All Things Digital

It’s not all luxury hotels, rolling green hills and Guinness here on our trip to Dublin, Ireland, to look for a place to possibly hold an international version of D: All Things Digital, which we are calling EuroD.

You can see videos of Walt Mossberg and me undertaking that arduous effort (visits to Dublin Castle, fancy hotels in the city of Dublin, a stroll in the streets and a trip to the Wicklow Mountains to see a bit of the lovely Irish countryside.

But we also went to visit the Dublin offices of Google, which has its biggest facility–outside of its Mountain View Googleplex headquarters in California–here in the Docklands section of the city, with 1,300 employees. We got a tour of the facility from John Herlihy, who is director of online sales and operations for Google’s European operations.

The search giant has grown its presence here in Ireland, like a lot of other U.S. Web and tech companies, including Dell, Apple, eBay, Amazon, IBM and many others, because of its educated and multinational population and the country’s digitally friendly government.

Here’s a video of our tour by Herlihy, where we talked about innovation in Europe, explored new Web trends and, of course, encountered those same annoying exercise balls as at Google’s California HQ. While futile, I know, it is my personal goal to eliminate them entirely from the corporate ethos for their sheer irksome “Googley-ness.”

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Here is the fourth video about the possibility of launching an international version of our D: All Things Digital Conference.

After visiting Dublin Castle and then perusing fancy hotels in the city of Dublin and then strolling the streets, Walt Mossberg and I head out to the Wicklow Mountains to see a bit of the lovely Irish countryside.

It’s the last stop on venue visits for us, to see a different kind of experience that is out of the city in a more rural setting. So we visited the construction site for a new Ritz-Carlton on the Powerscourt Estate, near the adorable village of Enniskerry, about 40 minutes south of Dublin.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship version, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

Here’s the next video:

Here is the third video about the possibility of launching an international version of our D: All Things Digital Conference.

After visiting Dublin Castle and then the fancy hotels in the city of Dublin, Walt Mossberg and I take to the streets of the city to check out the scene and also sample the local fare.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship version, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

Here’s the next video:

In our laborious quest to consider sites for an international version of our D: All Things Digital Conference, Walt Mossberg and I move from the historic environs of Dublin Castle (our visit there is chronicled here in text and video) to the fancy hotels in the city of Dublin.

So we sucked it up and headed to see the recently renovated and quite historic hotel, the Shelbourne, as well as the Four Seasons, where we are staying. (Our annual flagship D conference has been held for five years at the Four Seasons Aviara in Carlsbad, Calif., and will be again in late May of 2008.)

Both luxury hotels are obviously lovely, and present different experiences–one more urban and the other slightly out of the city center.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D: All Things Digital conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship D, which just took place for the fifth time in late May (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

So, here is our second video of our efforts to decide where to hold EuroD, if we end up doing it.

And, as at Dublin Castle, the venues are much fancier than we are:

So Walt Mossberg and I are here in Dublin, Ireland, and in my last post about our trip, I neglected to explain why:

Our D: All Things Digital conference might be going international.

We have had a lot of success with our annual flagship D, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled to be held in late May of 2008.)

This past year was particularly memorable, especially because of the joint interview Walt and I did with longtime rivals and tech legends, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of Microsoft (pictured here, but you can see the highlights video of the interview here).

Thus, we are on what you might call a fact-finding mission, to see if we should make the leap and expand our successful conference brand by adding a new conference with a focus outside the United States.

So, here’s a longish video, with others to follow, of our quest (along with D staffers Lia Lorenzano and Jill Pendergast) to decide on where we would hold EuroD.

First up, a visit to the historic Dublin Castle (circa 1204), where we might hold part of the event and where we are woefully outclassed by the tony surroundings:

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I have arrived in Dublin and am so tired, I am still trying to figure out the time difference and money–yes, I am a completely ignorant American!

Nonetheless, we press on and serve up some interesting items from around the Web–this time with a Euro-focus.

First observation: If you want to make a friend abroad, carry an iPhone. They are not for sale here yet, as deals between Apple and major European telecoms are still pending.

But Apple is likely to sell the iPhone here later in the year, with one of the major carriers, which include Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, France Telecom’s Orange or ultra-hip Telefónica’s 02.

Until then, with it visible in my hand, I made about 53 new friends at Heathrow Airport where I was changing planes. I also scored free first-class champagne from the stewards on board British Airways for giving them a test run of the device.

Most people treated the phone as if it were Paris Hilton suddenly appearing in their midst, with a lot of pointing and gaping at it, as I watched the first season of NBC’s “Heroes” I had downloaded. (Save the cheerleader, indeed! From her creepy adopted Dad is more like it!)

And I could elicit visible oohs when I kept shifting the screen vertically and horizontally, as if I were performing some sort of “Harry Potter” magic.

Since I am in Ireland, here is a link to an Irish blogging site talking about the iPhone.

And check out the video Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert did especially for Philippe Dauman’s appearance at D5 this year–his impression of using an iPhone midway through skewers the ridiculous fascination with the iPhone perfectly.

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I am headed to Dublin, Ireland, right now to check out the digital scene there with my AllThingsD and D partner, Walt Mossberg, and so posts might come at weird times over the next week, as I am also traveling to London.

Hopefully, I will find a Web connection in my travels there to post really interesting videos I did last week with Business.com’s Jake Winebaum and Polaris VC Mike Hirshland for tomorrow.

May the road rise to meet you!