Dr Johnny Ryan FRHistS
FRHistS. Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer at @Brave. Author of ‘A History of the Internet and the Digital Future’ http://amzn.com/1861897774.
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Farewell Brave.
This note announces my departure from Brave to take up two new roles. After a little more than over two years at Brave, I have moved to new roles at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Open Markets Institute. The peculiarities of the GDPR, and Ireland’s place in the global economy, mean that regulatory inaction in Ireland has global…
Update (Six Months of Data): lessons for growing publisher revenue by removing 3rd party tracking
This note analyses additional granular data from Dutch publisher NPO, and presents lessons for the publishing industry about privacy and revenue based on six months of data from a publishing group that removed 3rd party tracking.
New data shows publisher revenue impact of cutting 3rd party trackers
This note shares new data on publisher revenue impact from switching off 3rd party ad tracking.
New data shows publisher revenue impact of cutting 3rd party trackers
This note shares new data on publisher revenue impact from switching off 3rd party ad tracking. In January, the Dutch national broadcaster, NPO, switched off 3rd party tracking ad targeting. NPO has an online video audience of 7.1 million per month, and display reach of 5.8 million per month.[1] Revenue impact I have examined Ster’s revenue figures,…
California Privacy Rights Act to define and limit “cross-context behavioral advertising”
Following a court decision on Friday, it is now highly likely that California will introduce legislation that curtails “cross-context behavioral advertising”. A court decision on Friday (19 June 2020) makes it highly likely that Californians will vote on the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the successor to the CCPA. Disclosure: I have contributed to the text…
Johnny Ryan’s privacy keynote for P&G
Procter & Gamble invited Dr Johnny Ryan of Brave to give a (remote) keynote address about how advertisers should adapt to the privacy-first future.The presentation covers the problems with conventional advertising technology, risks to brands and media sustainability, and sets out several alternative models. See the video here. For reasons made clear in this keynote presentation,…
Industry discussion on the GDPR at 2 years old, and future EU regulatory development
Senior representatives of advertisers, publishers, and intermediaries discuss two years of the the GDPR in a discussion hosted by Brave. Participants: Dr Johnny Ryan, Chief Policy Officer, Brave;Catherine Armitage, Director of Digital Policy, World Federation of Advertisers;Conor Murray, Director of Regulatory and Public Affairs, EGTA;Mathilde Fiquet, Director General, FEDMA. The discussion covers the impacts of the GDPR so far, and…
New data on GDPR enforcement agencies reveal why the GDPR is failing
New data from Brave show that European governments have not equipped their national authorities to enforce the GDPR. Brave presents Europe’s governments are failing the GDPR, a report on data protection authorities’ (DPAs) capacity to enforce against tech infringements of the GDPR. Two years after the GDPR was first applied, the GDPR is now in danger…
Formal GDPR complaint against Google’s internal data free-for-all
Brave has filed a formal GDPR complaint against Google for infringing the GDPR “purpose limitation” principle. Enforcement would be tantamount to a functional separation of Google’s business. This morning, Brave filed a formal GDPR complaint against Google for infringing Article 5(1)b of the GDPR, which sets forth the “purpose limitation” principle. Quick facts The GDPR purpose…
Failure to enforce the GDPR enables Google’s monopoly
Brave’s submission to the UK Competition & Markets Authority shows how to fix the RTB market and end Google’s advertising monopoly.
Brave uncovers widespread surveillance of UK citizens by private companies embedded on UK council websites
Brave has uncovered widespread surveillance of UK citizens by private companies embedded on UK council websites. “Surveillance on UK council websites”, a new report from Brave, reveals the extent of private companies’ surveillance of UK citizens when they seek help for addiction, disability, and poverty from their local government authorities.
Google and IAB’s inadequate proposals to reform RTB
This note highlights the inadequacies of Google and IAB proposals to reform RTB, and rebuts the argument for inaction.
The ICO’s failure to act on RTB, the largest data breach ever recorded in the UK
The ICO has today announced that it will be taking no substantive action to fix “RTB”, the largest data breach ever recorded in the UK. Regulatory ambivalence cannot continue. We are considering all options to put an end to the systemic breach, including direct challenges to the controllers and judicial oversight of the ICO.
Brave warns US Senate & Congress: foreign state actors can use targeted ads to run code on US government computers, exploiting conventional browsers
Brave warns US Senate & Congress: foreign state actors can use targeted ads to run code on US government computers, exploiting conventional browsers
Ryan’s testimony at International Grand Chamber: RTB data breach enables disinformation. Enforcers can be sued.
Ryan’s testimony at International Grand Chamber: RTB data breach enables disinformation. Enforcers can be sued.
Brave input to California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)
Brave input to California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act (CPERA)
Brave highlights critical CCPA omission in letter to the Attorney General of California
Brave has written to the Attorney General of California to highlight a critical omission in the CCPA regulations proposed last week.
Brave writes to all European governments to press for strong ePrivacy protections
Brave has written to EU Member States to urge the prohibition of cookie walls, and the inclusion of privacy by default, in the ePrivacy Regulation.
Competition issues in digital markets
This note presents a submission from Dr Johnny Ryan of Brave, and Dr Orla Lynskey of the London School of Economics, to the UK Competition & Markets Authority.
Why marketers must conduct GDPR Data Protection Impact Assessments of RTB
This note examines the GDPR requirement that marketers conduct data protection impact assessments (DPIAs) when buying digital media using “real-time bidding” advertising.
Brave uncovers Google’s GDPR workaround
Brave presents new RTB evidence, and has uncovered a mechanism by which Google appears to be circumventing its purported GDPR privacy protections.
Brave、GoogleによるGDPR回避を明らかに
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Response to IAB Europe statement on its failure to answer the Irish Data Protection Commission
Dr Johnny Ryan responds to a statement from IAB Europe regarding its failure to answer the Irish Data Protection Commission. Four months on, both I and the Data Protection Commission are still waiting for the first explanation of how “IAB Europe is confident that the way it obtains consent for the use of cookies on…
IAB Europe fails to answer Irish Data Protection Commission
IAB Europe fails to answer questions from Irish Data Protection Commission arising from formal GDPR complaint by Brave’s Dr Ryan against IAB Europe’s “forced consent” and consent walls.
A summary of the ICO report on RTB – and what happens next
This note summarizes the ICO report on real-time bidding, which vindicates the GDPR complaints initiated by Brave, and points toward the solution.
Major publisher group DCN tells regulators “the sky won’t fall” if RTB switches to safe, non-personal data.
DCN’s CEO, Jason Kint, says removing personal data from bid requests might disadvantage adtech companies, but the sky won’t fall for publishers.
Brave answers US Senators questions on privacy and antitrust
Brave answers Senators Whitehouse, Booker, Graham and Leahy’s questions for the record from the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on privacy and anti-trust.
Google faces first investigation by its European lead authority for “suspected infringement” of the GDPR, following formal complaint from Brave
Today, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has announced a major GDPR probe into “suspected infringement” by Google’s DoubleClick/Authorized Buyers advertising business. The probe was triggered by a formal complaint from Dr Johnny Ryan, Chief Policy Officer at Brave, the private web browser.
Dr Johnny Ryan’s testimony at the US Senate Judiciary Committee
Dr Johnny Ryan’s testimony at the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Understanding the Digital Advertising Ecosystem and the Impact of Data Privacy and Competition Policy”.
Ad Tech GDPR complaint is extended to four more European regulators
GDPR complaints about Real-Time Bidding (RTB) in the online advertising industry were filed today with Data Protection Authorities in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The complaints detail the vast scale of personal data leakage by Google and other major companies in the “Ad Tech” industry.
A worrying adtech exemption to California’s new privacy law
Brave has written to the California Department of Justice to highlight potential loopholes in the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA).
Formal GDPR complaint against IAB Europe’s “cookie wall” and GDPR consent guidance.
A formal complaint has been filed with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner against IAB Europe, the tracking industry’s primary lobbying organization.
The Economist’s “Data protection-free zone” diagram of online ad auctions.
The cover story of The Economist this week includes a diagram of the “data protection-free zone” at the heart of the online advertising auction system.
Four possible loopholes in the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA)
Brave has written to the California Department of Justice to highlight potential loopholes in the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA).
New evidence to regulators: IAB documents reveal that it knew that real-time bidding would be “incompatible with consent under GDPR”.
New evidence to regulators: IAB documents reveal that it knew that real-time bidding would be “incompatible with consent under GDPR”.
Update on GDPR complaint (RTB ad auctions)
Brave and co-complainants in Poland, Ireland, and the UK submit new evidence about massive adtech leakage of highly intimate data.
Brave alerts the FTC about two major problems in digital media & services markets
Big tech companies “cross-use” user data from one part of their business to prop up others. This hurts innovation & choice. The FTC must investigate. Plus, the GDPR is emerging as a defacto international standard. Whether this helps or harms United States firms will be determined by whether the United States enacts and actively enforces…
Brave requests European Commission antitrust examination of online ad market
Investigation needed to stop anticompetitive practices that hurt publishers, restrict innovation, and limit consumer choice.
38 businesses and organizations urge European Governments to break ePrivacy deadlock
Brave and a coalition of more than 30 businesses and organizations urges European Governments to break the deadlock on the ePrivacy Regulation in an open letter.
French regulator shows deep flaws in IAB’s consent framework and RTB
French regulator’s decision against Vectaury confirms that IAB “Transparency & Consent Framework” does not obtain valid consent, and illustrates how even tiny adtech companies can unlawfully gather millions of people’s personal data from the online advertising “real time bidding system” (RTB).
Brave calls for a “United States GDPR” in letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Brave presents the case for a US federal privacy law that builds on the GDPR, protecting innovation, interoperability, and supporting US leadership.
Why GDPR is Kryptonite to Google & Facebook on Anti-Trust
This is Brave’s response to a call for stakeholder input from the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager.
Brendan Eich writes to the US Senate: we need a GDPR for the United States
A ruling of the European Court of Justice this month in the “Facebook fan page case” exposes marketers to severe legal risk from programmatic advertising.
Regulatory complaint concerning massive, web-wide data breach by Google and other “ad tech” companies under Europe’s GDPR
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Critical data protection problems in the IAB’s new OpenRTB 3.0 Spec
A ruling of the European Court of Justice this month in the “Facebook fan page case” exposes marketers to severe legal risk from programmatic advertising.
Brave Writes to All 28 EU Member States, Defending ePrivacy Regulation’s “Privacy By Design and By Default”
A ruling of the European Court of Justice this month in the “Facebook fan page case” exposes marketers to severe legal risk from programmatic advertising.
Europe’s top court signals new risk for marketers from ad tech
A ruling of the European Court of Justice this month in the “Facebook fan page case” exposes marketers to severe legal risk from programmatic advertising.
Facebook and adtech face a turbulent time in Europe’s courts: the Brussels case.
This note examines a Belgian court ruling against Facebook’s tracking and approach to consent. Facebook and adtech companies should expect tough sanctions when they find themselves before European courts – unless they change their current approach to data protection and the GDPR. Facebook is playing a dangerous game of “chicken” with the regulators. First, it has begun to confront users in…
Risks in IAB Europe’s proposed consent mechanism
This note examines the recently published IAB “transparency and consent” proposal. Major flaws render the system unworkable. The real issue is what should be done with the vast majority of the audience who will not give consent. Publishers would have no control (and are expected to blindly trust 2,000+ adtech companies) The adtech companies[1] who drafted…
PageFair writes to all EU Member States about the ePrivacy Regulation
This week PageFair wrote to the permanent representatives of all Member States of the European Union in support for the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. Our remarks were tightly bounded by our expertise in online advertising technology. We do not have an opinion on how the proposed Regulation will impact other areas. The letter addresses four issues:…
Adtech must change to protect publishers under the GDPR (IAPP podcast)
The follow up to the International Association of Privacy Professionals’ most listened to podcast of 2017. Angelique Carson of the International Association of Privacy Professionals quizzes PageFair’s Dr Johnny Ryan on the crisis facing publishers, as they grapple with adtech vendors and attendant risks ahead of the GDPR. The podcast covers: Why personal data can not be used without…
PageFair’s long letter to the Article 29 Working Party
This note discusses a letter that PageFair submitted to the Article 29 Working Party. The answers may shape the future of the adtech industry. Eventually the data protection authorities of Europe will gain a thorough understanding of the adtech industry, and enforce data protection upon it. This will change how the industry works. Until then, we are in…
GDPR’s non-tracking cookie banners
This note outlines how an anomaly in European law will impact cookie storage and presents wireframes of permission requests for non-tracking cookies. Online media will soon find itself in an anomalous position. It will be necessary to apply the GDPR’s consent requirements to cookies that reveal no personal data, even though the GDPR was not…
GDPR consent design: how granular must adtech opt-ins be?
This note examines the range of distinct adtech data processing purposes that will require opt-in under the GDPR.[1] In late 2017 the Article 29 Working Party cautioned that “data subjects should be free to choose which purpose they accept, rather than having to consent to a bundle of processing purposes”.[2] Consent requests for multiple purposes…
Can websites use “tracking walls” to force consent under GDPR?
This note examines whether websites can use “tracking walls” under the GDPR, and challenges the recent guidance on this issue from IAB Europe. This week, IAB Europe published a paper that advises website owners that tracking walls (i.e., modal dialogs that require people to give consent to be tracked in order to access a website) will be…
Adtech consent is meaningless unless one stops data leakage
Websites and advertisers can not prevent personal data from leaking in programmatic advertising. If not fixed, this will render consent to use personal data meaningless. The GDPR applies the principle of transparency:[1] People must be able to easily learn who has their personal data, and what they are doing with it. Equally importantly, people must have surety…
Research result: what percentage will consent to tracking for advertising?
This note presents the results of a survey of 300+ publishers, adtech, brands, and various others, on whether users will consent to tracking under the GDPR and the ePrivacy Regulation. In early August we published a note on consent, and asked whether people would click “yes”. We would like to thank the 300+ colleagues who…
How the GDPR will disrupt Google and Facebook
Google and Facebook will be disrupted by the new European data protection rules that are due to apply in May 2018. This note explains how. Google and Facebook will be unable to use the personal data they hold for advertising purposes without user permission. This is an acute challenge because, contrary to what some commentators have assumed, they cannot use a “service-wide” opt-in for…
The Privacy Case for Non-Tracking Cookies: PageFair writes to the European Parliament
In the last month, we have written to the MEPs leading the Parliament’s work on the ePrivacy Regulation (the “rapporteurs”) to propose an amendment. Here is a copy of the letter. PageFair supports the proposed ePrivacy Regulation, in so far as it will change online behavioural advertising. This is an unusual position for an ad tech company,…
Here is what GDPR consent dialogues could look like. Will people click yes?
THIS NOTE HAS NOW BEEN SUPERSEDED BY A A MORE RECENT PAGEFAIR INSIDER NOTE ON GDPR CONSENT DIALOGUES. PLEASE REFER TO THE NEW NOTE. This note presents sketches of GDPR consent dialogues, and invites readers to participate in research on whether people will consent. [x_alert heading=”Note” type=”info”]It is important to note that the dialogue presented…
The 3 biggest challenges in GDPR for online media & advertising
This note explains the three deepest challenges that the online advertising industry must overcome to survive the new European data rules. It also outlines our approach. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Regulation (ePR) pose particular challenges for publishers, brands, and adtech companies. These go beyond the normal gap analysis and security overhaul that other businesses…
Risks to brands under new EU regulations
Brands face serious new risks under the GDPR and the ePrivacy Regulation (ePR), and agencies will not be able to shield them. This note explains why, and describes what these risks are. When the GDPR and the ePrivacy Regulation (ePR) apply a year from now brands that use personal data in their marketing campaigns will become exposed…
PageFair statement at European Parliament rapporteur’s ePrivacy Regulation roundtable
Lightly edited transcription of PageFair remarks at rapporteur’s sessions at the European Parliament in Brussels on 29 May 2017, concerning the ePrivacy Regulation. Statement at roundtable on Articles 9, and 10. Dr Johnny Ryan: Thank you. PageFair is a European adtech company. We are very much in support of the Regulation as proposed, in so far…
Why pseudonymization is not the silver bullet for GDPR.
Pseudonymization will not save online advertising companies from having to seek consent to use browsing and other personal data. This note explains why. Personal data will become toxic in May 2018 when the General Data Protection Regulation is applied, unless data subjects have given consent.[1] Some businesses may try to rely on “pseudonymization”, a partial…
PageFair statement at European Parliament ALDE shadow rapporteurs session on the proposed ePrivacy Regulation
Lightly edited transcription of PageFair remarks at European Parliament ALDE session on 4 May 2017. Dr Johnny Ryan: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be with you this afternoon. I’ve been on both sides: the adtech side, and the publisher’s side, of the particular part of this story that I want to talk about. Several…
Supporting new European data regulation
Unusually for an ad-tech company, PageFair supports the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. Here is why. [x_alert type=”success”]Additional note (11 May 2017): our position concerns the proposal’s impact on online behavioural advertising (OBA). Though there are kinks to work out, as we note in our recent statement to Parliament representatives, we strongly endorse the proposal’s broad approach to OBA.[/x_alert] The…
Why the GDPR ‘legitimate interest’ provision will not save you
The “legitimate interest” provision in the GDPR will not save behavioral advertising and data brokers from the challenge of obtaining consent for personally identifiable data. As previous PageFair analysis illustrates, personally identifiable data (PII) will become toxic except where it has been obtained and used with consent once the General Data Protection Regulation is applied…
European Commission proposal will kill 3rd party cookies
The 3rd-party cookie – the lifeblood of online advertising – may be about to die. A proposal this month from the European Commission to reform the ePrivacy Directive (ePD) requires mandatory privacy options and educates users to distinguish between 1st and 3rd-parties in a way that will make 3rd-party cookies extinct. [prompt type=”left” title=”Access the GDPR/ePR repository” message=”A repository…
Ten Key Things That Happened in Q4
Amid the blizzard of press releases and conference tidbits concerning media, advertising, and adblocking, only some really matter. Here are the ten key things that happened in Q4. OCTOBER 1. US Department of Justice examines possible agency shenanigans. It transpired that the US Department of Justice had launched an investigation into rigged bids that unfairly favored…
Europe’s new privacy regime will disrupt the adtech Lumascape
In a year and a half, new European rules on the use of personal information will disrupt advertising and media across the globe. Here are the three biggest impacts. Since 1996 when cookies were first repurposed to track users around the Web there has been an assumption that gathering and trading users’ personal information is…
Eight Things From Q3 Worth Knowing
Now, ten days into October, we have had time to digest on the events of the last quarter. As is ever the case with history, only some of the headlines of the last three months will have any lingering impact. But of all the events in the past three months the following eight are worth…
Publishers – your only weapon is trust
Adblocking—and publisher responses to it—sit at the nexus of two trends: the increasing value of trust in the publisher-consumer relationship, and the emerging conditions of the new information market. The Internet turns many types of information that were once scarce and expensive into overabundant—and therefore cheap—commodities. By corollary, trust and attention have become increasingly valuable.…
Global stakeholders discuss new approach to the Blocked Web
From late 2015 onward PageFair drew together global consumer groups, advertisers, agencies, publishers and browsers for senior level roundtable discussions on adblocking. These were held at The Financial Times, at Mozilla, and at MEC Global. The most recent roundtable was organised by both PageFair and Digital Content Next. Participants at the PageFair roundtables included the World…
Four big ideas emerge from PageFair global stakeholder roundtable
A growing segment of Web users sees few or no ads. Publishers are suffering mounting revenue losses as a result. But even as blocking of advertising harms publishers it also undoes the mistakes of the first 20 years of advertising on the Web. Several vendors including PageFair have the technology to display ads in a…
The start of something to save publishers on the open Web
In July I wrote on this blog that “online advertising is destroying itself”. That was two days before I joined PageFair and started to work on the problem. Earlier this month (September) I organised a meeting of global publishing leaders in the boardroom of The Financial Times to consider how best to address ad blocking. The…
Online advertising is destroying itself.
Online advertising is destroying itself. And it is doing so in a way that will fatally undermine online publishers’ sustainability. Increasingly brash formats and data snooping by online advertisers are driving millions of people to sever publishers’ revenue lifelines by blocking all advertising. The outlook is very bleak indeed. Publishers’ are desperate to extract revenues from…
Help me write a kids book that explains the digital age
– So, I’m working on a new project. And I’d like your help with it. A few years ago I wrote a fairly detailed history of the Internet’s development, from the earliest days of networking to the present. That book had hundreds of footnotes, involved reading hundreds of technical documents, and gave me an excuse…
Design discussion with IDEO.org, 3fE, and Irish Design 2015
I spoke about design with John Collery (IDEO.org), Colin Harmon (3fE), and Laura Magahy (Irish Design 2015) in Dublin recently. Here are the highlights. As I wrote last year in The Irish Times, a happy customer is an extraordinary thing. So extraordinary that this first moment of happiness with a service can be a prelude…
Design matters for business, for startups
Originally appeared in The Irish Times on 7 November 2014. Full story is at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/find-your-niche-and-put-focus-on-design-1.1991105 A report by Sir George Cox for the UK Treasury in 2005 started with definitions of three key ingredients that could enhance business competitiveness: creativity, innovation, and design. Creativity, Cox said, is the inception of new ideas, approaches to problems or…
What start-ups need is proof, not passion
I wrote this article for The Irish Times. Full story is at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/what-start-ups-need-is-proof-not-passion-1.1949565. After the dotcom bust, entrepreneurs came to realise the untested hunch was no longer adequate. In 1999, the start-up Webvan launched in the US with the intention of becoming the grocery service for online shoppers. It climbed to a multibillion dollar valuation at…
Designing services for smarter business
I wrote this article on service design for The Irish Times, published on 5 September 2014. Article is at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/designing-services-for-smarter-business-1.1916748 The Apple user or Nespresso drinker appreciates not only the physical good, but the entire experience of interacting with the business A customer’s relationship with a service is often unpleasant and short. But occasionally something…
Sustainable growth, not disruption
An edited version of this piece appears in The Irish Times , 1 August 2014 (online here) In defining the criteria by which the judges of The Startup Academy will adjudicate which companies would be accepted into the programme we have done something radical. Normally a competitive process like this might select only the startups…
Design Thinking, and thinking like a child, for product design
This is a slightly shortened piece I wrote for The Irish Times on Design Thinking in organisations. Full article is here http://www.irishtimes.com/business/bring-design-thinking-to-your-product-1.1822064 Bring design thinking to your product Thinking like a child could save your business cash US technology investor Dave McClure coined a maxim that sums this challenge up: “Your solution is not my problem.”…
Lean Startup Strategy. Not just for startups.
I spoke to Steve Blank, Alex Osterwalder, and the man who coined “Lean”, John Krafcik. Here is what they said. This article appeared in The Irish Times 2 May 2014 see link. “U should apply Lean Start-up Strategy in everything u do. Even ur personal & love relationship. Think about it & makes sense.” Thus tweeted…
Press: “Innovation Academy UCD appoints Dr. Johnny Ryan as Executive Director”
Dublin, 8 April 2014: The Innovation Academy, UCD, today announced that it has appointed Dr Johnny Ryan as Executive Director. In his new role Dr. Ryan will take responsibility for the execution of the strategic mission and expansion of the Academy, and management of core operations including staff, programmes, and commercial operations. Dr. Ryan joins the…
New role
—- Note: When I wrote this post two years ago I did not complete it. Probably I was preoccupied by taking up the new role. I publish it now with the caveat that this is an early draft, long and meandering. The reader has been warned. —- Oscar mike. I’m on the move, and taking…
Big Data R&D for the newsroom
As the ratio between quantity of available information and our capacity to absorb it changes, we must be more selective.
New project: Prevent national health crises by mining public discussion and news to predict vaccination uptake
Prevent national health crises by mining public discussion and news to predict vaccination uptake This is the proposal that I submitted yesterday to the Knight Foundation health data challenge. See the proposal, and vote on it if you like it, at the Knight News Challenge. Vaccines matter. We want to predict uptake by mining news…
Newspapers and audiences
I’ve received survey data back from a study we ran among Irish Times readers over the last week and they show some interesting things. I was interested to learn just how important readers said analysis was as part of their information intake from The Irish Times. We asked respondents what they valued most when they…
A look back at ReformCard: the political reform score card
ReformCard is a measurement tool to rank each political party based on the quality of their policies on political reform to inform the election 2011 debate. It provides the 25 proposals for political reform in Ireland which we believe provide the best possible combination to transform the political system and ensure it is fit for…
Interview with internet pioneer Steve Crocker
In a bathroom, at three in the morning in April 1969, a graduate student named Steve Crocker started to write one of the most important documents of the last century. Though drafted in humble circumstances Crocker’s document would set the open, inclusive tone of the next half century of Internet engineering culture, and initiate the…
Silicon Republic interview: innovation at The Irish Times
I had an opportunity to set out what we are doing at The Irish Times in innovation, research, and working with startups. http://vimeo.com/66916581 (Hat tip to John Kennedy of Silicon Republic for letting me copy the video to video to display here.)
Advertising’s historic pivot point
This is a piece I originally published in Contagious.An understandable malaise in ad agencies surrounds all things digital. Low revenues on the one hand and a new answerability to metrics on the other are accompanied by a sense that digital formats remain largely underdeveloped, and that new, possibly unwelcome, surprises await. This is a moment…
Startup networking at a 153 year old media company
If a 153 year old newspaper is to adapt, to experiment, and take useful risks, it makes sense to work with startups. Since The Irish Times’ initial eight week experiment in 2012, both the NYT and the BBC have followed with their own ways of incubating early stage digital businesses. But beyond incubation there is…
Obit: Aaron Swartz
I wrote this obituary for The Irish Times last week. Aaron Swartz, Born: November 8th, 1986 Died: January 11th, 2013 Aaron Swartz took his own life in an apartment in Brooklyn on January 11th. Though only 26 when he died, Swartz had many claims to fame.
Links are sacred (links, newspapers, and copyright)
This is my op ed in The Irish Times, 7 January 2013. In the early 1960s a Harvard graduate student named Ted Nelson developed the idea of ‘hypertext’, a system of digitised links between tidbits of information that would transcend the limitations of printed paper. The idea was wildly ambitious. A user could click various…
The 2012 tech topic, and a guess at the topic of 2013…
A brief note: I was asked to think about the hot topic in tech for 2012, and make a prediction for the hot topic of 2013 by Corriere della sera, an Italian newspaper. It might seem passé, but I think the hot topic of 2012 has been mobile Internet. The ITU disclosed in June
An experiment in startups working with news media companies: looking back at The Irish Times Digital Challenge
(This post also appeared in The Irish Times on 4 October 2012.) LAST FRIDAY, at The Workman’s Club on Wellington Quay in Dublin, an Irish technology start-up company called GetBulb was announced as the overall winner of The Irish Times Digital Challenge. GetBulb has produced a system that can rapidly create data visualisations suitable for…
Piece on 3D printing in The Irish Times
The Irish Times, 24 September 2012: “3D printers to manufacture a revolution”. (This is a condensed version of a longer piece – read full piece here) THE THREE trends toward cheaper 3D printing, consumer co-creation, and digital distribution should be understood as part of a great adjustment. The current stage of 3D printing is analogous to the…
Week One: The Irish Times Digital Challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A_zI4oMWwM I PREVIOUSLY POSTED THIS ON THE HUFFINGTON POST. RE POSTED HERE. Some months ago I set up The Irish Times Digital Challenge to invite digital entrepreneurs to propose ways to work with The Irish Times. Almost 81 early stage digital companies applied, of which 14 were invited to pitch in person. From this a…
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Dr Johnny Ryan FRHistS 