Business – Stilgherrian

06 July 2016

Analysing The 9pm Edict’s Hidden Costs

Hero Image of distorted chart I’ve been analysing the time it takes to produce each episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, and the results are disturbing.

Well, they disturbed me.

The Short Version

Audio recording is a relatively small part of the process. My workflows are inefficient, because I’m always playing with the format rather than settling into a routine, let alone automating things.

On a personal note, lack of confidence sometimes slows the creative process. Thanks, brain. I also spend more time fussing over the audio mix than is probably warranted.

The time taken to produce each episode is usually 10x or even 20x longer than the finished podcast. The crowdfunded budget falls way short of proper compensation. And that doesn’t even take into account the time taken to do that crowdfunding.

The Long Version

What I just said, but with charts, and much more background information.
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21 October 201521 October 2015

Talking Turnbull and startups on Mark Pesce’s TWISTA

Laura McKenzie, Mark Pesce and Stilgherrian in the recording studio We recorded it on Monday afternoon, and it was posted today. It’s the latest episode of Mark Pesce’s podcast TWISTA: This Week In Startups Australia.

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Here’s how he introduces it on the web:

A huge pivot toward startups and innovation by Malcolm Turnbull, huge policy outcomes from Wyatt Roy’s Policy Hack event, a huge IPO from Australia’s most-beloved tech startup, Atlassian, a huge new $200M fund from Blackbird ventures, and huge issues with diversity still plague tech. TWISTA’s huge news special pairs SCALE Investors managing director Laura McKenzie and Austrlia’s snarkiest tech journo, Stilgherrian, with the biggest news issues in our biggest news special yet!

There’s rather a lot about Turnbull, actually, including a couiple of disturbing mental images.

For more details, check out the podcast Tumblr.

[Photo: Laura McKenzie, Mark Pesce and Stilgherrian in the recording studio, photographed by Felix Warmuth, who was our sound engineer.]

27 September 201527 September 2015

Debate: Is digital disruption in the best interest of consumers?

Stilgherrian speaks during the ACCAN conference debate “Will the latest wave of digital disruptors liberate consumers from monopolies or shackle them to new ones?” asked the Australian Communications Consumers Action Network (ACCAN) in the program notes for the somewhat amusing debate which ended their annual conference back on 2 September.

I was on one of the debate teams. Guess which side.

Well, the affirmative team was Daniel Duggan, head of mobile for Yatango; Brad Kitsche, Uber’s director of public policy for the Oceania region; and Brendan Coady from Maddocks Lawyers.

So yeah, I was the final speaker on the negative team, following David Vaile, executive director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at the University of NSW; and Katina Michael, associate professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences at the University of Wollongong.

And we won.

The video over the fold has the entire thing, except for the first few words by our moderator, Delia Rickard, dDeputy chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

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23 September 201523 September 2015

Random notes on crowdfunding The 9pm Edict podcast

Later this morning I’m being interviewed by Richard Aedy for next week’s episode of ABC Radio National’s Media Report about the success of my recent crowdfunding campaign, The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh. So I thought I’d put together some notes to clarify my thoughts.

The interview will be a follow-up to the one Aedy did in October 2013, Crowd funding an Australian freelancer – a case study, following the success of my first Pozible campaign.

First, let me say thank-you to the dozens and dozens of people who’ve been funding The 9pm Edict podcast since it was resurrected with an earlier Pozible crowdfunding campaign about 18 months ago. As this chart shows, continuing subscriptions are now running at around $700 per month.

Chart: The 9pm Edict Monthly Production Pool

Continue reading “Random notes on crowdfunding The 9pm Edict podcast”

18 July 2015

Talking Apple Pay and the like on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

This week Apple launched its Apple Pay service in the UK, the second market after the US, which meant it and other new payment systems blipped up in the news.

On Thursday I spoke about Apple Pay with Will Goodings on 1395 FIVEaa in Adelaide. He was bouncing off a story in the Australian Financial Review, Why Australia’s banks are still well placed to fend off Apple Pay.

After speaking with me, he spoke with Chris Hamilton, CEO of the Australian Payments Clearing Association — and that’s in the recording too, because it’s interesting stuff.

I was also going to mention the forthcoming Samsung Pay, because ZDNet reviewed the beta rollout in South Korea, but we didn’t get to that.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (11.2MB)

05 July 2015

Talking targeted adverts on ABC Local Radio

On Tuesday night I spoke about the state of the art of targeted advertising on ABC Local Radio across NSW.

Presenter Dom Knight ended up talking with me for 25 minutes, covering the issues I wrote about for Crikey in Every step you take: how advertisers are monitoring your every move, plus The Atlanticâ€™s story on how Facebook tracks the spread of political symbols.

I neglected to record the segment off the live steam, but I’ve obtained a recording made off-air. So rather than the full studio sound, you’ll hear the glory that is AM radio, with hiss and crackle and all that stuff. If a better-quality recording turns up, I’ll update this page.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (11.2MB)