M3 iPhone.

Success!
Originally uploaded by niallkennedy

So if I happened upon $275K.au I could drop an Iphone (using who cares about the price AT+T international roaming) into a M6, or maybe if I could get together $160K I could have a new burgundy M3 quad exhaust V8, carbon fibre roof M3, via Jalopnik : "If you just unpacked your iPhone (not in Australia you wont have unpacked it, because we dont get it yet do we ? damn we join coalition of the willing with Bushette jnr, and all i got was this damn tshirt - now where's my iphone? asks mr costello) and you've got yourself a BMW 3 and 5 Series with 03/07 production, the X5 with 04/07 production and the 6 Series with 09/07 production dates equipped with an iPod/USB interface -- guess what? You'll be able to drop the iPhone into your ride and faster than you can say "Boom!" in your best German accent -- you'll be good to go." (check video of wannabe iphone thief here who goes to steal iphone but gets the microphone by instead)

Black Macbook + Iphone : Cousins ?

MacBookとiPhone( 紙)
Originally uploaded by torotiti

These two go together very nice, esp when travelling. And maybe their 24" Big Brother new Imac when it comes out would perfect the trifecta.

Why Couldn't They Send a Few of These Downunder ?

IMG_4695.JPG
Originally uploaded by niallkennedy

Looks like there are some spare iphones in the US : Heck all they had to do was limit iPhone purchases to one per customer, then send some to Australia (or if they were really smart, just send them to Victoria, or just the bayside area if they are getting short :)

Helvetica Iphone.

Apple store line for iPhone
Originally uploaded by Robert Scoble

Lots of UI work at moment, so I need to remember the iPhone font(s) from Tuaw (who also have a good wrap of lower profile features) : "According to John Gruber, the iPhone's UI is all done in Helvetica, which I am definitely a fan of. I also agree that Notes being done in some icky Comic Sans-y type is... weird."

Scoble certainly has made the full Scientological conversion to Apple, from his days at Microsoft and memo to Bill Gates : "Being the first customer into the store was an experience I’ll never forget. They had something like 50 employees all hanging around the store. All cheering wildly. It was surreal. I should have brought a video camera in, but it was a moment I’ll never forget. Over the top. It was worth every minute of waiting in line. OK, I’ll be honest, we’ve barely turned it on. But when you open your box you’ll realize that Apple has changed the way we all will look at mobile phones forever. Even if you don’t buy one you’ll see other companies react to this. When people say it lives up to the hype they are right. Amazing device. Amazing store experience. If you wonder why Apple gets hype you need to come and wait in line with us and see just what’s up. The adrenaline has to subside a bit before I really take on doing a halfway decent review."

Hakia : "The decade-old exotic popularity methods to rank a Web page are increasingly becoming obsolete."

train bridge
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Hakia + Powerset are the post google, post ph'd 8 digit funded search players. While little is disclosed in public forums, this post from Hakia CEO is interesting on prioritisation of search sources : "The decade-old exotic popularity methods to rank a Web page are increasingly becoming obsolete. The next generation search systems will definitely not need these approaches any longer due to the improvements in content analysis, and due to the availability of crediblity measurements. With the same token, manipulating search results will become much more difficult by artificial means."

Case-1: Domain name : "The very first criteria for credibility is the domain and how well that domain is controlled."
Case-2: Rating : "Popularity algorithms were devised 10 years ago - at a time when such information was not readily available. But today, popularity computation by means of link referrals is like reinventing the wheel."
Case-3: Content : "The page content can be analyzed for proper language, lay out, and links. These type of analyses are very common today, but semantic analysis is necessary to assess how well a given query is represented by the page content. Without this crucial element, the credibility assessment is likely to fall short."

ZdNet on Powerset : "Powerset hopes that building a platform and attracting developers will save it from the fate of other search startups.”We are trying to challenge everything out there,” Newcomb said. He said the search companies like Kosmix had a 90 percent attrition in attention not long after their announcement. “After a few blogstorms they die–it’s the dead cat bounce model. We want to launch with super passionate people–David versus Goliath people and with the people who can build products off of our platform.”"

Can I Wait for the New "Off the Charts" Imac ?

62" Joy
Originally uploaded by benbarren

As my daily work routine hasn't had a desktop (my beloved 20" G5 non-Intel Imac) I've been scoutaing a new machine. But I'm forcing myself to wait for the new Imac (hopefully late July/early August when Iphone launch* is done)

Great Ars Technica piece on Steve Jobs product line vision for Applefanboyz'n'grrls : "The first leg is the Mac business, which Steve addressed by saying that they have the "best Macs" in the new product pipeline ever right now, and that the stuff coming out in the next year is "off the charts." Wow, sounds juicy."

* Well not that its launched in Australia this year :( I wonder what explanation Steve would give for that, here is why he chose 6pm US time to launch the Iphone : "It seemed like a good time. People are off work. It's a time that's democratic. It's still light out. Everybody is available at that time. We didn't want people to have to take time off from work. We wanted everybody to have the same chance."

Didak Tweets Down Lohan Stylz

DidakUidiot
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Not sure if it's just me, but twitter is down, and all I wanted to tweet is Alan Didak You Idiot, and the ocean here is more aqua green than usual. Of course Collingwood have not punished him at all (Gary Pert's line about changing his termination clause is as cheesy as Demetriou saying Cousins new termination clause should be public), not even a match, they're not going to sacrifice finals chess. Who said AFL footballers* arent following some of the NFL/NBA/Hollywood examples.

Idontlikeyouinthatway blog quoting TMZ : "According to multiple law enforcement sources, toxicology reports conclude that Lohan, 20, had "nearly twice the legal limit" of alcohol and traces of blow in her bloodstream when she crashed her 2005 Mercedes SL-65 convertible into a curb on Sunset Blvd. around 5:30 AM on May 26."

* It's interesting that the most extreme examples (Didak, Cousins) are absolute alpha footballers in terms of skills, performance and output. There is some type of chicken/egg, bacon/pig analogy/gag there.

GOOG : Free tshirts twice a week.

entering remix07
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Interesting ex-google / microsoft piece on google culture/reporting structure. Free tshirts twice a week. Just Say No to Google Blog : "The overall structure is: tons (a hundred or more) of individual contributors report to.. a middle manager who reports to.. a division v.p. who reports to.. the management team (Larry, Sergie, etc.)"

Neale Daniher Quits as Melbourne Football Club Coach : A Great Man.

great win
Originally uploaded by benbarren

I've been to every Melbourne Football Club home game (and those at the MCG) for pretty much last 2 years.. Last year I saw approx 13 matches there by Dees and I think we won roughly 11, maybe 12. This year, the first 6 I saw were losses and I've probably seen two wins and seven losses this year.

It's a deep attitudinal, cultural thing* - that players go missing when the team is losing, which it often does when it's mainly over 30 captain, forwards and major players are injured. Other teams like Adelaide can lose their forward power but still hover around/in the Top 8. It seems the Dees peaked last year, and now it's rebuilding.

So Neale Daniher the coach just resigned. He did a great job in a trying situation. Having done some online work for the club a few years ago, the club was barren of resources and is still trying to get its "off-field" situation together. Daniher is a great man, I dont think he needed to resign today as he has.

But the Chairman Gardiner, was going to do it anyway. You could tell by the "no comment" and "end of the year we'll review" type line he has been using since the start of the year. He also bagged the coach unecessarily after the awful loss last Friday against the Tigers. Whether a new coach will change anything (St Kilda has had a worse year with a new coach so far) while the favourite to be sacked coach of 2006 (Geelong's Bomber Thompson) is now a genius with his team favourite for the flag.

Not sure a new coach will change anything. But if it does mean a major review of the team list with subsequent cullings, a few key player recruits and draft, plus some equalisation resources in the fight against interstate clubs that will be great.

Ultimately though it will depend on who Melbourne get to coach, and I really wish the CVC Private Equity Mob that run Channel Nine would bone the Footy Show, and Garry Lyon, so the Melb High boy who wore number 3 for the dees can come back and bring glory to the club.

The trend these days (esp with a departing experienced coach) seems to be to get a trained assistant coach, who has worked with premiership teams. Demonland supporters are debating between Buckley and Voss ! As well as Brett Ratten (who was once our assistant and toughened up our midfield) Whoever they get, I hope the players will play for him (or her) more than they have Daniher this Year.

Good work Neale, you evangelised this club in the hard times, had humility in the wins, and calm in the losses. Now let's win some matches this year players, Bomber Thompson doesn't know how lucky he is.

Neale Daniher on Demons.com.au
“I think this is the right time and best for the club,"
"It's best for the players, it's best for our sponsors and supporters. I think it’s best for me."
“I was hoping to have a bit more time to think about it, but certain things happened.
“I thought coming off the Collingwood and Adelaide wins … I was hoping we would be competitive and that speculation wouldn’t be stirred up."
“It was a poor loss against Richmond.”
“You go for 10 years and you think of all the circumstances that have happened at Melbourne, some you control and some you can’t whatsoever,” he said.
“I really want to thank the Melbourne Football Club, and all the people, the supporters and the board, Paul Gardner, Steve Harris, our players.”
“There is no bitterness at all,” he added. “You come into this caper. It’s a tough caper. You give it your best shot. There are circumstances you can control, some you can’t."
“I’ve had a great run. It’s a fantastic club. I’m disappointed at where we are at the moment. But I did my best. Circumstances unfolded this year and we just haven’t been able to get it right.”
“It’s not over yet, we’ve still got a big game on Friday night,” he said. We’ll get on with it. My focus won’t change."
“I just spoke to the players and I said ‘let’s get out and train’,” he said. “I think it would have come as a bit of a surprise."
“I’ll talk to them over the next 48 hours and try and get us as focused as we can and play as good football as we can for the rest of 2007.”

* Coaching is as tough/as bad as being a startup. Nothing can be taken for granted. Results are everything, and you have to live and die by the sword. There is no easy road. Nothing is guaranteed. 10 Years as Coach or successful entrepreneur in a business is a great stint. But the world does move on, and quickly. Now the search for a new coach begins, which I guess Melbourne now have pre-emptive ability to get available people before other coaches are boned at end of season..... My brother Jeremy has emailed me his top 5 (we all used to go to Melbourne matches with our grandmother at MCG, Waverley, even Western Oval.. and we always used to lose:(

1. Guy McKenna (my favourite out of list)
2. John Longmire
3. Michael Voss
4. Chris Bond
5. Mark Harvey

My other brother Richard has suggested these :
1. John Longmire
2. Guy McKenna (my favourite out of list)
3. Don Pyke
4. Mark Harvey
5. Sandy Coach (Mark Williams i think... A bit of a smokey!)

Feel free to add any coach suggestions for MFC.... google will pick them up...

Facebook API Users Worth 4.6 Cents Each ?

1+1=3?
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Not sure whether I'm smirking at this or not (Slide buying FavouritePeeps for around $60k), I probably am, but heck 4.6 cents per user, who knows ? Via VentureBeat, from InsideFacebook blog : "Favorite Peeps is the 14th most popular application on Facebook with approximately 1.3 million users and is growing at about 2.3% (30,000 users) per day. The reported acquisition price values each user of the Facebook app at about $0.046, or a low 4.6 cents US."

Cameron Wants a Herman Miller I'll Take an R8.

da R8
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Geez the Audi R8 really is the car for all occasions. Nothing like a mid-engined V10 engine, and the best interior going other than the top-end supercars. In a CarandDriver 3-way it beats the Porsche 997 911 Turbo and the schwelt Aston Martin Vantage (although Porsche straight line speed is faster, the Audi beats it around a track when driven by motoring journos) :

"This Audi provides a mix of speed, agility, and comfort that is unique among sports cars contending just below the realm of true supercars—the Ferrari F430, for example, or the Lamborghini Gallardo. In a three-day wring-out, no one put a wheel wrong, despite repeatedly taking the car to the limits of its Pirelli P Zero tires. Never a hint of snap oversteer. On the rare occasions when the rear tires began to lose grip, the loss was predictably progressive and easily managed."

Lijit is Remixing + Webjammn.

reactive winner
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Just did a web2 panel with the usual suspects at Microsoft's well run Remix07 conference. (last night - some of my pics here - was a joint WebJam session at a video game arcade near Crown that Microsoft nicely sponsored - nice one franky blogfather) Panels are part group therapy and part evangelism, but as the Cameron Reilly said it's all about getting off your arse and doing something. So it's good to see the implicit web blog search playa Lijit do some funding to explore their Feedburner meets Technorati 3.0 take on the feed meets search world.

Via VentureBeat Lijit's "widget has been displayed eight million times over the past month. This latest round of funding will help double the number of employees and expand Lijit’s infrastructure..."

"More PBL directors are expected to resign as directors of Ninemsn and Sky News in the months to come.."

orange black
Originally uploaded by benbarren

So it's sunset for PBL Directors in their profitable Foxsports Premier Media Group entity, with similar impending changes at ninemsn. News.com.au : "More PBL directors are expected to resign as directors of Ninemsn and Sky News in the months to come, in the wake of the group's selldown in PBL Media. Four PBL directors are currently on the Ninemsn board: Mr Packer, Mr Alexander, Mr Anderson and Mr Dalgleish. This figure is certain to be cut now that PBL effectively has only a 12.5 per cent stake in Ninemsn."

"Any competing ad networks out there want our business, and promise not to throw us under a bus whenever Valleywag attacks?"

adidas covert
Originally uploaded by benbarren

At the end of the day (or weekend as it is here...) an ad unit is an ad unit and not editorial. (in fact when u run usability groups of website end users, they think anything on the far right column/sidebar is an ad ie you can run editorial/programming in certain positions, but end users will think it is advertising if that's what they're used to in the position.) And then if the blogosphere says an ad unit isnt an ad unit, then it isn't. Mr Arrington is one of the few batting for an ad unit that is just an ad unit. Which it is. Depending on what end users, other blog network owners, and bloggers say. Church, State : The Fourth Estate Debate that will live on forever !!! May this little episode pass on quickly tho as fascinating as updates to network disclosure guidelines and blogger advertising profile pages are.

Crunchnotes : "Any competing ad networks out there want our business, and promise not to throw us under a bus whenever Valleywag attacks?"

Update : Cameron Reilly confirms it is "just an ad unit" when speaking to Richard Macmanus who I'm going to popdown and see this afternoon/evening at crown with the remix crew... hey why not...

this is where i'm supposed to start telling the truth.

celebtard rehab
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Radical Honesty is a print spun, psychotherapy induced prequel spin on Jim Carrey's Liar Liar. So it makes the perfect Esquire piece; "The movement was founded by a sixty-six-year-old Virginia-based psychotherapist named Brad Blanton. He says everybody would be happier if we just stopped lying. Tell the truth, all the time. This would be radical enough -- a world without fibs -- but Blanton goes further. He says we should toss out the filters between our brains and our mouths. If you think it, say it. Confess to your boss your secret plans to start your own company. If you're having fantasies about your wife's sister, Blanton says to tell your wife and tell her sister. It's the only path to authentic relationships. It's the only way to smash through modernity's soul-deadening alienation. Oversharing? No such thing... Generally, I'm devoting 30 percent of my mental energy to figuring out what a source is lying about or hiding from me. Another 20 percent goes into scheming about how to unearth that buried truth. No need for that today."

To Steph's Diary Room Daniher's Demons.

FridayPM MCG
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Painful MCG football last nite as the Dees lose, but was fun anyway with Kav. The Daniher dead man walking has really gone up a notch. Better news for the seller of "blogging.com" - $135K US. And Steph in The Diary Room is being typically fn hilarious, asking for her Big Brother money back (as they change the rules as they feel like it. ) For fun, she is tracking IP addresses of late night hosts that are commenting on her blog - "Mike Goldman, I know you left two anon comments on my blog. You really need to get a proxy IP address. I tracked where you came from and where you out clicked too." Now what to do Saturday night.....

wesabe is da bomb, funded, and "will be moving out of the “office space above (founders) wife’s clothing store."

1finger salute
Originally uploaded by benbarren

I was just pimping wesabe again today, and watching their kewl demo on the 60" Blu Ray screen.. it's just such a good name, with such deep functionality : Serious where needed (storing your banking details on your computer not their servers), and social folksonomy at the front. (tag your expenses, check other people's goals and spending patterns) It's the perfect choc dip. Or just plain wasabi on raw tuna steak, yum. well wesabe, anyway ! congrats, awesome. I keep telling anyone in financial services downunder, that these guys have the model (on the banking/financial planning/budgeting side) Heck, they make expense management (look) fun.

From the founders : "This morning, we announced that Wesabe raised $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by Union Square Ventures (USV). This is good news not only for our team (yes, we will be moving out of the “office space” above my wife’s clothing store), but also for our members – this means we’re going to speed up the roll-out of new features and make Wesabe even easier to use."

From the smart folks at Union Square whose previously stated wesabe deliciousness looked like a mating call that has now been consumated : "Wesabe was founded in December of 2005, launched in November of last year, and recently establishing itself as the category creator. It has substantially more users and more transactions, and more dollars flowing through its system than anyone else in the category."

Fosters Bloody UK beat Aussies to Video UGC Ad Campaign.

picaboo
Originally uploaded by benbarren

So having been workbound in Prahran for a month or so (this web 2.0 thing is just my M to F 9-5 thang u know, im just waiting for the sign for my true kabbalah calling:) .... my basic hypothesis is there may be more digital agencies providing services within 1km than Victorian clients that want to use them for interesting things. Kinda like those vue de krazy 6 star degustation all-ins with a ratio of 4 staff for every experimental white collar pez bored with ordering their food from a before-during-after menu. The Chef knows best, well the client does too, not.

So I love the Vsocial "youtube in a campaign box for agencies that want to do kewl stuff for their clients but would never want to build and maintain the back-end infrastructure" - that they have run for Fosters ! But not Fosters Australia ! Fosters bloody UK, can you believe it ? I didn't even know they drank cold beer over there. But they get this bloody user generated video as one part of the online media mix within a campaign. It's not bloody right. If Lee Freedman can win with his Rye horsies this week over there with the Queen watching, surely one FMCG/Big Brand can do the same (or better) downunder ??

Easy, ok back to work clients + agency-land. There are banners, websites and campaigns to run. Fosters LaidBack Legends, where the bloody hell are you ?

Mark Sigal : "We just launched a campaign for Foster's Lager called Laidback Legends , which is great on a number of levels. One, the campaign itself is a lot of fun and well thought out. The target for the campaign, so-called Laidback Legends, are the blokes that one meets in pubs that are just an indispensable part of the bar scene. Maybe you know one of these people. Maybe you are one yourself. Moreover, the prizes range from some coinage to cover your bar tab to a grand vacation for you and your mates. Lots of goodness. Two, the agency that we worked with was a joy. Really sharp creative folks, technically very strong, and 1+1=3 collaboration style. Great, great partner."

2.0 Consumer + Enterprise EIR's Order Vertical Chai Lattes.

reprazent
Originally uploaded by benbarren

You know it's simmering bubble bubble, but not necessarily in a bad way when you spend 1/4 of your working day in nouveau tofu cafe wine bars, the pot is cooking nicely. And it's always nice when you see some technology, or sound concepts. Especially nice to see real non Google paying business models around Enterprise 2.0, focused on high value problemmatic verticals. But I got run, back to BlueBar.

VentureBeat report on GoogleMaps employees trend is to work for VC's in the Calacanis EIR role. Hey if you can get the work, why not ? "Bret Taylor (left) and Jim Norris (right), two of the masterminds behind Google Maps and several other Google products, have joined the firm as “Entrepreneurs in Residence.” This gives them paid positions to hang out at Benchmark’s offices on Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road and think through starting a business. They have a specific idea in mind, but are secretive about it, telling VentureBeat only that it’s a “consumer Internet” company."

G-Maps on a Mekanical UGC Tip.

swelling
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Google Maps (wonder if aussie team shipped any of this feature?) has finally gone into the world of not just syndicating the Yelp's of this world UGC, but letting their own users create/annotate reviews onto G-Maps. I'm with Scott Karp on this one : "The problem with this feature is that it’s entirely mechanical — there’s no sense of community."

Yahoo + Wall Street Journal/Fox Business Channel + MySpace + Newscorp : Neat.

old blackberry
Originally uploaded by benbarren

TC et TimesOnline are chinese whispering that News' may creep into Yahoo thru flipping their MySpace + IGN assets for 25% of the combined entity. From there you could obviously creep closer and closer to control (not sure how big largest shareholder is in Yahoo and how distributed it is) MySpace for $12B. Yahoo + Wall Street Journal + MySpace + Newscorp : Neat. Just as Google buys a web powerpointlike company which will make YCombinator happy. Web 2.0 Big Bux, business as usual.

Update : Evan Williams (Blogger, Odeo, Twitter) must be a great cards player, figuring in another google stock swap, this time for the Zenter.com url (the presentation tool google just bought) : From his blog - "They were debating their name at the time and asked me what I thought. I don't remember what the candidates were, but I had purchased zenter.com a while back when I saw it up for sale, because I thought it would make a good name for a web-based presentation thing. (Something I'd toyed with doing since early Pyra days when Jerry registered pyrapoint.com.)

Since I knew we weren't likely to get around to that project, I offered it to them. They liked it, and we ended up doing a deal for stock. And now Google's made that stock pay off before they even got around to launching. Good deal for me. Better deal for them."

TimesOnline : "News Corporation has discussed swapping MySpace, its internet social networking unit, with Yahoo! in return for a 25 per cent stake in the enlarged group. Other News Corp digital assets, including the games network IGN, bought in 2005 for $650 million (£326 million), are also thought to have been offered to Yahoo!. A deal would demonstrate a remarkably swift return on News Corp’s investment in MySpace, which it acquired for $580 million in summer 2005. Yesterday Yahoo! was worth $37 billion. A quarter stake in an enlarged company would be worth $12.3 billion."

SpaceMy BookFace Design Dichotomies.

oh yeaaah
Originally uploaded by benbarren

I'm still debating whether I'll spend the 20 minutes needed to do a google search and figure out how to autosyndicate my blogger, flickr, twitter rss feeds into a cloned facebook lite version of myself so I can outreach to the onslaught that is facebook. Not that I also want to join the we're grown up and don't need facebook crew. Fact is if you have a blog, feed, photo account, linkedin profile, twitter etc - I'm not sure what I really need facebook for. Especially as I have about one month to catchup on blogging.

Not to mention being deeply immersed as happens in the life-cycle of these projects, in design at the moment. So designwiz David Galbraith has the myspace vs facebook design 101 with spice facts : "Interestingly, not many people have picked up on the fact that Facebook is as different from what has become the web 2.0 style, as the Myspace style. Web 2.0 sites tend to use a lot of extraneous CSS and HTML to create round boxes and three dimensional shadow effects with high reflection. This style apes the third generation 'aqua' Apple OS. Browsers inherently work with flat shaded square box model and so does Facebook. In doing so it creates a satisfyingly minimalist look, effortlessly that makes many web 2.0 sites look like they are designed by coders who are trying to hard, rather than designers."

MTUB#1 : When friends + followers become real twittering bio-humanic TGIF drinking buddies

henry IBM
Originally uploaded by benbarren

MTUB#1 Melbourne Twitter Underground Brigade started tonite pretty much strangely on the dot at 530pm.
That is for the geeks that had their point to point directions, and gps singing via google maps/WhereisMobile ; Both of whom had 105 Chapel Street listed as the address (the correct one), rather than 150 Chapel Street on (the location) HooHaa bar's website, which was used in MTUB's mob-tweetrd-promos.

Unfortunately the 3 daves weren't there : @king, @mac, or @whittle (nor the twitter ben cousins), but..
There was pimp daddy of 2.0 enterprise from IBM, regarding henry.
An off Sydney road schweet Nok-E65 form factor with a large twitter list.
Nice Dandenong Dick Smith fella who informed us if something costs more than $100 they have to nail it down with security or it goes a walkabout.
There was the almost post-NextG networks superorganiser, mistress of ceremonies - whose Sony W880i 2.0 walkman had been ripped from her very existence by ominous forces of change.
Pizza knife cutting online media planning Sputnik was there, and indeed was the ultimate bearer of credit risk and coupons, negotiating what drinks were and weren't allowed.
One of the 4 MySQL local engineers with a Nok-E62 something (i vsn?) I didnt even know my-S-Q-L had people downunder. Geez that phone had some nice illuminated backlighting.
Corleone was in the house.
Mr Bulgary who had retired from selling his hosting in 1.0 times and was now a photographer of models.
A Sydney originated via establishing a flashy UK digital agency business exec who relocated thru a business partner's offspring having inlaws in lovely Melbourne.
Closer to home was a Blackburn SME Website developer looking for the deep-hidden-twitter web, that may be out there except u just arent following it.
I cant forget the Amigo Telco Brigade, some ISI and of course BetaClone #114. Every1 rocked. As did sponsors who supported food, drink and even awards such as a usb fan and pink shower microphone. Who said weddings and baby showers are the only place gifts are recycled.

After 3 days in Sydney. A 3 Day weekend. And a 4 day week - with a ton of work in between and no internet at home till today, finally - tonite I met even more virtual friends. Stranger than meeting a stranger but alot more ambient intimacy. And being in conversation with people, while twittering at the same time, who remark "i think i just got your twitter because my bum vibrated" is always a fun way to start the weekend. Pics of event for the virtually inclined.

Melbourne Twitter Underground Brigade Tonite

bb novelties
Originally uploaded by benbarren

May my blogging post 140 characters recommence, after a twitter meetup Tonite 530pm @ hoohaa-bar Chapel_st windsor. Bring your mobiles with twitter on speed dial, and introduce a new element to twitter's "what are you doing now" - Just as there are speed txting spelling competitions, tonite is on the MobUGC tip; "just met a strange but absorbing lovely using a 3G pinkrazr who is twittering as we txtually talk."

There will also be lots of "so what is your twitter profile", and 'how many friends and followers do you have'. Expect lots of paradigm defining tweet etiquette about when to direct reply on twitter, and when to use the @username protocol.

The main game is twofold though; It's not about promoting your startup or intrapreneurial corporate innovation division. (watch out for rumoured IBM stealth tsubi distressed tshirts.) Nor hopefully will there be much "So what do you do?" (although there is supposedly a supply of textas and stickers for those wishing to emphasise their offline identity) Anyway back to the twofold purpose : Twitterbombn of "what are you doing now" and discovery of the physical representations of Melbourne Twitter Underground Brigade. ie 2.0 Friday Night Drinx.

hoohaa bar. chapel st windsor end. 530pm, meaning people get there at 6pm or earlier if work is just too damn boring, and really who works after 5pm on friday...

Facing Your Web 2.0 Conference Avatars + Sangria

Yesterday afternoon and evening was 2.0 Sydney ad agency discussions and a great T-Bone steak et frites. There is a definite rumbling about that next fn huge idea, but a collective recognition that there isn't the labour to deliver or obvious clients to trailblaze. But maybe with a bit of sales luvn....

This morning I woke up to a private equity laced breakfast where I learnt that the entry price for a media play downunder, a good one I tell you not a startup, is $1.5B. But make sure you have a good idea about what to do with the asset Mr Mokbel and relatives (something more than negatively gear it.. Don't end up in a greece cafe either with interpol chasing)

Then was the usual william st mad rush to 5 minute darling harbour sussex st demo along with other 2.0 Indies let's see those dog trix at a 15th floor stunning harbour views corporate flavoured, the accountant over there got approval to use the space because they think there's some new business in this area.

Forget presentation nerves or the standard shite we better get the IT support guy to sync the laptops, wifi access and presentation hardware, or even the telstra guy who during question time didn't ask a question and proclaimed telstra was beyond NextG when it came to 2.0, the real joost of the day was meeting the 2webbing crew, twitterr's, new zealand new web fathering, and pnorgn muthrn, newsltd employed webjammn, atlassiand, omnidriving, whitsunday-france outbackpost2ndlife destined scoutas - who till now were often virtual daily friends and 2way followers, that were presented this evening with a table of sangrian tangld calamari.

And then there were the award winning freelance story seekers : Combined with a monumental Jobseian call for consumer simplicity in new web apps from looking to reinvent themselves its my last day here lovely pr post cold war types, with the I gotta join twitter bug + he stopped me on the street delicateGeniusBlog CCtshirt its not chanel evangelist mikey-im not frankys mini_me one day I camped in his office but don't call me an evangelist, playaz.

Also from the byron hippy chillers later in the night I learnt about 'gangling' - when u leave a party without notice. I won't even get into the 85 year old who cornered the pretties and talked $4 domains and said he worked for AFR. Call me, Call me now.

Throw in some ex senseless lawyers and current GMs holding court in the corner with the genY lovelies, a bar and food tab - and you almost forgot that the topic which started the day - 'User Participation' in Web2 in Australia, and what business can do to support it. But it did bankroll a lot of offline realtime P2P pathos and comedy. Flickr fotos 2 follo when I can jack some wifi (now here), do my holt st lattes, and get a plane back to my virtual life, unless I end up @ MODM2 and u sydney lovelies webjam.com.au it out!

Talking, Walking, Running + Checking Into Sydney 2.0

I have 27 minutes till I can check into my Darlinghurst hotel which is kinda annoying given what time they kick you out, so its too short to do a meeting or walk to paddington so I'll waste your time.

Compressed my Melbourne week into a day yday, finishing it off with some product spec, tech interface, what sort of documentation do you guys recommend in order to build some stuff - Half the work is enterprise/known and just a case of executing. The other half is consumer/kinda known, lacking I learnt in 'non functional' attributes eg how fast to deliver a search result and how quickly to update how many feeds.

'Just executing' 'known' and 'semi-known' problems is far harder than it sounds.If you were a product manager building your dream app on the google super-computer it's a pretty good head-start before you even take into account network referral traffic and adsense:)

When you assess the social media, RSS, video, search and algorithmic backbone of the Australian (UK, Ireland etc) markets it's really quite scary, and maybe thus a little exciting.

The best of the startups go Delaware/California; The media owners are harvesting their media businesses to private equity, and can't fill open hires in online, and as a result there is very little capital being invested in new web businesses across the board.

Now the press is reporting that James is looking to buy a European WebCo and so far ala seek myhome carsales - he has shown a preference for classifieds as well as portals ala 9MSN. But will at a point his strategy go beyond this, as fox interactive did almost years ago ?

In the short term the most substantial online investments are thus expansionary marketing sales and senior execs from non online industry whose brief is to play catchup leadership in segments deemed attractive by publicCO analysts and PEraiders.

The other trend which can't be ignored but will be by gatekeeping ad and digital agencies is that of branding, oops consumer engagement, and FMCG brand that want to involve their supermarket shoppers in something interactive between the express checkout and their latest TVC.

But will the emitches of the world really grok this to clients, let alone have the labour, technology and partners to deliver it.

It's all too hard. Much easier to check into my hotel room, and do a few days of the Sydney market and see if things have moved from talking to doing. Nothing wrong with talking, just sometimes it's nicer to walk, esp because elsewhere in the world there is a lot of running going on.

i can get some demons satisfaction

I have over 2000 photos on flickr and have been diverted from greater life pursuits more than 2000 times on blogger, but I've never blogged on a train before' nor have I done so after Melbourne Football Club won a footy match in 2007 - Which isn't so hard given today is first win of season (worst start in decades) after being best I jest u not victorian team last year.

I normally blog this direct from flickr then edit but flickr mobile doesn't let me login. So I'm back in the google ever all encompassing ecosystem. Walmart 2.0 fo sure. June 15th 6pm chapel st bar twitter-bombn will be big so stay tuned for monday announcements. I'm just hitting Aspendale station.

The DeeS WoN.

Twitter Prefers VC to being Bought or Bootstrapping.

just sleepy
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Twitter's going for the VC in almost textbook definition of rocketfuel. Good on em'n'evhead.com : Their self defined options are (with number 5 being their recommended strategy!)

1) Figure out how to get profitable
2) Keep funding Twitter myself
3) Get an alternative source of funding
4) Get bought
5) Raise VC

Speaking of VC (in this case Mr Calacanis raising money for the Hawaii feel designed Mahalo*) I have to laugh at Joshua Jaffe at VC Ratings, talking about being an "editor" (hey one day you can be promoted to "producer" then "EP") on a human edited search engine (reminds me of the one in Michael Wolf's Definitive Dot Com book Burn Rate ) : "I showed up for my first day of training at the assigned time in the afternoon. I was seated in the middle of an enormous open room with nothing in it but hundreds of tables, computers and "editors". It looked like a post-modern vision of Dickensian England. The draft was persistent and the work was inane. I was trained on a computer to search for a specific topic on the web and assign it the appropriate classification in the company's index. I did that for a few hours until training ceased. The next morning, I got an offer from The Deal, which I gladly accepted. I didn't show up for "training" the next day or the day after that."

* I definitely think there are spaces for quality search results which filter out search engine optimised content and also display content in new non page ranked "relevance" focused ways. I like the on holiday, feeling good design of Mahalo - except maybe fonts are a bit big. What I'd like more of is less meta-aggregation of evergreen content, and more a curated snapshot of the current LiveWeb. eg I do a search for Lindsay Lohan (after her car accident) or Nicole Richie (after her American Values email) and Mahalo doesn't help me get quality up to date content in these areas. It provides more biographical information and primary links. I think is what google and wikipedia do well already. What neither of them do well, is curated aggregation of popular live web searches. (if i search for lindsay lohan on technorati i end up on the other end of spectrum, which is all the myspace, youtube and livejournal posts/videos in the last 43 minutes about Lindsay. If I'm going after the mainstream, and in this example, those who buy lots of celebrity gossip supermarket magazines - it's not a meta-biography people are after it's content from the last few days or hours. i should know, on gnoos, the most popular search is for Emma the Ice Queen on the latest series of Big Brother in Australia. No-one wants to know Emma's biography. They want H-264, MPG4, JPG and livefeed transcriptions :)

what Mobile Web apps r u using ?

so i'm a totally newbie to blackberry, never being quite

enough of a corporate suckup to get a flash push email exchange integrating black berry it's ugly but it makes bad suit wearers into txting lower case emoesque fiends. i'm totally hooked into this blackberry 8800 as i have no home internet, a 33 minute train ride, and um it takes them 90 seconds to make the latte. (this also reminds me to ask do people use twitter mobile ?)

after an initial crash and 3 phone calls to optus (was it because i downloaded the open source gcalendar syncher before i realised there was a mobile google calendar ? or maybe it was the google maps app which totally crashed the device in a quite severe way when i tried to shut it down delete it....) so what Mobile Web apps Do You Use ? (on your blackberry or the mobile web browser component before u order and unlock that lovely change your life i promise it will browse the web on your phone just as it does on that 20" display)

i'm using google's gmail to compose mail (nicer UI, remembers email addresses etc) but blackberry's messages for the push email, sms etc integration. I've now made the switch from no calendar (it's a great app that one: remember it in your head, write down in $4 non moleskin notebook but then leave notebook at home) to google calendar.. so I input appointments when in front of computer but then it's accessible on the bb browser. (btw blackberry apps/ui is pretty um basic eh ?) Are there other better layed out browsers i can download btw ?

so what i havent found is a notebook/to do list type app that is configured well for mobile (google notebook isn't mobile yet, but hey we'll all be on ggears (wow - i can read my google reader feeds offline - last 2000 items) anyway so who needs the internet?) so does anyone have a suggestion for a mobile web configured app there, that is partial to a blackberry version ?

i'd also love to hear if you anyone uses google's once was writely now what do they call it ? a word processor ? i'm having visions of doing my baby wildebeest product spec on the blackberry at cafes, then being able to power at the real work on the mac, then have others (ie the engineers who do the work) collaborate on the same .doc in multiple locations ?

i want. i want. here comes my teenagers santa claus list. blackberry/8800 wallpaper (gotta google that iphone version) and then other fun stuff that doesn't crash my machine and end me up needing a call support crackberry fix.

i'm using greader, but if i could export/import my opml into a power feed reader when I can read more than 10 items (or is there a setting on greader for this ? btw greader doesn't have a mobile version does it ? this one isnt that great.... not enough content on a page.. clicking every 10 items when u read 1500 feeds is kinda um crazy.. but it does kill time on a 33 minute train ride on the sloow but ok gprs...)

your Mobile Web using apps and favourites muchly appreciated.