Mark Welden and David Skilling went to Davos, got back to NZ, clearly talked a lot over beers and came up with what I can only term a business first over-reaction to the current global gyrations. Good on them for the doing this though, and for the intention which they are following through of starting …
Category Archives: media
eBay’s descent into oblivion continues
I tried logging into my ebay account last night from Nigel’s computer, and this is what I got after successfully entering my password: I have no idea what my phone number from 1999 (or was it earlier?) is, and I certainly have no way of answering a call to that number. So I started entering …
Telstra iPhone: $13 per GB or $15,000 per GB? Your choice
A welcome text from Telstra the other day – my iPhone data plan has been upgraded fro free to 9 GB from 3GB. That’s great – full prices are here. But sadly I have data switched off at the moment, as that iPhone is not in Australia, but New Zealand. I have not cracked the …
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XNET are Spineless and Uncaring
I was at a friend’s house the other night, and we were trying to work online. The DSL router/modem was working just fine, our phones and computers were all just fine, but no internet. The ISP was XNET, who have no phone customer service at night after 8pm – which is not exactly a quiet …
Goodbye Autotrader
It was an empire. If you wanted to sell a car, then Autotrader was the place. Dealers paid huge monthly payments, and AutoTrader took home giant profits. When Trade Me entered the market AutoTrader was unable or unwilling to react online – their online offering was appalling. Inside Trade Me we used to say we …
Unigo: Universities by students for prospective students
Simple. So simple. Via an excellent NYTimes article comes news of Unigo, a site where current students talk about their universities, and where those comments are edited, grouped and displayed for prospective students to browse. The competition, such as the Princeton Review and the US New & World Report, are mired in the past – …
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Advertising is for losers
Telecom. Coke. MacDonalds. Insurance. Symantec. All big advertisers – far bigger than they would need to be if their products were great. Summed up perfectly by this: Courtesy of the as always excellent Indexed.
Travelling with the iphone for a week
First some rants; “nz” gets auto changed into “ms”, and the auto replacement function does not learn from its’ mistakes. Safari keeps crashing, with increasing regularity YouTube videos simply do not work anymore I can’t flip photos in wordpress Mail does not flip horizontally, making it really hard to read HTML emails that assume a …
TheWest’s new site – Got a Scoop?
My “personal jury” is still out on TheWest’s new website design. It’s a website aimed at big screens and broadband connections – this is a screenshot of the site above the fold on my MacBook Air. The main picture/story is huge, and rotates through four stories, the rest of the screen is dedicated to a …
iTunes: Enough said. Microsoft lost the battle
“Enough said. Microsoft lost the battle in the consumer entertainment media space.: That’s Mauricio Freitas – Microsoft MVP and fan – in response to iTunes offering videos in New Zealand and Australia. There’s a critical flaw however. iTunes got big through usability, but most importantly because it made it easy to transfer your CD’s to …
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Never advertise during the Olympics
It seems that if you sponsor the Olympics then you get thousands of TV advertising spots thrown in. So – for those companies that sponsor the Olympics this is for you: STOP By now I now dislike your company, your products, and most especially your advertisements. It’s only day 4. By the end of the …
It’s noisy when you fly, so should we talk on the phone?
Laws against talking on your phone on board commercial Us domestic aircraft are being pushed by US Congress. It seems some Congress-critters are upset at very loud and sometimes personal phone calls from people on planes sitting near them when flying back and forth to Congress. The Noise Airplanes (or aeroplanes) are very very noisy …
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iinet – If this is the best the rest are cr-appalling
I’m moving my stuff and internet around the block here in Fremantle, and so of course I’ll make sure the internet service is provided by iinet – who have been excellent an seem to get it and even read my blog. Well – not so fast -they have some work to do. More to the …
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Mia Farrow sleeps with only a rope. In Darfur.
Who knew? Turns out Mia Farrow has been travelling to Darfur, Chad and CAR for a while now. Here’s NYTimes columnist Nicholas Krstof, who has been there a few times himself, and been one of the main people that has bought the plight to the attention of the US people and Government, on Mia: Several …
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Count those Olympic medals
The Olympics is pure, about simple athleticism, where nationalistic politics are put aside and we all enjoy the quest for sporting perfection. Right. The NYTimes has a really cool Medal Count Tool, which shows the rise and fall of countries in the medal tally over the years. Watch Australia – they get out-medalled (especially gold) …
Lance Wiggs 