I've moved this blog to TypePad

About two weeks ago I moved my blog to TypePad, and it looks like I'm going to stay there for good.

So...

click here for my blog.

I've updated my FeedBurner feed, but if you're using the Blogger Atom feed, you'll need to ditch that one, and replace it with this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/UnderTheRotunda

Xbox power cord recall

Wow, 14.1 million adds up to a lot of black cord...

Link: AustralianIT - article herea>

Podcasts and pausing

Alright, whichever smart-alec is working out a new mp3 file format that allows for pausing .... GET ON WITH IT!!

I'm sick of having to remember where I'm up to with my podcasts when I play them on iTunes (my current approach of adding my current time position into a field in the ID3 tag is becoming bothersome).

The Bulletin article on podcasting

Today's issue of The Bulletin has an article on podcasting, including comments from Mick Stanic. It also briefly touches on monetising the medium.

Link: article

Do The West Wing shuffle

Once again, the Nine Network have moved The West Wing from its
late Tuesday night time!!

This is the third week running I haven't gotten my fix - the first because of the cricket ending early, and last week the same as this - it's gone the way of Scrubs and Arrested Development on Seven, and just totally disappeared!

Not happy Jan!

Weekly repeats of new season hits becoming the norm?

It started with the Seven Network having special 'encore' screenings of Desperate Housewives & Lost in the first week (they showed Desperate Houswives twice more after the Monday night premiere, with Lost getting one more run).

I notice now that both series have been rescreened for the second week (showing the second episode of course) - this time both on a Saturday night. Looks like they might do this for a few more weeks, just to make sure they've roped in whoever they possily can to the intriguing storylines. All repeats have been in the evenings, roughly around the same time if night of the original episodes airing.

The habit is spreading though - with Seven also rescreening the first two episodes of My Restaurant Rules today - a Sunday afternoon.

It also appears its not just Seven - Network Ten last night (Saturday night) replayed the premiere episode of Medium

It will be interesting to see how a Sunday afternoon's repeats of My Restaurant Rules rate up against Ten's screening of Oliver...

I have often lamented that networks fill their weekends with such ordinary reruns - where are the reruns of Scrubs, or Homicide, or Parker Lewis Cant Lose? Quality shows that would actually have a decent audience with reruns.

Update:
- My Restaurant Rules on Thursday night rated 13s/14s, while on Sunday afternoon it rated a 3. At the same time on Sunday the cricket on Nine (ING Cup) rated 7s/8s, while Oliver rated a 5.

- Medium on its premiere night of Thursday rated 6.3, while the Saturday night repeat rated a 6.

(All data based on Brisbane market HUTs)

Google AdWords - Year in Review presentation

From the Google publicity department: AdWords Year in Review.

It doesn't say a whole bunch (the 6 tips at the end are nice though), but is written and presented really impressively - nice and simple, and effective.

Howard Government not so keen on media law reform after all?

In the issue of The Bulletin that came out yesterday, John Howard made the first public mention of possibly not going to hard into changing media ownership legislation. It's not the first time I've heard him mention this idea of what he is and isn't willing to expend his 'political capital' on, just the first time its been explicitly linked to the media ownership debate.

The below is from a News Limited article:

"In an interview with The Bulletin magazine, the Prime Minister restated his view that media reform was less of a priority than industrial relations or welfare reform.

But he then went further, suggesting it may not occur at all.
'It's not something that I'm going to dissipate a lot of political capital on. People should understand that,' he said. 'If we end up with everyone coming in for a chop and the thing being impossible to resolve, we'll just leave it as it is.'

Asked about Mr Howard's comment on media reform, Communications Minister Helen Coonan issued a statement saying the Government was committed to the reform 'while protecting the public interest in a diverse and vibrant media sector'.
'No decision has been taken as to the timing of introduction of legislation to reform Australia's media ownership laws,' Senator Coonan said."

Link: Full news.com.au story

More on the Greater Union online booking experience...

An email newsletter from Greater Union leads to a page of theirs that works extra hard to promote their online ticket booking feature, including this:

And the good news doesn't end there.
* You can now book up to 30 minutes before a session commences (previously 2 hours).

It seems they have some bugs to iron out in the whole system.
All up didn't add up to a nice consumer experience at all (although last time the woman on the phone at the cinema was really earnest in her attempts at assistance, which helped my perception)

Its a pity the two hour window hasn't previously worked either (wonder if that's still the case).
(Link: My previous post on this subject).

Also on the page, touted as a new feature:

* Following week's sessions (Thurs-Wed) are now available for online bookings even earlier.
- Regular sessions available from the previous Tuesday.

My visit to the site just now, to try and book 'Cellular' for tomorrow - unsuccessful - was told after selecting my session time that is was unavailable for booking online. To me that sounds contradictory to the above scheduling.

So I tried to book 'The Incredibles' for a session that started 15 minutes ago. While I didn't step all the way through to final payment, it looked like it was going to let me. This reminds me of last time I tried this - the system didn't seem to stop me trying to book a session approximately 1.5 hours after it finished....


Link: Online booking info page at Greater Union

Gmail invites overload

Like every geek and his iPod, I too have 50 Gmail invites for anyone wants one ... leave a comment.

(I can't believe people auction these for a dollar on ebay - surely no one buys them)

ChangeThis

It's been a little while, but earlier today downloaded another 'book' from Change This - this one was Scott Berkun's How to Manage Smart People.

I'm going to have to get back into keeping an eye on new publications here ...
I lurrvvv the possibilities that the internet represents at this sort of level - ChangeThis is a great example.

Update: was still browsing and came across Chris' Long Tail document. I'd forgotten this is where i'd actually read about it first, before I moved onto his blog.

Survey results: Advertiser attitudes and estimates of online advertising

Of note:
- the most popularly cited strengths by advertisers are 'targeting capabilities' (30%), followed by 'customer reach' (26%) and 'cost effectiveness' (19%)
- the most popularly cited weaknesses by advertisers are 'insufficient audience targeting and tracking' (15%), 'too big, too many sites, overwhelming' (11%), and 'limited reach' (11%). This contradictory data suggests confusion amongst advertisers of the role/objectives the internet is best for.

Link: Survey results.

Now this is cool ... triple j extends their podcasting experiment...

First it was podcasts of stories from their current affairs program Hack as a trial.

Triple J are celebrating 30 years on air, and have been broadcasting some of their classic interviews and moments. That's been enjoyable, but its even easier now they've released some of them as podcasts.

Blogs making it into mainstream Australian media

- News that Mick Stanic and Cam Reilly have been interviewed by The Bulletin and Sydney Morning Herald.
Link

- A Melbourne Age article today centering on the Bloggies.
Link (registration required)

- Even The Courier Mail (the sole Brisbane daily) gets in on the act.
Link


Makes me wish I'd gotten our client update on the topic circulating earlier :)

Duplications in blog watches

Am I missing something? Doing something wrong?

I have had a number of watches set up across Technorati, PubSub and Feedster for sometime now.
It increasingly seems that Technorati especially gives me the same posts again and again (and again and again) - presumably each time it does a crawl....

Have I got something setup incorrectly that's resulting in this? I have the feeds coming through Bloglines.
If not, the time wasted going through watch results that have already been displayed, but making sure I dont miss new ones is steadily mounting ...

GPS in action...

Got a cab from the airport driven by a cabbie who had a PocketPC complete with a GPS nav application (can't recall the name of the specific app). It really is a great example of usabel technology - this cab driver definitely wasn't a dumbarse, but still, it was really nice to see both hardware and software that easy to use, and that useful....

so I spent the cab ride home playing ... :)

Over complication

Am down in Melbourne for a long weekend, and, as one does, paid a visit to the Melbourne Zoo. Was a great afternoon (meerkats and spider monkeys are the must sees) - but that.s not the point of this post.

At the entry queue, the sign, complete with arrow pointing to the ticket office was labelled "ticket purchase point". What was wrong with just plain "Tickets" or "Buy Your Tickets Here", or even "Purchase Tickets Here"? Why did they insist on making something as rudimentary as a ticket booth sound so fancy? And how much more confusing is that for international visitors especially whose first language isn't English?

The latest post about Google...

It would certainly overcome the current methods of click-fraud prevention...

Link to Business2.0 mention

An aggregation of podcasts

The Gday World fellas are continuing to make use of their self-employed time - setting up the The Podcast Network.

Great idea - to house podcasts on a range of different subjects under one roof.

Pity they felt they had to rely on their own blog posts to mysteriously create buzz before the soft launch... isn't that what the blogosphere about - other people will link to good stuff increasingly, so that quality rises to the top?

Crikey - new owners

From ZDNet Aust, comes the news that
Crikey has been sold to Private Media Partners (Eric Beecher's company).

They say of course that Crikey's "essential ingredients" will be kept, which especially given the size (and spirit) of PMP I'm inclined to believe.

The sale values Crikey at $1million, but the ownership is happening in a very odd manner - $200,000 s being paid in installments over this year, with the balance needing to be paid by Sep 2006. If that's not done, control goes back to Stephen Mayne.

MSN Search launches...

It's not exclusive news of course, but yes, MSN Search has now officially launched.

On a few more minor note, I notice as well that on their msnsearch blog, both their webpage and their feed, they've placed the 'Search' field, so you can do a MSNsearch straight from there. I like especially how that works even in their RSS feed (it sits in the header).