Popular as e-readers may be, most consumers aren’t ready to trade their daily newspapers for them just yet.
According to the findings of a new survey by iReach Market Research, the majority of consumers are without doubt unwilling to give up their daily newspapers anytime soon. 78% surveyed said that they would not change to e-readers or similar electronic devices as they prefer the physical connection with a newspaper or magazine.

Speaking of connections, a mere 7% prefer print to screen to get a break from technology. 13% said they preferred printed newspapers or magazines to share with family and friends.
Print got the thumbs up from 58% of respondents because it gave them a better reading experience in comparison to the Amazon Kindle or Apple iPad, for example.
Oisin Byrne, General Manager, iReach Market Research, added: “Apple brand awareness and brand loyalty score extremely highly in Ireland, however consumers still like the feel of holding a newspaper or magazine to enjoy the overall reading experience. Electronic devices no matter how iconic, don’t make this physical or tactile connection with traditional news print.”
The research which was completed in conjunction with Carat Ireland highlighted how successful Apple has been in terms of building strong brand awareness in the marketplace with 92% of consumers surveyed being aware of the recent Apple launch of the iPad. In Ireland, 28% of iPhone users plan on purchasing an iPad in coming months, compared to 5% of consumers in Ireland.
ends

Didn’t make it to WordCamp in Kilkenny last weekend to learn about the business of blogging? Missed out on a nomination for the Irish blog awards in Galway at the end of March? Don’t worry, here’s another way to boost your blogging power.

Bloggertone, a business blogging community, has teamed up with BizSugar, a social media site, to hold the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest, which is free to enter and has USD$6,921 worth of prizes.

Those interested in getting a bit of free exposure for their business or in the hope of being headhunted will have to get creative though. Blog posts will be evaluated by their titles. However, if you’re not into blogging but nevertheless are full of opinions, there is also a prize category for people who leave comments on blog posts.

The winners of the Top 10 Titles will be decided on by the Sugartone team and will take into account the total number of votes and comments.

The Sugartone team will also decide the winners of the Top 10 Commenters and will take into account the total number of votes and comments as well as an appreciation of the value the commenters bring to the community.

Sugartone is a combined effort from Bloggertone, which began in Ireland and now serves as a blogging outlet to Irish professionals across a variety of industries to an international audience, and BizSugar, a social media site where people can share small business news and tips.

Although they can be written at any stage blogposts must be posted to Bloggertone.com between Monday March 15th at 4pm GMT and Wednesday March 17th 4pm. Bloggertone then submits these to the BizSugar site where they can be voted on within the same timeframe. However, there is no chance to use previously published blog posts – articles must be original content. Articles that have been previously published elsewhere are not eligible to be submitted for this Sugartone contest.

For full details of the contest see: http://bloggertone.com/announcements/2010/03/08/sugartone-sweet-business-blogging-contest/

How are your project management skills? More and more job descriptions are looking for people with project management skills and a new offering is on the market to help.

A new Irish project tracking online tool built with Web 2.0 technology is to create up to six jobs by the end of next year. Barney Austen, who founded MyProjectTracker with Eoin Redmond, says the tool aims to make project management more accessible for businesses.

This year the focus will be on sales and product management staff, while plans to recruit development staff will start next year. The target is to employ four to six people by the end of 2011, says Austen.

MyProjectTracker, explains Austen, is directed at consultancies and small businesses right up to large design houses. “It’s designed for people who run lots of little projects and need to keep tabs on them or big companies that have one or two projects with a lot of people working on them, so you have both sides.”

It tracks time, costs and milestones across projects to allocate resources efficiently, meet deadlines and maximise profit margins. It also gives instant visibility of all projects, showing those that are on track and those in danger of missing deadlines or running over budget.

The online tool is open for friendly user testing for the next four to six weeks at MyProjectTracker.com before its commercial release in April. When officially launched, it will be priced by the number of users a company assigns to it per month – without an upfront cost.

It’s suited to projects running for more than a day in duration and costs don’t need to be tracked either. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, says Austen, but an advantage is that the whole team can use it without any need for training. “The whole intention behind this is to keep it as non-techie as possible. A lot of the language that’s used in project management is elitist and can seem very distant and removed from business users. What we’re trying to do is take the good practices of project management and bring it into a tool that business users can understand.”

There was an “is it a bird, is it a plane” reaction last week to the launch of Weedle.com, a Dublin-based website which offers to connect people with other people who need their skills.

Speaking to Prosperity’s Digital Ezine, CEO of Weedle.com, Iain MacDonald explained: “You have demand for people with skills and supply of people with skills. Currently there’s no large-scale, simple way of connecting people with skills to the people that need them. We provide a very simple way to connect you with people who need your skill or to find people with the skills you need.”

The obvious question is, isn’t there already LinkedIn? “LinkedIn is a very good way of managing your contacts within a white-collar network environment. Facebook is very good for sharing your thoughts or photographs with friends. What Weedle does is enable you to connect with people who need your skill or find people with the skills you need.”

How Weedle works is business people create a profile, explain what they can do and demonstrate what they can do, by uploading a video for example. Businesses could vary from accountants to babysitters to carpenters.

For those searching for skills on Weedle, the search string is semantically analysed so that a search for a carpenter will also return results for a joiner, for example. Answers are ranked according to an algorithm, so that the person most likely to meet your search need will be ranked at the top. Also taken into account are the content of a profile, the last time the person logged into their account and how quickly they respond to queries.

You don’t have to log in for the aforementioned results. However, people who are logged in will also get results based on whether friends or contacts have used them and thought they were good or they have gone to school/worked with people. “It’s like automatic word-of-mouth,” says MacDonald, “you can see instantly who in your social network has used somebody with the skill you need now.”

It’s not just for sole traders or consultants; whole teams can sign up to it and put their Weedle link in their email signature to help clients become aware that the team does more than what the person they are dealing with does.

Weedle, which currently employs 18, is expected to grow over the coming year along with some future site improvements. “We are launching in beta, so we’re looking for some support from the Irish internet community,” says MacDonald. “It isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The only way we’re going to make it better is through feedback from real live users.”

An online video tool that has an application in recruitment was the winner of the Bank of Ireland Bright Ideas Challenge Grand Final last week.
Sonru.com allows recruiters to conduct an interview with candidates without both parties having to be online at the same time. It mimics a live interview, candidates don’t see the questions in advance – they are given 30 seconds to read each question and have a specified amount of time to provide their answer.
Candidates and jobseekers also have the option of trying out the Sonru VIP product, which is a video interview preparation tool that allows them to test themselves and hone their interview skills.

The brainchild of founder Edward Hendrick, the Sonru.com concept has been developed by CTO Chris Horan over the past two years. Fergal O’Byrne, CEO of Sonru and former CEO of the Irish Internet Association, says it is neither Skype nor YouTube. “We are educating the market. Companies think that anybody can see the video and that it’s like another YouTube. Unlike Skype the interviewer and interviewee don’t have to be online at the same time.”
According to O’Byrne, the main users of this innovative online video tool in recruitment are large companies and recruitment agencies wishing to recruit numbers of people remotely. Feedback has been very good from both recruiters and candidates. The real thing that candidates liked, he says, is that it gave them back some time; they didn’t have to take a day off work.
“From the candidates’ perspective it means they can be interviewed on their time and their location without having to incur the expense and the hassle of travelling to do an interview. That’s been the big plus from the candidates’ point of view.”
In addition, one of the reasons it appeals to both employers and candidates is that it’s secure. As it’s behind a password-protected area it’s not shared with the whole world and is not going to be a YouTube viral hit.
However, candidates must remember that as it mimics a face-to-face interview and is videoed, the recommendation is to dress appropriately, have proper lighting and not to have a messy room behind you.