by cameron | Dec 7, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized
Back at DMF, listening to Michael Allen, Apple’s local “podcast guru”. Very engaging talk so far.
Big Mick Liubinskas from Tangler has posted up some photos from last night’s STIRR.
They were giving out special monopoly money to “invest” on some of the entrepreneur pitches during the evening and guess whose face was on it?
Here’s Mike Zimmerman, one of Australia’s “good guy” VCs, myself and Big Mick himself. Mick is famous amongst those of us who were in SF last month for his antics at Michael Arrington’s house.
Lots of detailed posts about last night here.
by cameron | Dec 6, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
Roo have been around 4 years. Have penetrated most of major video publishers around the world. In Australia, they work with News, Sensis and SBS very closely. Their profile in the US is much higher than it is in Australia. Locally they white box their services to other publishers. They enable activation, marketing and distribution of digital media video over multiple platforms. Started in Caulfield in Melbourne 4 years ago with three people. Publicly listed in 2003 on NASDAQ. The core of the vision has always been that the internet is becoming a media distribution platform that needs to be paid for by advertising. Now have a customer base of 100+ Fortune companies. Currently serving 60M+ streams per month. According to comScore Sept stats, ROO ranks as #8 video streaming service by volume in the world. YouTube throw $5 – 6 million a week at bandwidth costs. (Cam’s note: That’s…. $20 – 24M a month! $250M+ a year! Holy cow.)
by cameron | Nov 30, 2006 | Uncategorized
For gdayworld 173 (scheduled for Dec 8), I really want to talk about the new Industrial Relations laws in Australia. I’d love to talk to young people who are working under them and to employers. If you know of anyone who fits one of those descriptions and might be interested in chatting with me, please let me know! And you can join in the show by posting your details HERE.
by cameron | Nov 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
…by 2012, iPods could launch at similar prices to those on sale now and yet be capable of holding a whole year’s worth of video releases.
That’s a quote from Nikesh Arora, Google’s VP of European operations, speaking at the FT World Communications Conference. (link)
I agree, but it reminds me of something Microsoft VP Jeff Raikes said on a visit to Australia around about 2000. I remember him talking to the MSFT staff over breakfast and predicting that by 2005 most televisions would ship with a terabyte hard drive, enough to store a year’s worth of programming. What happened? Storage costs have continued to come down over the last few years and you can buy a 250gb hard drive now for about $200. So a terabyte should cost about $1000. Still way to much for you to tack onto the cost of a TV. So what happened?
Still, it is undeniable that storage costs are continuing to drop and that we should see that trend continue for some time. And as storage costs and wifi rates drop, the mobile devices will increasingly become portable media players. TPN was built around that vision two years ago. By 2010, I expect the vast majority of the one billion mobile phones in circulation to be mobile entertainment devices. And someone has to build the content that goes on them. These devices by then will have open access to the internet and the “walled garden” models that mobile carriers like to push today will have mostly disappeared. Anyone will be able to download any content and will be charged either a fixed rate by their carrier or might even get free internet access in return for targeted advertising (easier to do on a mobile device than it is on a PC).
It’s going to be interesting to watch the end game between mobile handsets manufacturers (Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, etc), Apple, and the mobile carriers, as they battle over business models, voice traffic versus VOIP, etc.
by cameron | Nov 24, 2006 | Iraq, Uncategorized
Australians all let us rejoice! For our Federal Government has been absolved of all responsibility for the AWB scandal! It turns out they knew nothing! Nothing at all! It’s all okay. Breathe easy Australia, your Government knew nothing. They didn’t read the secret memos and cables. Andrew Bolt seems to think this is a good thing. The AWB was secretly paying Saddam Hussein’s regime hundreds of millions of dollars of kickbacks, the Australian Federal Government was getting memos about it… but they didn’t read them, so it’s all okay.
The other news to almost get skipped over today is that AWB were told, a year before the Australian public, that we were going to support an upcoming US invasion of Iraq. This was a full year before Prime Minister Howard claims he even made the decision!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m no leftie. I’ve voted for the Libs in every election, State and Federal, since I was 18. But this all sucks. It’s time for a major shake-up. Unfortunately, the ALP are a bunch of nogger-heads. (That was “nogger”, Kramer.). The Dems are dead. The Greens? Who is left? Those right-wing Christian nutters? Crikey. Slim pickings on the voting front this weekend. Whatever happened to those nice Communist kids who were around in the 70s?
