eircom Announces €100,000 Web Innovation Fund

Thursday, 22th November, 2007

Fund to focus on Web 2.0 Applications such as Micro-blogging, Embedded Voice Applications, Mashups and Social Networking

eircom today launched a Web Innovation Fund to promote, mentor and sponsor innovative web applications in the Irish Internet industry. The fund demonstrates the company's strong commitment to foster entrepreneurship in the online sector.

Friday marks day five of eircom Broadband Week. During this week, the company has made a number of exciting announcements around eircom's "Get More" strategy to help customers maximise the benefits their broadband connection. These have included the re-launch of the eircom.net Music Store, a new strategic gaming partnership with Microsoft and Xbox LIVE, a music bursary for unsigned bands and the sponsorship of the eircom Golden Spider Awards.

The fund is worth approximately €100k annually and up to four concepts will be selected each year. Applicants are invited to submit concepts across nine key categories. Winners will enter into an agreement with eircom whereby concepts are developed through to production and, if appropriate, initially launched on the eircom.net platform.

Funding will be released on a staged basis throughout the six-month development process, according to needs assessed on a per-case basis. Following launch, eircom will provide ongoing monthly funding in order to continue development of the product in line with customer feedback, and as part of a standard content agreement.

Commenting on the announcement, Cathal Magee, Managing Director of eircom Retail, said, "The aim of the fund is to incubate creative and innovative web application development at the grassroots in Ireland. The establishment of the fund is a clear signal of eircom's outward approach to innovation. The company must be well positioned to maintain its leadership position as the next wave of web services are introduced."

Details and applications are available at www.eircom.net/innovation Submissions will be due in February 2008, and applications should cover at least one of the following categories:

• Discovery (domain specific search; indexing, ranking, querying techniques; personalisation, recommendations, information aggregation)
• Messaging (IM; new / open messaging frameworks; email, alerts)
• Voice (VoIP telephony; mashups; asynchronous and embedded voice applications)
• Location (mapping; location-based services; geospacial web, location-based content aggregation)
• Publishing (blogging and microblogging, syndication; microformats; widgets)
• Communities (social networks, open standards, mashups, visualisations, aggregators)
• Content creation (music, video, film & TV, gaming, sport, lifestyle)
• Advertising (formats, platforms, technologies, networks, targeting, syndication, widgets)
• Identity (presence, capabilities management; lightweight identity platforms, cross-platform solutions, social identity management)