Internet Marketing piece on Today FM’s Last Word

There was brief, non-technical discussion on Internet Marketing on The Last Word programme on Ireland’s Today FM radio yesterday. They do pieces like this from time to time and they’re generally quite informative to the uninitiated listener.

This discussion was targeted at those whose core business is marketing and selling via the Internet and how to understand (and possibly improve) the search ranking being achieved by your website.

The interview starts at around 31 minutes into the Podcast of Thursday’s Last Word radio programme.

New Free Music Download Service – We7

I heard a short article on The Last Word yesterday (on Irish Radio Station Today FM) about a new music download service that claims to provide you with free music that is completely safe and legal. The service is called We7 and is being backed by Peter Gabriel.

The way it works is that when you listen to the downloaded music you also have to listen to a short advert. However, after a certain amount of time (4 weeks I think), the advert disappears and you then own the music. The music is in MP3 format and is DRM free so should play on most music players without issue. The artist gets paid by the advertiser and this is how the music is paid for. Initially, they are planning to release with audio files only but later plan to release video and other content.

Overall, quite an interesting service but not a great name as I don’t like numbers in a company name (it took me a couple of attempts to get the domain name correct).

Click here to download a Podcast of the radio piece from The Last Word. It starts at precisely 35 minutes into the show.

Life after Research and careers in research

I heard an interesting discussion on Irish Radio last week (The Last Word on Today FM) about what it means to have a career in research in Ireland. It featured Dr. Tim Yeomans (Post Doctoral Researcher at Trinity College, Dublin) and Professor Michael Ryan (Professor of Computing at Dublin City University).

The discussion centered around the career prospects (job security, career structure) for Irish researchers and whether or not we have missed the boat in terms of the Knowledge Economy. They also talked about why very few private sector companies are willing to invest in Research & Development at present.

Click here to listen to a PodCast of the show (the article starts at around 5 minutes, 45 seconds in). I didn’t catch the entire piece but the bits I did hear were quite interesting.

Also recently published (with the same theme) was an article entitled The Post-Doctoral Research Experience in Ireland (in a recent edition of EmbarkReview, a publication by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology).