John Breslin Explained

John Breslin
Birth Date:1973 4, df=y
Birth Place:The Coombe, Dublin, Ireland
Nationality:Irish
Known For:boards.ie, SIOC, PorterShed, Old Ireland in Colour
Education:Catholic University School
Mary Immaculate Lisdoonvarna
Alma Mater:University of Galway (BE, PhD)
Employer:University of Galway
Occupation:Academic, entrepreneur, author
Website:http://www.johnbreslin.com

John Breslin (ga|Seán Ó Breisleáin; born 1973 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish engineer and full professor at the University of Galway. He is co-founder of the Irish websites boards.ie and adverts.ie. He co-authored the Irish bestselling book Old Ireland in Colour in 2020, Old Ireland in Colour 2 in 2021, and Old Ireland in Colour 3 in 2023.

Internet entrepreneur

In 1998, Breslin set up an Internet forum to discuss video games[1] which evolved into boards.ie, one of Ireland's largest indigenous websites.[2] He was awarded Net Visionary awards by the Irish Internet Association in 2005[3] and 2006.[4]

In 2006, Breslin co-founded adverts.ie, an online classified ads website and spin-off from boards.ie. The adverts.ie site was acquired in a joint venture by Distilled Media Group and Schibsted Media Group in 2015.[5]

In 2007, Breslin met the Collison brothers while Patrick was studying at MIT, and came up with the name for their first company, 'Shuppa', during a brainstorming session over dinner.[6]

In 2010, Breslin set up the New Tech Post, an online technology publisher.[7] A San Jose office for the New Tech Post was announced by Breslin in March 2011.[8]

In 2011, Breslin was announced as a co-founder of StreamGlider, a visual real-time dashboard for tracking interests across various types of devices, along with Nova Spivack and Bill McDaniel.[9] [10]

Academic research

In 2004, while working as a researcher at DERI, Breslin founded the Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities (SIOC) project, a Semantic Web framework for sharing social data[11] and used in web applications[12] such as Yahoo! SearchMonkey,[13] Drupal 7[14] and the Newsweek website.[15]

Breslin's research publications have focused on the Social Semantic Web, and he co-authored two books on this topic in 2009[16] and 2015.[17]

Startup community

In 2015, Breslin co-founded the Galway City Innovation District to create startup-friendly spaces in downtown Galway.[18] The first space, the PorterShed, is a refurbished former Guinness building that opened to startups in April 2016.[19]

Writing

In 2019, Breslin set up the Old Ireland in Colour project, which uses a combination of artificial intelligence techniques (such as DeOldify) and human artistry to colourise and restore historical photographs of Ireland and Irish people from the 19th and 20th centuries.[20] [21] An Old Ireland in Colour book with some of these photographs, featuring captions written by historian Sarah-Anne Buckley, was published by Merrion Press in October 2020.[22] Breslin spoke to Ryan Tubridy about the book on The Late Late Show on 20 November 2020.[23]

Old Ireland in Colour was the number one bestselling book in Ireland from 15 to 28 November 2020 and from 6 to 26 December 2020 according to Nielsen BookScan.[24] [25] [26] [27] [28] It was also the official Christmas number one for 2020 according to Nielsen BookScan.[29] It also won Best Irish-Published Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2020.[30]

A second volume, Old Ireland in Colour 2, also co-authored with Sarah-Anne Buckley, was published by Merrion Press in September 2021.[31] Old Ireland in Colour 2 was the number one bestselling book in Ireland from 21–27 November 2021 according to Nielsen BookScan.[32]

Other activities

Breslin has served as Chair (Cathaoirleach) of Gaillimh le Gaeilge since the end of 2023,[33] and served as Secretary of the American Council on Exercise from 2017 to 2019.[34]

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Mulley . Damien . A New Net Visioned He – Interview with John Breslin . mulley.net . 5 December 2005 . 6 December 2009.
  2. News: Boran. Marie . A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum . Irish Independent . 14 February 2008 . 6 December 2009.
  3. Web site: IIA Chairman Colm Lyon, Social Contribution winner John Breslin, boards.ie, and Category Sponsor David Curtin of the IE Domain Registry . netvisionary.ie . 17 November 2005 . 6 December 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20071118180232/http://www.netvisionary.ie/5awards11.html . 18 November 2007 .
  4. Web site: IIA Chairman Colm Lyon, Online Trader winner John Breslin, boards.ie/adverts.ie, and Category Sponsor Stephen McDonagh of Realex Payments . netvisionary.ie . 16 November 2006 . 6 December 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20071118171030/http://www.netvisionary.ie/6awards6.html . 18 November 2007 .
  5. News: Daft.ie and DoneDeal.ie merge in new venture . Irish Times . 9 July 2015 . 30 August 2018 .
  6. Web site: Tweet by John Breslin, 10 years after meeting the Collisons . 2 March 2017 . 28 April 2017.
  7. News: Collins . John . Web Log . The Irish Times . 18 February 2011 . 20 April 2011.
  8. News: Galway Firm Announces Second Silicon Valley Office . Irish World . 31 March 2011 . 20 April 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110727090011/http://www.theirishworld.com/article.asp?SubSection_Id=6&Article_Id=18386 . 27 July 2011 .
  9. News: StreamGlider Takes on Flipboard And Pulse With Sleek Social Interest And News Reader for the iPad . Leena . Rao . 21 December 2011 . TechCrunch . 24 April 2016 .
  10. News: Spivack . Nova . The Venture Production Studio Model . Minding the Planet .
  11. News: Perez . Juan Carlos . Data Portability: Reasonable Goal or Impossible Dream? . The Washington Post . 21 January 2009 . 7 December 2009.
  12. Web site: SIOC Ontology: Applications and Implementation Status . w3.org . 12 June 2007 . 6 December 2009.
  13. Web site: SearchMonkey vocabularies . 7 December 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20091223095802/http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/smguide/profile_vocab.html . 23 December 2009 .
  14. Web site: Just committed RDFa support to Drupal 7! . Dries Buytaert . 19 October 2009 . 7 December 2009.
  15. Web site: Newsweek using RDFa . Steven Pemberton . 27 May 2010 . 10 June 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100601092637/http://rdfa.info/2010/05/27/newsweek-using-rdfa/ . 1 June 2010 .
  16. Web site: The Social Semantic Web . springer.com . 27 June 2018.
  17. Social Semantic Web Mining . Synthesis Lectures on the Semantic Web: Theory and Technology . 5 . 1–154 . morganclaypool.com . 10.2200/S00623ED1V01Y201412WBE010 . 2015 . Omitola . Tope . Ríos . Sebastián A. . Breslin . John G. .
  18. News: Hof . Robert . Startup Mecca Rises From Abandoned Guinness Storehouse . Forbes . 31 December 2015 . 24 April 2016 .
  19. News: Maher . Rebecca . First Companies to Move into PorterShed . Galway Independent . 13 April 2016 . 24 April 2016.
  20. News: McDermott . Stephen . 'It brings history to life': The project giving colour to Michael Collins, Countess Markievicz and other Irish figures . The Journal . 26 April 2020 . 6 October 2020.
  21. News: McGrath . Pat . New lease of life for old photographs . RTÉ News . 27 April 2020 . 6 October 2020.
  22. Web site: Old Ireland in Colour . Merrion Press . 6 October 2020.
  23. Web site: Old Ireland in Colour . RTÉ . 20 November 2020 . 28 November 2020.
  24. Web site: Irish Bestsellers 21 November 2020 . Writing.ie . 10 August 2021.
  25. Web site: Irish Bestsellers 28th November 2020 . Writing.ie . 10 August 2021.
  26. Web site: Irish Bestsellers 12th December 2020 . Writing.ie . 10 August 2021.
  27. Web site: Irish Bestsellers 19th December 2020 . Writing.ie . 10 August 2021.
  28. Web site: Irish Bestsellers 26th December 2020 . Writing.ie . 10 August 2021.
  29. Web site: Old Ireland in Colour by John Breslin & Sarah-Anne Buckley is the official Irish #XmasBookNo1, as measured by Nielsen BookScan! . Nielsen Bookscan . 22 December 2020.
  30. News: Barry . Aoife . 'It's a huge thing for a writer': Donal Ryan and Keelin Shanley among Irish Book Awards winners . The Journal . 25 November 2020 . 28 November 2020.
  31. Web site: Old Ireland in Colour 2 . Merrion Press . 6 December 2021.
  32. Web site: Nielsen Top 100 - Week 47 . Eason Wholesale . 6 December 2021.
  33. Web site: New Cathaoirleach has been appointed by Gaillimh le Gaeilge . Galway Advertiser . 26 November 2024.
  34. Web site: Board of Directors . acefitness.org . 27 June 2018.

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