On her visit to the English Market in the centre of Cork City today, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth will be presented with a commemorative hamper. The hamper will be made up of iconic food produce collected from the market traders and will include West Cork Duck from our friends at Skeaghanore Duck near Ballydehob.

Conor spoke to Helena recently and she was deeply honoured that their Duck was chosen to be included in the hamper. The visit to Cork is a great opportunity to showcase the unique culture and products available in County Cork and at Granite we are delighted to offer our congratulations to Helena and Eugene.

It is a great honour to represent West Cork in the national awards and we are very much looking forward to the awards ceremony in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin on the 11th of November. There is a big contingent from Granite going up and win lose or draw we will fly the flag for West Cork. To follow in the footsteps of other great West Cork companies such as Glenilen Farms and Irish Yogurts is a great achievement for us.

To win the West Cork Enterprise Board’s Company of the Year 2010 and get nominated for the national award is a great endorsement of our expertise in this fast growing industry, our plans to continue growing the business over the next
3 years remain very much on track.
This can only help us to become one of the largest online marketing companies outside of Dublin and one of the top 5 in the country. We are also very focussed on trying to grow our business in export markets. At our current growth rate this is very achievable. Fingers crossed for the 11th !!

In the UK, Vodafone, the second largest operator, admits O2’s exclusive iPhone deal hurt its British business. It was the largest UK operator until 2006 and many analysts attribute O2′s gains to the iPhone deal.

Crucially, Vodafone will not have the iPhone available until early next year, missing an opportunity to capitalise on the lucrative Christmas market. In Northern Ireland, Orange customers will be able to get their hands on the iPhone in their Christmas stockings.

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I hadn’t realised at the time just how emotive this issue is and would like to take this opportunity to urge as many as possible to sign the petition online at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/westcorktoday/

I was coming at this mainly from the point of view of a West Cork based enterprise and the economic value of having a dedicated local communications resource. Much of what has been achieved for the economic benefit of West Cork has been boosted by coverage on the West Cork Today show.

There is no better example than the recent creation of the West Cork Tourism Co-Operative Ltd to relaunch the Cork Swansea Ferry service. Several interviews on C103 with Conor Buckley, Chairman of West Cork Tourism, helped to get the message out and to mobilise the tourism community to get behind the initiative.

But this is bigger than just the business community in West Cork, the axing of the show affects non-business people greatly and especially the elderly.

To see the views of others (not as biased as mine perhaps?), check out the following:

Give West Cork its voice back……today!
West Cork Today (and Tomorrow?) – Sign Petition to Save Local Radio
C103 – not on our wavelength!
C103 loses the plot!
The service is a vital infrastructural asset in West Cork and I urge you all to support the petition.

I wonder what is the view of BCI who issued the license?

As Google continues to grow share of searches, it becomes more and more important for online businesses to focus on Google as a key source of traffic. While it is never wise to put all your eggs in one basket, if time and resources to invest in Search Engine Marketing are limted, then the case for concentrating just on Google through Pay-per-click and/or SEO in the initial phase gets stronger all the time.

There are also some very interesting stats in the same hitwise report about multi-word searches which I will study in more detail and write about in the coming days.

Vodafone and HTC are understood to be in discussions about the next generation of a device based on Google’s Android operating system – dubbed the G2.

Both Vodafone and HTC hope to have a deal signed in time for an announcement at Mobile World Congress, the mobile phone industry’s annual tradeshow in Barcelona which opened on today.

HTC also manufactured the first Gphone, the G1, which rival T-Mobile launched last autumn under an exclusive deal. While that device has done well in the US, recent numbers from T-Mobile in the UK suggest it has struggled to compete with Apple’s iPhone, available exclusively on O2. As T-Mobile don’t operate in Ireland, the original Gphone was not available here. A tie-up with Vodafone would most likely result in the phone becoming available on the Irish market also.

A Race for supremacy in mobile apps.

Google’s entry into the mobile cellular phone market follows the success of Apple’s iPhone. Google is hoping that its operating system will help persuade more mobile phone users to access the internet on their devices and become the platform of choice for developers of mobile phone applications.

While Apple’s iTunes currently dominates the so-called mobile “apps” space, Android already has about 800 applications available even though there is only one device in the market. It hopes that its share of the market will increase as more mobile device manufacturers release products.