Prosperity. Happiness Works.

Prosperity was delighted to scoop the gong for best Listings site at last night’s Eircom Spiders Awards. It was a great night with our many friends from the digital industry : )

And For The Full List of Winners -

Best Financial Services Website -  Bonkers.ie

Best Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Website -  Killarneyonamap.ie

Best Charitable and Non Profit Organisation Website -  National Gallery of Ireland

Best Retail Excellence Website -  The Corkscrew Wine Merchants

Best eBusiness -  Boardsdeals.ie

Best Campaign - Velvet Can Music Grow on Trees

Best News Website - TheJournal.ie

Best Education Website - CourseHub.ie

Best Sports Website- 1escape

Best Entertainment Website - TV3 – 3player

Best Listings Website - Prosperity

Graduate Award - Liam Carey

Best Web Design and Development Agency - Kooba

Big Mouth Award (as voted by the public) - Rukkle.com

Best Community Website (as voted by the public) - Runireland.com

One to Watch Award - Pigsty.ie

Digital Editor Award - TheJournal.ie

Best Mobile App - National Irish Bank Smartphone Banking Application

Internet Hero - Ray Nolan

eircom Grand Prix - TheJournal.ie

Dublin may be popular amongst social media and digital giants but there is also plenty going on in other innovation hubs around the country.
Irish people are very enterprising; around Ireland there are enterprise centres in every county and many universities and colleges have some sort of technology hub attached to them.

One of the most recent initiatives on the drawing board is TechOvate in Wexford town which will see Wexford Enterprise Centre link with Silicon Valley based innovation centres to provide a route to the US market for south-east based clients.
A group representing the initiative were well received in Silicon Valley recently and will begin TechOvate in earnest in the first half of 2012. As well as appealing to jobseekers, Techovate also welcomes companies based outside of the south east to move into the area to take advantage of the links.

The top tech international companies of the future could be grown by skilled digital, technology, marketing and creative professionals from Ireland and in Ireland.

Internet, Games, and Cloud Computing start-ups from outside of Ireland are part of the answer to finding jobs for jobseekers in the Government’s eyes and a €10m fund has been made available to draw them here.
Announcing the fund, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD said one key strand of the Government’s new industrial strategy will be to create a genuine indigenous engine of growth.
“As I have said before, our ambition must not only be to attract the next Google or Microsoft to Ireland, but we must also seek to grow the next Google or Microsoft in Ireland. Indigenous companies provide proportionally more than three times more benefit to the Irish economy than multinational companies.”
Across the world, many of the start-up companies which go on to succeed and create jobs are driven by people within a small class of mobile, innovative, serial entrepreneurs, he added. “What the Irish Government is saying very clearly today to the international technology community gathered in Dublin is – come and start your company in Ireland, we are open for business, and we will support you.”

Was it Ireland’s gift of the gab that attracted one of the latest tech companies to establish a presence in Ireland? Who knows, but a company that is working at making talking and texting free, has been added to the long list of companies choosing to have a base in Ireland.

Pinger, headquartered in San Jose, California, is a cloud-based telecoms company that develops and markets free texting and phone call applications for use on the iPod touch, iPad, iPhone, Android phones and the web.
It has announced it is establishing its EMEA Headquarters and a Customer and Technical Support operation in Dublin which will result in the creation of 15 jobs over the next two years.

The Dublin operation will be responsible for managing Pinger across all territories with the exception of North America.

Pinger apps have been downloaded over 50 million times and over 19 billion text messages have moved through its system. More than 1.6 billion texts go through Pinger each month

Whether or not there’s going to be a White Christmas in the UK, there’ll be a Green Gathering for people in the marketing, creative and digital industries this December.

Thursday, 8 December, the traditional shopping day for Irish country folk will see Irish folk in London have a chance to get together.
Whether it’s talking shop or talking about home, the Green Gathering events hosted by digital agency Cybercom and recruitment specialists Prosperity, give participants a chance to provide support to each other through this series of offline social meet-ups. And of course we have someone lined up to share their experiences. This time it’s Oisin Lunny who has agreed to share some of his experiences from 20 years in the music, technology, marketing and digital industries.
Interested?
1.    Check your diary for a free spot from 6.30pm-8.30pm on Thursday, 8 December
2.    RSVP fast if you’re planning to attend (there is only a limited amount of space available)
3.    Put Central Working just off Tottenham Court Road into Google Maps
See http://www.meetup.com/Green-Gathering/ for further details and updates.