All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris. Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2008.
[This was me in Crikey yesterday.]
Thank the gods I don’t work for the ACCC! The poor sods have to read 700+ public submissions on eBay Australia’s plan to force sellers to use PayPal — which they own. As Crikey reported, this could breach the “third line forcing” provisions of the Trade Practices Act.
Being a lazy geek rather than a tireless public servant, though, I can skim for juicy tidbits. They reveal a widespread fear of eBay bullying.
Well the new computer certainly helped!
Replacing the obsolescent PowerBook G4 with shiny new MacBook Pro meant there was enough processing power to run everything for Stilgherrian Live Alpha episode 4: audio without breakup, a separate monitoring mix, drop-in videos, vision mixing… and even a two-camera shoot!
Content? Yeah there was content…
I talked about Mobile Content World, the gayness of Eurovision, Miranda Devine, the Politics & Technology Forum and the nature of broadcasting. And there was a fantastic song at the end.
The live audience reached 34 people at its peak, I think. It adds an interesting dynamic, though I’m still suffering from information overload trying to keep track of the chat and doing my own vision switching.
I’ll post some further thoughts some time in the next few days.
Episode 5 will be live on the Internet on Thursday 5 June at 9.30pm Sydney time.
Yes, episode 4 of Stilgherrian Live Alpha will happen at 9.30pm tonight Sydney time. Will it be as disturbing as last week’s? There’s only one way to find out… well two, actually, ‘cos you could just ask someone. That shows how silly that stock advertising phrase really is.
When the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) decided to investigate eBay Australia’s plan to force its sellers to use PayPal for their “protection”, there were more than 700 public submissions. eBay has responded by dismissing the objections.
I’ve written about this at length previously, both here and in Crikey [1, 2], with plenty of interesting comments from readers. And I’ve just written a piece for Crikey today, to be published around 2pm Sydney time.
Meanwhile, you can read some overview pieces at Auction Bytes and The Sheet. And you can see eBay’s full 15-page response at the ACCC website: it’s the second submission on the page, from “Applicant”.
To make things just that little bit more interesting, yesterday Telstra’s Sensis division announced a free auction site at Trading Post.
[Update 1250pm: The story will now run in Crikey tomorrow (Thursday). Busy news day, apparently.]
Last Sunday’s Eurovision at the Pub was a fun night, but it didn’t go as planned. We couldn’t get the Uconnect free wireless Internet access extended past 8pm, and my computer died anyway. So no live audio commentary or even Twitter from me. I also shot some video which will be edited into some semblance of… something… on the weekend. The Snarky Platypus explains the concept of The Mid-Tempo Gap.
The other day I “ran into” journalist Samela Harris online. She’s now a senior writer for Murdochland in Adelaide. Not long later, the following appeared at Adelaide Now.
Stilgherrian once was cherished name in South Australia –- until he the Gawler-born boy drifted east to make further fame and fortune. The former radio personality has maintained a status of significant stir both in the modern alternative media and the constantly evolving world of geekdom. One may catch up with his movements on his blog.
Gosh.
“Sa”, as she’s affectionately known, is daughter of the famous (infamous?) Australian man of letters, Max Harris — who once snuck up behind me and, with a swift underhand stroke of his silver-tipped cane, caught me fair on the balls. Ouch.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.3KB)
Did people really think I’d end up brawling with Jason Calacanis at CeBIT last week? Sure, I called him a prick and wrote about the evil cult of the Internet start-up. But he does actually have good points.
I met Mr Calacanis when I found myself recording the 2 Web Crew podcast on my borrowed video camera. Since I was concentrating on getting good audio, the vision’s a bit shaky, but at least you’ll see what it was like during those hectic 16 minutes.
I may disagree with Calacanis’ priorities in life, but that’s hardly unique to him. He does do business transparently, however. He makes sense and calls a spade a spade. And he’s certainly been a successful entrepreneur.
He’s also a tireless promoter — of himself. Now that’s not a bad thing when you’re trying to build hype around a new business. But it’s a character trait that Australians reckon is bad — which is perhaps why we so often fail to market our own innovations.
I was also amused to see the swarm of Calacanis fan-boys and girls buzzing around him “like flies to a dead sheep”, as I said on Twitter. Guys, a little less cult of personality and a little more independent thought will work wonders in your lives. Success is not achieved through frottage with the successful. Unless you’re a hooker.
So, Jason, here is the promised blog post saying that you’re not as much of a prick as I thought you were.
… for Australia’s inaugural Politics & Technology Forum on 25 June. It’s being sponsored by Microsoft, and I’m going as their guest. Apparently I continue to fool them.
The keynote is by Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times magazine, followed by two panel discussions.
Panel 1 is on “Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media”, with Brett Solomon from GetUp!; Annabel Crabb from the Sydney Morning Herald; Peter Black from QUT; spin doctor Mark Textor of Crosby Textor, who ran the Howard government’s failed re-election campaign; and the editor of Crikey Jonathan Green. It’ll be nice to finally meet my editor!
Panel 2 is “Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning”, with Joe Hockey, the Liberal member for North Sydney; Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats; Labor Senator Kate Lundy (ACT); and election analyst extraordinaire Antony Green. Very scary indeed.
At this stage it looks like I’ll be heading to Canberra on 24 June and staying overnight. If this is of interest, please register as a stalker in the usual way.
Michael Arrington has written the best article ever on TechCrunch. That is all. As you were.
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