ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING legal maneuvers is playing out in the highest courts of Ireland as the State's largest property developer takes on the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

From my perspective, I think the issues are personal. Some of the State-appointed receivers do not like the style or largesse of the Celtic Tiger generation. So there's some jostling for position that might have crossed the lines of acceptable commercial practise. If Treasury Holdings case holds water, it will constrain the way NAMA can do its business when those business dealings depend upon the careful guardianship of deposed developers. The High Court case should also expose some of the intricacies of NAMA's dealings and rekindle the question of why that State agency is not subject to the rigour of Freedom of Information requests.

The image connected to this blog post does not relate to NAMA, however. It's from the film In Darkness, a gripping account of living in the sewers of Lvov during World War II.

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Sony Pictures -- In Darkness Trailer

Watch the Quick News clip.

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• Buy a NAMA property and get an Irish visa for free! (namawinelake.wordpress.com)
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I'VE ONE LONG READ, five minutes of news summaries and one question this week after reading two Irish Sunday broadsheets.

I recommend setting aside some quiet time to read Charles Murray's take on the increasingly sharp polarisation of American society. [1] He asks, "How much run does the American project have? as he unpacks a civic culture so widely shared that it's more like a civil religion.

Of all the tech announcements and government hype, the initiative I admire most lands on page 9 of the Sunday Times. It's John Handelaar's FixMyStreet project, one I hope goes the distance. [2]

And Ireland's Social Media Awards ramps up into the submission phase this week but I wonder how in the world you can apply a standard of effectiveness to a Twitter account since few people ever agree on communications protocols in tweetspace.

Some News, a Long Read and a Question

See the five-minute video below the break.

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1. Charles Murry -- Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010 ISBN 978-0307453426

2. Audible version of the Handelaar story by Eithne Shortall in the Sunday Times, February 12, 2012.

News you can hear on Audioboo.

Today is the anniversary of my dad's death.

I AM STUNNED by the market capitalisation of Facebook and the way I see things, Facebook needs to make a lot more money out of me. Or go pop.

Facebook will get more money from my eyeballs, especially if Mark Zuckenberg's vision to connect everybody on the planet comes to fruition. It's not important that half the planet doesn't have modern electricity or phones. Most of the other three billion people have access to mobile phones where they're going to find Facebook powering their phone books and notification client.

Around a year ago, Marc Andreessen put my value to Facebook at "one or two dollars per user"($1.53 to be precise), which sounded perfectly acceptable to him. Last year, "each of the 845 million active members brought $4.39 in revenue and $1.18 in net income. Even better, based on the $3.9 billion in cash and marketable securities on FB’s balance sheet, each of these users generated a cosy cash input of $1.53 dollars," according to Frederic Filloux of Monday Note.

If the stock market values Facebook at $100 billion, my Facebook subscription is worth $118. I won't have to pay that money but that's what the market thinks my attention and my presence is worth (alongside every other Facebooker too).

Frederic Filloux cranks some other media property numbers for comparison.

LinkedIn: Today, LinkedIn has about 145 millions users, for a $7.7 billion market cap. That makes my LinkedIn attention worth $57, half of what I'm valued on Facebook.

The New York Times: 43 million Unique Views for the Times globally, 60 million for its guide site About.com. Then add 50 million for the NYT print circulation along with the Boston Globe newspaper sales. Filloux says, "Based on today’s $1.14 billion market cap, this yields a valuation of $23 per NYT customer, five times less than Facebook. That’s normal, many would say. Except for one fact: In 2011, each NYT customer brought $46 in revenue, almost ten times more than Facebook. As for the profit (a meager $56 million for the NYT), each customer brought a little more than a dollar." 

Hypeconomics?  Based on what I buy through NYT advertisements, I think Facebook economics are hyped.  Facebook is preparing to offer shares a multiple of 100 times its earnings and 25 times its revenue. Compare that to Apple's worth (13 times earnings) and Google (20 times earnings). I'll be interested in how things pan out in five years time. At the moment, I think the market has elevated Facebook into a dangerous bubble.

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Frédéric Filloux -- "Strange Facebook Economics", February 5, 2012.

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SEVERAL SUNDAY BROADSHEET ITEMS are likely talking points for early February in Ireland, beginning with the new-found prosperity some working in Facebook's Dublin headquarters may soon enjoy. Facebook enjoys the same corporation tax breaks as other multinationals operating with services in Ireland.

The Sunday Times Magazine is also worth a long read, covering 50 years of themes and photos from its archive. I'm handing it to the grandparents because the coverage pays fair tribute to life in the Sixties in both England and Ireland. I recorded a five-minute clip with my Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and let it automagically upload to YouTube. I'm doing these weekly clips because I hope they can give my children an idea of what we were talking about in this decade of austerity. I've embedded the video clip below the break.

The economists in both the Sunday Business Post and the Sunday Times point out compelling flaws with the economic austerity imposed on the country. I don't think the current imposition of deflation stimulates recovery.

Fresh Sunday News

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Watch on http://youtu.be/spyY-4GZm7w or listen on Audioboo.

From Ireland's Boom Years: "Church Cat House" on my blog, February 4, 2005.

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I DEDICATED MY SUNDAY NEWSROUND to making a shout-out to Sean Sherlock, the Dail deputy empowered to hammer home the Irish version of SOPA that will damage the innovation culture of Ireland. I'm unsure whether the Deputy is listening to the chorus of advice emanating from the Irish tech sector.

I've made a YouTube clip about the problem, using the excellent points raised by Adrian Weckler in his Sunday Business Post columns. Without being hyperbolic, I believe Ireland is at the same point in transitional history as the world was when the Church was trying to constrain Gutenberg from printing copies of the Bible for the common man.

Closer to the present, I know how easy it will be for a big business to get a court order that constrains a small company from displaying information on its website. With a well-argued copyright allegation, the music business could obtain a court order shut down a URL if the judge felt the alleged offender hadn't paid the market rate for a music sample in promotional material on a website. This happens now whenever This Week in Tech plays certain video segments about contentious issues on YouTube. If the TWiT newsclip merely repeats a portion of a video clip while a panel of experts discusses it, a rights holder can simply petition YouTube to pull the clip. With the Irish version of the law, a judge could be persuaded to shut down the entire website, not just an infringing video clip. This is wrong on so many levels. And yet, that's the kind of judicial power that Sean Sherlock and friends want to cede to the judiciary.

Don't Irish politicians see the immense harm they will inflict upon innovative creatives in the start-up community if they pass this law?

Shout-out to Sean Sherlock TD

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Watch this on YouTube by clicking on the image or listen to it on Audioboo.

Stop SOPA in Ireland.

Text browsers can listen at http://www.insideview.ie/files/shout-out-to-sean-sherlock-td.mp3

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Subscribe to Inside View of Current Affairs.

TODAY'S SUNDAY TIMES includes more long reads per inch than most issues I've purchased during the past 12 months. Its contents today will keep the paper on my kitchen table for most of the next week.

The Backlash Against SOPA

Camilla Long talked to Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia to find out why he shut down the global encyclopedia to protest against privacy laws. Perhaps a more compelling piece comes from Adrian Weckler in the Sunday Business Post. [2] Weckler believes "the Irish government's new statutory instrument threatens to do some of the same things as SOPA, mainly introducing the power to force ISPs to block websites suspected of having copyrighted material on them." This is wrong-headed mainly because of its lack of due process. If this Irish law is rammed through the Dail without the benefit of primary legislative review, it will damage the attraction Ireland has held out for companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter. In my mind, the legislation outlined to Adrian Weckler by the Minister for State Sean Sherlock gives major record labels Gestapo-like powers in Ireland. In the world defined by draft Irish legislation, when a content creator issues a complaint to an ISP, there is no discussion. There's only a takedown (or shutdown). This is bad legislation for Ireland and as toxic to innovation as SOPA and PIPA in the States. These points percolate out in discussion at Boards.ie.

Long Reads on a Sunday

 

 

Creativity in a Quiet Place.

A new book by Susan Cain argues teamwork might actually be stifling the creativity it was meant to engender. [3] [4] Susan's work is available in all formats, including audible and Kindle.

Costa Concodia Sinking.

A local couple survived the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia last week. They stood on the boat as it slipped more than 30 degrees off its hull, choosing carefully to walk on metal surfaces and not on the restaurant's glass windows as the boat slipped further underwater. A full page Sunday Times article offers an insider look at some documents that have leaked from the initial investigation. The back story has hints of ego and sex. [5]

Ireland's Sinking Austerity Fortunes.

It is clear that the troika wants a success story and Ireland is the poster child. [6] The problem, seen by our household, is a steady decay of State services, higher taxes, lower wages, and despondent local trading.

More Love for Quick Response Codes.

Where I work, we're looking at ways to make QR codes part of a major exhibition. Sandra O'Connell continues a series of articles about QR codes, this time looking across restaurants, produce shelves and application developers. She talked to Dermot Daly about his views. [7]

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If you subscribe to my flow on YouTube, you'll get these long reads as a 13-minute video clip.

1. Camilla Long -- "Hi! I'm the guy who blacked out the world" in the Sunday Times, January 22, 2012.

2. Adrian Weckler -- "This piracy debate will have lasting consequences" in The Sunday Business Post, January 22, 2012.

3. Margarette Driscoll -- "Do not disturb: loners do the best work" in the News Review section of the Sunday Times, January 22, 2012.

4. Susan Cain -- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, 2012.

5. John Follain and Jon Ungoed-Thomas -- "The Showboater" is the Focus article in the Sunday Times, January 22, 2012.

6. Brian Carey -- "Off to See the Markets" in the Focus section of the Sunday Times, January 22, 2012.

7. Sandra O'Connell -- "Better sales are just a text away" in the Small Business section of the Sunday Times, January 22, 2012.

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IRISH SUNDAY PAPERS are flying a lot of kites this weekend with speculation rife about more swinging cuts to be made in the national fabric. The papers normally start to offer platforms by advocates opposed to the cutbacks.

I've made an eight-minute extract of Irish news that an American like myself finds most interesting on an unseasonably warm Sunday morning. The video clip shows a rose trying to bloom and three red chili peppers ready to harvest. Inside the papers I take a look at photography from Timbuktu by Brent Stirton, commentary about NAMA by Matt Cooper, Kindle affection by Catherine O'Mahony, and a campaign for the United States of Europe by Declan Ganley. Dick O'Brien makes a good case for the digital hub of Dublin, one of the so-called quangos that may be sliced and diced in one of the iterations of change ahead for Ireland. One thing that won't be removed from the Irish bureaucracy is the CAO system, although increased third level costs are certainly on the Cabinet table sometime during the course of the current government.

Irish Sunday News from an American

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Watch in HD at http://youtu.be/ABCUN4HOnks or listen in stereo on Audioboo.

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EVEN THOUGH I HAVE the Sunday Business Post iOS app, it was a string of pre-dawn tweets from Dublin that told me the news that Adrian Weckler had moved up to a well-deserved position of assistant editor. This is good news for Ireland's business press.

Adrian knows the time is right for standard newspapers to transition into the digital space. More importantly, Adrian knows mainstream broadsheets won't survive without stepping confidently into digital subscription zones. I'm watching how he helps the Business Post evolve its revenue base with a cash flow coming from people who may want to read Irish business news from one foot away (on their phones, as compared to a two-foot viewing angle with the pages spread out in front of them). I'm in with a subscription to the new app but because the digital experience doesn't feel complete to me, I also buy the Sunday Business Post in the print edition. I doubt any other third level lecturer in Ireland pays as much for the Sunday news.

I'm also trying to read the Sunday papers through my phone's video recorder and I have more than 40 samples of that work in my Topgold collection on YouTube. I've watched Adrian do his own video reviews and think that kind of rich media belongs inside the Business Post app as well as flat text. There are compelling hallway comments that the Business Post staff could capture during industry events as well as comments from government officials during the worst economic austerity in the Republic since the Great Depression. These Ground Zero moments need to be recorded and audio interviews will do the trick.

I'm looking on with interest as Adrian Weckler steers the Business Post towards a new horizon.

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See more about Adrian Weckler in my Sunday newsround for December 18, 2011. Listen to the track I had on my Sony Clié PEG UX-50 when I first met Adrian Weckler in 2003:

 

Crazy in Love

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