crowdfunding – Page 12

22 April 201422 April 2014

Weekly Wrap 202: Doom Clown, fish heads, crowdfunding

My week of Monday 14 to Sunday 20 April 2014 was a solid performer in the first half, and suitably balanced in the second half — not a time-off Easter, but at least one that wasn’t about over-work.

My own media production moved away from covering the Heartbleed bug, producing just one item — an opinion piece looking back at the way the crisis was handled, as opposed to the straight news stories produced during the previous week. But the story had moved into the mainstream, and that provided the background for a couple of media appearances.

More importantly, at least from my point of view, was that on Easter Sunday I launched “The 9 O’Clock Resurrection”, a Pozible crowdfunding project to re-establish my podcast The 9pm Edict as a regular part of my media production schedule.

I’ve already posted two progress videos onto a YouTube playlist, and we’re already nearly halfway to the initial target. I’m posting plenty of updates elsewhere, so I won’t bang on about that here.

Articles

Heartbleed heartache: This was not a drill, people, and you failed, ZDNet Australia, 15 April 2014.

Media Appearances

On Monday I spoke about Heartbleed on ABC 774 Melbourne, ABC 720 Perth, and local stations throughout Victoria and Western Australia.
On Tuesday I spoke about smartphone privacy on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters.
On Thursday we recorded this week’s Download This Show for ABC Radio National, where we spoke about password management, an attempt to update the typeface Comic Sans, and a dumb-arsed thing called the SELFIE mirror. The password management story is also available on video.
Also on Thursday I spoke about Heartbleed on SBS2’s The Feed.
On Saturday I was called a Doom Clown by Tim Blair in his blog at the Daily Telegraph.

5at5

There was one for every working day, so that went to plan. Why don’t you subscribe to 5at5, and then I don’t need to keep telling you about it.

5at5 number 34, 14 April 2013.
5at5 number 35, 15 April 2013.
5at5 number 36, 16 April 2013.
5at5 number 37, 17 April 2013.

Corporate Largesse

On Thursday I had a meeting with someone from Lewis PR to exchange notes on what we each had coming up. They paid for coffee and cake.

The Week Ahead

It’s a short working week here in Australia, which is partially why this Weekly Wrap is appearing on Tuesday. Monday was mostly an excursion with two friends to Dulwich Hill, Summer Hill and Ashfield. Dumplings were involved.

Today, Tuesday, is about email and planning and many minor tasks that need to be gotten out of the way, so that I can concentrate on promoting the Pozible project and plan out the next few weeks.

Wednesday and Thursday are writing days, with at least one thing to write for ZDNet Australia, plus some work to be done on sorting out my cashflows. Friday is Anzac Day. I will mark it in some way, personally, but I’m not sure how yet. The weekend is unplanned as yet.

I’m in Sydney all week, and currently plan to return to the Blue Mountains on Sunday.

[Photo: Salmon heads on special at $1.99 per kilogram, photographed at Cabramatta in Sydney’s south-west on Saturday 19 April 2014.]

21 April 201412 December 2014

Announcing (belatedly) The 9 O’Clock Resurrection

Screenshot from The 9 O'Clock Resurrection video for Day 1 I’ve decided that my podcast The 9pm Edict should be a thing again, and so yesterday morning I launched a Pozible crowdfunding campaign entitled The 9 O’Clock Resurrection to make it happen.

This post is “belatedly” because it’s already more than a day since I launched the campaign, and already people’s commitments are more than a third of the way to the initial target, which is to fund two episodes in May. Thank you.

I’d really like to do the podcast weekly, however, and beyond May. So that’ll mean more funding than the initial target, and more of the supporters to commit to a monthly subscription. It’s much the same model as that used by community broadcasters here in Australia, or public broadcasters in the US, as I said when I spoke about my first Pozible campaign on ABC Radio National’s Media Report.

This new Pozible campaign runs until 29 April. I’ll be making a video each day to report progress. The first is watchable on YouTube, and the rest will appear in the YouTube playlist, and I’ll figure out some other methods tomorrow.

Continue reading “Announcing (belatedly) The 9 O’Clock Resurrection”

12 April 201412 April 2014

Heartbleed kills my schedule

Heartbleed logo Nothing has appeared here since Weekly Wrap 200 last Sunday — including the update to my guest lecture at UTS from Monday — because my work schedule has been dominated by the Heartbleed internet security bug.

There’s a lot that’ll appear here in the coming three days, and not just the UTS lecture. There’s radio spots that I did with ABC 720 Perth, ABC 783 Alice Springs, 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide, ABC Radio’s The World Today, and ABC 702 Sydney, for starters, plus links to the stories I’ve written on Heartbleed — one for Crikey and four for ZDNet Australia — although clever possums will know that they’re already listed on the media page.

In the background, I’ve also been sketching out ideas for a Pozible crowdfunding campaign or two, continuing from the one I did last year, to resurrect Corrupted Nerds and The 9pm Edict. Stay tuned.

I guess I shouldn’t whinge about Heartbleed killing my schedule. Some people have to do the really hard programming and systems administration work to clean up the mess, not just write and talk about it, and the extra work is heartbleeding revenue straight into my pocket.

01 November 2013

Talking crowdfunding etc on ABC Download This Show

ABC logo After a six-month gap caused by the failure of our schedules to cooperate, I was finally a guest once more on Marc Fennell’s Download This Show this week, which we recorded this morning.

Online crowd funding: Whether it’s a brand new gadget or a bouncing baby, you can crowd fund anything these days? But which online service is the most likely to get your project to its funding target? Plus, want to know what the internet feels like in an oppressive regime? Google has helped build a site that will show you what it feels like and it’ll help internet users in those countries as well. And is it a phone or is it Lego? The modular phone you can rebuild and reshape as you see fit.

My fellow panellist was Janet Carr. And here’s the full audio. I talk about breast enhancement, amongst other things.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.4MB)

30 October 201304 October 2015

Talking crowdfunded journalism on ABC RN Media Report

ABC logo When I first decided to try Pozible, the crowdfunding site, to fund last week’s trip to Melbourne, I didn’t think it was particularly special, but others did — including ABC Radio National’s Media Report.

On Wednesday last week, presenter Richard Aedy recorded an interview with me, and almost all of it made its way into Thursday evening’s program.

When Stilgherrian wanted to head interstate to cover two hacking conference but didn’t have the budget, he made his first foray into crowdfunding his journalism. So how did he go and what has he learnt? And can this be applied to other less high profile freelancers in Australia?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.2MB)

The material being produced as a result of this crowdfunding is gradually being published at Corrupted Nerds.

07 September 201312 September 2013

Visiting Tokyo for Verizon and a personal media plan

[Update 12 September 2013: For a variety of reasons, I’ve cancelled this trip.]

On Monday 16 September I’m heading to Tokyo to attend a lunch presentation by Verizon on the 17 September. Since it’s my first visit to Japan I’ll be staying through to Sunday 22 September and doing something… special.

Yes, I’m going to Tokyo for lunch. Don’t question me. Or rather, don’t question how the internet and media industries work.

It’s actually an opportunity for the Asia Pacific tech journalists to meet Verizon’s president and chief executive officer, Lowell C McAdam, so it’ll be worth it. I’m also presuming they’ll have some announceables.

Wednesday through Sunday will be my exploration days in Tokyo. I’ve decided that I’ll do that as a personal media project, crowdfunding the money to pay for it.

At this stage I think I’ll call it The 9pm Tokyo, but it won’t be “just” a podcast. I’m thinking of setting a “target investigation” as a theme for each of the five days — “Where does the sake come from?” or “Just how weird is the tentacle porn?” — and reporting on that in words and pictures and maybe audio or video. Something like my Unreliable Bangkok series but with many more words.

That then raises the question of what I can actually investigate. Apparently whisky bars are a thing. What else should I see and do in Tokyo?

[Photo: Tokyo, as seen from the Metropolitan Government Building by Harry Vale, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.]