EightBlack.

I started my career in the telecoms sector with guys like John Ilhan. I remember his wife Trish (who wasn’t his wife back then), used to be our account manager when I was at Hutchison and she was working with MobileNet. Back in the days when Telstra was called “Telecom”.

I remember his single, lonely shop across the road from Strathfield Car Radios in Brunswick. In fact, we used to sell him stock when he needed it. I remember him buying one at a time on his credit card. He’d sell it, and then come back again and buy another one. Over and over.

I remember when everyone thought he was mad when he changed the name of his business from MobileWorld to “Crazy John’s”.

Life doesn’t seem fair when at 42, and without warning, it ends.

An 8th month old son who will never know his dad, 3 daughters who will miss him terribly and a wife who’s just had the most monumental news anyone could imagine.

It’s tragedies like this that you can’t explain. To anyone. My heart goes out to his family, his friends and the people he touched. Which were many.

“Carpe Diem. Seize the day… “

(Image courtesy SMH, Australia)

They might have missed last quarter’s numbers and they took some flak for their hiring frenzy. But, the numbers have just come in for the 3rd quarter. They obviously had the conference phone on mute when they took the questions from analysts last quarter regarding their rate of hiring as this most recent result includes a record hire of 2,130 employees (that’s nearly 1 person every hour for each day for the last 90 days). Total headcount now is just now north of 16,000 people.

Actions are louder than words. The numbers tell the story. The search company, now just 10 years old, has a market cap of US$200 billion. There are only 8 other companies above them on the list, and if the results of this most recent quarter are anything to gauge, by the time the next analyst call comes around, there will only be 4.

Our post yesterday on “Getting Ready For Web 2.0″ made the Times Online yesterday in London. Not that it means much.

The hotel is already starting to hum with activity - not sure why they chose The Palace though.

Onwards.

Registration in about 3 hours time. Now if I could only work out this bloomin’ Twitter nonsense, I’d be ok.

Australian’s for the most part are a cyncial bunch. And you know that saying “could only happen in America”.

Well, wait until you hear this. This really only could happen here - in Australia.

Apparently, the government wants to get into blogging. And instead of just finding someone to go set up a wordpress or typepad site, they decided to engage an army of consultants and issue a discussion paper. Sort of to discuss it before we even get started.

From The Age:

The discussion paper, released by Special Minister of State Gary Nairn, asks people to say how they would like to use an online consultation website and what features they would want to have included in it. Feedback will go into a public report.

The paper raises the issue of whether registration should be required to use the consultation blog.

“This is a complex question,” the paper says. “Registration potentially helps ensure that the views expressed in the forum are representative; however, it is also likely to discourage usage of the consultation blog.”

 First of all,

They’re idiots.

Last week, I had the good fortune of hanging out with Seth Godin. And in my favourite city - New York. Apologies for the picture - I sort of look like I just flew 10,000 miles across the Pacific (ok, I just did).

Anyway, I had a blast - along with 50 or so other people. I was amazed at the diversity in the audience - there were one man operators to folks from a very large software company that begins with “M” and is based in Seattle.

Seth decided that this one day gig would be a little different in the sense that he spoke briefly at the start and asked the audience to let it rip. The questions came thick and fast and basically that was the structure of the day. The whole 8 hours.

One thing that struck me as unusual is that a lot of people were asking Seth to evaluate their website. 5 years ago I bet the questions would have focussed on marketing strategy or advice, whether or not this concept made sense, or was this a good business idea. Things that were more traditional or even tangible. But most people in the session wanted to talk about the web. Which pleased me no end.

We spent a lot of the day looking at websites. And Seth provided remarkable insight. It’s easy to see why he’s rated as one of the best marketers around. He made the audience feel like “friends”, he was a gracious host and if ever you wanted a lesson on how to run a seminar with virtually no external help - then make sure you jump on a plane and see him live the next time he runs a session.

If you wanted more detail from this post regarding the actual content of the day - then I’m sorry. Everything we discussed is “off the record”. And that’s the way it should be.

PS. Thanks to you Joe for taking the photo!

I read with interest today in AdNews that Foxtel has had a cracker of a year. In terms of profits and subscribers.

SYDNEY: Foxtel is showing solid growth in subscribers and profitability, recording a record profit of $76 million for the year ending 30 June 2007.

There are now 1.44 million households subscribing to Foxtel, up 12.4% the previous year. In late 2004, Foxtel had only 500,000 subscribers to its subscription television service.

Surely there can’t be that many bored Australian households out there - can there?

I’m hoping my 6 year old son doesn’t see this article. You see, I cut off Foxtel a few weeks ago, fed up with the nonsense they were palming off as  “football” coverage. I’d been a subscriber for 3-4 years I reckon.

I don’t watch free to air TV (much). But during the football season, I do want to watch the footy. And if we win, I want to watch the replays during the week. A couple of times. The old Fox Footy Channel would let you do that. It also had Grumpy Old Men. And Tiffany Cherry.

My American wife couldn’t for the life of her, understand why someone could possibly want to watch the replay of a football game as soon as they just got home from the very ground where they had just watched it live for the past 2 hours. More perplexing was the fact that why would I want to watch it again and again during the week.

I have tried to tell her that barracking for the Collingwood Football Club is an affliction. A disease. Something requiring a different mental state.

When we lost, I knew she would be quietly celebrating. Same with our kids because everyone knew that the TV remote was theirs.

Anyway, when I told our TV addict of a son that a man was coming to the house to remove the cable box, he was apoplectic.

“But why Dad??”

“Because”.

“But Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“But thats not a reason.”

“Yes, it is. Look - go and play on the road.” Or something like that.

I am convinced that during his first therapy session when he’s 17, that the issue of his mean old man cutting off the cable was the reason he hacked into the Reserve Bank of Canada’s payment clearing system. Or the real reason why and how he managed to get a girl pregnant in the back of Ford Transit Van. Either way I’m screwed.

Call me a simple minded consumer, but I thought the whole rationale behind paying $70-$100 bucks a month for subscription TV was so I wouldn’t be subjected to a barrage of advertising. Watching Foxtel now is virtually indistinguishable from free to air. Actually, truth be told, I’d be prepared to pay more during the footy season for content I wanted. With no ads.

Bring on TiVo. And I’m so glad that IceTV won their case today against Channel 9.

The whole model of subscription content, premium content and free to air has a long way to go in Australia. Unfortunately, the cartel that controls it won’t (or refuses) to let go. And sadly, the consumer is the poor loser.

Not all is bad though. The recently announced merger between NBC Universal and News Corp holds promise. Even if the silly buggers can’t figure out between them how or what to call their website.

I hope I’m not this irrational when I’m 60.

The Queen of Pop ranted in the UK’s The Sun last week that;

it (the internet) is destroying good music, saying: “The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff”.

“Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision.

“It’s just a means to an end.

“We’re talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that’s not going to happen with people blogging on the internet.

“I mean, get out there — communicate.

“Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet.

“Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging.

“I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

“There’s too much technology available.

“I’m sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.”

You sort of don’t know where to begin with these sorts of comments.

On one hand, Sir Elton wants the same medium that he’s just loaded his entire 400 track library to closed down (you can now buy all his music via iTunes), the same medium that he streamed a concert to from Madison Square Garden last year and the very same medium that people go to in order to research upcoming concert information and actually buy tickets (via his own and 3rd party websites).

You’d have a better chance of holding back the tide as they say rather than shutting down the internet.

And anyway, hypothetically speaking, what and how on gods earth would you even go about doing it. Its not like George Bush would make a worldwide announcement and say, “I use the Google, we all use the Google. But you know what, we need to change, to flush em out, to smoke em out, to - er, whoops, thats another speech. This internet thing is bad news. We’re closing it. Right now…”

Or something like that.

As if.

Elton baby, this internet thing has grown a lot bigger than anything you’ve smoked or put up your nose. I love the music that made you famous and its a big part of my childhood. But a lot of your current stuff sucks. Its not the internets’ fault if you have lost your “mojo”.

The internet is just another medium. Like radio was. Like TV was. Like print was. Only this time, its not perhaps just another medium - it is THE medium.

You’ve got a website, you sell tickets online, Google has indexed some 582,000 images of you, Yahoo! has indexed some 37 million pages of content related to you and you’re essentially blaming it for the fact that your last record tanked with only 100,000 copies being sold. Thanks to a little device called the iPod, there’s a whole generation of people who are now able to listen (and consume) your music.

I’d suggest you put on your tiara again and have another tantrum. It’s futile but it will make you feel better.

I remember a few years ago my sister and I were both living overseas. My mother, on one of those weekly calls, casually told me that she and my father had decided to “get the internet”.

“Really…” I said, knowing exactly where this was going.

“Yes”, she said. “We got a thing in the mail and it said we could have internet for $40 dollars a month”. Or something like this.

I then asked her casually what she was going to do as far as a computer went.

“Oh no” she said. We don’t want a computer, we just want the internet”.

I think I muttered the words “silly cow” or something equally as derogatory down the phone.

I know the “older” generation are struggling with the whole technology thing. But equally, there are 70 year olds booking round the world trips online, transferring and managing all their money online, and talking to their kids and grandkids via Skype.

Calling yourself a “luddite” is just plain lazy. Age is irrelevant. And technology is the very thing that has made it so.

(Image courtesy The BBC, UK) 

I’m glad someone else took the initiative in our great city to get the online community together. Seems I have the easy part - and thats picking up the bar tab. Least I can do.

I hope you can make it - drop in and say hi if you’re around if you’re in town this Thursday night, Aug 2nd. Venue is The Riverland Bar, Fed Square.

Cameron from The Podcast Network is the “event organiser”. Well done mate. See you Thursday.

Now, this has to be the most insane thing I’ve heard for a while. It’s hit the airwaves all over the place. Here and here for a start.

When I first read it, I thought - oh, it must be an April Fools’ joke. But then I thought, (no matter how jet-lagged I am at present), that we are in July. Nope, cant be that then.

Here’s the crux of it.

The ACCC - the consumer watchdog in Australia is pissed at Google and the Trading Post. And it has, in its’ wisdom, decided to “make a jolly good example” of both these upstarts and take them to court. And while they’re at it, demand legal costs.

From the ACCC website:

The ACCC is alleging that Trading Post contravened sections 52 and 53(d) of the Trade Practices Act 1974 in 2005 when the business names “Kloster Ford” and “Charlestown Toyota” appeared in the title of Google sponsored links to Trading Post’s website. Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota are Newcastle car dealerships who compete against Trading Post in automotive sales.

The ACCC is also alleging that Google, by causing the Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota links to be published on its website, engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

Further, the ACCC is alleging that Google, by failing to adequately distinguish sponsored links from “organic” search results, has engaged and continues to engage in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

The ACCC is seeking:

• declarations that Trading Post contravened sections 52 and 53(d) of the Act
• declarations that Google contravened section 52 of the Act
• injunctions restraining Trading Post from representing through sponsored links an association, sponsorship or affiliation with another business where one does not exist
• injunctions restraining Google from publishing sponsored links of advertisers representing an association, sponsorship or affiliation where one does not exist
• injunctions restraining Google from publishing search results that do not expressly distinguish advertisements from organic search results
• orders that Trading Post and Google implement trade practices compliance programs
• an order that Google publish a notice on its website outlining the above, and
• costs.

The matter has been listed for a directions hearing in the Federal Court, Sydney, on 21 August 2007 before Justice Allsop.

This is the first action of its type globally. Whilst Google has faced court action overseas, particularly in the United States, France and Belgium, this generally has been in relation to trademark use. Although the US anti-trust authority the Federal Trade Commission has examined similar issues, the ACCC understands that it is the first regulatory body to seek legal clarification of Google’s conduct from a trade practices perspective.

Has Graeme Samuel, the head of the ACCC, lost his freaking mind???

Maybe this happened. Maybe Samuel and a few of his colleagues were around at his place on the weekend and at around 3am, as he was fumbling around in the cellar for a ‘73 Grange (why by the way do you always drink the most expensive grog when you are either too drunk to know better, or worse, your mates are all on the verge of passing out). I digress. Sorry.

Anyway, so he’s fumbling around in the cellar and then he shouts to the people still awake “Hey, shit, here’s a good idea. Lets take Google and the Trading Post to court”. Or something like that.

Google’s corporate counsel in the US must be shaking in their boots.

Here’s what I predict will happen. It will get tossed on day one. And Samuel and his consumer watchdog will be about as intimidating as a neutered chihuahua.

I don’t even reckon it will make Kent Walker’s inbox. Kent by the way is Google’s Head Legal Counsel. From his bio, (he’s ex eBay, Oracle and Netscape)

Earlier in his career, Kent was an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the United States Department of Justice, where he specialized in the prosecution of technology crimes and advised the Attorney General on management and technology issues.

Google is no stranger to litigation. You have to expect it when you are the hottest technology company on the planet. The Federal Trade Commission has had a crack at the search giant, so have some wayward folks in France and Belgium. In all cases, guess who really won. Ok, Google may have been “slapped on the wrist” and forced to pay a small fine in a few of these cases, but in the end, they didn’t have to make the far reaching fundamental change(s) to their core business model that the ACCC is demanding they do. (The AFP statement is here and Danny Sullivan has detailed coverage of the Belgium case details here).

God, I hope Battelle or Scoble weigh in on this. It’s just madness.

Let me try and be rational for a moment and talk about one of the real issues at hand.

The ACCC believe “that Google, by failing to adequately distinguish sponsored links from “organic” search results, has engaged and continues to engage in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.”

The fact that Google actually displays “Sponsored Link” at the top of the page (above the organic results) and to the right is obviously not clear enough. Not to the ACCC anyway. Google even highlight the sponsored link section above the organic results in a shaded colour in many instances.

Google has changed its stance on trademark since its launch here. For example, online travel sites used to bid on the keyword “Qantas” as a part of their adwords strategy. It made sense. Qantas, as it had a right to do, complained to Google and now, the travel sites can no longer bid on trademarked names - like Qantas, Virgin Blue, Jetstar etc.

Look at this screenshot below. Can you not see “sponsored link”. Twice. At the top of the page. I even worked out how to use the “circle” function in paint when I inserted the image. Sorry about the clarity of the image - click on it and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Google has clearly complied with not only making it crystal clear regarding sponsored and organic listings, but also with reference to trade-mark.

This is one case I’m going to follow for a while now. It’s also one case where I truly hope Richard Kimber, the head of Google in Asia Pac calls up Sol Trujillo, Telstra’s gun slinging CEO and the ultimate head of Sensis (the owner of the Trading Post) and combines their legal might and legally belts the crap out of the ACCC.

Wait till Phil Burgess, Telstra’s Group Managing Director, Public Policy and Communications gets a hold of this. Burgess in full flight makes Idi Amin look restrained.

It’s just nonsense. The case on its multiple points, has no legal merit (and I’m no lawyer). All it will do will ensure that the partners of the top law firms are able to have a very expensive and lavish Xmas party somewhere overseas now (instead of locally).

And Graeme Samuel may well end up learning how to create a profile on Seek.com.au.

Over to you now…

Still don’t think that Google isn’t interested in the telco space?

Maybe this will give the carriers something to worry about.

And gees, just what does Grand Central do? From Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch in the US,

The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.

Coverage is here and here.

The ability to do this has been around for years. The carriers have had the capability for a long time. I just cant figure out why it takes a start up and then a search engine to provide the shot in the arm. Grand Central is a product, an application, a service that makes life easier. Not more complicated. But then again, you cant expect innovation from a phone company. Or can you?