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  • Shame Darwin Shame

    I’m sympathetic to old diggers still holding a grudge against the Japanese given the historical context, but in 2009 there’s no place for this, particularly when a lot of the message is coming from people born well and truly after WW2 who simply don’t have an excuse to hold a grudge.

    Age: Japanese ship unsettles Darwin

    TERRITORIANS paused to remember the 1942 bombing of Darwin yesterday, but for some the commemorations were marred by a Japanese vessel docked in the harbour…..

    Controversy rose over the presence of the Tokyo University ship Umitaka Maru, docked at Stokes Hill Wharf only metres from the ceremony. “A lot of people are very upset about it being there,” said Andrew Burford from the Maritime Union.

    Mr Burford said he had been inundated with calls from people, outraged that the vessel, in Darwin to pick up supplies, could be berthed so close to the ceremony.

    Japan is Australia’s No 1 export market, we’ve been at peace with Japan since 45, and trading with them since the mid 50s. It reeks of unfounded Xenophobia.

  • Sure sign of a bad economy

    Always a sure sign of a bad economy: cheaper cuts of meat, and booming chicken sales

    SMH:

    THE bleak economic climate is forcing shoppers at Coles to trade down from T-bones to sausages, in an attempt to cut their shopping bills.

    In the latest sign of the drift to thrift, consumers are also swapping expensive cuts of meat for chicken and eggs, and branded products for generic and private label goods.

  • Google News censoring pics?

    We ran a story earlier today on the name and public details of the alleged Churchill fire arsonist. We didn’t run his picture due to the gag order in place on his picture and address in Victoria (the gag order was lifted on his name), despite The Inquisitr being hosted in the US. No idea whether we were free to do so given where the site is hosted (I’ve heard arguments on both sides), but I didn’t think it was worth getting into a possible legal argument over. On the shot of his MySpace page we took, we purposely blanked out his image.

    So this is seriously WTF. We’re in Google News as being based in Victoria, so maybe Google put in place something to be on the safe side? I just don’t know.

    site:inquisitr.com - Google News

  • Some Australian PR Reps don’t get blogs

    To start on a positive note, I’ve had a uptick lately of Australian PR pitches. Some are half reasonable, although like all the stuff that comes in, we can’t run it all, even if we wanted to. The Inquisitr doesn’t do a huge amount of Australian related content, although as our Australian traffic increases it does get a little tempting to do more Australian posts…within moderation of the broader mix.

    But I digress. Got pitched last month to promote a new Australian banking product. They wanted to give me a $10 account in return for a post.

    Now besides the paid for post argument which can be left for another day, apparently $10 in the eyes of that PR firm at least is fair game for a blog with 1.5-2.5 million page views a month.

    It’s hard to compare one site to another, but I know from some of the media I’ve received previously that WAToday, the Fairfax WA portal did 341,000 uniques in July 2008 (I don’t have later figures). No idea what their page view figure is, but today we’re in a similar range on Alexa at least (not the best source I know) to what that site is doing, and we have more uniques.

    Question is: would the same PR agency offer $10 for a post/ article on a Fairfax property?

    Obviously the answer is no, and one would presume that they’d be buying display advertising for the product instead of trying to buy a post….well, you’d hope so.

    So why treat all blogs and bloggers as if they were backyard operations with small traffic?

    Besides, according to News.com.au, I personally account for 5-6% of all online contracting for the entire country 😉

    American PR reps are a lot smarter these days, although I do remember the time years ago when they weren’t. Not all the Australian PR industry is clueless, but I get this feeling that some have only just woken up to blogs as an outlet for news, and are treating bloggers as a cheap way to get exposure without showing the least bit of respect.

  • Age shall not weary them, nor the Google News forget

    Just for a change, I’ll bag someone other than the mainstream media.

    Google News.

    Its Valentines Day, Feb 14. 11:15am in the morning at I’m typing this.

    And what is Google News showing in its latest Victoria news section? (hint, look at the dates of the stories)

    Google News

  • Fail to Win

    Jeremy Schoemaker makes a lot of sense

    Money quote:

    I am always amazed at how scared people are to fail. I fail all the time?¢‚Ǩ¬¶. or at least what other people would consider to be failures. I would rather call them experiences.
    Learning from your failures and trying until you find success is an amazing experience.
    People always ask me if I can show them how I learned to make money, program, market, build websites, etc. Here is the secret. I FAILED! And failed a lot.

  • Sitepoint deal.

    Absolute steal.

  • Online ad spending up in Australia?

    Paidcontent reports on a PCW report that suggests at least until the end of the last year, online ad spend in Australia continued to head north.

    Notably off a crappy base, and they only polled the “top 1000 sites” what ever that means. Still, wins a win.

  • People don’t like Karma

    Received an odd email yesterday from someone I hadn’t heard from in years. Someone who out of the blue cut me off despite a once close working relationship.

    Turns out that she got a serious dose of karma, and is rather bitter about it. Wrote to me to say as much as well. Very strange person, maybe a cultural difference given she’s originally foreign.

    My crime apparently was expressing surprise on another site about her bitterness.

    The thing I’m most sad about is how this person happily picked her own personal profit over others, and yet now claims she was dedicated to those very same people.

    I guess, and it’s one of my flaws, is that I’ve never been able to balance both. I tend to side in supporting those around me, and it’s often cost me dearly.

    I know at least one serious dick with a grudge against me had claimed I have an issue here, but let me say that I sleep well every night, and I didn’t send myself two emails now on the issue; be it I might add, 2 years too late.

    None the less, for me it’s an interesting lesson in morals; sometimes you take hard knocks, but karma always balances things out if you always try to do the right things in life.

    A lesson well earned.

  • From the depths of despair rises the true Australian spirit

    I’m still just….fuck.

    Victoria is like a morgue today. People are quiet, the look of horror on their faces, even if they weren’t directly affected.

    This isn’t to say that they are some how worse off than those who were directly affected; they simply aren’t. But this State is in a state of shock, that is made worse every time we turn on a radio or view tweets or online video footage.

    There is nothing more depressing than hearing reports of a rising death toll, or seeing the Prime Minister on television look like he’s seen a ghost, and on the verge of breaking down.

    This is the worst disaster in Australian peace time history, and for those who were born in the 70s or later, their lifetime.

    And yet from the depths of despair rises the true Australian spirit.

    I saw a man on TV last night who had lost everything not complaining of his loss, but praising that unlike his neighbor, he had survived.

    The fire fighters, most volunteers working non stop for days to save more lifes.

    The outpouring of support, through donations from individuals and business. I didn’t get to make my donation to the Red Cross until this afternoon because they had so much traffic the site was nearly constantly offline.

    Even in its darkest hour, Australians rally together. That is the true Australian spirit.