Internet Hero!

Folks,

We’re delighted to let you know that Aodhan Cullen (founder and CEO of StatCounter) has been chosen as this year’s Internet Hero at the eircom Golden Spider Awards! The award, sponsored by Business and Finance, was created to recognize an individual who has made a significant contribution to the development of the internet.

Aodhan was honored to receive the award from last year’s Internet Hero, Dr. Denis Jennings.

Here’s a transcript of the speech given by Aodhan last night as he accepted the award in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin…

    Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in Castleknock [residential area in Dublin, Ireland]. Although small for his age and quite shy, this young chap was also very determined… he wanted to earn some extra pocket money [allowance] and he wanted to earn it NOW!

    So, despite being just 10 years of age, he put an ad in the Golden Pages [telephone and business directory] for typing services… “£2 / page & a free copy with that!”

    Although he counted doctors, professors & other highly qualified people among his clients, I can assure you that 10 year old had absolutely no idea that 15 years later he would be standing here tonight before his peers to accept such a prestigious award.

    “Business Link” that first typing business is no more but these days I work on StatCounter – a free online visitor stats tool that helps 2 million website owners and bloggers worldwide understand and optimise their websites. If you haven’t yet got a StatCounter on your website, then you need to get one! Look us up tomorrow!

    I am thrilled & humbled to be the recipient of this year’s Internet Hero Award. Tonight I’m being presented with some big shoes & I hope I can fill them.

    I’d like to thank a few people:

    • The judges for choosing me.
    • All the team at eircom and Business & Finance for organizing tonight’s event.
    • All my family & parents – who still to this day, get calls asking about CV [résumé] typing!
    • And of course my wife Jenni who is thrilled to be Mrs Internet Hero 2008!
    • Thanks also to my colleagues on the StatCounter Team and all the StatCounter members worldwide – without their loyalty & support I wouldn’t be here tonight.

    Finally, I want to thank all of you sitting here tonight, my friends & peers in the internet industry – many of you have offered advice & support to me over the last 15 years, in some cases just via email or message boards so that we have never actually met in person. To one and all – thank you!

    And I look forward to trying to live up to my new title in the next 12 months.

    Goodnight and God bless!

We, the StatCounter Team, don’t think Aodhan will have any trouble living up to the new title… look how well the suit fits?! 😉

244 Comments

  1. Statcounter has been good to us…the recognition is well deserved!

    Best,
    Team^PhotoHand.com

  2. congratulations aodhan. i regularly use statcounter to help me analyze my website, and it really does help me understand and optimize my traffic.

    congrats again, and may there be many more.

    kind regards

  3. I’m a statcounter fan…. my morining goes like this:

    1) CNN
    2) Yahoo – News & Email
    3) Statcounter
    4) Have a cup of tea…
    5) Re-check e-mail, re-check Statcounter
    6) Sigh…
    7) Start work

    so many congrats!!

  4. My heartiest congratulations to Aodhan.

    Hope to see you again with flying colors.

    Way to go.

  5. Congratulations Aodhan! I use your service every day and it’s the best stat service!

  6. Dear Aodhan,
    Congratulations and best wishes for the Next year as well. You Rock!!!

    http://itjobsdelhi.blogspot.com

  7. Hey — another well-deserved Congrats to Aodhan — you look cool in a superman costume! Such a handsome daredevil!

    cheers and don’t forget to visit us too!

  8. Real time congratulations fall short Aodhan, so let the blessings, the saviour and good luck for the lord. We can surpass the loads of well deserved and top notch, cool, superb and awesome wish lists that be.

    When I was ten, school was pretty boring too. It was the last period that boys and girls were in separated schools in the Netherlands. So that doubled the boringness. However, according to the head of the school, mr. A.W. van Grindsven, we had an extreme opportunity to be in one of the last boy classes. He never earlier had this optimum chance to teach us boy and man related matters.

    At eleven years old, this school head told me every week a remarkable idea or assignment of one of his friends in high positions. Once he even let me choose a new president-minister mr de Jong, a former submarine captain. The man wanted me to use prescience time to gain social organisation and control. He asked to teach the boys in the class as an assistant. I wasn’t ready for this educating task at that moment. So he forced me to make promises for a goal in life: To prevent that fathers after a divorce have no access to their children.

    New uses of concrete materials was foreseen. The school head got notice of the technique of constructing buildings with a large span width. The government at that time wanted to contract a new syndicate to execute plans for a mall in the centre of Utrecht City. The class was asked to give a name for the company. The school head claimed that the boy with the best name would have a sort of power for life later on. I came up with the winning name ‘Bredero’.

    This naming gave me self confidence. So during my studies at the Utrecht university, I presented the idea of a new building with a reinforced spanning high in the sky. The enormous construction should look like improbable. The rafter must have housing accommodation for third world students. With lots of residences and a stay for one or two years of value for life study in a native country.

    Also when I was at the age of eleven, the finance man in the cabinet of submarine captain mr de Jong, Johan Witteveen promised a piece of his private property. It was the highchair of his childhood. School head mr. Grindsven revealed that this chair was made by Rietveld, a well known architect which made one well known chair. But only in a future in which I would liberate divorced children and their fathers. Last week the chair of Johan Witteveen was sold to both the museums of Utrecht and Amsterdam.

    In the Netherlands we now have legal progress with equal parenting and the slogan ‘Best parent is both parent’. The rest of the world will sure follow. With the new found power, next step is ‘Sorgerecht ab Geburt’ and to have both decision about parental access and compliance with the law in one court session.

    There were times my eleven year son and I were together. It is strange that the more fruits there are of the work for equal parenting after cohabitation, the more the gathering for my son and me is denied. That is the downside. The networking is hard and earning some fame. There is a lot of success to be caused by helping divorced children and their parents.

    The Dutch ‘child in stress’ organisation thanks StatCounter for the years the tool is affordable. Aodhan created a research instrument that gives vital clues about the usefulness of our own content. And how we can find the true hearts and minds of own content. Our experience is an overview of statistics and with our friends and guiding we can develop and strengthen social relations with visitors and the general public further.

    Aodhan now can be seen in the typical Superman dress with red shoes of the Dutch movement for divorced children and their fathers. Many Dutch NGO’s on this subject are not making use of StatCounter yet. Is there news about the situation in Ireland? We’ll ask our affiliate NGO’s to only use the best product in the market.

    We’ll do our best to cooperate in a think-tank Skype Help mentioned. We will start writing about improvements in the Visit Length statistics. Our advice is not to put effort in embedding other languages in StatCounter. Greetings to mrs Internet Hero 2008. And keep up the good work you do for liberating human organisation ánd mankind in the years to come.

    😉
    Bert Kerkhof @ Kind in de knel organisation
    www.conseo.nl
    www.kindindeknel.nl
    Norg, Netherlands
    +31 592 670206
    +31 6 52686243

  9. You guyz and gals are all heroes! You’re always there to provide service and support and see ‘Dummies’ like me through problems. Statcounter ROCKS!

  10. Well deserved. StatsCounter is an invaluable tool and should be part of every webmaster’s arsenal.

  11. Aodhan,

    The democracy of the internet has once again prevailed. It is refreshing to see effort rewarded and recognised by ones peers. Well done!

  12. Congratulations!
    I am using statcounter on every site I build!
    And I always recommend it to others.
    Keep up the good Hero work
    🙂

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