Sep 242009
 

He should stick to politics – how quickly they forget! It wasn’t traditional media in the US that put Barack Obama in office, if I’m not mistaken:

Mr. Obama said he noted the trend. “I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” the President said.”What I hope is that people start understanding if you’re getting your newspaper over the Internet, that’s not free and there’s got to be a way to find a business model that supports that.”

Pfft. Maybe it has to do with the fact that bloggers are starting to take on the role that journalists also do, which is undercover investigations – and it didn’t go well for Obama: barack Obama

Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign has been in full damage control mode since the senator’s blunt remarks about the nature of small town Pennsylvania voters were secretly recorded by a Huffington Post blogger at a recent San Francisco fundraiser that was supposed to be off limits to the press. Read more

what do you think?

Sep 252008
 

This week’s Media Report (Radio National) is on ensuring civility on blogs and social networks. The page Listen Now Download The question we were asked to address was this: how do you encourage civility between commenters on your blog? Margaret Simons starts with a Taxonomy of Blog types. 1. Pamphleteering2. Digest3. Advocacy4. Speciality, niche5. Exhibition6. Gatewatcher – media watchers7. Diary8. Advertisement9. News blog – sourcing real news. I think she missed a couple. The Event based blog (short term, for a specific event or ritual, such as a wedding). Education or course blogs with an index and activities, such as Continue Reading…

Jun 082008
 

Gary (that would be Mr. SilkCharm to you. Heh.) Hayes is off to Korea with Minister for Broadband and Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy (Personalize Media): Gary Hayes will be speaking and representing LAMP and AFTRS at the The 2008 KANZ Australia Korea New Zealand Broadband Summit on 19-20 June 2008 in Seoul, Korea. The ten or so Australian speakers at the two day summit will be led by Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and will be hosted by the Korean Minister, Mr See-Joong Choi, Chairman, Korean Communications Commission (KCC). The summit will Continue Reading…

Sep 292007
 

EDIT: I had a very nice voicemail from NZ Police Superintendent Hamish McCardle, the officer in charge of developing the new act – he wanted to let us know that they agree about transparency and that today the wiki is back up as a Document of Record. He also mentioned that they got a huge amount of press coverage overseas including the BBC. The Sydney Morning Herald asked me about a New Zealand Wiki that had emerged out of the New Zealand Police Department. I (of course) pretended I was completely up to speed on it all, while madly Googling Continue Reading…

Sep 222007
 

Yeh I know, pollies in online communities is boring, but here’s an interesting debate at broadband’s most powerful online community, Whirlpool (WP), posted half an hour ago: Does Whirlpool have a formal policy on what sort of contributions political candidates can make here? A few weeks ago, I ran upon the site of a NSW senate candidate with very forwarding thinking IT/broadband/comms/energy related policies. I pointed it out with a thread in OtI which was promptly deleted for being promotional. Yesterday while idling in a Linux-related IRC channel, I read someone (who turned out to be the same person!) saying Continue Reading…

May 182007
 

EDIT (cos I forgot there are non-Australians out there who wander into this blog) Senator Helen Coonan, Federal Minister for umm telecommunications and umm IT things, keynoted at a small conference CommunIT (Not for Profit IT) conference in small-town Adelaide, South Australia on BroadBand for Rural Australia. She spoke and left with no question-time. Ack, I should’ve written this up earlier when it was all fresh and pumping. Is that why blogs are so darn addictive? Anyway, here goes. Politics have to change the way they “use” conferences and events to launch their bits of paper. I’m serious. Preaching to Continue Reading…

Jul 242006
 

I’ve been writing a bit lately about politics. Not here, not the sort of thing suitable for a blog. I’ve even dug up my old Plato’s Republic and played around with creating a virtual world called n00bopolis. Well, enough silliness… But I do want to call your attention to a USalone.com. Its a ceasefire request where you are given internet tools to “call for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon”. INSTANT LOCAL DISTRICT PHONE NUMBER LOOKUP FORM:You can get the direct dial numbers and fax numbers for all your members of Congress right down to the district level by clicking on Continue Reading…

Jun 222006
 

2Spare.com (2 Much Time 2 Spare) have a list of the top 87 bad predictions in all sectors. The list has 590 votes. Let me extract out the ones of interest in computing and such – and I’ll add a few at the bottom of recent ones: «640k is enough for everyone.» William F. Gates III «I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.» IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943. «Everything that can be invented has been invented.» Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899. «This antitrust thing will blow over.» Bill Gates, founder Continue Reading…