David Cameron might fancy the UK's chances of becoming the Silicon Valley of Europe, but he could learn a lot from the love-bombing Irish who are streets ahead in attracting the world's leading internet companies to Dublin's docklands, which may as well be rebranded Silicon Docks. Last week, the Irish pulled out all the stops to show 150 internet, tech, and bank bosses a good time at f.ounders, an event quickly dubbed "Davos for geeks". The event obviously included lots of important panel discussions about the future of the digital world, but what really mattered were the little things, like Bono showing up on your pub crawl. As you do. Even the general manager of Twitter, Tony Wang, queued up to get his photo taken and tweeted it. The U2 frontman, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, led about 30 of the world's most important internet executives through the streets of Dublin to the next stop on their itinerary, Trinity College's Dining Hall. Bono may not pay his taxes but if any of these companies invest in Ireland, he can take a little of the credit.
