The other week I was interviewed by journalism student Tom Davey for a report he was doing on Australia’s internet “filtering” plans. He has since posted the resulting radio report.
Talking about the “Dark Web” on ABC News 24
This morning I was interviewed by ABC News 24 about the “Dark Web”, a term Fairfax news outlets used earlier this week in a story headlined The new underbelly. Since I was at the event in Sydney that triggered the writing of that story, I was happy to tone down some of the hype-scare.
By the “Dark Web” they meant things like Silk Road, a marketplace for all manner of illegality, and the Tor anonymity network that allows Silk Road to hide… somewhere.
I’ll update this post later today to include links to the other things I discussed with presenter Andrew Geoghegan.
If the embedded video doesn’t work for you, you can watch it over on YouTube.
This is a rough copy of the video for now. I’ll upload a better version as soon as it becomes available, though that’ll still have me staring mindlessly into the distance as I’m being introduced. Sigh. The footage is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
On Monday evening you can listen to me in Katoomba
This coming Monday 4 June, I’m leading a discussion entitled Surviving and thriving as a freelancer in a globalised market for Publish! Blue Mountains, “a non-profit association of the region’s top creative and publishing professionals”.
The event is subtitled “How to avoid being outsourced to the lowest bidder (or worse still, a robot!)”
Radical changes will hit a freelancer’s world over the next two years or so as we move to a globalised marketplace. Firstly there is the rapid rise of internet-enabled outsourcing through sites like Freelancer.com, allowing projects to be advertised globally and often awarded to the lowest bidder who may be in a country where $10 is a decent day’s wage.
Secondly, increasingly sophisticated and intelligent automated systems are now taking over many tasks that historically required human creative input. Just in the writing field alone, we already have US college sports coverage written completely by computer.
Where will this technology (and the marketplace driving it) take us? And what can we creatives do to ensure we’re not replaced by cut-price doppelgangers and robo-scribes?
The discussion will be held at Clarendon Guesthouse, 68 Lurline St, Katoomba from 5.30 to 7.00pm. My guest speaker slot and the open discussion runs from from 5.45 to 6.30pm, with drinks and networking to follow. It’s free, but you should RSVP to connect@publishbluemountains.com.au. The bar will be open.
Talking Twitter for idea-generation on ABC Local Radio
I must admit, this one threw me a bit. Last Sunday ABC Radio presenter James O’Loghlin wanted to know whether he should start using Twitter because “having to tweet” might help him generate ideas.
I thought he was looking at Twitter from the wrong angle. If he used Twitter it’s not that he had to tweet something but that he wanted to tweet it.
Nevertheless, it turned into an interesting chat, kicking off with ABC political writer Annabel Crabb before I joined the conversation around the 9 min 20 sec mark. I even managed to get Mr O’Loghlin’s sex life into the conversation.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:07 — 17.5MB)
The audio is of course ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and was recorded on 20 May 2012. I’ve included the audio right up to the 7pm news because there’s some Twitter-related comments at the end.
Talking Facebook pay-for-highlighting on ABC 702 Sydney
While the Facebook IPO Roadshow rolls on, the company is trying a bunch of experiments — both to search for new revenue streams and to maintain the buzz. One of them is paying $2 to have your post highlighted.
The numbers in the story don’t surprise me. Typically a Facebook user’s posts are only seen by around 12% of their followers, depending on whether Facebook’s secret-sauce algorithm decides whether you’re a sufficiently close friend or the topic is of sufficient interest to the viewer.
Why not let people pay money to change that?
I could tell from the tone of his voice that ABC 702 Sydney host Richard Glover did not approve.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:04 — 4.7MB)
The audio is of course ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but as usual I’m posting it here as an archive.
Budget 2012: the key numbers
$1.5 billion
up to $210
$33.3 billion
$5 billion
1.5 million Australians
one percent
$714 million
nearly $1 in $6
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