Giving some link-love to Irish start-ups

Someone dropped me an odd email recently.  I had commented over on Mulley’s blog about a company he had blogged enthusiastically about, saying that I was a fan of their’s.  Anyway, they sent me an email asking me to give them some link-love on the blog.  Which got me thinking about whether the email qualified as spam or not.  It was very blatant in asking me to publicise their company, but at least it was addressed to me, and was clearly based on someone reading something I had written.

Anyway, I have been thinking for a while that I should try to give some love to some of the amazing Irish tech start-ups who I admire in Ireland, or whose services I couldn’t live without, if only to give me a repository of such websites so I can find them again later if I ever forget about them!  In the end, I’ve decided to include the above-referenced company, though I remain a little uneasy about the email they sent me – I figure I liked their product enough to say it once, so I might as well repeat myself here (but no, I’m not going to reveal which of the below it was!).

• Toddle – since stumbling across these guys on the Tuesday push back in August, I’ve been an enormous fan, and I use them to create the Labour LGBT newsletters you can see down on the left.  Beyond that, I’ve been waxing lyrical to everyone I meet about them, as I think their product is brilliant.  Also met one of the guys at the IWA, who was really sound.
• TailoredToSuit – I just came across these guys the other night, when scrolling through some comments on Pat Phelan’s blog, and I’ve fallen in love with their site – bespoke suits without having to walk into Louis Copeland or some other wanker – love the idea.  I’ve barred myself from shopping for a couple of months, but I’ll be picking a couple of suits up off these guys at the start of next year.  As of now, I can’t speak for the execution, but I certainly love the idea.  They’ve also been accepted onto the M50 Enterprise programme, so that should see them develop further in no time.
• BookMeetingRoom.com – again, I bumped into Jeremiah from bookmeetingroom.com at the Irish Web Awards, and was very impressed by his friendliness – I was expecting something slightly different when I heard about it.  I kinda thought it would be something to help find conference venues, but it’s not.  It is in fact an online booking system for meeting rooms in your office/organisation, and a brilliant idea I’m trying to get both work and some other organisations to adopt.
• Find A Conference Venue – speaking of web services that allow you to book conference venues and make price comparisons etc, while thinking about the above, I came across Find A Conference Venue, which is exactly what I was looking for for ages.  They’ve even posted a brilliant blog post on how to do a conference on the cheap!  Exactly the service to use if you’re a lazy bastard like me and can’t be bothered trawling through websites of individual conference centres.
• Twitterfone – I’m sure I’d be killed stone dead if I didn’t mention twitterfone, which everyone clearly adores.  Sadly, I haven’t got access yet, so I really can’t judge for myself!  Though whether I really need another twitter app is also debatable….
• Louder Voice – this was another of Mulley’s pushes recently, which is how it came to my attention.  I really like the idea of allowing people to post reviews even before the sign-up, and allowing people to text reviews is also a great idea – the only problem that has been noticed recently is people from Irish TV shows clearly posting reviews of themselves.  Anyway, a little moderation and it’ll be a fine website.  Looks pretty too.  I guess it’s a bit like twitter for reviews (which makes it rather amazing that I’ve managed to avoid getting utterly hooked!)
• IGOpeople – this is one thjat has great potential in my view – allowing individuals, groups and organisations to meet and interact.  The sooner the gold release is out the better in my book!
• Moviestar.ie – this one might be a little obvious, as every geek I know loves moviestar!  I pay about €17.99 a month, and get the movies I want to see delivered to my door, two at a time.  Brilliant service, and they get extra bonus points for sponsoring the Irish Web Awards!

So, that’s the eight Irish web start-ups that immediately spring to mind for a bit of loving in my book.  I’m sure there are plenty of others (and ideas like Decisions for Heroes fall into this group), that I just don’t know, but there’s nothing to stop me giving them a little more love as I get to know them!