media Archives - Page 8 of 59 - cameronreilly.com

GDay World 391 – Jon Dee, Founder of Planet Ark and Do Something

by cameron | Aug 24, 2009 | activism, climate change, environment, Podcast

A few days ago I had a chance to chat with Jon Dee, founder of Planet Ark and the new Do Something! initiative, about his life and goals. We talked about everything from his involvement in Rock Aid Armenia (where he pulled together a list of top Brit Rockers to perform a charity concert and record a new version of Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water” to raise funds for earthquake victims in Armenia) to deciding, with friend Aussie tennis pro Pat Cash, to start Planet Ark, and his new venture Do Something!, which aims to create positive social and environmental change.

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Here’s the version of Smoke On The Water that Jon produced back in 1992!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odeztf1nK8s&hl=en&fs=1&]

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The Post-Mortem on SpiralFrog

by cameron | Aug 12, 2009 | Uncategorized

SpiralFrog was the music industry’s attempt to defeat iTunes. It failed miserably. Here’s a fascinating post-mortem. As a start-up guy who had no funding, these stories of start-ups pissing tens of millions of dollars up against the wall always make me sick. Why do these clowns get so much money? I know what I could achieve with just a single million to spend on my business and to see them waste $26 million just makes me furious.

Anyway, there are some interesting facts in here… such as “in order for a tier-1 account to place ads on a site like SpiralFrog, (it) needed a minimum of 5 million monthly unique (visitors).” Even a start-up with the amount of funding SpiralFrog had, struggled to make money from advertising. They bought their traffic through search engine marketing and had to keep spending to maintain it. Lots of lessons in here.

Read the article:

Inside the short, troubled life of a music start-up | Digital Media – CNET News.

Here’s a 2007 interview with SpiralFrog founder Joe Mohen:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItF7y3knp5E&hl=en&fs=1&]

This Isn’t Terrorism

by cameron | Aug 4, 2009 | Australian media, Australian politics, Melbourne

Reports today about the AFP arresting 4 men in Melbourne who were allegedly planning to attack a military base in Victoria is being called "terrorism" by the Prime Minister and the mainstream media. For example, News.com.au claims the attack, if it had gone ahead, would have been "the worst terror attack on Australian soil". However, if they were attacking a military target, does that qualify as terrorism? Wikipedia states that there isn’t an internationally agreed definition of terrorism, but I normally associate it with attacks on civilian targets outside of wartime. A small group of Somali and Lebanese labourers and taxi drivers attacking a military base doesn’t sound like the definition of terrorism to me. It sounds more like the definition of "stupid".

(UPDATE: in discussion with @napper, I said I think an attack by citizens of a country on its own army and inside the country’s own borders is more accurately defined as “revolution” or “insurrection”.)

So – why is it being referred to as terrorism by the Govt and the media? Are we back to the days where The Great Corporation feels the need to frighten the masses? What should we be watching out for? Is there a new law coming soon that will disappear more of our civil rights? Will Rudd use this to help push through his Internet censorship?

UPDATE: I also meant to add – as Terry did in the comments – that I hope the AFP have actually done their job this time, unlike in the Haneef debacle.