duncanriley.com

Author: admin

  • Scoble the corporate lapdog gets caught out again

    Steve Rubel: Scoble is taking heat for not posting about the Vista delays for sometime.

    I sort of feel sad for Robert Scoble these days, mainly because he’s a man who can’t admit the truth. Sure, maybe corporate lapdog is a bit harsh (I’ve just spent 20 minutes reading Gawker Media blogs….forgive me) but this whole “I’m not controlled by Microsoft” thing is a gigantic crock. Whether he likes it or not, he is self censoring. He writes that he doesn’t know enough about it so he’s reserving comment, but I ask this simple question: it’s never stopped him in the past, has it?

    Robert, if you actually want to continue to maintain credibility in the blogosphere and the greater community, admit that your roll at Microsoft means that you have to limit what you say. Let’s be honest about it. Jason Calacanis has been now he’s at AOL and managed to tread very well around this issue whilst being upfront about it. The longer you maintain that you are free to speak as you please and quite obviously don’t, the worse things will become for you. I’ll be upfront and honest on the subject as well: one of the reasons I sold The Blog Herald was that my role in b5media quite honestly meant that I couldn’t be myself on certain things, because it damaged the company (anyone for a 9rules flame war??). I’m now not exploring those areas that come into conflict with my role at b5media here at duncanriley.com. I’m not being censored by Jeremy, Darren, Shai or anyone else for that matter, but I’ve learnt, accepted and even disclosed that being a responsible corporate citizen/ owner/ participant requires the occasional piece of self restraint, or even self censorship. You are no different Scoble, you just don’t like admitting to it.

  • Recapturing the Joy of Blogging

    Darren at Problogger points to Paul Chaney on the joy of blogging. I completely understand where Paul is coming from. I’ve found that I actually enjoy alot of the other aspects of blogging as well, like site design and what not, which is why I’m spending more time doing that now with b5media and blogging less. But now I’m blogging here because it’s fun again! I can only hope it lasts.

  • Baa Baa Black Sheep isn’t PC

    This is why I’m sending my son to a Private School next year. I’m buggered if I’m going to let him be exposed to this PC bullsh*t. A Rainbow Sheep, great…..

  • iPod Phone Confirmed

    An Australian site, Smarthouse.com.au, has gotten the scoop:

    Insiders at Taiwanese phone maker BenQ say that Apple procurement executives have been talking to various Taiwanese phone makers during the past few months in an effort to cut a manufacturing deal on an iPod Phone

    I’m currently considering getting a new mobile phone, one with a camera and colour screen (yep, the old beast I’ve got is THAT old). Might have to hold off on that for a while. Although I’m not sure I’d want a white mobile phone though, my 3 week old iPod Nano is already looking grey instead of white….guess I should have bought the black one.

  • Electrically Heated Undershirts

    I want this. I’m tempted to say I want the blonde as well but I’m married. An electrically heated undershirt. I ran out of money so I couldn’t afford heating for the new house, but this would be ideal for winter.

    Update: this post broke IE, so I’m now inserting a whoe pile of p commands to make it work again. Damn IE. It just doesn’t conform with web standards!

    Insert text here to make the site work in IE.

    More text

  • New site image

    I’m doing a bit of a Dave Winer and changing the site image. The new image is Declan and I at swimming lessons about 4 weeks ago. I’ve since got a new bleach so there is no dark roots, I’m totally blonde now 🙂

    Update: I should find a way of rotating the image, maybe in the future 🙂

  • Shai visits Tasmania

    Shai has been to Tasmania. It’s one of the few places in Australia I’ve never been. You know, unlike the rest of the world, going “overseas” is a much bigger deal for Australians. Aside from the fact that it’s whole lot longer to get there, there is a different thought process here. Because we are so big, ok, maybe not as big as Canada, but big none the less, and, I suppose more importantly isolated from much of the rest of the world, travelling for us is a big deal, even if we are talking interstate. Remember it’s something like at 3 day car drive from Melbourne to Perth. And we can’t hop in a car and drive to another country. It’s physically impossible.

    For example, it’s a 3 1/2 hour flight from Perth to Bali. It’s the same time to Melbourne. 4 1/2 hours to Sydney, 5 1/2 hours to Brisbane. 5 1/2 hours is the same time it takes to get from Singapore to Perth. It’s longer again if you want to fly routes such as Adeliade-Cairns, or Melbourne-Broome.

    Australian’s like to travel, but we’ve got soooooo much to see in our own back yard. The whole new australia.com ads are quite amusing, aside from the sad cliched images. You can really experience a bit of everything in Australia. We are that big 🙂

    So as they say: where the bloody hell are you 🙂

  • G’day to the Netherlands

    I’ve been looking at my stats tonight. I shouldn’t, because I’m pretending not to care about them…but it’s like a drug really. I can honestly say I’ve never tried heavy drugs. I tried a little pot when I was (a lot) younger but nothing more than that. They say those heavy drugs are addictive, and so are stats :-).

    But what do I find? After the United States, readers from The Netherlands are the next biggest readers. So G’day to The Netherlands. I’ve got a unique link to you guys, because my Mrs’s maiden name is De Boer (Dutch meaning The Farmer). My Grand-parents-in-law are Dutch. They moved out here after WW2. My father in law’s real name (he doesn’t go by it) is Jan. Now don’t say it with the J, but try it with a jcha. Similar to Juan. But of course if you’re name looked like a girls name you’d adopt another name, and he did, the English version of Jan. Now incase he ever reads this, Gday Jan. You’re a great bloke. Love my inlaws greatly, you really have done more than I can ever thank you for, for us.

    But back to the story. My son is essentially part Dutch. Sure, he got an Irish name, despite the fact that my heritage is actually English (ppl said to me that Declan was very Irish, but I just loved it!). Would you believe that my line or Riley’s isn’t Irish!. I’d always believed for many years that the background was Scottish. Riley is generally the Scottish spelling of the name. My folks gave me a Scottish first name because of it. But get this. My line of Riley’s are actually English. The old spelling was Ryly, from the North of England. Later it became Ryley. They moved to Scotland in the 17th century and changed the spelling!. Can’t blame them really. Ryly is hard to spell.

    So here we have it. The son of English descendants who people presume are Irish but spent time in Scotland. Of a mother who is half English stock, half Dutch.

    Ain’t the world an interesting place. Multiculturalism at work, in a good way.

  • Now that’s a Six Pack


    Yikes. Australian runner Sarah Jamieson, who got a Silver in the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games. It’s the first event I actually watched at the games on TV. I’d decided to have a break from the computer tonight. It lasted about 20 minutes.

    The race though was quite entertaining. The hype before hand was that Australia had never won a medal in this event. But I just couldn’t get over Jamieson’s Six pack while watching it. The English girl who won the event looked nothing like this. Indeed, none of the other girls did. My wife rang me (she’s away for work at the moment) after the race and asked me whether I’d seen the six pack on Jamieson. I’d love to have a six pack like that 🙂 As for Jamieson, she’d be an interesting girl to know. Let’s just say she’d be quite dominant in any relationship I’d think.

    (photo credit: the front page of The Age.)

  • Chris Messina quits Flock

    To me Flock is the poster child for the bad side of Web 2.0, a solution without a problem. Chris Messina says he’s leaving because basically he doesn’t like working with lots of people, or something he describes as (and I kid you not on this) the “vapor sublimation process”. Talking like this I’ve got no doubt he’ll fit in really well with the next Snake Oil Web 2.0 startup he ties up with. Of course the reality is the long tail might be long enough to sustain the like of Flock into the future. It’s easy to criticise companies like this because of the public profile they have, but with Google money coming in through search (like the Mozilla foundation has) Flock may even break even. Although with some 20 odd staff I’d think they’d be wanting to get something out there in the marketplace pretty soon. When you are talking those sorts of numbers you are talking Web 1.0 burn rates. Compare this with say NewsVine who I understand is burning less that $100k per month. Now that’s a sustainable way to start a business.

    (in part via Flock sucks)