Ciara Byrne is based in Amsterdam, and her interests include clean tech, mhealth, emerging markets, European startups and cycling in high heels. She has worked as a product strategist, software team lead and engineering manager. Follow her on Twitter at @deciara.

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Disclosures: Sadly, the entire world seems to have already read VentureBeat’s ethics statement since nobody ever offers to sponsor my working wardrobe or send me free stuff.

I occasionally accept travel expenses in order to speak at or attend tech events and meet startups in the far corners of Europe. In such cases, no coverage is ever guaranteed and we always disclose who paid for travel in any related coverage.

stories by Ciara Byrne

Does social media marketing actually work?

Fewer than 1 percent of website visits come directly from a social media URL according to research just released by customer satisfaction analytics experts ForeSee Results.

The company surveyed 300,000 consumers on more than 180 websites across a dozen private …

The U.K. gets a $60 million early stage fund

U.K. early stage investment firm Passion Capital just raised its first investment fund of $60 million. The fund is a private-public hybrid, with the U.K. government contributing $40 million of the total.

Partners Stefan Glaenzer, Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero …

API downtime: Who's asleep at the wheel?

Many popular applications use the application programming interfaces (APIs) of other services, from your favorite Twitter client to Facebook apps. So downtime on the most popular APIs has a serious knock-on effect on other services and (up)time is money.

Performance …

Dublin: Europe's next startup petri dish?

Startup Bootcamp, a European startup accelerator network and Techstars affiliate, just added Dublin to its existing locations of Copenhagen and Madrid. London and Berlin will follow in 2012.

Ireland’s tech scene continues to expand in spite of the woeful state …