Introducing WebCare.ie - our next startup

Today I'm delighted to announce the start of our newest venture, WebCare - a complete website support and maintenance company in Ireland. WebCare will be based beside Primary Position in the National Technology Park in Limerick, where the first team is already setup and working.

We've been involved in the web space for a long time. In 1996 we developed our first website for a company in South Africa and its been go since then. Since then we've worked for over 500 companies, some of them are the biggest and best known in Ireland and we've kept professionally tight lipped about them all. But we're very proud of the work we've done nonetheless. The return comes through the many recommendations we get, even years later.

Throughout this time, we've come into contact with many businesses who have had websites designed - and are very happy with them - but need someone to help update and maintain the site. Image editing, replacing PDF's, editing content, adding pages - all that kind of work that many people just hate doing. Well, at WebCare - we love doing it!

I've known the co-founders since my days in DELL in Limerick. James has been a long term business partner and a great friend. He's also my best man at my upcoming wedding in December. Gene was director of Engineering and hugely capable. He's the most respected boss I've ever had and its a hugely satisfying to still be working with him 12 years on. Together, we have years of experience in providing customer focused services.

WebCare already has a comprehensive range of support and maintenance packages - but we want to grow the range of services and the way in which we deliver them - we're all about providing the best we can for our clients and look forward to hearing back from people in terms of what else we can offer them.

It's also great to be able to be involved in creating a new startup, especially in Limerick, where we all met and cut our teeth. Limerick is a great city, as good as any other, regardless of the media portray it. It's arguably the safest city I've lived in  - and I've lived in 3  (Cape Town and Dublin too). The people are great, the city is compact and easy to get around. The location is perfect - Cork, Galway, Tralee, Tipperary, Killarney, Dublin - all accessible within an hour to two hours.

And a massive thank you to everyone who has wished us well or is already working with us ( the hosting companies, the designers, the partner companies, the platform providers) - we've been so well recieved and it's only our first day! And welcome too to the new clients that have signed up with us - well, not so new maybe as many of them have been clients for years!

Thank you.

Our new startup - what I've been up to

This week we've started another new company - Webcare - and it will be based alongside Primary Position in the National Technology Park in Limerick.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been fascinated with Business and Technology. My dad gave me an Epson HX-20 laptop PC when I was about 8 years old -  it was literally the first laptop PC on the market. It was dual 0.9Mhz (yip 0.9) processor and I taught myself to programme it by the age of 10.

I also setup my first my business as an IT Consultant in Cape Town in 1995 while I was studying a B.Comm degree. I dropped out after my second year and never looked back. In 1998 my family returned to Ireland and I went to work for Dell. What a fantastic job - a software engineer in the worlds biggest computer company - geek heaven on earth.

I went on to start another company in 2002 and invested in or directed several (or more) other startups that were later sold (not at huge profits mind you). For me, its the love of startups - I love being involved with them. Business and Technology.

In 2010, I teamed with my old friend and long time business Partner, James and with Gene. We'd worked together in Dell - James in Engineering and then Sales and Gene was Director of Engineering. I got on so well with them that we remained working together even after we'd all left.

From our background in building and developing web solutions for other companies, through

The Great Irish Online Survey : 2010

We plan to run a survey in a couple of weeks that we hope to get responses from Irish consumers regarding shopping habits, attitudes towards brands, payments, security, design and continuity. Respondents may be involved in the web industry but we'd like to separate the results out as much as possible.

The overall aim is to get a better idea of how people buy online and how to improve the experience for everybody. It should also establish some facts on which Web UX can be improved.

If you are involved in the Irish Web Industry - a shop owner, designer, PR, agency, industry body for example - and would like to help create, publish and invite respondents as a partner, then we would like to hear from you. We'd also like to publish any special offers/freebies that partners would like to give.

The data will be shared with partners equally for their own analysis.

The Great Irish Online Survey : 2010

We plan to run a survey in a couple of weeks that we hope to get responses from Irish consumers regarding shopping habits, attitudes towards brands, payments, security, design and continuity. Respondents may be involved in the web industry but we'd like to separate the results out as much as possible.

The overall aim is to get a better idea of how people buy online and how to improve the experience for everybody. It should also establish some facts on which Web UX can be improved.

If you are involved in the Irish Web Industry - a shop owner, designer, PR, agency, industry body for example - and would like to help create, publish and invite respondents as a partner, then we would like to hear from you. We'd also like to publish any special offers/freebies that partners would like to give.

The data will be shared with partners equally for their own analysis.

Should every business be on Facebook Fan Pages? No....

If only to start a balanced debate on what companies are really achieving through Facebook, I've started a debate on the Irish Webmasters Forum about it. With facts like "400 million potential" customers on Facebook, its quite scary for business owners - who need, more than ever, to make more sales - to ignore.

That makes this post very hard to write. Its been on my mind for months now. Facebook and in particular fan pages, are being sold as a cure-all, ignore-at-your-peril, never mind the obvious must-have for businesses. If only it was that simple....Well I've discussed it with lots of smart people that I really know and I think it's worthwhile opening up the topic for a little bit of discussion.

But 400 million customers? So Irish taxi drivers will be able to magically overcome geographical and legal (not forgetting commercial) constraints and pick up punters in New York? And Irish accountants and solicitors will be able to get work in Japan and Mexico. Because Facebook will bring you together.

Not forgetting language barriers, exchange rates (remember Ireland is still at the top of the top most expensive countries for things like mechanics, accountants, solicitors - well any skilled labour) etc.

Working in Primary Position puts me in unique and privileged place - we have access to over 200,000 visits per week through Irish websites that come from a variety of different sources - Direct, Search and Referral.

Visits from Facebook fall into the Referral variety. The % makeup between Search and Referral varies from 90% to 50%. Sometimes traffic from Direct/Referral spike with events, news, e-zines. Its all part of the rich tapestry of online traffic. Facebook accounts for less than 1%. That's an absolute fact. Many have very successful Facebook fan pages with 000's of fans. Naturally grown too.

While Facebook is an exciting, useful, fantastic tool - generating less than 1% of your traffic means that you have to generate 99% from somewhere else. Facebook is good for peer referral, peer review and a good indication of how people see your brand/product/service. Its a good traffic recycler (maybe the visitor didn't buy but he can recommend you) - but its not a core generator. Generate 100 visits from Search to get 1 Facebook fan - probably need to have 1000 really. That means a lot of work.