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DIGITALWORLD
team or some of themout in the Valley where they can tap into that ecosystemand put their development back here – that would be a model that can work and be- come very big.” So, is the ‘next big thing’ technology just
around the corner or is everyone too fo- cused on social? “It is, but the big question is what is it? Rather than being focused on mobile or social or local, we are much more focused on finding great companies.” And does he think social has a sell-by
date and that the bubble is likely to burst? “It really depends on the company. For truly great companies the market is so much bigger than it ever was before – 13 years ago, when Netscape sold to AOL, there were maybe 50 million people on the internet, now there are two billion. “As a result, companies need a lot more
capital and tend to stay private longer than they used to and that translates into high valuations for them. I personally don’t think it’s a bubble,” O’Farrell says.
EMBRACING COMMUNITIES Among the successful young Irish technol- ogy companies at theWeb Summit was Or- chestra, a software company that within months of being founded by Eamon Leonard in Dublin was acquired by San Francisco cloud software company Engine Yard. At the event Leonard spoke about the im-
portance of supporting and embracing open source communities, which he says is where the real innovation happens. “Community is the heart and soul of any
industry.Without the heart and soul, what is the industry? It’s in the community where the innovation happens – businesses really want to innovate but open source communi- ties are where real innovation happens. “The likes of Facebook write their own
code, but make no mistake their code sits on top of open source software that was written by thousands of people around the world. “I think companies should embrace com-
munities and get more active and interac- tive in communities because it will give thembetter access to talent. It will also give their developers a level of self-respect that they’re working for a company that gives a damn about a development commu- nity. I’ll also give thema way to showcase products to early adopters as generally
48 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 3 Autumn/Winter 2011
‘Iwould say Ireland has potential. It is really important, particularly for a smallmarket like Ireland, to focus on giganticmarkets up front and that usuallymeans the US’
JOHNO’FARRELL,PARTNER, ANDREESSENHOROWITZ
people who are active in a community are early adopters of technology. For all these reasons, enterprises, small and large, should embrace community.” David Shing is a digital prophet at AOL,
which offers a range of internet services such as content sites, advertising and platforms. It has made a number of major news acquisitions, with the most notable being The Huffington Post which it bought this year for US$315min cash. The Huffin- gton Post recently surpassed 100 million comments and Shing believes that this helps AOL become central to online con- versations. “The mantra for us and part of the rea-
son why we acquired The Huffington Post is that we want to be where the conversa- tion starts. The life of the story, for many places in publishing or online, is that it dies the moment you publish it. The Huff- ington Post’s ethos is very different to that, which is that the actual story starts once it’s published online. It’s very impor- tant for us to take that mantra into all of AOL’s publishing strategies. “Think about the old days: community
was really, really valuable. It’s the follow- ers of the followers – that herd mentality – is really what we’re finding. The audi- ence is really passionate about the brands that we push out.” Philip Kaplan is an entrepreneur and
angel investor based in San Francisco, California. He has founded numerous tech companies, such a Blippy, AdBrite and TinyLetter, and has invested in and ad- vised numerous start-ups. “The biggest thing I’ve learned is typi-
cally, nobody is smarter than you the en- trepreneur. “A lot of people might come to an event
Top: JohnO’Farrell, partner, AndreessenHorowitz Above: MichealBirch, co-founder,Bebo
like the DublinWeb Summit or they bring in certain investors who they think are re- ally smart or ask advisors who they look up to what to do and they take those ideas as gospel and try to implement them.” In conclusion, Kaplan has some advice
for any budding technology entrepre- neurs. “The truth is nobody has the secret for-
mula. It sort of sounds cliché, but go with your gut. The only business regrets that I’ve had in life – and I think that this is the case for a lot of entrepreneurs – is when I went with somebody else’s advice, even though it didn’t feel right to me.”
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