Yesterday we were at Google’s Dublin headquarters for the official launch of a very cool initiative. (See my Flickr stream for photos)
The launch was a really great event, with representatives from just about every business organisation in Ireland present and the Taoiseach, Mr Enda Kenny (the Irish Prime Minister) was also there with not one, but two other members of the Irish government!
In partnership between ourselves (Blacknight), An Post (the Irish postal service), County and City Enterprise Boards and Google, we are offering a service to Irish business to get them online.
Any Irish business that does not have a website and domain name can signup online for a free domain name, website hosting and access to an easy to use sitebuilder (that we developed inhouse). The service is free for the first 12 months.
What else do they get?
Well look at the list of partners!
Google have oodles of expertise and experience in online sales and advertising and will be giving participants €100 of free online advertising credits (Adwords). An Post will be helping businesses ship their goods both nationally and internationally, while the Enterprise Boards are going to be running regional events to help businesses get online quickly and easily.
Of course some people might see this as being an “attack” on web designers and developers who deal with “startups” and other small business.
Personally I think they are wrong.
The service that we (Blacknight) are offering does not compete with any professional web design / development agency’s offering.
Our sitebuilder service is designed to be quick, simple and easy to use.
It will generate a basic functional website that is (hopefully) aesthetically pleasing. But it’s not aimed at replacing the kind of work that a skilled designer would do for a business.
I’m more than happy to answer any queries people might have about this new service, which we are delighted to be offering.
Here’s the official (and very slick) video from Google about it:
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask via the comments!