Davemolloy.net

I haven’t posted in a while due to my university finals, and I’m slowly re-immersing myself in media.

One of the most interesting things I’ve read this week is the creation of a localised version of the Creative Commons licence which is custom-built for the nuances of Irish copyright law. The above links to Eoin O’Dell’s excellent cearta.ie blog, but the actual project is the child of UCC staff Darius Whelan and Louise Crowley.

It’s great to see these types of initiatives. Irish law is different to that of the USA, where many of these projects originate, and to those of us lacking a law degree, it’s these little things that make our lives easier.

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Jennifer O’Connell wrote a piece on page 5 of the Sunday Business Post’s Agenda magazine today about the problems facing the newspaper industry. It’s interesting for two reasons: first, it’s a working journalist in the Irish media writing about it, and second, it’s published in the main column space of the magazine, bringing it into the mainstream.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t exactly call it insightful or ground-breaking.

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Recently, I was ensnared one evening by YouTube, and spent far too much of my time watching Steve Jobs’ keynote speeches from every MacWorld Expo I could find.

Now, this might sound like a terrible waste of time, but it was in fact an eye-opening experience as to exactly why Apple is such a strong company despite such a small market share.

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The biggest social event in the Trinity College calendar, the Trinity Ball, is Europe’s largest private party and is a black tie event. This year, in order to create a buzz around the event leading up to ticket sales, the organisers withheld the last act until today- revealing that it is, in fact, The Script.

Today, Facebook (which holds a massive place in Trinity’s social structure, far more, I think, than other universities) is awash with complaints, dismay, and general name-calling aimed at the Ents office. I think this is a little unfair- The Script, while not my type of music, are generally considered up-and-coming high-profile stuff- but it has to be said that this demonstrates a misunderstanding of how PR works.

If you’re going to keep people in suspense, there needs to be a pay-off of some kind. Deliberately heightening the public’s expectations does not automatically create a positive response- you run the risk, as in this case, of disappointing lots of people. And in the end, it amounts to a simple case of knowing your audience.

The reason that this is frustrating? Because the Ents office at Trinity has recently recognised the fact that the students there have, by and large, a preference for indie and electronica music. So much so, that they’re holding the launch party for the Trinity Ball at a new indie night called NOIZE in Andrew’s Lane Theatre on Wednesday. It should have occured to someone that raising expectations, only to reveal an act that will, by virtue of their genre, disappoint a large number of people (there were rumors of MGMT, for crying out loud) would create negative publicity.

Again, I’ve nothing against The Script myself, and in my opinion, Trinity Ents and MCD (their partners in the ball) have consistently produced good results, and I’m sure it will be a fun night. I’m just agog that the potential backlash for letting the rumour mill turn without actually having a stellar hand didn’t occur to someone.

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