Neil Leyden

The State of the Internet

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:00:00 +0000

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

The ICSC on Frontline and in the Dail

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:01:00 +0000

Thomas Byrne, a Fianna Fail TD for Meath East, was on RTE's Frontline on the 22nd February 2010 discussing big ideas to help young people into employment.

It was gratifying to hear that the International Content Services Centre was Deputy Byrne's solution and he further endorsed the governments willingness to back the proposal.

You can see it here at:

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1067125

1hr : 03 mins 50 secs

Dylan Collins, the CEO of Jolt Online Gaming and a member of the ICSC Taskforce re-iterated a proposition mentioned at the taskforce meetings of a 0% tax rate for virtual goods as an incentive for gaming companies to locate in Ireland.

53 mins:10 secs

The ICSC was also mentioned in the Dail by the Taoiseach on 9th Feb 2009. Here are the extracts from the proceedings of the Dail

The Taoiseach:

"The international content services centre will be worked on through the digital hub in liaison with the IDA. They will be working hard to see in what way we can bring that particular project forward. It is part of a number of projects concerned with identifying new areas, including Internet technologies, internationally-traded services, the green-clean tech area and the food industry. In such areas, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland can prepare a jobs strategy even in the context of this year when we expect unemployment to peak, although jobs will still be created. The churning of jobs between losses and gains continues. There is no doubt that the public finance position we are bringing forward is the best way, and a prerequisite for ensuring that we get more jobs into the economy. In that manner, these projects can obtain support and be brought from concept to fruition."

"The IDA is leading that project and is working with the digital hub. IDA personnel are working on that matter and when it emerges, if they can bring forward a proposal for consideration by the board, it will of course obtain budgetary support though the IDA’s grant in aid and all the other facilities we have available to assist enterprise supports. We are providing over €200 million this year for enterprise supports. When a mature project is brought before it, the board will consider it in the normal way. It is not a question of picking something out of the air and deciding “Here’s the international content services centre”. One must sit down and work with partners to see in what way one can bring forward experts in this area, in addition to the expertise we have identified at home ourselves. It is not a question of sitting back on any of these projects.

The work of seeking new opportunities for the IFSC is ongoing. As regards all areas of activity, Enterprise Ireland and the IDA are devising strategies based on the new situation we are in, including identifying the areas I have just mentioned. The IDA has been looking at high-level manufacturing and pharmaceuticals - areas with which we are all acquainted and where we have some strengths. Despite worldwide foreign direct investment being down by 30%, it was up 4% here last year, which was the worst year we ever had."

We are very close to having a 'mature project" to bring to IDA so I hope to be back with positive news shortly.

Why 2010 will be the year TV and the web really converge

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:20:00 +0000

From the Guardian Online: http://bit.ly/c8BuHq

Why 2010 will be the year TV and the web really converge

Steve Plunkett explains how milestones such as Project Canvas will bring together broadcast television and online media

How Project Canvas's user experience might work

There is a real feeling within the TV business that the year ahead looks set to become something of a milestone for our industry. The long-heralded convergence of television, video, broadcast and the internet is reaching a tipping point. But why are things about to change dramatically and what is this likely to mean for programme-making, post production – editing, sound, special effects – and delivery of TV content?

Looking back at the past decade, highlights that will change the trajectory of the industry in the next 10 years include the steady migration to digital media at all points from acquisition to consumption, the emergence of an increasingly universal transport medium built around the internet protocol (IP) and the ever-expanding reach, capacity and performance of the public internet as a viable platform for rich media distribution, including video.

But the most significant recent innovations have actually happened away from television sets and the broadcast networks that serve them. They have taken place on the PC via the internet. The huge success of iPlayer and similar catchup TV services – as well as Hulu, YouTube and many others – have changed the expectations of PC-savvy TV viewers. But the next major evolution of the TV experience is only just beginning and the action is moving back from the PC to the big-screen TV.

Project Canvas – the joint venture with backers including the BBC, ITV and BT planning to bring video-on-demand content to the TV sets of Freeview and Freesat viewers, in the first instance – could be a significant milestone, not just because it has so much potential but because it is representative of a new model of the television experience that is gaining common currency around the world. This is the bringing together of broadcast television, online media (on-demand, streaming, linear and non-linear), communications and applications in a highly integrated "hybrid" manner.

While the hybrid model has been discussed for some time, this year is when it is actually going to meet the public. Analysts are predicting that 20% of televisions sold in Europe in 2010 will be internet enabled. Combine this with the fast-growing range of digital receivers and games consoles that are starting to offer television and video content delivered via broadband and it becomes clear that a new model is emerging.

What then are the implications of this trend for programme-making, post production and delivery?

One fundamental difference is that a hybrid model provides virtually infinite channel capacity as the broadband connection is augmenting the traditional digital receiver. More than this though, it should dramatically lower the cost of entry for content and channel owners as platforms such as Project Canvas are intended to be open.

The use of internet rather than broadcast economics will allow much more specialised content and channels to become viable. Expect to see a large number of "brand channels" coming to these new platforms. Content will also become more fluid across devices and platforms as IP-delivered sessions now reach the TV, PC and mobile device, driving a "three-screen strategy" for channel owners.

In summary, the long tail of television and video can be fully realised in this new environment both technically and commercially. The relationship between linear broadcast content and non-linear media is likely to converge and both will change because of it.

This in turn will both drive new demand and encourage new innovation all the way along the programme-making, post production and delivery chains. History has shown us that periods of disruptive innovation can be very exciting and rewarding for those who try to understand, anticipate and influence what's next.

Here's to an interesting new decade for what used to be called television.

Steve Plunkett is director of customer innovation at Red Bee Media, the TV and web branding and channel management agency, which is attending the Broadcast Video Expo conference this week

New Contract Awards Committee announced for the BAI

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:34:00 +0000

I'm pleased to announce that I've been asked to be on the new contracts committee for the Broadcasting Authority Of Ireland. I look forward to working with the other committee members in this exciting new role. Obviously, the emerging digital landscape is having a profound effect on traditional broadcasting and hopefully I can offer some of my experience and insight in that regard.

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan announced on Monday, November 30, the appointments to the Compliance Committee and Contract Awards Committee of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

The Broadcasting Authority is the new single broadcasting content regulator for Ireland. The Contracts Award Committee will license independent commercial and community broadcasters including digital television providers.

The Compliance Committee will require all broadcasters, public or private, to comply with their licence conditions, broadcasting codes and rules. New codes in relation to children’s advertising, among others, will be introduced under the Broadcasting Act.

The Contract Awards Committee members include director of Saffron Pictures and the Irish Theatre Institute, Siobhán Bourke (Chairperson); David Barniville S.C., barrister at law; Eimer McGovern, CFO of ThirdForce plc and Chairman of the Digital Media Forum, Neil Leyden.

The Compliance Committee members are Professor Chris Morash (Chairperson), head of the NUI Maynooth School of English; music promoter John Reynolds; Managing Director of Real Event Solutions Aidine O’Reilly and communications consultant Edel Hackett.

Minister Ryan said of the appointments: “Broadcasting in Ireland is entering a period of change. New technologies are changing viewing and listening patterns but the old rule remains – the quality of the content defines success. These appointees will have the requisite skills to help Irish broadcasting adapt and thrive. I hope and trust they will be strict, strong and visionary in their exciting new roles. I look forward to receiving the remaining appointments from the Joint Oireachtas Committee, under the new arrangements put in place under the Broadcasting Act.”

Online Narrative - European Screen Leaders V - Friday 27th November 2009

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:03:00 +0000

This session is divided into the following categories:

1) Online Web series i.e. drama created exclusively for the web.

2) Webisodes - ancillary dramas based on Television properties

3) Animation - animated content distributed online (but often crossing to television)

4) Machinima - a type of animated content created by manipulating video game technology.

5) Mobisodes - drama created exclusively for mobile phones

6) Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) - cross-platform or trans-media projects starting on the web but encompassing offline activities and promotion.

ONLINE WEB SERIES

Examples of online web series i.e. narrative developed specifically for distribution online.

LONELY GIRL15

lonelygirl15 was an interactive web-based video series which began in June 2006, and ended on August 1, 2008.The show focuses on the life of a fictional teenage girl named Bree, whose YouTube username is the eponymous "lonelygirl15", but the show does not reveal its fictional nature to its audience. After the fictional status of the show was revealed in September 2006, the show gradually evolved into a multi-character show including both character videoblogs and action sequences, with a complex story universe involving "trait positive girls" who are sought by an evil organization called "The Order".Lonelygirl15 first came to international attention ostensibly as a "real" video blogger who achieved massive popularity on YouTube, a popular video sharing website. The show was eventually proved as a hoax by suspicious viewers as featuring a fictitious character played by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Rose.[1]The three creators of Lonelygirl15, first revealed by the The New York Times, were Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, California, Miles Beckett, a surgical residency dropout turned filmmaker, and Greg Goodfried, a former attorney with Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp, LLP.[2]The series began on June 16, 2006, and was slated to run through August 1, 2008. New videos appeared, at a clip of 4 to 5 a week, first on YouTube and lg15.com, also on MySpace. As of July 2008, the LG15 series has had more than 110 million combined views.Lonelygirl15's first spin-off show KateModern, ran from July 2007 through June 2008 on Bebo, and took place in the same fictional universe.

KATE MODERN

KateModern is the sister series of lonelygirl15. The series, which was announced on April 16, 2007, began filming on July 9 and the first video, Fight and Flight, was released on July 16. The show is produced by LG15 in partnership with Bebo. It ended on June 28, 2008, slightly less than a year following its original release.KateModern is set in East London, England, and bears many similarities to its parent series. Both Kate and Bree are avid video bloggers and carry a dark secret. There is an alternate reality game component of the series as well.KateModern was the second interactive online series developed by LG15 Studios. Like lonelygirl15, KateModern included product integration as an original marketing solution. KateModern was the first truly interactive show online, which utilises the tools available on Bebo to help fans interact.KateModern videos first appeared on Bebo and lg15.com, then with a delay of at least 24 hours on YouTube. Ratings for the show's first season were extremely successful, and it continued to rise in popularity in its second. See #Ratings below.

SOFIA’s DIARY

Sofia's Diary is a drama that is shown online through the social networking site Bebo, which is the same site that hosts KateModern.A version of Sofia's Diary originally came out in 2003 in Portugal. This means it actually predates the first video of lonelygirl15 which came out in 2006. Sofia is played by 21-year-old Rachel Hyde-Harvey.Sofia's Diary is the first ever internet based show to make the transition to UK TV following its acquisition by Channel Five (from Sony Pictures Television) on April 17th 2008. The show is now broadcast on 'Fiver' (previously Five Life)

SAM HAS SEVEN FRIENDS

The series was created as an experiment by a group of young Los Angeles-based filmmakers, Marcus Blakely, Douglas Cheney, Chris Hampel, Chris McCaleb and Ryan Wise, in their spare time. The project was self-financed on a budget of around $50,000.[1] Chris Hampel and Chris McCaleb were also working on Michael Mann's film Miami Vice; Hampel as Mann's assistant, McCaleb as an assistant editor.The group formed a production company called "Big Fantastic, LLC" and set about creating a series of webisodes. The producers believed there was an untapped market for people with short attention spans, or office workers with only sporadic free time, who would watch a short-form scripted, serialized drama.[2] The series was distributed for free on YouTube, Revver, iTunes and its own site, samhas7friends.com. The series was produced with no business model, and only minimal support from advertising via post-roll Revver ads.

QUARTERLIFE

quarterlife is an American web series, also briefly an NBC television series, created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the creators of Thirtysomething and Once and Again, and producers of My So-Called Life. The show is about a group of twenty-something artists, who are coming of age in the digital generation.[1] OnlineEach part of the series premiered nearly simultaneously on MySpace and the official Quarterlife site. It garnered the third-highest views of any scripted series in Myspace history. In five months, total online views for the series -- on Myspace, quarterlife, and YouTube -- were over 9 million. After the series was picked up by NBC, some of the hour-long episodes were made available on the NBC and Hulu websites. During this time, Herskowitz claimed the show accrued an average of 300k views per episode.[2].[edit]TelevisionIt was announced on November 17, 2007, that NBC had acquired the rights to air Quarterlife on broadcast television in early 2008, after the episodes have been broadcast on the Internet.[3][4] In February 2008, NBC announced that Quarterlife would premiere on Tuesday, February 26, 2008, with the show moving to Sunday nights immediately afterwards.[5] The show garnered dismal ratings for its first episode, approaching levels not seen on NBC since the XFL, and teen demographic and general household ratings lower than a Democratic presidential debate airing at the same time on sister cable network MSNBC [6]. NBC announced that the series was canceled after airing only one episode.[7] Its remaining episodes would air on its sibling channel Bravo following the NBC cancellation.[8] The show only had 3.9 million viewers in its debut -- the worst in-season performance in the 10 p.m. hour by an NBC show in at least 17 years. The show also got pummeled in the adults 18-49 demographic, where it managed only a 1.6 rating.[9][7] The show aired on E! in Canada in simulcast, however all reference to the show has been removed from their website since the cancellation. Full episodes can still be viewed on the NBC and FOX sponsored video site Hulu.com.

IN THE MOTERHOOD

Loosely based on the popular online web series created by Mindshare in 2007 in conjunction with Suave hair care products and Sprint Nextel, this adaptation chronicles the daily and hilarious perils of three mothers, with most of their stories being adapted from everyday real-life mothers. The success of the webisodes lead to ABC's announcement to order 13 initial episodes, which will air in the 2008-2009 TV season. Sprint and Suave will have a involvement in the series as well[2].Whereas the webisodes featured Leah Remini, Jenny McCarthy and Chelsea Handler in the titular roles, Handler was supposed to be the only cast member from the series to make the transition to the small screen[3], but on November 24, 2008, TV Guide reported that the series will instead star Megan Mullaly and Cheryl Hines acting out the real-life stories submitted by mothers. In addition, Horatio Sanz and Jessica St. Clair have also been cast. Sanz will play Hines' manny, while St. Clair will play Hine's "intimidating younger sister," who doesn't discipline her children. Handler decided to drop out of the project due to her scheduling commitments to her E! show Chelsea Lately.[4]

WEBISODES

BATTLE STAR GALLACTICA

Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance is the collective title of 10 two- to five-minute "webisodes" (also known as a web series) released exclusively on the world wide web through the Sci Fi Channel's website. The serial storyline follows events that occur between the close of season 2 and the beginning of season 3 of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series.The first webisode was released on September 5, 2006, with two subsequent webisodes posted to the site each week through October 5 to lead into the season 3 premiere.The series was produced as a promotional event to promote Battlestar Galactica, and as such generates no residuals for its writers. The WGA has called for the boycott of all un-residualed webisodes by writers and producers (the WGA does not represent producers, and this is an unusual request) from working on them.The webisodes are only available for viewers from the United States, upsetting many fans worldwide; the decision to restrict the webisodes to the US has those international fans who might not have been using peer-to-peer networks now turning to them in order to get content which is supposedly free.[1] The webisodes were later reposted on various free video hosting sites, such as YouTube but have since been removed at "the request of copyright owner NBC Universal because its content was used without permission". Though recently, with Australia's Network Ten broadcasting of Battlestar Galactica Season 3 (on 10HD), The Resistance webisodes have been made available to the Australian public (Region 4) on their webpage.

TARDISODES

TARDISODEs are mini-episodes of the television programme Doctor Who created to accompany the 2006 series of the programme. Made by Doctor Who producers BBC Wales, each TARDISODE is approximately 60 seconds long and serves as a prequel to one of the actual 45-minute episodes. They were available on the BBC Doctor Who website via broadband free of charge, and on mobile phones by subscription. They were produced as an effort by the BBC to expand the reach of Doctor Who beyond the television series, and were first made for the 2006 series. The TARDISODEs include footage not seen on television, and some back-story for the following episode.

ANIMATION

AFTERWORLD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy9v7etZG74

Afterworld is a computer-animated American science fiction television series created by writer Brent V. Friedman and artist/filmmaker Michael DeCourcey. Its naturalistic future setting, modelled after traditional Western movie motifs, presents an atypical science fiction backdrop for the narrative. Friedman served as executive producer, along with Stan Rogow.Afterworld premiered in the United States on the YouTube and Bud.tv on February 28, 2007 with the production website being launched in May, 2007. The series quickly built a loyal fanbase but did not really take off until August, 2007 when it was 're-released' on MySpace. In conjunction with that release the series was also released in Australia on the Sci Fi Channel and also as a mobile pod-cast.

HAPPY TREE FRIENDS

Happy Tree Friends (Often abbreviated as HTF) is a Flash cartoon series by Mondo Mini Shows, created by Rhode Montijo, Kenn Navarro, Warren Graff and Aubrey Ankrum. Since its debut the show has become a popular internet phenomenon and has won a cult following.As indicated on the official site, it is "not recommended for small children". Notwithstanding the somewhat childish shape of the series and the cute appearance of its characters, the show is extremely violent, with nearly every episode featuring blood, gore, and extremely painful, bloody gruesome deaths.

JOE CARTOON

Joe Cartoon is the name of a series of Flash-based online cartoons that was launched in 1997 by creator Joe Shields. Starting as an independent website, Joe Cartoon was later affiliated with Atom Films, before becoming independent again in 2006.Noted for their crude humor and tongue-in-cheek violence, Joe Cartoons were among the first widely distributed web-based productions of their kind.[citation needed] Produced in Macromedia's (Adobe's) Flash format, a number of the cartoons are interactive, such as "Gerbil in a Microwave" and "Frog in a Blender". Most of the cartoons often have extreme violence towards gerbils.In April 2006, a collection of 40 Joe Cartoon creations was released on DVD in North America. The cartoons have been recoded to be playable on set-top DVD players. Some DVD-specific content was also created for this release.

CHARLIE THE UNICORN

The video was created, animated and voiced by Jason Steele of Filmcow.com. Though it is theorized that it was originally made by TypeQueen as a flash animation for Newgrounds, it was actually made by Jason of filmcow for TypeQueen who later put it on newgrounds under his own name. Later on it was posted on Youtube where it became a hit with over 23 million views and over 85,000 favorites. you can now find it either on his website filmcow.com or under his youtube account "SecretAgentBob".The video has now gained roughly 29 million views internet wide.The video follows the story of Charlie, a lethargic unicorn who is reluctant to travel to "Candy Mountain" with his two friends. His resistance may be justified as he finds an unpleasant surprise when they finally arrive at Candy Mountain.

SALAD FINGERS

Salad Fingers is a Flash cartoon series originally created by David Firth in July 2004[1] which gained rapid internet popularity in 2005. The San Francisco Chronicle ranked it in the "top 10" pop culture phenomena for that year.[2]

MACHINIMA

RED VS BLUE

Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, often abbreviated as RvB, is a machinima comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed primarily through the Internet and DVD. The series chronicles the story of two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon (Blood Gulch), in a parody of first-person shooter (FPS) games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its Internet premiere on April 1, 2003. Rooster Teeth therefore decided to extend the series; the fifth and final season of the original series ended with episode 100, released on June 28, 2007. Two mini-series have been spun off resulting in a new full length series.Red vs. Blue emerged from Burnie Burns' voice-over-enhanced gameplay videos of Bungie Studios' FPS video game Halo: Combat Evolved. The series is primarily produced using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is mostly from the multiplayer modes of Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2 and, on a few off-series 'community videos' and new series Reconstruction, Halo 3, on the Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles.

MOBISODES

Mobisode is a term first coined by Daniel Tibbets then trademarked by his employer, Fox Broadcasting Company,[1] for a broadcast television episode specially made for viewing on a mobile telephone screen and usually of short duration (from one to three minutes). The word is a neologism, coined by Tibbets as a portmanteau of the two words "mobile" and "episode".The arrival of third-generation (3G) cellular services has made the broadcasting and viewing of video footage a feasible commercial proposition.According to first-hand accounts from Fox employees who were there at the time, the first mobisode was announced in January 2004 and was 24: Conspiracy, a spin-off of the action-suspense drama 24, although it was not actually the first mobisode to be produced. The first mobisode produced was "Love and Hate", its pilot was produced in January 2004 and later that year completed production. The first two mobisodes sold and commissioned by Verizon were "Love and Hate" and "Sunset Hotel", with 24: Conspiracy being the third. All three inaugural mobisdoes launched at the same time on Verizon in February 2005. Fox followed these with the release of mobisodes of Prison Break: Proof of Innocence, a spin-off of Prison Break in April 2006.[2]

WHEN EVIL CALLS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebCCo0i2s44

The world's first made for mobile horror series was When Evil Calls. Composed of twenty two-minute mobisodes the series marks the first time 'named' actors had been attached to such a venture. The series included Sean Pertwee (Dog Soldiers), Dominique Pinon (Amelie), Jennifer Lim (Hostel) and Chris Barrie (Red Dwarf) as well as Pierce Brosnan's son Sean and Ray Winstone's daughter Lois. It was directed by horror specialist Johannes Roberts (Forest of the Damned / Demonic) and produced by Zone horror and Pure Grass films.

ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses, and characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by artificial intelligence as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and often work together with a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally use multimedia, such as telephones, email and mail but rely on the Internet as the central binding medium.ARGs are growing in popularity, with new games appearing regularly and an increasing amount of experimentation with new models and subgenres. They tend to be free to play, with costs absorbed either through supporting products (e.g. collectible puzzle cards fund Perplex City) or through promotional relationships with existing products (e.g. I love bees was a promotion for Halo 2, and the Lost Experience and FIND815 promoted the television show Lost). However, pay-to-play models are not unheard of.ARGs are now being recognized by the mainstream entertainment world: The Fallen Alternate Reality game was in the fall of 2007 awarded a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for an Interactive Television Program. ReGenesis Extended Reality won an International Interactive Emmy Award in 2007 and in April 2008 The Truth About Marika won the iEmmy for Best interactive TV service[1]. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognises Interactivity as a category in the British Academy Television Awards.

PERPLEX CITY

Perplex City is a long-term alternate reality game (ARG) presented by Mind Candy, a London-based development team. The first "season" of the game had players looking for "The Receda Cube" (referred to simply as "The Cube"), a priceless scientific and spiritual artifact to the people of a fictional metropolis known as "Perplex City", that had been stolen and buried somewhere on Earth. The game offered a real-life ｣100,000 reward (approx. $200,000 or ﾛ150,000) to whoever found it. Like most alternate reality games, the story of Perplex City is told through blogs, puzzles, and other various media.The game began in April 2005, and was won by Andy Darley of Middlesex, UK, who found The Cube in a wood in Northamptonshire, UK on 2 February 2007.[1]According to Mind Candy, the first wave of cards for the new game season, called Perplex City Stories would be released on March 1, 2007. However, in June 2007, they released an announcement which declared that the second season was on indefinite hold.

David Perry on Videogames

For more on this session contact neil@calico.ie

Digital Skills for Life from ICANDO.ie

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Below is a link to an article published on Silicon Republic and in the Irish Independent. I'm a big believer that digital literacy is as vital now as the so-called three R's: "reading, writing and arithmetic". If we are going to have a Smart Economy, we have to have smart people. The Digital Media Forum, which I chair, has teamed up with I-CANDO.ie to launch a new Digital Skills Programme - which will help anyone, anywhere learn the basics in digital skills. They can do it online if they want at www.i-cando.ie.

So how can someone who is digitally unskilled go online and do a course, I hear you ask? Well, they can ask someone to help them buy it online or they can ring 1850 88 5858 and get talked through the process. Once there in, the course is very simple to use. Alternatively, they can attend a nearby training course in a classroom.

Here's the link to the article:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14201/digital-life/a-new-plan-aimed-at-advancing-the-digital-literacy-of-a-nation

Silicon Republic lays down the gauntlet

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:43:00 +0000

Kieran O'Hea from Marano Consultants drew my attention to this article. Spot on. Let's not make the same mistake twice.

"In 2002 Ireland was at a crossroads. It could have focused its energies on creating a vibrant,

innovation-driven economy led by well-funded entrepreneurs driving scalable export-oriented

businesses that would generate employment in parishes across the land. Or it could have focused on the then burgeoning construction industry, which saw opportunities in the housing boom. We opted for the latter route, more Irish money went into the commercial UK property market than local businesses and the rest – including €90bn of financial debt which NAMA will have to absorb – is history. But it could have been different. It still can be different.”

www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/13712/business/digital-21-entrepreneurship

Feedback from Farmleigh

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:56:00 +0000

Here is the feedback from the Global Irish Economic Forum on the ICSC proposition and related technology actions.

Full document here

Topic: ‘Innovation: Communications and Energy’

Breakout Panel Discussion - Saturday, 19 September 2009

Moderator: David McWilliams (Economist, author & broadcaster)

Eamon Ryan, T.D. Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources

Conor Lenihan, T.D. Minister of State with Special Responsibility for Science,

Technology, Innovation and Natural Resources

Barry McSweeney Director, National Knowledge Society Strategy,

Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources

Tim Fritzley CEO, Intune Networks

John Shine Deputy Chief Executive ESB & MD ESB Networks

Neil Leyden Chairman, Digital Media Forum

Summary Report

This session took the form of presentations by several domestic-based experts who

presented to participants for feedback and relevant recommendations a number of

proposals emanating from the July 2009 report on Technology Actions to Support the

Smart Economy. Overall participants endorsed implementation of the proposed

actions presented.

Participants unanimously welcomed the proposal to develop a revolutionary high-

speed and energy efficient communications network based on Optical Burst Switching

(OBS) technology. It was noted that this network would bring trade and employment

to Ireland’s cities and towns, and place Ireland in a leading position as a test bed for a

range of advanced telecom equipment and services, assist the development of

Distributed Data Centres and provide state-of-the-art support to the proposed

International Content Services Centre.

The proposed development of energy efficient Data and Cloud computing centres in

Ireland was similarly well received. Speakers noted that Ireland is in an excellent

position to develop as a global hub for data/cloud computing given our high levels of

expertise associated with existing and planned centres. While participants

acknowledged that Data Centres are not major employers in themselves, it was

emphasised that they attract valuable international and European corporate

headquarters. Participants referred to Ireland’s strong skills in Virtualisation, the

national group developing optimisation and standardisation criteria, and the highly

relevant expertise in Distributed Data Centres. It was also noted that several

significant international players have already established data and cloud computing

centres in Ireland.

In relation to the proposal that Ireland would develop a content management

destination, modelled on the IFSC, streamlining the storage, localisation, delivery and

distribution of digital content, participants agreed that Ireland could usefully exploit

unmet global needs in this area. It was also emphasised that the development of such

an International Content Services Centre offered a real opportunity to take advantage

of new and existing technology expertise in Ireland.

With regard to the proposal that Ireland develop a Smart Electricity Network to inter

alia facilitate the incorporation of renewable energy onto the grid and support the

development of an Electric Vehicle network, participants cautioned that Ireland

should focus on smaller niche areas rather than tackling entire sectors where

competitors would have advantages of scale – e.g. while we would not have the

research capacity to lead on the development of electric vehicles, we could identify

and become expert in suitable ancillary areas such as batteries or the billing interface

for the charge point.

The proposals for the development of an intelligent transport system to benefit

commuters, and the Smart Bay marine test bed were also welcomed by participants.

ICSC part of the New Programme for Government

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:25:00 +0000

Yesterday, the Green party endorsed a new Programme for Government and I'm glad to say, among some other far-reaching initiatives, they've included the ICSC as part of the programme.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20877317/Renewed-Programme-for-Government-10-10-09

Innovation Dublin: the ICSC vision

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:33:00 +0000

The following is a blog post I wrote for Innovation Dublin http://www.innovationdublin.ie/index.php/blog

In January of 2009, I wrote an article for Enterprise Ireland’s Technology Ireland magazine putting forward a vision for an International Content Services Centre (ICSC). The analogy with the successful International Financial Service Centre (or IFSC) located in the Dublin Docklands was a purposeful one. During the 1980s, finance became a global commodity and digitisation meant that the back office functions of a bank could be geographically dislocated from the front office. Ireland, by creating a tax-incentivised location, took advantage of this opportunity and created an economic powerhouse for the Irish economy.

In a sense, content is going through the same metamorphosis as finance did two decades ago. Digitisation and technology have meant that content has become an easily traded global commodity. The opportunity is now there to create a central location that could facilitate those global transactions.

To the credit of the Minister of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan and his Chief Technology Advisor, Barry McSweeney, they picked up on the idea and have put it forward as one of six “Technology Actions for the Smart Economy”. Currently, we are going through the strategic planning phase for this project.

The International Content Services Centre concept is predicated on the idea that all content (film, television, newspapers, books, music, imagery etc.) now exists in a digital format. In effect, it has become binary: ones and zeros. Through the internet it can flow easily on a global level between anyone with a suitable web connection. However, much of this content has rights ownership attached, which places a legal impediment on its distribution.

The ICSC would facilitate the brokerage of those rights to ensure the free trade of content between consumers and also ensure that rights holders are reimbursed “fairly” for use and consumption of their content. In a nutshell, it would specialise in localisation, rights clearance and management, storage, distribution and collection associated with the trade of content globally.

One of the motivating factors behind the ICSC concept was the realisation that in Europe, fractured rights issues and territorialisation of content have made it very difficult to sell indigenous content across borders. For example, you can’t watch The Late Late Show legally outside of Ireland. In fact, the majority of RTÉ’s output is not cleared to be broadcast outside of Ireland. The same goes for most European content too. This, I believe, may have cataclysmic consequences for European culture in the long run. We have already seen the supremacy of US content in the film, television and games industries globally and this is in a world where the majority of content is still shipped in hard-copy format, be it on DVD or on celluloid print.

As we hurtle into the digital age, it will become even easier for US content to be distributed widely – and the hegemony of that culture will grow. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against US cultural forms. In fact, I’m a big fan of their content. But I believe in a world of choice and variety and it would be a shame to see European content “ghettoised” due to easily overcome rights issues.

I had the pleasure of recently presenting this vision to the Global Irish Economic Forum at Farmleigh. One of the points made there – not in criticism, necessarily – was that this was a vastly ambitious project. Although, I don’t accept that its ambition is a weakness, I have begun to clarify the vision. In the short-term, the scale would be limited to servicing Europe, Middle East and Africa in much the same way as technology and software companies such as Microsoft, eBay and IBM have headquartered their European operations here. The ICSC would act as a gateway for US content into Europe and also as a hub for European content being traded back into the US.

So what might the ICSC look like? Well, my vision is of a Dublin Docklands location which will attract the premier content rights holders in the world: Getty Images, Disney, EA Games, Warner Brothers, Sony, etc.

That these companies will host their content throughout the many cloud-computing centres located all around Ireland, creating employment in service areas such as storage, legal rights, localisation and transaction.

That in turn, indigenous Irish companies such as Muzu.TV, DV4, RTÉ and Brown Bag Films (to name but a few) would avail of these services to exploit their own content globally, acting as a vehicle for Irish culture and innovation and making Ireland a powerhouse in terms of content creation. I’m not just talking about the culture of Riverdance, W.B Yeats or The Quiet Man, which is all well and good. I’m talking more importantly about the contemporary culture that’s emerging all around us and which can be seen at the Darklight Film Festival, in the burgeoning games industry, on social networks like Bebo and Facebook, among new music industry practitioners exploiting digital connectivity and emerging entrepreneurs creating Web 2.0 and mobile applications.

First and foremost, the International Content Services Centre will be a facility for global content, aimed at securing foreign direct investment in this country for an emerging digital content sector. But potentially, it may also act as the vehicle for Irish content (or content from Ireland, if you see the distinction) to be relayed around the world.

For more info on the ICSC go to http://www.calico.ie.

Presentation of ICSC to the Global Irish Economic Forum at Farmleigh - September 19th 2009

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:22:00 +0000

Here is the presentation made at the ICT Innovation Workshop at the Global Irish Economic Forum in Farmleigh. The presentation went down positively with the audience although there was some comment made regarding the scale of its ambition. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. I think the IFSC was equally ambitious at the time and although it didn't achieve exactly what it set out to do, it was that vision that lead it to its success. The IFSC organically grew and morphed as was required given the global economic circumstances and I think the same could be said of the ICSC. It may end up being something different entirely but it is always good to have a destination when you set out on a journey.

International Content Services Centre

View more presentations from neilleyden.

Farmleigh forum aims to create new ideas for recovery -Irish Time article - 18th September 2009

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:46:00 +0000

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0918/1224254786972.html

Farmleigh forum aims to create new ideas for recovery

A MAJOR economic forum aimed at generating new links and ideas to aid Ireland’s economic recovery is to take place this weekend.

The Global Irish Economic Forum, which gets under way at Farmleigh House in Dublin today, hopes to create strategic partnerships between the State, the global Irish community and those with business connections to Ireland.

Organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the three-day event will discuss how the economy can position itself for the upturn, innovation on the island and promoting Ireland. About 200 delegates are expected at the inaugural event.

With the Government focusing on developing Ireland’s “smart economy”, the opportunity to connect with potential partners is looking increasingly important.

Tim Fritzley of Intune networks is hoping that the event will help attract research funds into Ireland, by way of academic institutions and industry tie-ins, using Ireland and Intune’s Exemplar smart network, a fibre-optic-based network that can cope with large volumes of internet traffic as a “test bed” for innovative technology.

Mr Fritzley is speaking at the “Innovation Island” workshop tomorrow, which is focusing on green technology and ICT.

“The goal is to attract partnerships based on the Exemplar Network capabilities,” he says. “It will allow Ireland to be a leader in the development of new goods and services. This technology will be in Ireland years before other areas get it.”

The network could attract a variety of firms into Ireland, such as those who want to develop new web applications for the next-generation semantic web and those interested in testing new content distribution models.

Neil Leyden, from Digital Hub firm Calico Media, is presenting his plans for an international content services centre, known as the ICSC. The IFSC in Dublin is held up as the model for the centre, which aims to help content providers distribute their intellectual property.

“In the 1980s, financing due to computerisation became a much more globalised service so that the backroom functionality of financing could be removed from the front end and be geographically displaced,” he says. “The same thing is happening to content now.

“What we saw in the late Nineties was the digitisation of content, be it music, film, games, mobile content, imagery, book. The problem is that there are still rights attached to those.”

These rights restrictions can lead to content being blocked in certain territories.

“What the ICSC will do is allow content owners to come to Ireland with their intellectual property and benefit from tax regulatory system here,” Mr Leyden adds. “In turn we will offer them storage, localisation, delivery and distribution and more importantly, rights management over that content to allow it to be easily distributed throughout the world.”

Ireland is perfectly placed to become the European gateway for this type of business, Mr Leyden says, in a similar way that multinationals used Ireland as a base for entry into the EU markets.

The event itself has a high-tech edge, with Airspeed Telecom providing underlying technology to allow the sessions to be broadcast and streamed live over an IP network, with a 155Mbps link provided into Farmleigh for the event.

Is the internet becoming a closed system?

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:24:00 +0000

The ICSC concept to me is becoming precariously balanced on my increasingly firm belief that the internet is rapidly becoming a closed system. This belief was informed both by Tim Wu's assertions at the IIEA (http://www.iiea.com/events/the-innovation-cycle-how-convergence-affects-global-media-and-broadcasting) which opened my eyes to the possibility but also by the entrenchment of the Open internet evangelists. Here are just a few random examples of why I think the case for the internet becoming a closed system is strong:

As a film producer recently said to me, the ISPs held out on tackling piracy because they didn't want to hold back broadband uptake. But now that it is nearing ubiquity and telcos are being squeezed financially, doing a deal with content owners for some of the back end is potentially more appealing for them.

I've always felt that PCs and notebooks are not good viewing devices - nothing beats the TV or better still the projector for long form content. With HD increasingly becoming standard, good distance viewing is necessary - then you get Sony looking at doing this - and you can see the TV becoming like the Ipod or Iphone.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/aug2009/db20090830_267810.htm

Governments have always been cautious of the internet. As Larry Sanger (a founder of Wikipedia) said, give them an excuse to regulate it and they will. Piracy is rapidly becoming the excuse.

Closed, proprietary systems like the iPhone app store are functioning much better then their open equivalents online. Android is going nowhere soon. Look even at Kindle vs Sony Ebook reader. Users want a quality, well-designed service and will pay for it.

Google Books initiative is ironically developing a closed system by sheer weight of their resources - and that is what the Open Book Alliance are fighting against. In reality, Google will become the only game in town if they are allowed go ahead with it....and maybe they should.

Now the big problem is the payment mechanism - phones are lucky because of subscription. But people don't want to subscribe to a plethora of content providers - so this does open up the advertising-support question. Once advertisers get over their hangups about brand-building on traditional media, it should be game on there too. But they too will want closed, measurable systems.

My view is let's give it to them. Closed and open systems can sit side by side. But we should strive to create closed, well-run proprietary systems that offer quality content so that we don't get lost in the detritus of poor content that pervades the World Wide Web. The Web should be seen as a resource - and an extremely useful one at that - Wikipedia, Slideshare, Scribd - i love and use them all. But alongside that we need to ensure that there are business models for the distribution of quality content that protects and respects the owners copyright. If they decide to give a Creative Commons license, that is their decision but those who infringe that copyright should be pursued. If that means regulation, well then so be it.

Article in the Independent - 20th August 2009

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:29:00 +0000

European nations see digital economy as a sure route out of economic crisis

With one of Europe's youngest populations, Ireland's digital natives could have the most to gain

AS France and Germany are already emergeing from recession, nations the world over agree that a new economic order is becoming visible, the cornerstones of which will be digital communications and content.

Nearly every country in Europe, including Ireland, has unveiled some form of digital readiness plan. But some are more advanced and more tangible than others.

Two weeks ago, the EU Commissioner for the Information Society Viviane Reding said that building on the potential of the digital economy is essential for Europe's sustainable recovery from the economic crisis. She said the EU is readying a digital strategy that will be unveiled in 2010 as part of the next wave of the Lisbon Agenda.

"Europe's digital economy has tremendous potential to generate huge revenues across all sectors, but to turn this advantage into sustainable growth and new jobs, governments must show leadership by adopting co-ordinated policies that dismantle existing barriers to new services," said Reding.

We should seize the opportunity of a new generation of Europeans who will soon be calling the shots in the European marketplace. To release the economic potential of these 'digital natives', we must make access to digital content an easy and fair game."

A month ago, the Government through Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD and Minister of State for the Information Society, Conor Lenihan TD, outlined a broad plan that, if successful, could create 25,000 new jobs.

At the heart of the plan are the construction of an 'Exemplar' fibre network, continued investment in science and innovation and the creation of an International Content Services Centre (ICSC), similar to the IFSC.

"We believe the ICSC could replicate and even excel beyond what we achieved with the IFSC," says Neil Leyden, one of the contributors to the Government's report: Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy.

Our nearest neighbour, the UK is a step ahead, having created its own Digital Britain plan, and two weeks ago appointed a Digital Britain minister, Stephen Timms, to keep the Digital Britain proposals on track.

For Ireland - with one of the youngest populations in Europe and a wealth of global IT giants - from Google toIntel and HP - to succeed as a key player in the emerging digital economy, it needs to outline firmly what industries will create the jobs of the future to sustain these digital natives.

Leyden, who is also involved in the Digital Media Forum, says digital literacy will be pivotal to getting people back to work. "At a very basic level, you can have someone on the dole doing nothing or you can teach them basic digital skills, so they can be creating products such as t-shirts and selling them on eBay, for example. They can get to a global market literally over night.

"Or, at another level, you can teach people to start selling digitised content such as music oriPhone apps that only exist in a digital realm. Once you create a digital product, you can sell it ad infinitum," Leyden says, pointing to the example of Steven Troughton-Smith, a 20-year-old DCU software student who is making more than €1,000 a month selling software applications on the iTunes Apps Store.

"The beautiful thing about the internet is disintermediation - it cuts out the middleman. The best example of this is on our own doorsteps in the form of Ryanair, which began selling over the internet in the Nineties," Leyden explains.

For more:

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/european-nations-see-digital-economy-as-a-sure-route-out-of-economic-crisis-1864793.html

Roy and the Frogs

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:29:00 +0000

Not my episode - but it will give you an idea of what the series is like.

"Roy" on CBBC

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:40:00 +0000

Some regular readers of this blog will know Calico Media for Digital Media consultancy - but another hat we wear is screenwriting - www.neilleyden.com. Delighted to say that one of the projects we were working on called "Roy" - has finally come on air - Wednesday 4.30 and Saturday 9.30 on CBBC. For those of you who don't know about it, Roy is a live action/animated TV series by Jam Media for CBBC. According to the BBC blurb:

"The O'Brien family are new in town. An ordinary family - well, almost. Roy O' Brien is a little different - he's a cartoon!"

Episode 3 - Roy Band was my contribution. Here's some of the press clippings so far for the series.

The Guardian

The Daily Mail

The Sunday Times

The Sun

Sunday Business Post article on the ICSC - 2nd August 2009

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:24:00 +0000

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=IRELAND-qqqm=nav-qqqid=43387-qqqx=1.asp

Proposal for internet piracy broker service
Sunday, July 26, 2009 By Adrian Weckler
The government is considering setting up an internet piracy broker service to resolve disputes between internet pirates and digital entertainment companies.

The broker would facilitate ‘‘conflict resolution’’ between ‘‘entrenched’’ copyright holders, such as music labels and film companies, and those who download their work illegally.

According to industry estimates, the Irish music industry lost more than €40 million in sales last year due to internet piracy.

The broker proposal is part of a set of government proposals aimed at creating up to 30,000 jobs in the digital economy.

The broker would be part of a proposed international content services centre, modelled on the International Financial Services Centre.

‘‘There is a huge opportunity to be a broker between these two entrenched positions and serve the consumer,” according to the report.

The idea has received the backing of some high-profile industry executives, including David Puttnam, the director of Chariots Of Fire.

‘‘The proposed centre is highly attractive and sets real challenges on how to manage content in a fair manner,” said Puttnam.

However, the proposal is certain to draw a negative response from music companies and the Irish Recorded Music Association, which represents international music labels in Ireland.

Four music labels are in the process of suing BT Ireland and Chorus NTL for alleged internet piracy activity by users of their broadband networks.

The government proposals, contained in a report entitled Technology Actions To Support The Smart Economy, also advocates the setting up of environmentally friendly data centres.

They would be based on new high-speed technology from Dublin company In tune Networks, which has outlined plans to create 350 high-tech jobs.

The report estimates that data centres attract international corporate headquarters, which creates revenue for the government.

The report also advocates the deployment of digital smart meters in domestic households, to help measure energy consumption.

Contributors to the government report include senior Irish industry figures, including Microsoft Ireland chief Paul Rellis, IBM’s Michael Daly and John Shine of ESB Networks.

Another Irish Times article on ICSC - 24th July 2009

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:17:00 +0000

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0724/1224251232148.html

Digital dreams confront the cold, hard light of day

"SORRY IT'S all a bit technical," Eamon Ryan apologises, as he wraps up a Government media briefing on its grand "green tech" plan to create 30,000 jobs via such innovative delights as Optical Burst Packet Switching. "But it's also real," he adds. "And it will work."The Government hopes to create tens of thousands of hi-tech, 'green' jobs - but some observers are wondering whether we have the capability or the cash to achieve it, writes LAURA SLATTERY

The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources is convinced that Ireland can do a "digital leapfrog" over our economic rivals and make Ireland a "test bed location" for green technologies. It will begin its task by partnering with InTune Networks to build the Exemplar "smart network" that promises dependable, instantaneous connectivity and much more besides.

But can the so-called smart economy really generate the tens of thousands of jobs that the Government hopes will drag us out of our economic hole?

With many household users and businesses still grappling with the frustrations of broadband, there was plenty of "walk before you can run" scepticism emanating from the part of the communications market that is not Eircom, while Fine Gael communications spokesman Simon Coveney lauded the "exciting ideas" but bemoaned the next round of working groups that they would inevitably spawn.

Elsewhere in the industry, however, there were mentions of Government "bravery", while at InTune Technologies, co-founder John Dunne was in no doubt about the significance of the Government's announcement.

"This is how companies like Google are created," he says.

For Dunne, the point about Exemplar is not that end users get faster, better internet connections, but that the network will solve a "global, economic and technical problem" - permanently de-clogging network bottlenecks through patented tuneable lasers.

"If the problem isn't global, you don't get the multiplier effect from exports. If it's just economic, it can be copied by other countries and if it's technical but not economic, it has no value," he explains. Solving problems that are all three of these things is rare.

But InTune had never really planned to use its technology in Ireland in this way. That the Government has put its hands up and decided it wants to be the early adopters for once seems to have surprised the company as much as anyone: Ireland "normally waits for technology to be rolled out somewhere before touching it". If it acts now, Ireland will have a "two to three year lead time" on other countries, he says. A good thing too: "Ireland can't afford to be a follower anymore."

The real benefit to the economy is that InTune's programmable network infrastructure will be available for use to a range of other access technology companies and software companies, "so someone working in a garage can come up with a better way to do video search than Google", or Google itself can roll out cloud computing (remote data storage) services over the predictable network. From the autumn, InTune plans to sit down with Irish optical component suppliers such as Eblana and Firecomms, while Google, Microsoft and IBM will also be among those included in the expanded research group. "Anyone who wants to do R&D in the supply chain will have access to the network," says Dunne.

The Government estimates that the development of Exemplar, apart from creating 350 jobs at InTune over the next three years, will bring in a further 5,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs over the next decade.

Dunne reckons 700 people are needed to do the R&D alone: after that there has to be people to do the network checks and man the customer service centres, and that's before the multiplication factor from exports, drawing in multinationals and providing the "turbo boost" to the Government's other target "green tech" industries is considered.

Ryan's calculation that 30,000 jobs can be generated also includes a potential 10,000 jobs in cloud computing or "green data centres", a handful of which already exist in Ireland, and another 10,000 jobs supported by the proposed International Content Services Centre (ICSC). Essentially, the plan is to turn Ireland into a digital depot or island depository for data-hivers. But as well as taking its place as the cloud computing capital of Europe, Ireland can act as the content "brokers" between the revenue-starved owners of intellectual property (IP) and the piracy-struck distributors.

In some ways, the "green collar" tag is a misnomer: many of the existing projects mentioned in the Government's action plan have economic and technological progress at their core: their ability to lower energy costs is a welcome by-product. But coupled with Bord na Móna's announcement that it will create 300 jobs researching how to convert biodegradable waste to fertiliser, it has been a nicely "green" week for the Government after last week's dismal cutback talk.

Speaking of which . . . it seems churlish to bring up the awkward issue of how this future-proofing of the economy is going to be paid for, but paid for it must be. If the Government doesn't act quickly, comparable technologies could be developed in other countries, destroying the first-mover advantage. Ryan was vague about costs this week, saying it would come from a range of sources, including both Exchequer and industry funding.

"The announcement is long on ambition and short on specifics," says Tom Raftery, an analyst at sustainability consultants RedMonk.

Without more detail, the Government "might as well announce that they are going to put a man on the Moon in 2020", Raftery says: "There is no mention of how it is going to be funded and no mention of how they're going to get there."

Raftery has experience in the industry: he is a non-executive director of the Cork Internet eXchange (Cix), a pioneering green data centre that plans to take part in the Government's effort to dot the country with similar centres. It's not that the overall targets are overambitious, he says, just that the strategy document fails to emphasise the importance of first of all increasing the supply of renewable energy.

Ireland's ambient temperature of 10 degrees Celsius is ideal for cooling down output temperatures in cloud computing centres in a low-cost, low-energy way, he explains. The trouble is, there's nothing to stop a cost-cutting Silicon Valley company from choosing temperate British Columbia or Seattle for their remote data storage - in fact, if those locations have a higher penetration of renewables on the energy grid than Ireland, the companies can secure the double whammy of lower energy costs and a tidier carbon footprint, all in their own time zone.

There is some homework too to be done by the content providers that will form the backbone of the proposed ICSC.

A working group and feasibility study should be completed by the end of the year, says Neil Leyden, a scriptwriter and media consultant who came up with the idea for an IP clearing house and wrote about it in the magazine Technology Ireland six months ago. It was picked up by an adviser to Ryan, Barry McSweeney.

Leyden isn't going to swear that the ICSC can create 10,000 jobs as such - "I wouldn't want to top or tail it in any way", he says. At the very least, however, it can provide services to the hundreds of existing Irish digital content creators in the music, animation, film and games sectors.

For example, the content owned by a company like Muzu.tv, the Irish firm that was busy snapping up music video licensing rights again this week, isn't always available in all territories, Leyden notes. But digital rights such as these could be exploited globally through an ICSC that was fully staffed by copyright solicitors. Such a clearing house could be an easy revenue-spinner, and one that dampens existing forms of piracy while it's at it.

"The thing about IP is that you get revenue out of nothing," says Leyden, who runs a Digital Hub-based company called Calico.ie and chairs the Digital Media Forum.

"Obviously jobs are a huge concern, but there is also the benefit of having that content flow through Ireland, because that leads to a flow of revenues, which in turn, brings in jobs."

But even if the knock-on effects aren't quite that momentous and the currency of content, cloud computing and network building turns out to be rather more modest than everyone in the industry and Ryan's department hopes, there are many who will agree that these ambitions will still have been worthwhile.

Anything that takes the economy out of the hands of developers and into the hands of its scientists has got to be taken seriously.

David Puttnam endorses the ICSC

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:59:00 +0000

One of my favourite films of all time is "The Mission", directed by Roland Joffe and written by Robert Bolt. Everyone knows the theme tune by Ennio Morricone. So it was a real thrill to hear that the producer of that movie, David Puttnam, has written a statement of support for the International Content Services Centre and other actions. Here it is:

Statement in Support of Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy Report

"I am delighted that this new strategy focuses on a series of important innovative actions to support a low-carbon and smart economy. The Exemplar Communications Network linked to the actions to establish Ireland as a centre for energy efficient data/cloud computing centres will result in significant reduction in energy requirements in order to operate a true next generation communications network.

The Smart Bay initiative could have profound implication on how to manage global water resources and the Work Flow initiative could lead to a change in views towards the home-office work dynamic.

The proposed International Content Services Centre is highly attractive, and sets real challenges on how to manage content in a fair manner. It merges the presence of local expertise in content development with an optimum environment - including a favourable tax environment for the distribution and management of content.

This action plan, in my view will leap-frog Irelands digital credentials in a relatively short period of time." - David Puttnam

Irish Times reports on the ICSC - 23rd July 2009

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:54:00 +0000

Ryan believes Content services would be a smart move - click here

IRELAND COULD be set to become a gatekeeper in the media industry’s ongoing war against content piracy.

At least that’s what Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan would have us believe after he unveiled an ambitious plan to establish an international content services centre (ICSC) in Dublin.

Modelled on the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), the idea is that the ICSC would become a broker between digital content developers and owners and the major content distributors.

Ryan believes such a centre could lead to thousands of new jobs, though there are quite a few hurdles to overcome first.

The proposed ICSC forms a central plank of Ryan’s policy document, Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy.

The idea was proposed by Neil Leyden, who runs a small company called Calico Media in the Digital Hub in Dublin. Ryan’s adviser Barry McSweeney has bought into Leyden’s vision.

The background to the proposal is the fact that digital content is now a globalised commodity. However, the free flow of content is hobbled by rights issues. For example, when a film- maker or TV programme maker sells distribution rights to a broadcaster, this inhibits the availability of the content on video-on-demand platforms. This “scarcity” at the retail end leads to piracy, and rights holders react by targeting internet service providers.

In Ryan’s view, the issue could be addressed by a centralised, back-office clearing house to help rights holders manage and distribute their content globally.

“This would be in a tax- incentivised, pro-business and flexible regulatory environment matched with the required infrastructure and technological solutions to ensure quality of service in terms of warehousing and distribution,” he said.

“The centre would serve both multinational interests as well as local indigenous players with global scale or ambition.”

Ryan added that as advertising online became increasingly of the rich-media variety, there was also an opportunity to centralise advertising networks’ back-office functions to one territory.

The Minister envisages the IDA approaching content rights- holders and organisations worldwide with a view to them becoming clients of the ICSC.

“With Disney now buying into Hulu.com, the third most watched video content site in the US, there is an opportunity to help roll out this service worldwide, with Ireland being the base for European operations,” said Ryan.

“Other potential customers include music rights organisations, large traditional media content holders like Time Warner or online games providers such as Electronic Arts.”

Just like the IFSC, one of the key draws for the content centre would be tax breaks.

With the right carrot, Ryan believes multinational content holders might “house” their content in Ireland, though this part of the offering has yet to be fleshed out.

Ryan envisages the ICSC being established in 2010 and is setting up a working group of stakeholders to “flesh out” the proposition. The Green Party Minister is evidently excited by the idea but it remains to be seen whether his colleagues, in particular Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, will be equally enthusiastic.

The changing media landscape is reflected in the new Broadcasting Act, which took more than a year for Ryan to shepherd through the Oireachtas.

The new law increases the fines for possession of an unlicensed television set from €635 to €1,000 for a first offence, and from €1,270 to €2,000 for second and subsequent offences.

Taxing computer owners for watching television on their PC is provided for in the Act, although Ryan signalled this was not on his agenda for the moment.

“While the system will no doubt evolve and the technological developments that occur will lead to change, they are not yet at a stage where it is clear to us how we can make an effective change, given the evolving nature of the situation,” he said. “We will have to change, but not at this time.”

The main innovation regarding the licence fee is that fixed payment penalties have been introduced as an alternative to court proceedings.

Under the new regime, the television licence inspector who uncovers an errant householder can issue two reminder notices to pay up or else.

If after 56 days no payment has been made, the inspector has the option of issuing a fixed payment notice requiring the payment of a fine of one-third of the cost of the television licence. If the fine is paid and a licence purchased, no prosecution will ensue.

The measure is intended to stop clogging up the courts with television licence cases. Scores of people are jailed every year for non-payment of the licence and subsequent court fine.

However, with the fine having been raised at a time when unemployment is soaring, it seems inevitable that prisons will continue to be filled with people prepared to do time rather than buy a licence.

TV or not TV...

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:34:00 +0000

This is an article I wrote which has been published in the latest issue of Film Ireland.

One thing is for certain. The television is going nowhere any time soon. As a screen to watch stories unfold – be they live action or animated in form – the television is and will remain the hearth of the home. However, how we interact with that screen and how we receive content over it is changing at a rapid pace. In order to understand these changes, there are three key areas that we need to look at: 1) The technology now underpinning television 2) the audience watching it and 3) the business models funding it.

Firstly, understanding the change in technology is perhaps the most crucial aspect. Many in the broadcasting sector have mistakenly viewed the evolution towards digital as simply a switchover from the analogue signal to a digital one (with the EU pressuring nation states to facilitate the switch-over by 2012). However, this belies the underlying reality of the situation. The technology platform – which was once the humble cathode ray tube television set – is rapidly becoming a much more complicated piece of kit. Now it is a flat, high definition screen with the ability to receive a digital signal, either through a built in tuner or with the help of a set-top box or games console. Added to this are increasingly new functions such as personal video recording capability (PVR), USB ports to attach peripherals and more importantly, broadband connectivity. Quite simply, the television is no longer a television in the strictest sense. It is a broadband-enabled computer with a lovely wide screen. Picking up a digitally broadcasted television signal is just one of the many functions it can do much like the way voice communication is now just one of the many functions on a mobile phone.

The second significant change is the audience profile. In an IBM report - entitled, tellingly, “The End of Television As We Know It” (2006)- they divided the new audiences into three unsubtle but distinct categories: the Massive Passives, the Gadgetiers and the Kool Kids. If you find yourself being drawn to the television to watch the news when you hear the Angelus bells, you are most likely among the “Massive Passive” audience (age 35 years and up). This is the generation who grew up with the television screen and the accompanying broadcasting schedule as the centrepiece of their living room and evening entertainment.

The Gadgetiers (age 25 – 34 years) are those digital natives who have grown up with email and internet access as a central feature in their lives and have a much more “lean forward’, interactive relationship with the screens that they view content over. The Kool Kids (25 and below) are a younger, more technologically sophisticated audience capable of multi-tasking across a series of screens – mobile phone, notebook and television. In fact , they differentiate very little between screens, seeing them merely as windows for consumption the consumption of content. This is either through ‘grazing” (digesting 3-5 minutes worth of content at a time) or “feasting” where they schedule large swathes of downloaded content for themselves.

IBM points out – and this is verified again by PriceWaterHouse Cooper’s latest Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2008 -2012 report - that there is a distinct “generational chasm” opening between the digital migrants (or Massive Passives) and the Digital Natives. Those working in the entertainment business for the next five to seven years will need to cater for the more conservative tastes of the latter audience (business as usual) while still providing for the increasing demands and more progressive tastes of the Gadgetiers and Kool Kids.

Finally, the most challenging change is in regards to the business model underpinning content creation. The increasing fragmentation of the television audience through digital channels, reduced audience shares and aggressive competition for eyeballs from other devices such as games consoles and internet-enabled devices has meant that the traditional sources of funding for content creation are under huge pressure. Added to that is the movement of advertising spend away from traditional platforms such as television, radio and print to the markedly more measurable internet platform. This is all having and will continue to have a devastating effect on budgets for independent content creators. However, the “silver lining“ perhaps is that it has never been so easy to connect with an audience thanks to the increasingly ubiquitous distribution platform of the internet. (661 million broadband enabled households by 2012, according to PWC). While a viable and sustainable revenue model is still to emerge, logic would dictate that content creators and advertisers should be able to find a happy middle ground to continue entertaining their respective audiences, potentially at the expense of the increasingly redundant middle-men i.e. the broadcasters.

In terms of Ireland’s position in all of this, we traditionally have had quite an inward-looking unimpressive broadcast sector. With the exception of animation, our film and television content rarely travels which is disappointing considering we are an English-language speaking territory. However, as a country where we have excelled is in the area of financial services, technology and software. In a recent article for Enterprise Ireland’s Technology Ireland magazine, I argued that we could conceivably take advantage of the opportunity that is emerging in terms of the convergence of media and the new demands that it is having on the old traditional media structures. The same opportunity existed in the 1980’s in regards to financial services and the Irish government was canny enough to facilitate the establishment of an International Financial Services Centre. The opportunity for an International Content Services Centre is ripe – a clearing house and legal services hub for global content – the new currency of the 21st century. This could be the middle ground between content creators and their audience, facilitating the transactions and rights clearances necessary to cater for the increasing global demand for content. It is a big idea. But then again so was the IFSC.

International Content Services Centre endorsed by government

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:51:00 +0000

The vision outlined on this blog for the International Content Services Centre came one step closer to being a reality today when it was officially incorporated into the government's "Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy Report".

Minister Eamon Ryan announced the plan for setting up the ICSC today Tuesday 21st July 2009 at government buildings.

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Press+Releases/Making+the+smart+economy+real.htm

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0721/jobs.html

Thanks to all who contributed their ideas on this blog. I'll keep you posted of how things progress.

Slowly but surely!!... the ICSC vision

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:25:00 +0000

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=SEN20090617.xml&Node=H9&Page=12

"We are also considering the establishment of an international content services centre which would allow Irish and international content owners in film, video, music and multimedia to distribute their content in a fair and equitable manner."

- Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (Deputy Conor Lenihan)

Wednesday, 17 June 2009 - Seanad debate on ICT and Information technologies

Digital Literacy Programme

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:22:00 +0000

Check out www.i-cando.ie - a new Digital Literacy programme. This programem is aimed at people who are not familiar with new technologies such as Digital cameras, video cameras, MP3 players and computers. It's a smart, flexible e-Learning programme to help them understand how to use all these technologies and, more importantly, create content and share it online. It's going to be made available online as well as in the classroom. If we want to have a Smart Economy, we need to get people using technology - and that means everybody!!

A manifesto for an International Content Services Centre

neil@calico.ie (Neil Leyden) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:23:00 +0000

This is the final document submitted to Department of Communications, Energy and Natural resources at the start of February. It outlines the vision for an International Content Services Centre based on the input from various stakeholders and contributors to this blog. You can download the PDF here.

A Manifesto for an International Content Services Centre

In his book, “How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe”(Nan A. Talese, 1995), Thomas Cahill outlines how the great monastic settlements of Ireland helped to preserve the classical culture of Europe from being lost during the so-called Dark Ages. The Irish monks became passionate scribes, not only of the scriptures but also of ancient classical texts, ensuring that all the great learning of the Roman age did not irretrievably vanish. In a sense, Ireland between the 6th and 9th centuries became a “knowledge economy” through the painstaking and disciplined work of the disciples of St. Patrick.

Now, over 1500 years later, as we move swiftly from the analogue to the digital age, Ireland has the opportunity to re-define itself as a “knowledge economy”. Whether we save civilization again is up for grabs. The purpose of this document is to outline the opportunity Ireland has in creating an International Content Services Centre (ICSC). The objective of the ICSC is to position Ireland as a major global center of digital content production, management and monetization.
The “digital” equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange for content.

This document is informed by a number of preceding articles (www.calico.ie) and input from various industry experts and interested parties.

INTERNATIONAL CONTENT SERVICES CENTRE – A VISION

The International Financial Services Centre in Dublin is now clearly recognised as being one of the leading economic engines that helped raise Ireland out of the economic mire of the 1980s. As the financial world embraced globalisation, the IFSC provided an efficient solution for the increasing need for brokerage amid the flow of global funds. But that was a different time and a different place.

When we look around us now, one of the clear opportunities is to take advantage of the rapid digitisation of content and offer a global solution for the manifold problems that arise in terms of piracy, technology, storage, distribution and rights clearance. Similar to the way stock exchanges simplified and streamlined the investment in stocks and shares, in the digital media age there exists an opportunity to greatly streamline the distribution, management and monetization of digital media. Where as the ones and zeroes in the IFSC related to financial transactions, here they simply represent ‘content’ – a new global currency, if you will. That is where the value lies.

So what would an International Content Services Centre look like?

Firstly, it would require a distinct geographic location, even if this is just an administrative centre. The potential clients for such a centre are still relatively traditional in outlook and will require a “bricks and mortars” set-up, even for a digitally-based enterprise. For argument’s sake, let us co-locate the ICSC with the IFSC in the Dublin Docklands (U2 Tower is just across the Liffey too). Infrastructure will require the highest national and international connectivity and bandwidth is available, connecting the centre to various content owners data warehouses, located anywhere around Ireland (or even abroad). There would be merit in developing ‘green” data storage facilities, powered by wind farms or wave energy in the future.

It will not be sufficient for the infrastructure to be “good enough”. It must be truly world-leading and available to all companies at the most competitive global rates. We can’t assume we are the only country with this vision so our offering must be imaginative and compete aggressively on all fronts.

Potential clients for the ICSC would include the big global content owners such as Disney, Viacom, Warner Brothers, online games providers such as EA and Activision, online players such as Google, Microsoft and Apple. But just importantly, it will also include smaller indigenous players such as RTE, government content archives, Irish enterprises such as MUZU.TV, DV4, Global DMX, Brown Bag Films, Zamano, Setanta and nascent video on-demand platforms like Volotov.com. Having access to such a centre would have a huge benefit to these indigenous content producers. Clients will also likely include the global service providers and content distributors such as Vodafone, O2, NTL and Sky.

LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES

Within the centre itself, clients will be able to avail of the necessary services to help them exploit their content. On the legal side, the centre will be a clearing house for digital rights, providing the content owners with the legal expertise and technical know-how to assist rights holders in distributing and exploiting their content globally. On the administrative side, the centre will, for example, service the paying out of various royalties - such as music and image rights in a game or film. It will also provide tracking and monitoring services to ensure that copyright isn’t being infringed and warning content owners if it is. Meta-data tagging and watermarking will also be a critical service which will allow content owners describe and monitor their content globally, providing key data for advertising and marketing opportunities to be exploited. In short, the potential for services development are myriad: global digital rights management, metadata tagging, rights clearance, intellectual property management, monitoring, tracking, privacy, taxation, arbitration etc. Ireland could become the center of excellence and expertise in digital content production, management and monetization which would likely attract other ancillary industries e.g. Digital Media R&D

TECHNICAL SERVICES

The Centre will also be a hub for a range of technical solutions for the aggregation, storage, distribution, monetization, monitoring and delivery of content. For example, Amazon’s S3 platform, Video On Demand platforms such as Babelgum, Joost and iTunes, IBM and Microsoft’s Cloud-Computing platform etc. By offering a “one-stop shop” destination for these solutions, the centre will position Ireland as a global hub for the worlds best and most valuable content. Ancillary activities will include Research & Development, enterprise training, networking and academic partnerships to clearly denote Ireland as a “Centre of Excellence” in the area of content.

MANAGING INNOVATION

The Digital Economy is fundamentally different than the old Industrial Economy. The focus now is on collaborative processes, shared resources, teamwork, knowledge sharing, open innovation, communities of practice and value networks. Value in a digital enterprise is largely determined by intangibles such as technical competence, imagination, creativity, ideas and flexibility. However, alongside these, having an ability to invest in, value, finance and apply the appropriate business model to develop digital projects, is equally crucial.

Because a digital age way of thinking and acting is so different than the old, a radical approach to learning will be used in the ICSC and those connected with it. The ICSC needs to be more then just a service provider. It needs to be a “focal point” for innovation and enterprise in the digital content space, providing a “touch-point” for the global market. In order to provide ongoing intellectual support for those engaged on projects, a dynamic learning infrastructure will be put in place. Developed in partnership with existing educational providers, it will nurture a spirit of innovation, stimulate ventures, help individuals understand risk and manage change in a supportive mutual learning network. Quality, initiative, a risk taking attitude and eagerness for self-development will become a core feature in the participants’ professional lives.

A rich and dynamic environment will emerge through the interaction of those from diverse backgrounds such as media studies, financial services, IT, business, the arts, engineering and science drawing on and learning from each other. Innovation programmes will also draw on the creative cultural resources of this country along with the values and identities of recent immigrants, leading to a world renowned cultural dynamic. This education will leverage expertise already available in the IFSC gained by developing programmes there. Such an approach to creating value from projects founded on interactions between digital and financial networks will lead the ICSC to generate an inimitable international competitive advantage for Ireland.

An International Content Services Centre.

THE OPPORTUNITY

• According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in 2007 20 billion music files were illegally downloaded. In 2008, that went up to 40 billion music files illegally downloaded. At the same time, digital music grew by an estimated 25% and is now worth 3.7 billion dollars in 2008. Digital music now accounts for 20% of recorded music sales, up from 15% in 2007. The ratio between illegal to legal downloads is 10:1.

• The film industry is looking down the barrel of the same gun. In 2006, piracy cost the movie industry $6.1 billion, 75% higher than expected, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

• With over 217 million people playing online games globally (Comscore 2007), there is an enormous opportunity for creating the right environment for locating a hub for this global activity here. We already have a number of success stories located in The Digital Hub such as Goa and GALA Networks, so there is real merit in targeting this area strategically.

• The value of the audiovisual content production sector in Ireland alone is valued at €557.3 million, 0.3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), of which the independent sector represents 67% and Broadcasters the remaining 33%. The sector employs 6,905 individuals, 85% in the independent sector and 15% in Broadcasting, which equates to 5,440 Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs). An estimated 567 companies operate within the sector comprising production companies, post-production companies and service providers.

• There is a huge opportunity for Ireland to provide a solution to all of this. Digital Content as a commodity provides for a low-cost, high volume business opportunity. In terms of employment, aside from the direct employment from the ICSC, there is the “knock-on” impact on the audio-visual sector (a largely indigenous market) to take advantage of the global market through the ICSC.

• Ancillary benefit of stimulating Innovation and entrepreneurship. Cloud Computing and the services infrastructure offers a low barrier to entry for monetising creative and technical services and products. By instilling this sense of creativity and technical expertise, there is the manifold effect of creating both an audience for the products as well as developers.

REQUIRED ACTIONS

• A working group of stakeholders (legal, content, enterprise, multi-nationals, government etc) convened to flesh out the proposition above. Accordingly, the working group can be divided up into sub-groups such as legal, administrative and technical.

• The IDA’s role and support is critical in terms of outlining the offering and also selling the potential to government and its client base. Tax incentives, business planning, critical infrastructure etc. are all necessary in order to achieve this vision.

CONCLUSION

It is not practical at this point to put a definitive value on the required investment for this vision without further research among the key stakeholders. However, what is fair to say is that the majority of what is required exists in Ireland already – it just hasn’t been brought together under one centralized vision. We have significant legal expertise, broadband capacity, a range of multi-national stakeholders with cloud computing initiatives, a burgeoning digital media enterprise location in The Digital Hub, a dedicated National Digital Research Centre, a progressive Industrial Development Agency and a commitment to becoming a “Smart” economy. All that is required now is that the opportunity outlined is seized and realised and the relevant dots joined on a governmental and enterprise level.

CREDITS

The Digital Media Forum is the largest cluster of Digital Media companies in Ireland that operate across the entire range of Digital Media, namely in the digital film, animation, television, business publishing (including web design), wireless and e-learning areas. Initially comprising companies located in and around the Digital Hub in Dublin, our network has now expanded to embrace over 600 enterprises with over 10,000 employees.

The Digital Media Forum would like to thank the following for their contribution to this document:

Finbarr Bradley, Michael Walsh (Globaldmx.com), Liam Ward & Graeme Kelly (DV4), Andrew Fitzpatrick (Monster Distributes), Andrew McAvinchey, Cathal Gaffney (Brown Bag Films), Alex Klive (WorldTV.com), Johnny Ryan (IIEA), Frederic Herrera (IADT/Create), Ed Melvin (ICANN)