duncanriley.com

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  • As some one who lives in Western Australia, I welcome Fairfax with open arms

    The Australian Newsagency Blog (via Trevor Cook) reports on the rumour in Crikey yesterday (which I actually saw…after having lapsed my membership for a year I signed up again for the paid version, the Christmas pack was just far too good) that Fairfax is looking at launching online news sites covering states they don’t currently publish in, in particular Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.

    I for one, as some one who lives in Western Australia (note I said lives in, I’ve probably got to live here for 20 years before I can call myself a local, and it’s not quite 10 years yet, so I’m still a New South Welshman) welcomes Fairfax with open arms. The state of news in this state, competition wise anyway, is pathetic. The West Australian is it. Admitedly the hard copy version of The West is actually a good read (I’m probably going to get lambasted for saying that), despite all the criticism it gets. Online however it is terrible. Actually beyond terrible. They relaunched their main site this year in response to News launching PerthNow, but it actually got worse. On the other hand, the first news site I still read every morning is Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). Since launching the site in 95 Fairfax have led the way in Australia in terms of online news. It’s the best news read online in Australia, by far. News.com.au isn’t bad, but it’s not the SMH.

    The Australian Newsagency Blog quotes

    Fairfax Editor in Chief of Online Mike van Niekerk said as much in his presentation entitled Cashing in on Digital Success at the Beyond the Printed Word conference I attended in Vienna last month. Fairfax has optimised its sites for financial return.

    They’re open with there news online, and they can make a quid out of it. I look forward to seeing what they can do in Western Australia. A full, good read of WA news mixed with national and international news (say like the SMH but with WA news at the front) is a site I will visit every, single day, and I’ll even click on the ads to support the competition.

  • Cowboy buys Workboxers

    David Krug has announced the acquisition of Workboxes on both Workboxes and the Hello Cowboy site, which in itself is new to me today, I’m presuming this is the name of Krug’s new consulting and marketing service. It’s an interesting name, and I mean this with all due respect, but I can’t seem to get the image out of my head of a Drag Queen saying “Hellllooooo Cowboy” out of my head, for Australians picture Carlotta. It must just be me, filthy mind or something. Congrats though to all involved in the sale.

     

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  • Like Meatloaf through a Straw: Understanding the Web 2.0 soap opera this week

    If you’re like 99.999999999% of the population who are struggling to keep up with this weeks Web 2.0 soap opera, let me humbly present the solution to your problems. Compliments of duncanriley.com and far too long stuffing around on MS Publisher (I don’t have access at the moment to InDesign, I’ll need to fix that), I present the Web 2.0 soap opera graph. It’s too large to put into a jpg, or convert into html, so as long as you’re able to read a PDF document enjoy. I’d note that it is a short and brief version, to fit every single last thing that has been said and done this week onto a chart would require atleast an A1 sized document…and they don’t present to well on most computers 🙂

    soapopera

     

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  • Skype to offer a lie detector

    The Beeb reports that Skype is to offer the KishKish Lie Detector as an add-on for Skype users. It apparently analyses audio streams over a Skype call in real time and illustrates the stress levels of the other person, which in theory helps show when the other party is lying. No word on cost yet, but I brilliant idea. I only wish I had it 12 months ago 🙂

     

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  • Syntagma looking good

    OK, so some people are going to have some fun with the headline, but I mean it sincerely. I was cleaning up some of my sidebar links today (ok, it’s like spring cleaning in summer) and I realised I was pointing to the old Syntagma Media site, I fixed the link and thought I might drop over. OK, so the some what questionable multi coloured headers are still in place over the individual blogs, but the “network magazine” sites (channel portals)…we’ll they’re looking good, real good even:

    syntagma

    The three sites are Phi, Allusionz and LifeTimes. I’m not sure what John paid Thord to design them, but I’ve got to say it was money well spent, and certainly adds a real professional touch to the network. Congrats on a job well done.

     

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  • Click Arbitrage isn’t easy

    One of my little distractions this past couple of weeks has been to dabble into the world of click arbitrage, ie: advertising via Google Adwords to doorway pages that lead to a CPA affiliate site. I’ve not put an awful lot of effort into it, but I have run a couple of ads to see what would happen. Suffice to say I’ve lost money, but not a lot (under $50). I spent some more time today looking at the results, seeing why some things were working and why others weren’t. My biggest mistake: allowing too many of the ads to run on the content (ie Adsense) network. It’s scary, but whilst there was a lot more clicks in from sites running Adsense, the results just don’t add up. Search results are ten, maybe twenty times more likely to result in an action (and therefore payment to me) as opposed to content result. My new tweak: I’ve doubled the maximum bid for a spot in search to hopefully get my ads up a bit higher (they were averaging spot 9), and I’ve cut my spend on the content network to 10 cents. I’ll see how the results work out, but I’m thinking that I’ll either cut the bid on the content network to 2c (or what ever the minimum is) or see if I can exclude my adds from it all together in the next couple of days. I’m by no means Mr. Experience when it comes to buying ads from Adwords, but I can even more so now understand the theory of those stating that Adsense is dead: when your looking for a CPA return from your ad, the content network simply isn’t a good buy.

    One last tweak: I’ve now time limited the ads as well to times I think would be key times for people looking for the service.

    Of course if you’re interested in giving Adwords a shot, click on the button (affiliate link). I think I get a couple of dollars for each sign up, it will all go towards buying more ads I suspect 🙂


  • You know it’s nearly Christmas when…

    You’ve got over 1000 unread emails and you can’t be asked cleaning them up. OK, so I’m trying now, but it’s hard to get motivated 🙂

  • It’s true, the British love Australia

    I was surfing a totally unrelated story on the BBC website when I stumbled on this: Brits Abroad ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú a comprehensive guide to where Britons live around the world.From the site:

    “An estimated 5.5m British people live permanently abroad ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú almost one in 10 of the UK population”

    And where do most of them live? We’ll it would suprise no one in say Joondalup or Rockingham in Perth that the answer is Australia:

    brits abroad

    They’ve always said that the British have good taste 🙂

  • comScore at it again

    Forbes reports on the internet metrics tracking company comScore’s software being installed without users knowledge, not the first time I might add, given my online services treat the comScore software and Malware and Spyware:

    “[The] software is sneaking onto users’ computers without the user agreeing to receive it,” says Harvard University researcher Ben Edelman, who documented at least ten unauthorized comScore downloads. Eric Howes, director of malware research at antivirus company Sunbelt Software, and his researchers separately observed hundreds of unauthorized comScore downloads in a three-month period this fall. (Edelman and Howes spend their days patrolling the Internet for new threats.)

    I’m sure comScore investor and Director Fred Wilson will deny it again, but Harvard isn’t exactly a backyard research lab now, is it.

    (via Slashdot)

  • Did Google kill James Kim?

    The SMH reports that James Kim took a bad road possibly due to the advice of Google Maps, and that taking the road cost him his life.

    Certainly if proven true, this could be a world first: Google kills CNet journalist.

    From the SMH:

    According to Associated Press, drivers are advised not to take Bear Camp Road to Gold Beach in winter, the route taken by the Kims.

    “Authorities say the cyber-savvy family may have plucked the route from Grants Pass to Gold Beach from an online mapping service, unaware of the elements,” AP reported.

    “Despite its impassable snowdrifts and single lane, Bear Camp Road is offered as the preferred route on some websites and on-board-directions software available on some new cars. And most of those have no business in those mountains in the winter.”

    When using the Yahoo Maps, MapQuest and Google Maps online services to plot directions from Grants Pass to Gold Beach, Yahoo and MapQuest both recommend taking the same, safer highway route, while Google suggests a shortcut through roads that become dangerous in winter.

    I suppose on a positive note, atleast for the Kim family, Google isn’t short on cash for a settlement.

     

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