Paul Clerkin

Wednesday, May 27. 2009

The shoemaker's children.....

I have some confessions to make. I'm not really a web developer - I see myself as a web publisher, and therefore the content is the message not the medium.

Recently I had a minor breakthough. For 12 years I have updated the front page of Archiseek.com by hand four evenings a week - at an average of ten minutes a night, 4 times a week, 200 times a year, 2400 times x 10 minutes, 24000 minutes, 400 hours, ten weeks of full-time work. I automated it after Christmas to take the RSS feeds, it took me 20 minutes....

Archiseek was started when having a CMS meant building it yourself from scratch (anyone remember Nua Publish) or paying big bucks. So I started the site in HTML (well it was only supposed to be around 50 pages). And I kept doing it. And doing it. Along the way, various databases have been added to power certain areas or features, but essentially the site, all 23,000+ pages are HTML files.

My current employer thinks this is hilarious - she lifted me to run a database driven project - and my major resume filler is a site done in HTML and CSS. My day job involves all sorts of interesting stuff a world away from HTML, and I know all the theories of social media blah blahdy blah....

But still the nagging little voices in my head keep mentioning database. So I'm giving in. Not because I feel the HTML doesn't cut it, but more the competition has upped their game somewhat, and I like the idea of fancy galleries for the building photos, tag clouds, comments, and maybe another extra 10 minutes a night.... it builds up you know.

But finding the right CMS to power the site is proving difficult.....

..... never mind adding the content......

Tuesday, March 24. 2009

Irish government studies blogging tax

Irish government studies blogging tax

Dublin - 24 March 2009 - The Irish government is considering the introduction of a system of blog licences in next month's crisis Budget.

Sources close to the Cabinet say that annual licence fees under the system will be in the region of €40 per blog, with an expected revenue of approximately €23 million in a full financial year.

Up to 15 inspectors from the Information, Communications Technology and Logistics Division of the Revenue Commissioners will be assigned to monitor blogs within the Republic and ensure tax compliance.

The Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, will outline a five-year plan to get the public finances back in check during his crisis Budget on April 7. Mr Lenihan and senior officials from his Department are also reported to be discussing the possibility of additional revenue streams from Twitter, Facebook and Bebo pages.

Thursday, February 19. 2009

Recession-busting @ Archiseek.com

I'm opening up Archiseek.com to external advertisers, other than through Google Adwords. I'm offering a "recession-buster" special.

One IAB Button (120x90) on every page on Irish-architecture.com - only 4 slots available in right hand column.

1 in 5 slots of a 240 x 400 IMU - (Vertical Rectangle) on Archiseek front page. And you can change your ad graphic when you want to. At no extra charge.

4 ads per month in the Archiseek IRELAND Newsletter. Published approximately 3-4 times a week to over 4,000 subscribers. Newsletters are text based but would include a prominent sponsorship link and three lines of text.

Price 2,500 euro for one year’s exposure - the year is non-negotiable, that's why it's so cheap.

For January 2009, the site recorded: 57,813 Unique Visitors For the previous six month period, the site averaged over 2 million page views per month.

This is a great opportunity to get your ad in front of our readership of architects, technicians, students and designers.

Think about it - it’s only 50euro per week - a hell of a lot cheaper than a trade magazine.

Tuesday, January 13. 2009

The R Word

Redundancy. A quick poll on Archiseek this morning shows (currently) that over 40% of respondents have been affected by job losses, with 44% expecting to in the future. Scary stuff indeed, and indicative of how the construction sector has collapsed in Ireland.

Over the last four or five months, I've seen the jobs posted to Jobsarchitect.com dry up while visitors and traffic have increased. The trick during this recession will be to ensure that come an upswing in architecture firms fortunes, they post their jobs with me and not elsewhere.

Wednesday, December 24. 2008

Forkncork.com

This is my mate Ernie's food and wine site. Ernie and I met by accident some years ago in the Dame Tavern. They used to have a singer-songwriter night, and as my brother was fond of penning depressing songs about life, I went along for support. Ernie is a transplanted Mancunian with a line in humourous songs about Volvo drivers, and we hit it off. At the time he was running a small cafe on Tara Street, and I soon discovered that a) he made the perfect hangover cure for a Saturday morning, and b) he liked to close up at 12 on the saturday and go for pints, and c) and the back room in Mulligans around the corner was always quiet. There's been a lot of beer, food, and wine since. And stories.

He wrangled me a ticket for some food awards some years ago, just after the Berlusconi and Caravaggio incident. Wandering out of the reception, I went looking for a bathroom, spotted him talking to someone, and interupted to ask. Later it transpired that the person he was talking to was the journalist who I duped with the Caravaggio and reportedly had come close to being fired by the Indo. I'm sure she would really have liked to be introduced to me.

Eventually I built him a website, using Vbulletin as a CMS to power it. Clunky as hell but it worked, kinda.

Anyways it's just been redone, as a freebie, and will still be getting some tweaks - forkncork.com. Trot along, he's an entertaining writer without being too dry on the subject matter. And somewhere in the archives, you'll find me. And join the forums.