Digitial media pioneer puts pen to paper

NET RESULTS: Internet veteran's first book provides valuable insights into digital marketing

ANYONE WHO has been involved with the digital media sector in Ireland probably has come across Damien Ryan at one point or another, directly or indirectly.

Ryan has long been a familiar figure in the Irish publishing, internet and advertising world. Amongst other endeavours, he was the publisher behind Dot IE magazine, Ireland’s first magazine about the net; he created the annual web awards, the Golden Spiders; he founded and ran ICAN, the Irish online advertising organisation, and he set up an annual digital media conference.

Now, he’s turned to writing. His book, Understanding Digital Marketing, was published in late January and provides a detailed and practical guide to using the internet to market a business or service.

However, it was a long gestation. “I started it in 2001,” he says, and soon set it aside. Then, not being sure of what he wanted to say or exactly how he wanted to say it, he started it four more times before the ideas and content finally clicked.

But why write a book? These days, he is a regional partner for Results International Group, which focuses on mergers and acquisitions in the marketing, communications and digital media sectors. Authoring books doesn’t need to be on the agenda.

“When I left ICAN, I wanted to write everything down. At the end of 2001, I felt I had done so many things but I was carrying it all around inside my head,” he says. And having a book attached to your name makes a useful CV item and calling card, he adds.

Before he finally got what he wanted to say down in a book, he spent a year getting a journalism qualification (“to improve my writing skills”) and then found a co-author in Calvin Jones, a journalist, author and online marketer.

Appropriately enough, the co-authors primarily communicated and exchanged chapters and ideas via e-mail and online messaging.

The book covers everything from basics like selecting a domain name to more complex projects like running an online marketing campaign or incorporating Web 2.0 social networking technologies into a website.

It is aimed at business owners, digital marketing people and anyone who wants to understand better what digital marketing is about, Ryan says.

He says the ideas of media analyst Marshall McLuhan was “a tremendous influence behind the book”. McLuhan’s insights into the function and influence of media and advertising remain incisive, and adaptable to online media, Ryan believes, citing McLuhan’s observation that a medium becomes especially powerful “when a light shines through it”. Television was the original point of reference, but the comment could apply equally to the internet, Ryan says.

What about a mix of the two – interactive television?

“I’m not a huge believer in interactive TV. TV is the one-way box; I think it’s a sit-back, passive medium. Online is sit-forward, and very powerful. Online is edgy, has low production values, and is more believable than TV.”

Rather than interact with the television, Ryan thinks people will want to watch TV with a laptop to hand and interact with TV programming via the internet, not in a combined, TV-based format.

“And I think we are going to see a lot more interaction between TV and social networking. Don’t be surprised to eventually see a Facebook TV channel.”

Ryan has strong opinions on the Irish digital media sector, and the direction the Government should take.

Given that the sector is supposed to be a high-focus area for the State, he wonders why the Government doesn’t have a panel of experts considering digital strategy, and points to the work of Lord Carter in the UK (who has controversially suggested selling off “old media” like the BBC and newspapers, and instead focusing on new media).

Ryan laments that years after several government and private reports on the digital media sector, including his own, “we’re still not exactly global leaders”.

He notes a recent Financial Times article that referred to Ireland as a “banana republic”. “So why don’t we become the digital republic?” he asks.

Maybe the topic for his next book? Not this time, he says – he has a sequel to the marketing book in the pipeline.

klillington@irishtimes.com

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