Steven Frank, co-founder of Panic software who make great Mac software including Transmit and Coda blogs about how a product succeeds in the marketplace.

From the post: "My current hypothesis is that there are at least three positions of prominence in each segment—three ways to be number one, if you will: The First One, The Free One, and The Good One." Full blog post here: The First, The Free and The Good...

We would tend to agree with that one.

More information here. Watch the video above first.

Winners of the Webware 100 are announced.

Details are here...

And some analysis from Webware here...

We are very interested and excited about the new generation of hybrid online/offline web based technologies here at Marino Software. With Ireland still lagging behind the in the broadband stakes these technologies can help our customers with slow connections or who are on the road.

With the likes of Adobe's Apollo platform, Joyent's recently open-sourced Slingshot for Rails applications and now with the just announced Google Gears there is an increasing amount of options available to developers. We are looking forward to enhancing our mProperty offering with these technologies. More on that later...:D

Michael Arrington of Techcrunch has an interesting perspective on the current hype and madness in Silicon Valley surrounding web 2.0 etc ...

"Now, a year after the madness started, it’s even worse. Companies have to actively dodge venture capitalists to avoid raising a big round of financing."

"Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks."

Full article over at Techcrunch...

Fintan Palmers blog has some coverage of Barcamp Dublin which was on over the weekend. We would loved to have gone but we had other commitments. Will really have to try and make the next one. Great to see some events like this happening in Ireland now.

More about Barcamp Ireland here: http://barcamp.org/BarCampIreland3

Below is an entertaining and thought provoking presentation from Sir Ken Robinson at last years TED conference. He makes a case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. We were talking about this in the office today and our own experiences with the Irish education system which like most, completely undervalues creativity in all forms. I believe it's safe to say, most people who flourish creatively do so despite the lack of respect, understanding and passion for creative thinking within our education systems.