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My job involves working on the internet. When people ask me what I do, I tend to mutter something about digital marketing. I’ve found it’s best not to go into details. Most people just don’t care enough to decode the technical details. Look at the upcoming raft of legislation relating to the internet and it seems that this willful ignorance is shared by the Irish government.

The snappily entitled S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011, (aka. Ireland’s SOPA) intends to curtail access to websites in Ireland, without a vote in the Oireachtas. Households may be soon called on to pay a broadcast fee for the privilege of watching TV on computers, phones or tablets. And then there’s the proposal in front of the Oireachtas health committee to place a potential ban on alcohol advertising on social networks.

Online advertising may or may not contribute to the misuse of alcohol. As a nation, we certainly abused it long before Facebook came along. In 2010, five of the top ten Irish Facebook pages belonged to alcohol brands, and you can be damn sure that they were advertising to gain such popularity. Pull the advertising and the marketers, media buyers and designers who were kept gainfully employed will be out of a job.

Our political classes, it seems, have only the vaguest grasp of what the internet is, and what it means to business; from multinationals to online entrepreneurs and humble digital drones. The desire to introduce this sort of legislation without proper debate and discussion shows our legislators will pay lip service to a smart economy, while they pull the plug at the same time.

Ireland has a fairly robust digital sector. It’s taken a while to get there, but it’s growing. International companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Ebay, and Paypal have all set up European bases of operations here. Plus, there are a huge number of SME’s for whom the internet is a lifeblood, there are many more for whom the internet offers avenues for growth. Sadly, our politicians, having had their heads turned by an ailing and anachronistic music industry and conflicting judgments from Europe, are in danger of spoiling the party.

How big is this party? Well, figures revealed by Facebook’s chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg at last weekend’s DLD conference in Munich showed that Facebook and mobile apps support 232,000 jobs to the European Economy.

Facebook alone contributes €15.3bn to the European Union’s gross domestic product. Unfortunately, no figures are available for the Irish Market. But we do know that CD sales in the Republic of Ireland amounted to €56 million last year.

Our legislators are in danger of aligning Irish industrial practices with the past rather than the future. Rather than fostering an entrepreneurial attitude to the biggest upheaval in communications since the printing presses started rolling, they are kowtowing to vested interests and vague European rulings. The really disappointing thing is that apparently the likes of Sean Sherlock have willfully ignored business people and industry bodies like the Irish Internet Association in the planning of this legislation.

Of course, Intellectual property rights holders should be protected. But such protection shouldn’t impinge on freedom of speech, freedom of information and the freedom to do business online. I don’t trust the government, the European courts or EMI to tell me what sites I can visit. Surely protecting rights holders is not mutually exclusive with allowing people to go where they want on the internet.

There’s one other thing that needs to be considered. Local legislation can’t cope with the freewheeling digital frontier that is the internet. To think it can is laughable – an Irish solution to a global problem. Those who want to engage in piracy will always find a way. According to UK regulator Ofcom: “For all blocking methods, circumvention by site operators and internet users is technically possible and would be relatively straightforward by determined users.”

So the pirates will be free to sail the high seas of illegal music downloads, while the rest of us will be hampered from participating fully in an international online marketplace. If the government removes the level playing field, Irish businesses will suffer. SMEs will be at a disadvantage to overseas competitors. Online media spend will be spent elsewhere. The likes of Facebook and Google may well leave these shores, and go somewhere where all websites can be accessed freely, where the threat of litigation doesn’t hang over their heads and where legislators understand what the internet is.

That will leave an army of developers, designers and smart digital professionals with inexplicable jobs looking overseas for gainful employment. Hopefully, Skype won’t be blocked by Ireland’s SOPA legislation, allowing us to stay in touch with friends and family from wherever we end up.

This article originally appeared in The Sunday Business Post, January 29, 2012.

Online & Onscreen

So you’re a fan of Twitter. Well, you’ve probably got nothing on the good folks of Indonesia, who are taking their love affair with micro-blogging to new heights with a film called Republik Twitter. If you can speak Bahasa, you might enjoy the trailer, above.

Kuntz Agus’ film has nothing in common with David Fincher’s The Social Network. It’s a romantic comedy that examines how young people use Twitter and social media in general. Like Short Cuts or Love Actually, it features a range characters; a politician on the election trail, a journalist, a schoolgirl, workers in an ad agency. The twist is that they all use the microblogging service. No doubt, the pay off is that we’re all connected.

A Nation of Twitteratti

Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest user of Facebook and has been singled out by online research firm comScore as the most Twitter-addicted nation on the planet. Twitter has a 20.8% reach. In Ireland, the figure was 8%.

“The silent majority of middle class Indonesians who are so busy with their careers, with their family now have found the place where they can just say what they like, what they think and what they feel, online,” said Indonesian blogger Enda Nasution, explaining the platform’s popularity.

Republik Twitter opens after Valentine’s day, and will hopefully do better than 2010’s I Know What You Did on Facebook, which failed to set Indonesian box office tills rining.

Year of the Dragon to get off to a Good Start

For millions of people across the world today is the first day of the New Year – the year of the Dragon. The Dragon is one of the most auspicious symbols in ancient Chinese culture and those born during the year of the Dragon are thought to be brave, innovative, highly driven and more likely to make it to the top of their professions. We’re jumping on the positive vibes and are predicting that the Year of the Dragon will be more prosperous than the year of the Rabbit.

Flash ‘arry to Get a Grilling Over The Next Week or so

It look as though Harry Redknapp is going to branch out of the back pages of the papers and into the front this week as accusations of tax evasion during his Portsmouth days are heard in the Crown Court this week.

2012 Britain’s Got Talent Winner to Remain on Earth

As mad as it sounds Simon Cowell has revealed he plans to offer the winner of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent show the chance to perform in space by partnering up with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Space venture. Despite the bonkers offer we’re predicting that this is one PR stunt that fails to get off the ground.

Iran to lose it’s Barbie Battle with the West

According to Reuters the Iranian morality police are focusing their efforts on the pressing matter of banning Barbie Dolls citing the “destructive social and cultural consequenses” her sale has on their country. Iran’s approved alternative to Ken and Barbie, a couple known as Sara and Dara, are attired in traditional Islamic dress as shown above. We’re predicting that despite the couple being outlawed that they’ll continue to outsell Sara and Dara by means of the Black Market.

The “Are you busy” chat with Taxi Drivers to be replaced by “Fuel’s gone mad expensive hasn’t it”

We all roll out the same small talk with taxi drivers or variations of it but with the recent fuel and VAT hikes we’re predicting that taxi drivers will be assaulted with mile per gallon, diesel vs petrol and where’s the cheapest petrol station rants.

Interesting fact – the last time average fuel prices in Ireland were under €1 was as recently as January 2009. Click here for a historical breakdown of fuel prices.

Brian Kennedy to Steer Clear of Reality TV for 2012

Nice guy Brian Kennedy managed to undo 20 years of swooning middle aged women in the space of ten days with two outbursts on national TV. We’re predicting that after his public eruptions he’ll take sound counsel and politely decline any reality TV offers or Paul Martin interview requests for the foreseeable future.

Continued Happy New Year emails

People often ask the question “Is it too late to say Happy New Year?” I’m of the opinion that the festive email opening line is only valid for the first two weeks of January but am predicting that it’ll continue to infiltrate our inboxes for at least another week.

The International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas every January and sets the consumer gadget tone for the year. However it is starting to be seen as less relevant by a lot of technology companies (2012 is the last time Microsoft will be at the show).

That said, if you like gadgets or like me, a unreconstructed and unrepentant gadget nerd, there is a lot of things to want. They include smarter yet simpler TVs, dozens of new ultrabook thin laptops, and mobile phones from Nokia and Sony with new features designed to help win more fans (albeit in the US market.)

2012 – the year of voice and gesture

The latest models are on a diet of voice commands, gestures and even facial recognition that will be enabled by faster processors, built-in cameras and microphones. We could finally see the death of the remote. Justin Timberlake (looks like he got presentation training) launched MySpaceTV (as a co-owner, he needed to make an impact).

Slimmer, Faster, Better

Ultrabooks were the other big story of the show, with PC makers backing Intel’s new standard for thin, light, instant-on laptops. HP Envy Spectre oozes class and glass – it uses toughened glass for surfaces such as the lid, as well as for the display.
Lenovo showed the shape of “thins to come” with its Yoga laptop, which has an innovative hinge and a touchscreen that flips over into an easel position or flattens to become a hybrid tablet – and runs Windows 8

Massive flat screens

Sharp announced new 80inch flatscreens, while Mitsubishi showed off an award-winning 92in set. Both would allow anyone to pretend they’re in Minority Report.

If you want to blog and talk live

Watch for the Sony Bloggie Live, which streams live video over a WiFi connection and even shows viewer comments right on your Bloggie’s three-inch LCD screen so you can engage with your audience on the fly. This is where Flip should have gone, but alas…

iPad gets Tabbed

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 – this could be the year that Samsung topple the all powerful iPad

Cameras

Instagram has become a phenomenon that urges people to look at the world in new ways. The Panasonic Lumix GX1 helps you easily move from cameraphone pics to serious photography with a 16MP sensor, mirrorless interchangeable lenses, and a cool retro feel, while still keeping those Instagram-like qualities, thanks to built-in filters, TiltShift effects, and a 1:1 square shooting option.

Smartphones you might really want (other than the iPhone)

Sony and Nokia trying to strengthen their appeal to US consumers. Sony’s Xperia Ion looked highly desirable and is its first phone to run on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, while Nokia’s Lumia 900 is its biggest Windows-based phone to date.

Time to start saving, or pan handling outside NAMA…