News Corp buys Storyful, pioneer global social news agency (VIDEO)

Mark Little, founder of Dublin-based Storyful

Entrepreneurial journalists founded Dublin-based Storyful on the counter-intuitive assumption that journalism was entering as golden age.

It's just that newsrooms weren't prepared for the new news world of the social sharing web.  In 2010, Storyful built what it claims is the first truly social newsroom, “the first news agency of the social media age,” as it branded itself. As Storyful refined the model, the company started partnering with some of the biggest news brands in the world, including ABC News, Reuters, the New York Times, and social platforms such as YouTube.

Founded by former RTÉ journalist Mark Little, Storyful carved out a distinctive niche in the media landscape and attracted the interest of big media players with deep pockets, among them News Corp who paid €18 million or approximately $25 million, the acquisition announced by little on Dec. 20.

“We join News Corp at a moment of transformation. Together, we will combine the authority of premier original content with the authenticity of user-generated content,” Little said. “We will define the opportunities that the digital landscape presents rather than simply adapt to them. Ours will be a powerful and unique partnership.”

Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp said, “Storyful has become the village square for valuable video, using journalistic sensibility, integrity and creativity to find, authenticate and commercialize user-generated content. Through this acquisition, we can extend the village square across borders, languages and platforms.”

Among the key players for Team Storyful are Director of Innovation Gavin Sheridan, whose innovative brand of digital journalism was profiled here in Irish Media Nation back in 2010 and CNN alumnus, Executive Editor David Clinch who manages all editorial aspects of Storyful’s global business and relationships with key partners.

According to Little, Storyful will continue to operate from its Dublin headquarters.



MEDIA PINGS: The Irish Business Organization of New York will hold its first event of the new year on Wed., Jan 8, 6:30 PM at Glucksman Ireland House featuring international keynote speaker Kevin Kelly from Galway. He'll offer start-of-the-year motivation based on his book on business execution entitled Do!

"New York Paddy" Peter Quinn explores history and mystery of the trilogy (VIDEO)

The works of Peter Quinn

This Tuesday evening, Nov. 19, the Irish Arts Center will feature a program called "History and Mystery: The Making of the Fintan Dunne Trilogy", featuring the series' author Peter Quinn with guests Dan Barry, Mary Tierney, Terry Golway, Honor Molloy, and swingstress Tara O'Grady.

The evening will be both a celebration and an exploration of the Fintan Dunne trilogy (the just published "Dry Bones," the earlier books "The Man Who Never Returned" and "Hour of the Cat.")

In his blog, Quinn recently explored the appeal of the trilogy, writing:

"My introduction to the triune came early. Each morning as my classmates and I made the sign of the cross, my first-grade nun stressed that the Trinity–one God in three separate and distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost–was essential to our faith and, ergo, to our salvation. Since my six-year-old brain couldn't make much sense of it, I was happy to be told the three-person God was a mystery beyond human understanding and had almost driven mad the theologians who’d tried to solve it.
"Still, it stuck. Three in one, one in three. The holy trifecta. In the large stained glass window on the south wall of our Bronx parish church, St. Patrick held up a shamrock. One stem, three petals: They glowed a single emerald green as the sun lofted behind them. For that moment at least, the riddle of the Trinity ceased to bewilder."

The Wall Street Journal has hailed "Dry Bones," the third and last installment in the trilogy, as “another work of intricate structure, suspense and wit.”

Former Chief Speechwriter for Governor Hugh Carey and Governor Mario Cuomo, Quinn is also the author of  the epic novel "Banished Children of Eve," a 1995 American Book Award winner; "Looking for Jimmy: In Search of Irish America," a collection of non-fiction pieces. The credentials roll-on and are detailed at his appropriately named website www.NewYorkPaddy.com.

National Book Award winner Colum McCann said of him, “Peter Quinn is a poet and historian and one of our finest storytellers. He sits at the fireside of the American imagination. He can carve mystery out of mystery. The work is generous and agile and profound.”

Best selling author James Patterson wrote, "Peter Quinn just might make it into the history books himself. He is perfecting, if not actually creating, a genre you could call the history-mystery.”

Of his fellow Manhattan College classmate, Quinn said “Jim and I together have sold 150 million books, worldwide. James Patterson has sold 149,996,000. I sold the rest.”

Though the action of Dry Bones is focused on Europe at the end of World War II, New York makes a dramatic appearance, and plays a major role in the other books of the trilogy.

Quinn and filmmaker Charles Hale created this video homage to the vanished city of Fintan Dunne.



This evening of word, music, discussion and humor is presented at Irish Arts Center in association with Glucksman Ireland House.  For more information, go to the IAC website.

Tanaiste dives Into the Tweetstream with open-ended live Twitter chat in NYC

Give credit to political leaders who agree to sit down for a live Twitter chat and face the untamed, wildly divergent questions and commentary coming their way from anyone who has picked up on the chat's hashtag.

Which in this case was #GilmoreInNY.

The "Gilmore" in question was Eamon Gilmore, the Irish Deputy Prime Minister, or Tanaiste in the Irish language, who is also the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was in New York, along with so many other globe-hopping government officials, for the opening of the UN General Assembly session.

Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore (photo courtesy of higginsphotonyc) 

Gilmore sat down to his laptop last Friday morning in an office at the Consulate General of Ireland in New York, with the session's host and moderator, the noted digital marketing thought leader Margaret Molloy across from him and the social media savvy Deputy Consul Peter Ryan nearby tweeting out context, background, data and links to deepen the dialog.

Margaret Molloy with Eamon Gilmore  

What flowed the Tanaiste's way was a mix of thoughtful questions, helpful suggestions, valid concerns, political grievances, and, it being the Internet, snark, from tweeps in New York, Ireland and other strongholds of the global Irish. Molloy (@MargaretMolloy) would scan the questions and comments pouring in and isolate key concerns for the Tanaiste to address, if briefly, under the Irish Foreign Ministry Twitter handle @dfatirl.

More than 500 #GilmoreInNY tweets were logged in the first 30 minutes and soon it was a trending Twitter topic in Ireland (where Twitter has its European headquarters and just announced it was doubling the size of its workforce there), so avidly followed that one Irish tweep announced she was filtered out the deluge of #GilmoreInNY tagged tweets after seeing the hashtag in so many of her friends' tweetstreams.

 An early exchange in the chat:

To which he typed:

People seem to appreciate this open communication channel, peppering Gilmore with questions on the Irish economy. Among his tweets on this topic:

Other hot twitter issues were emigration, voting status of ex-pats, the role of culture in burnishing the Irish brand, the status of organized labor in Ireland, Syria, the Northern Ireland peace process, the influx of tech companies throughout Ireland...and what is it that makes Ireland such an appealing place for business, Tanaiste Gilmore?

While Molloy stayed "on message" with questions gleaned from the hashtag stream, a noisy cyberspace cocktail party conversation was chattering away around her, as tweeps found kindred spirits or opposing viewpoints through the #GilmoreInNY hashtag, began to engage with each other, retweeting cogent points, editorializing on Gilmore's responses, pressing their particular issues and finding new Twitter handles to follow.

I tweeted:

 And he tweeted back:

When I met Mr. Gilmore later that night at a consulate reception, he was still speaking enthusiastically about his Twitter chat experiment.

 Meeting Tanaiste Gilmore at the Irish Consulate, NY (photo courtesy of higginsphotonyc) 

"Given Ireland is the European destination of choice for US technology companies, it made perfect sense for the Tánaiste to do his first Twitter Chat while visiting New York," Deputy Consul Ryan said. "Delighted with the engagement and response, and already planning future chats."

The 140 character limit may not be conducive serious policy discussions, but the inward flow of questions and concerns had to provide the Tanaiste something of a finger on the pulse of global Irish thinking. As for the snark, one tweep kept peppering the conversation with inane "either, or" questions for the Tanaiste. The joke got old quickly, but have to admit that asking the second most important person in the Irish government "Star Trek or Star Wars?" did provide me with a welcome comic counterpoint to an hour of very earnest communication.

MEDIA PINGS:
Irish Business Organization of New York is sponsoring a motor coach trip to The Great Hunger Museum next Saturday, October 12, featuring a guided tour by Quinnipiac University president John Lahey.  For details go to www.IBONewYork.org...Add Debra Messing and Olympia Dukakis to the presenters for this years' Eugene O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award Celebration on Monday, October 21,which this years honors Tony, Oscar and Pulitzer Prize winner John Patrick Shanley. The Irish American Writers' and Artists annual event will be held and the recently redesigned Manhattan Club above Rosie O'Grady's. More info and ticketing at www.i-am-wa.org...Hate to see them go! Had a great time helping promote the Lyric Theatre of Belfast production of Brendan at the Chelsea, which wraps up its five-week Off Broadway run this Sunday before heading home to tour Belfast, Dublin and Derry.  Bon voyage to cast members Samantha Pearl, Richard Orr, Chris Robinson, Pauline Hutton and especially to the star and director of the show, the great Adrian Dunbar, who is, as we would say in New York, such a mensch.

Pauline Hutton, Adrian Dunbar, Samantha Pearl, Chris Robinson, Richard Orr of Brendan at the Chelsea

Mutant ninja Irish dancers Fusion Fighters duel in video game

Still of the Fusion Fighters featured in VS Battle

Just when I thought it was safe, they're back, the Jedi warriors of funk-infused Irish step dance, a.k.a Fusion Fighters, integrating digital technology with percussive dance.  And now they've turned on each other going head to head in a video game video.

It's the latest output from the cutting edge collective: a new YouTube video in the style of a motion sensor computer game in the mode of a "VS battle," which they released today as little teaser for their live performance style.

Fusion Fighters, a performance crew that fuses percussion based dance forms with a open-minded approach to the collaboration of music, comedy & technology is now hovering around London, where on St. Patrick’s Day in Trafalgar Square , they launched an interactive performance to over 15,000 people.

The truth can now be told and one of these super heroes can be unmasked.  Co-Creator Chris Naish has over ten years experience in Michael Flatley’s Lord of The Dance and Riverdance, and several innovative traditional dance spin-off shows.

It all began with Riverdance almost 20 years ago and Fusion Fighters  are looking to build on that vibe through a collaboration with cutting-edge technology designed to make dance styles rooted in Irish culture even more accessible to a modern and contemporary audience.

Maybe Playstation or the X Box is next for these digital dancers.

But hey, I thought Naish won fair and square.

Recount!

Electronic pulse propels video love letter to Dublin (VIDEO)

Dublin's Molly
Malone statue

Dublin-based photographer Mark Duggan crafted a video love letter to his home town in the form a of low-key montage set to the optimistic pulse of a song called "Leaving My Heart Behind" by Lights DC, a.k.a Neil Dixon.

"The city, visually has changed so much in the last two decades but retains a strong link to its past. I love how much character is hidden throughout Dublin, a city that encourages you to walk around it and discover it's character," the photographer said, "We shot the video from April to July of this year. I had a list of places I wanted to feature in the video, others I stumbled upon over the course of the shoot and were happy accidents."

Duggan directed and was joined by Killian Broderick in shooting the footage, with Broderick returning the manage the editing. Vimeo is hosting the five minute flick.

As the video glances at the good, the bad, the ugly, the bold and the beautiful of Dublin, it lingers for a moment on one dude striding through the city, performer Neil Dixon.

See all the places you recognize.  What other images you would have put into the mix? (now behave!)

Lights DC - Leaving My Heart Behind from Mark Duggan on Vimeo.

Ireland back on leader board with a 'Top Ten' ranking on the Global Innovation Index 2013 - VIDEO

In another example of punching above its weight, Ireland has retained a "Top Ten" ranking on the Global Innovation Index 2013, a survey of 142 countries just released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Cornell University.

The United States rejoined the five most-innovative nations and the United Kingdom moved up to the third spot while Switzerland retained its place atop the rankings. Singapore dropped from third in 2012 to eighth this year and Ireland did drop from ninth to tenth, the spot previously occupied by the US.  However, GII 2013 organizers did say the shuffling of leader board was due more to changes in their own methodology than to changes in the countries' level of innovation.

Earlier this year Ireland was ranked twelfth on the Bloomberg Global Innovation Index.

Membership in the GII 2013 top 25 countries also remained unchanged.  The study also pointed out the following nations that were out-innovating their peers: The Republic of Moldova, China, India, Uganda, Armenia, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Jordan, Mongolia, Mali, Kenya, Senegal, Hungary, Georgia, Montenegro, Costa Rica, Tajikistan and Latvia).

The Global Innovation Index 2013 Top Ten
1. Switzerland (Number 1 in 2012)
2. Sweden (2)
3. United Kingdom (5)
4. Netherlands (6)
5. United States of America (10)
6. Finland (4)
7. Hong Kong (China) (8)
8. Singapore (3)
9. Denmark (7)
10. Ireland (9)

For more on the Global Innovation Index...

Irish golfer Rory McIlroy takes on trash-talking robot on tricked-out driving range - VIDEO

Irish golfer Rory McIlroy takes on a trash-talking robot in a video trending on the European Tour website, as the Irish Open is underway at the Carton House GC, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.

The clip tees-off of some old black & white video of Rory as a boy chipping balls into the open door of his mother's washing machine, and then amps-up the challenge with some tricked-out domestic appliances arrayed over a golf driving range.

Both robo-golfer and Irish golfer get off some great shots, but the mechanized man gets off the best cracks.



Maybe the metal monster messed with Rory's head, as McIlroy was two-over par after the first round, nowhere in sight of the leader board and a long way from walking home with this bit of glass...