STIMULATING AND SUPPORTING NEW BUSINESS IN IRELAND

Donegal software company, Trinity Innovations, is a finalist in National 'Prove your Idea' Awards

By James Donlon, April 25, 2007

A Letterkenny company is a finalist in the Prove your Idea Awards, The Awards are aimed at acknowledging business ideas which are innovative and have a great chance of success. Paul McNulty’s Letterkenny based company Trinity Innovations won the BMW regional final for its innovative digital magazine software, 3DIssue.

The Prove Your Idea Competition is sponsored by Irish Entrepreneur and the Irish BICs. The criteria of success is whether each business idea has the greatest overall potential for long-term success. 3DIssue is being supported by WESTBIC who support knowledge-based ideas in the NW, through mentoring and training.

Aideen Brennan, WESTBIC commented, “We are thrilled for Paul and are pleased that the judges could see the merit in his idea. Over the last year we know the hard work which he has put into the project and we look forward to working with him into the future.”

Trinity Innovations is a web development and software company that specialise in the publishing area. Paul has developed a software solution for publishing houses which allows readers to view publications as a true 3 D experience. It’s called 3DIssue.com. For example, turning over virtual pages (page flip), moving over the page and selecting different sections. The software recognises intuitive nature of reading in a virtual environment. A simple and innovative idea which is already attracting a lot of attention from publishers. Myhome.ie are already using it.

"MyHome.ie is continuously embracing new ways of presenting information to our site users so when we were initially approached by Trinity Innovations in relation to creating an online interactive digital magazine using the 3D Issue software, we were really impressed by the product as an additional platform for us to communicate with our site users.” said Colm Talbot, Myhome.ie.

Paul McNulty is originally from Letterkenny and has been working in multi media development for 11 years. For three of those years he worked in NYC. “I couldn’t get the local papers in NYC and could only access static websites. I missed the interactive experience. I travelled every week to the Bronx to get the local Donegal newspapers” he says.

Upon returning to Ireland, Paul worked in the publishing industry for a couple of years as an account manager. It was during this time that paul realised the value in assisting publishers reduce the lead-time it took in introducing potential advertisers to their publications

“As a Web / Multimedia Developer by Trade, I began to work on a web- based solution. I have been developing this part-time since 2005 and began developing it full-time in April 2006. Digital Magazines are not just a great way to reduce lead-time in introducing advertisers to publications but also for reducing costs, increasing sales through online subscriptions, generating value through back issue sales, increasing circulation figures via global distribution and even designing new concept publications at low cost.”

Trinity Innovations is one of the companies currently on the CEIM Enterprise Development Programme which is offered by the Institute of Technology Sligo and Letterkenny Institute of Technology, in collaboration with Border Action, Enterprise Ireland and Údarás na Gaeltachta. The programme is now recruiting for its fourth year and is targeted at people with innovative business ideas (which have high commercial and export potential) who live or wish to relocate to the North West region. Through the programme Trinity Innovations has been able to avail of free office space at the BDC at Letterkenny Institute for the duration of the programme.

“I am pleased to be a regional finalist it’s great to get that vote of confidence This is only the first stage of the product, there are many more applications. Convergence of technologies means that the 3DIssue is a lucrative apporach for publishers and it means a better experience for expats and readers in general.” says Paul.

“There are about 27 digital magazine service providers in the global market today, through the CEIM Program I was enable to conduct extensive research on the market, my competitors and also the needs of publishers. These service providers charge publishers on a per issue basis and the fees can vary widely. Publishers believe that the costs of such a service outweigh any savings & sales they would generate from going digital. Through the CEIM Enterprise Development Programme, I was able to meet and speak with specialists that assisted be in researching, marketing and commercialising my software."

What makes 3DIssue unique is that it will be the first solution that will allow publishers to create their own digital magazines that will include all the functionality that any service provider offers.

Paul explains, “Through CEIM I was able to spend time developing an application that would allow publishers to create their own digital editions in-house without the need of hiring external services. 3DIssue is designed to not only allow publishers to create digital editions in a matter of minutes but also provides 3 different formats to view publications and also add extra interactivity to these digital editions through 3D Issue Manager. This is due out in June. The software allows you to add tools such as keyword searching, blogging, hyperlinks to advertisers websites, dynamic printing, letters to the editor, archiving back issues, digital video and digital audio. All very exciting.”

So could Donegal be the new Silicon Valley? “Why not, the beauty of computers and software is you can be anywhere. With a good idea, the right expertise and good support the world is your oyster. And that’s definitely here in Donegal.” laughs Paul.