce in the press has a lot in common with the activity of lemmings. Any project, no matter how outrageous, is taken up like some battle flag - regardless of whether it has a hope of making money or not. This clueless charge is due to the passing acquaintance with technological and fiscal reality that some "technology journalists" seem to have. As others read the guff, a new group of what can only be described as "E-jits" is created. For these people, the internet created a wonderful new "caring" economy complete with reheated New Age bull about how making money is irrelevant. Full Story
Websites Hit
DoS Attacks Cripple Yahoo, CNN, Amazon and Buy.com
0730 Hrs February 2000
A series of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks that commenced on Monday with the crippling of portal site www.yahoo.com has extended to www.amazon.com , www.cnn.com and www.buy.com - these sites were performing poorly with the amazon.com site completely timing out at various stages through the night. Full Story
More Cracks
Telenor and University of Limerick Websites Cracked
1325 Hrs 16 January 2000
The websites for Telenor Ireland (www.telenor.ie) and the University of Limerick (www.ul.ie) were cracked late last night. The University of Limerick defaced page had the title TCD > UL indicating in a rather joking manner that it was a Trinity College Dublin crack. A local mirror of the defaced page is available.
The Telenor site according to the HTML was cracked by BT. A local mirror of the defaced page is available. Full Story
Time Warped
Sunday Business Post Discovers Cyber Promo Two Years Too Late!
1325 Hrs 16 January 2000
The Sunday Business Post is not known for the accuracy of its technology reporting. It also has the worst designed newspaper website in Ireland from an aesthetic viewpoint. However the latest bit of cluelessness involves an article about spam and it features Cyber Promotions as being active. Full Story
Cracks Of 1999
The Cracks Of 1999
0955 Hrs 16 January 2000
The close of 1999 saw a number of high profile Irish websites being cracked. Among these was Eircom.net, the ISP of the ex-state monopoly telco. Though most of the sites affected were running Microsoft IIS as a webserver, Eircom was using Apache. The Eircom crack was also the most damaging as it forced Eircom to pull all of its virtual servers for nearly eight hours. Full Story
Serial Losers
Adornis/Nua Beaten Again
0600 Hrs 02 November 1999
A small Irish company based in Cork, Adornais has managed to beat the much vaunted Adornis/Nua combination and has launched an online jewelry store. The site was created by Abu and appears fully functional. After a keynote by Adornis' Declan Ganley at the Internet World show in Dublin backed up by Gerry McGovern of Nua (self-professed world-renowned Internet philosopher and Thought Leader among other things), this latest development brings home the shallowness of the hype surrounding Adornis.com which still hasn't launched despite having being announced a few months ago. Full Story
Hard Luck
Ashford Beats Adornis/Nua
1000 Hrs 21 October 1999
It is not enough to just talk about something - you've got to do it. Or someone else will do it. Nua has a taste for waffle with its paean to tedium, "Nua Thinking". A few months ago, amid a splash of publicity, Adornis was announced. It would sell jewelry on the web. The website is still being created by Nua months after the announcement of the site and it is still password protected. It seems that a very big company, Ashford.com has beaten the "thought leaders in the Internet Space" to the web, getting their jewelry and diamond selling venture online first. Full Story
IBI@S
Web Ireland Awards
2350 Hrs 15 October 1999
The Web Ireland Irish Business Internet Awards took place in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin tonight. HackWatch had an interest in the proceedings since this site was nominated as one of the Readers Choice sites. The event was webcast so that people could watch it live. The acceptance speeches were largely eliminated. The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke gave a warning to the Irish banks about their sloth in adopting e-commerce. Full Story
Copycats
Eircom Launches Free ISP
1430 Hrs 14 October 1999
Since other players in the Irish internet business have tested the waters of the Free ISP market, Eircom formerly known as Telecom Eireann has decided to jump in with a Free ISP version of Eircom. Netgains posted an article announcing Eircom's new free ISP on Monday.
The ISP offers access to the internet via a local rate phone number. The thinking is completely derivative as is the name. Indigo, an ISP that Tinet/Eircom bought in a numbers deal a few years ago, uses the name GoFree for its Free ISP service. The logo on Eircom.net's page was "Go Further for Free".Full Story
Shooting War?
ESAT Nukes TE With Flat Rate Access
0630 Hrs 11 August 1999
In what may be the opening shots of an access rate war among Irish telcos, ESAT announced that they would be implementing a Flat Rate Fee service from September. The ex-state monopoly telco Telecom Eireann had long being spoofing about implementing such a scheme but ESAT finally did it. Full Story
Will Free ISPs Lose?
Will Flat Rate Access Destroy Free ISPs?
0630 Hrs 11 August 1999
Free ISPs are a recent phenomena. They capitalise on the facts that people like the concept of getting something for free and their reluctance to pay more than they have to. As a result the concept of Free (no-fee) ISPs has captured the imagination of the ignorant and the greed of the market. However flat rate access will cause serious, if not fatal problems for many free ISP models. Full Story
Domain Screwup?
Red Faces Over Domain Name Typo
2130 Hrs 30 July 1999
A slip of the tongue may have resulted in a typo in a newspaper article. The typo certainly caused some embarrassment as the site mentioned was a hardcore porn site and it appeared that an Irish internet consultancy had a "significant shareholding" in it. Full Story
Top Shelf Mag?
WebIreland's Strange Content Problem
1330 Hrs 28 July 1999
WebIreland magazine bills itself as being Ireland's premier Internet business magazine and the magazine is always trying to increase it's content. However checking www.webireland.ie would lead you to think that they are in a different business - one devoted to decreasing content. Full Story
Online Marketing
Golden Pages - Offline Logic Swamps Site
0530 Hrs 09 July 1999
The Golden Pages online site is a classic example of why offline marketing logic can fail online. It seems to be two distinct parts that never really meet up. The frames interface is reminiscent of the design style of a few years ago (when people thought frames were cool and before Netscape dropped them). The interface is clunky and there is absolutely no other content on the site apart from the AUP and the promotional pages about how great the Yellow Pages is. So why the should anyone advertise on the Golden Pages site? Full Story
Privacy And Spam
Golden Pages Online Directory Raises Privacy Concerns
0630 Hrs 04 July 1999
When the Irish version of the Yellow Pages went online, it made all the phone number details, all the e-mail addresses, all the websites in it's paper and CD-ROM directories available online. The databases are a direct marketeer's dream and the e-mail address directory is widen open to being harvested by spammers. Full Story
No Free Lunches?
Free ISP Launched In Ireland
1030 Hrs 10 June 1999
A free internet service has been launched in Ireland. Oceanfree.net does not have a subscription fee and all calls are effectively local calls. The company behind the ISP is Ocean, a partnership between the Irish Electricity company, ESB and British Telecom.
Up until now, most ISPs in Ireland have charged a flat rate for unlimited access via dial-ups. Only Esatclear has charged a per-minute access fee instead of a subscription. Oceanfree is offering free access at local rates.
The big question for Irish ISPs relates to the commercial threat that Oceanfree poses. Full Story
Used Electron Salesmanship
local.ie - Not A Portal Or Local
Dateline:0630 Hrs 26 May 1999
Last year, Telecom Eireann invested in Nua and local.ie. Perhaps Nua is a good investment for TE as they have knowledge and expertise that is clearly lacking in TE's own operation. But again that is not unique knowledge.
Nua is well able to market itself but most of what they are saying is common sense and indeed has often been said elsewhere with more insight - the Webonomics site is a good example. The "Nua Thinking" column is clearly reheated ideas masquerading as a "philosophical exploration of our technological society". Two words: utter guff! Full Story
Clueless Media Cliche
Ireland.com Runs Pro-Spam Article
Dateline 2000 Hrs 21 March 1999
Irish internet users were stunned when a pro-spam article appeared on the Irish Times portal, ireland.com. The article was by Frank Cronin, the marketing head of the Virtual Irish Pub. It was in effect a call to responsibly use spam as a marketing tool. To many internet users whose mailboxes are plagued with spam it was treated as if it was an article on the sensible use of poison gas. Full Story
Irish I-News Archive
Websites
Irish Times Makes Portal Play
Dateline 1100 Hrs 10 March 1999
Infowar
State Sponsored Terrorists Hit Irish ISP
Dateline 1830 Hrs 17 February 1999
Outage
Internet Outage Hits Irish Users
Dateline 1930 Hrs 09 November 1998
Faked!
TechTV Faked Hacker Interview!
Dateline 1200 Hrs 12 October 1998
Eek Commerce
Security Flaw In Irish E-Commerce Site
Dateline 2000 Hrs 24 September 1998
Clueless TV
TechTv - Clue Free TV
Dateline 1830 Hrs 9 September 1998
Faster Access?
Cablelink Internet Delivery
Dateline 0330 Hrs 29 July 1998
Culture Clash
Why Cablelink Vs TE Resembles Sky Vs BSB
Dateline 2000 Hrs 02 August 1998
Power Play
Telecom Eireann Invests In Nua
Dateline 0330 Hrs 29 July 1998
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