Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. 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!
This is sweet! Look what happens when you search for the word “search” on the world’s two leading Internet search engines.
Yes, if you Google for “search” the first result is Bing. And if you Google it on Bing, the first result is Google. Now who said these guys were competitors?
Hat-tip to Derek Jenkins (@ozdj), and doubtless others as the meme spreads.
Gosh, I haven’t posted much detailed work here lately, eh? That’s because I’ve been flat out on many things, including more writing for Crikey than usual. I’ll try to catch up tonight with an overview of the Telstra break-up stories from the last few days.
It’s a month since I complained about advertising being inserted to my “no advertising material” mailbox. How that’s gone?
The good news is that immediately following PMP Distribution chastising their walker there was a significant drop in unaddressed advertising material, perhaps to only half what there was before. Good. But there’s still plenty of “bad corporate citizens” who I’ll now name, and a few businesses who failed to respond.
First, kudos to David Jones and their distributors PMP Distribution, and also to MiniMovers and Marrickville Metro (AMP Capital Shopping Centres), who responded promptly and dealt with the problem. Well done.
A slap on the wrist to Domino’s Pizza; Go Green Insulation; Kmart; and Raine & Horne Marrickville, all of whom didn’t even acknowledge my email enquiry. Pathetic.
An especially big slap to Kmart, since your website contact form sent me an email which said:
We value your feedback, and wish to advise that the matter you have raised has been referred to one of our Customer Relations Representatives who will be in contact with you in the near future.
I didn’t bother chasing Cavellis Woodfire Pizzeria, Cut & Save Tree Service, or Papaya Thai Eatery since they didn’t list email addresses.
Now, the new bad apples…
This month’s rude pricks are: Broadway Shopping Centre; De Sousa Real Estate (who also camouflaged their advertising to look like a hand-written note); Domino’s Pizza (again! twice!); Franklins & Family Supermarkets; Marrickville First National Real Estate; Mountain Designs; Prestige Cleaning Specialists; Raine & Horne Marrickville (again!); Ray White Newtown (another real estate agent!).
I’ll be in touch with all of these businesses to give them a chance to respond. And, since real estate agents feature so prominently in this list, I’ll be asking the REIA whether they consider this to be acceptable behaviour.
We also got a message from beyondblue, but since that’s not advertising but a public health message about depression I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep up the good work.
Episode 53 of Stilgherrian Live, the John Della Bosca Couch of Love Edition, is online for your viewing pleasure.
As always the nominations for “Cnut of the Week” were superbly wide-ranging.
From my idiosyncratically-selected shortlist of four, Geoffrey Emerson, the man who pays people to take on false identities to post blog comments, scored… well, zero votes. Humph. He was my suggestion. Screw you.
John Della Bosca, his sex scandal, and the media who considered it important, together came in 3rd (14%). I won’t link to it. It’s beneath me.
Microsoft were 2nd (27%) for their somewhat racist re-imaging of an advertisement.
The clear winner of “Cnut of the Week”, though, was James Murdoch (59%) for his wide-ranging Cnutery in his MacTaggart Lecture.
To decide who won the t-shirt from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing, we had to draw four names from the Cocktail Shaker of Integrity before finding someone who was actually watching the program: delperro, Bob Bain, theparissite and, finally, einspruch.
Congratulations, einspruch!
It is moderately likely that Stilgherrian Live will return tomorrow night at 9.30pm Sydney time.
Australia’s biggest telco closed down their corporate blog nowwearetalking without warning yesterday — and deleted all the content. While I can understand they want to put the often-controversial forum behind them, I think the move was a mistake.
I’ve already written about this for Crikey, Telstra consigns nowwearetalking to the memory hole. It seems odd to kill NWAT just as it was changing for the better – even more so given there’s no replacement. There’s comments from Stephen Collins and Fake Stephen Conroy, as well as Telstra’s official spokesperson Craig Middleton. It’s free to read. Off you go.
But I’d also like to publish the full interviews I did for that story. So here they are.
Stilgherrian’s links for 28 August 2009 through 09 September 2009, gathered automatically and then forgotten until today: