Pat Phelan: Bits, bytes and telecomsMobile, Roaming and Social Media

I decided to sit back and watch the reactions to Microsoft’s purchase of Skype before I made any comment, well done Om for gazumping everyone. Firstly, a couple of interesting points 1. Microsoft paid around $1000 per customer (imagine Facebook at that kind of valuation) 2. A lot of sites reported that Google and Facebook were in [...]

A plumber who leaves a leaking pipe doesn’t annoy you as much as one that turns up late and doesn’t return your phone calls. A dentist that is concerned at the pain he is causing you is more acceptable than a dentist who isn’t causing you pain but doesn’t care. Being told your flight is cancelled in advance is better than the stress [...]

With the release of Amazon’s latest Kindle I was doing a little noodling last night and a thought entered my mind its $139, why not just give it away, YES, GIVE IT AWAY, so I have been doing a little research and I think it makes perfect sense. With almost $2 billion cash on hand [...]

I have been thinking about writing this for the past few weeks and my buddy Om gave me the shove to do it yesterday with his post “FourSquare’s Crowley on Facebook, Check-in Fatigue & the Copy Cats” This post is absolute killer to write given my past positivity and possible giddiness on location based services. [...]

I think my stance on vouchers and location is well known, I am delighted to see it coming to Ireland and now its possible to market your venue based on location using Foursquare. Imagine being able to compete against the “coffee shop” around the corner by offering a free “Top-Up”. So how do you do [...]

Fantastic news from Apple just crossed my desk Apple® today announced that movies from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM), Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Entertainment, as well as European studios including E1 Entertainment, Lionsgate UK and Optimum Releasing are [...]

Groupon the Chicago based coupon/discount company yesterday announced that they had completed at raise at a $1.35 billion valuation. Always nice to be proved right though, I have been ranting to anyone who will listen for the past three years about discount vouchers and I think that Groupon are only scratching the surface. So what [...]

One company I will absolutely never deal with again is Dell Its actually practically impossible to contain myself whilst writing this post. Their customer service is beyond a joke, their helplines will run you from pillar to post and here I am yet again listening to Kate Bush for an hour. What’s my sin? I [...]

As I said in my last post 2010 involves some big changes for me. I have this urge to get fit and not to die young, its that serious. One of the really cool devices which I have purchased is Withings a wifi enabled scales which pushes your weight to where you decide. I have [...]

Want to know how to stay in luxury in San Francisco for under $100 per night? VRBO A bunch of us Irish guys are off to TC50 next week and with decent hotels running to a couple of hundred bucks per night it was time to return to the old faithful VRBO. I really dislike [...]