Archive for the 'Australia' Category

Wikileaks is rocking our institutions to the core.

Published on December 1, 2010 in Australia, business, politics and technology. View Comments

You’d have to have been living under a rock not to notice the massive and continuing fallout from the latest Wikileaks release of diplomatic ‘cables’, on top of the Iraq war logs released not long ago.

Add to this the probability that Wikileaks will release documents that will significantly impact some major banks (and other companies?) in the near future, and you have a full blown scramble to try and shut down Wikileaks as soon as possible.

Wikileaks, It's time to open the archives

Just in the last couple of days since the beginning of the latest release, among other developments, many governments seem to be in damage control; Wikileaks has been under DDOS attack on multiple occasions; Interpol has issued a ‘Wanted’ notice for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange; Amazon has cut off hosting to Wikileaks on its servers; and a senior advisor and strategist to the Canadian Prime Minister has even called for Assange’s assassination! What next?

Whether you think what Wikileaks is doing is right or wrong, there’s little doubt that they are so far succeeding in rocking many of our major institutions to the core, including ‘the media’, governments, and soon various large corporations. It also leaves little doubt about just how much impact the Internet is continuing to have on the world. Wow.

Google says govts blocking info flow are blocking free trade and economic growth.

Published on November 15, 2010 in Australia, Google, business, politics and technology. View Comments

With the release of a new white paper via its Public Policy Blog, Google is urging governments everywhere to take specific steps to “break down barriers to free trade and Internet commerce”.

Google maintains that according to one study, more than forty governments are now involved in the restriction of online information by such practices as blocking online services, imposing non-transparent regulation, and seeking to incorporate surveillance tools into their internet infrastructure.

With a focus firmly on commerce here, Google is asserting that these practices are the trade barriers of the 21st century, and steps should be taken to remove them. Google is calling for new international rules to provide increased protection against these 21st century trade barriers.

Do you think the economic benefits of the Internet are under threat from governments imposing limits on information flow? Are certain countries shooting themselves in the feet, economically speaking, by restricting, regulating and censoring information flowing in and out of their borders?

Foursquare and Facebook Places: educate me, entertain me, supersize me.

Published on November 10, 2010 in Australia, Facebook, Foursquare, Uncategorized, business, mobile, social media and technology. View Comments

I thought I’d share a couple of nearby Foursquare offers as a snapshot of what’s going on in the geolocation space, just in my local area. Regular readers will know I’ve written a few other posts about Australian businesses experimenting in the geolocation space.

I see we have the University of Technology, Sydney offering a free movie ticket for the Foursquare Mayor of the UTS Library on a certain day. Interesting new way to encourage students to study? If you come an study at the library regularly, we’ll reward you with some entertainment.

UTS Library Foursquare offer

Of course we also have fast food chains starting to offer the “supersize me” types of deals we’re all familiar with.

Never to be outdone, I see that Facebook is now introducing Facebook Deals, which is layered on top of Facebook Places, to provide a similar service to local businesses and users of Facebook.

What kind of offers have you seen in your local area? Anything that’s tempted you yet?

‘The Social Network’ movie: “Like”, a lot [review].

Published on October 28, 2010 in Australia, Facebook and social media. View Comments

Not long ago I previewed The Social Network movie, so I thought I should see it as soon as it came out here in Australia and report back. Turns out the film lived up to my reasonably high expectations, given that it’s directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, and has had many good reviews.

The film really focuses on the relationship between co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin (who was forced out of the company but I understand still owns about 5%), and to a lesser extent the relationships between Zuckerberg, Saverin and Sean Parker. Sean Parker, who founded Napster, helped Zuckerberg during the early stages of the company and also owns a small but valuable percentage.

The film also deals with the case between Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins, the Harvard classmates who accused Zuckerberg of stealing the idea for Facebook from them and then sued him for ownership of it.

Jesse Eisenberg is brilliant as Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield is good as Eduardo Saverin. Beyond expectation, even Justin Timberlake is not bad at all in the role of Sean Parker.

Even if you’re not into Facebook and know or care little about the founding of the company, seeing the tensions between the characters involved is fascinating. Needless to say, I’m sure many of the situations never happened, or not in the way portrayed, but the elements of loyalty, envy and competitiveness certainly go together to make great drama viewing.

By the way, the first scene is brilliantly written and sets the tone for the whole film, so don’t be late if you’re going to see it at the cinema. Go and see it though, I definitely recommend it. “Like”.

The Social Network Movie

I took a holiday and that included not blogging, so there.

Published on October 27, 2010 in Australia, Twitter, blogging, environment and social media. View Comments

Well it’s been pretty quiet around here for the past couple of weeks hasn’t it? I took a couple of weeks off for a beach holiday with the fam, up the coast in Port Stephens. Beautiful spot! (see pic).
Port Stephens

Obviously I didn’t blog while on holiday, and I didn’t pre-write any posts and schedule them to be published while I was away, as many would advise. I just had a much needed holiday and I’m not apologising for it, just explaining where I’ve been. It was good. I think taking some time off to recharge and reflect on life is important.

If you follow some of my tweets you’ll know that I didn’t take a holiday from tweeting. I just tweeted less, and about holiday activities, and on thoughts mostly stimulated by holiday reading. Holiday tweeting is different from usual tweeting, so there.

I’m back now. What did I miss?

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