Building An Aussie Online Startup Keiretsu

For a while I’ve been thinking about putting together a ‘keiretsu‘ of Aussie online startups.

Technically, a real keiretsu in Japan is “a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings”.

More loosely speaking, a keiretsu is a group of non-competing businesses with a strategic relationship. It strikes me that in Australia we have a bunch of non-competing online startups each individually fighting to build their audience and trying to nimbly outmaneuver larger, richer, powerful businesses. When I had dLook CEO Theo Tsiamis on the show last month, and he talked about their hundreds of thousands of visitors, I thought “hmmm, they have hundreds of thousands of visitors, TPN has hundreds of thousands of visitors, we should do something together”.

Theo and Meg were all for it and so today I’m happy to announce a strategic alliance between TPN and dLook.

You may have noticed recently that the newly re-designed TPN homepage carries a very prominent advertisement for dLook. In my opinion, dLook is the best place to search for Australian businesses. If I have a choice between supporting a small, Aussie startup run by entrepreneurs or a billion dollar company run by managers living off of someone else’s risk, I’m going with the little guys, especially if their service is as good or better than the big guys. As consumers, you should support the innovative startups because without them the billion dollar companies play the “maximize profits, stifle services” game.

And, from today, when you are searching dLook for businesses, you will see some TPN advertisments. For example, check out their restaurant listings and keep an eye in the banner on the right hand side. Hopefully, some of dLook’s users will want to grab themselves some excellent podcasts.

I’d like to invite other Aussie online startups to join the keiretsu. We can support each other to build big audiences for our respective services. The more successful we all are, the stronger Australia’s startup community becomes which, in turn, will improve funding opportunities, accelerate revenue models, and generally strengthen the Aussie online market. As they say “a rising tide carries all ships”. Let’s work together more closely than sharing VC tips over beer. Let’s build genuine value.

I say that if we throw our weight together, we can make an impact in the local marketplace faster and stronger than we will alone.

GDAY WORLD #222 – Greydon Square, Atheist Rapper

Greydon Square is the future of hiphop.

Greydon Square

Raised an orphan by Seventh Day Adventists in Compton, Los Angeles, he did time at 17 for possession of a weapon, then joined the US Army for a tour of Iraq, where he did bible group in his spare time with a view to becoming a minister after he was discharged. However, the more he learned about Christianity, the more he questioned it.

Today he is studying cosmology and quantum physics at University and self-producing his own hiphop album with a powerful message – that rational thinking is superior to religion and faith.

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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.


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GDAY WORLD #221 – Kenzoid’s Comments and 2012 – The End Of The World!!!??

Today I’m running a comment from Ken Kennedy (aka Kenzoid), long time listener, who is commenting on the recent religious stuff. Ken’s got his own blog and podcast, which you can check out here. Thanks for the comment Ken!

Then I talk about 2012. Is it going to be the end of the world??? I’ve had people telling me about this for years now and it cracks me up. I run through this list of the apocalyptic predictions for 2012… and then tear it to shreds. As you’d expect.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.


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GRINDHOUSE Opening Night

According to YourMovies, GRINDHOUSE opens in this country on 31 May 2007! Five weeks after the US (where it opens April 6). I’ve been to the opening night of every QT flick in this country since Dogs, and I’m damned if I’m going to miss this one.

Who else wants to come to the opening in Melbourne? We’ll go out afterwards and record a review podcast.

And if you haven’t checked out the official site for the film, DO IT. Classic stuff.

Censoring Fairytales

Here’s a classic.

I’m currently reading a book at bedtime to the boys. It’s called “The Orchard Book Of Swords, Sorcerers and Superheroes”.

Sorcerers

It has kids versions of classic tales, like King Arthur, Jason and the Argonauts, Ali Baba, etc. Tonight we were reading “Aladdin”. All of the usual things are in there, Aladdin, the magic lamp, the genie, etc. The only surprising thing was that the whole story was set in… CHINA.

A few times in the story it says they are in China. I’m scratching my head while I’m reading it, thinking “surely this was set in Persia”. The characters are all wearing turbans, etc.

After I finish and tuck the boys into bed, I turn to the front cover of the book to see when it was printed – 2003. The year we invaded Iraq. The book was printed in London.

AHA!, I think. I’ve uncovered censorship in children’s literature! The publishers didn’t want to mention Baghdad when we’re bombing the crap out of it so they re-set the story!

And so I start to write this post.

Except… when I go to Wikipedia to confirm the original location of the story, I read this:

Aladdin (a corruption of the Arabic name Alāa ed-DÄ«n, Arabic: علاء الدين literally “nobility of faith”) is one of the tales with a Syrian origin in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, and one of the most famous.

The “China” of the original tale much more closely resembles the medieval Muslim world of the other Arabian Nights stories, so much so that in retellings the “Chinese” element is often quietly forgotten.

The story concerns an impoverished young ne’er-do-well named Aladdin, in a Chinese city, who is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb in the far west….

Well I’ll be….