I have always wanted one of these caps that Che Guevara used to wear. I’ve looked all over Melbourne but couldn’t find one. Then last week I found The Che Store. The cap is said to be “the same Basque-style beret, with a silver metal star on the front and tip on top, worn by Che.”
Efisia Fele, aka 01000101 on Twitter (it’s binary for ‘e’), aka Fiz to her friends, is a Melbourne-based actor, writer and director of horror films. I caught up with her a few days ago to talk about being a horror entrepreneur, as well as a wide ranging discussion about her directing debut LOST NOT FOUND, her lead role in the US production DEATH WALKS THE STREETS, the importance of horror as a genre, her favourite horror films, and much, much more.
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TPN now has a HQ in Second Life! Add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends (that’s me). I’d be happy to show you around and help you find your SL legs.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
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Yesterday I had one of the most exciting experiences I have had since starting podcasting 3+ years ago.
While driving around Melbourne, I participated in the 2Web Crew podcast with Duncan in SF, Bron in Perth and Laurel in Sydney. I had my Macbook open on the seat beside me, connected via 3G card, and my Snowball mic sitting in a cup holder.
Dangerous? Not really, it was all hands-free.
But… that isn’t the exciting part.
While we were recording the show, UncaDunc (Duncan’s new nickname) had set up Ustream to stream the chat live and we had some folks listening in. Now that is exciting but it isn’t the best bit. The best bit was how Big Mick Liubinskas set up a Tangler forum to follow the chat. This, in my opinion, takes podcasting to an entirely new level. We not only had listeners chatting with us (of course, I didn’t follow any of this until I parked at my destination), but they were dragging in YouTube videos that we were talking about, screen grabs of websites, posting up photos of themselves listening… I felt like I was in a room with a hundred people. It truly was exciting.
I’ve often talked about how I am keen to see podcasters find ways to innovate so podcasting becomes more than radio on an ipod and this combination of Ustream and Tangler is, i think, a huge leap forward. You can also embed the Ustream stream into Tangler (or your own website) so people don’t need to open up Ustream itself.
I tried to get this all working myself when I interviewed Wayne Turmel for G’Day World but it is kind of tricky to get working. Duncan helped me out later and I found these instructions for setting it up on a Mac. I haven’t found any yet for Windows but will keep an eye out.
2007 was a big year for TPN in lots of ways. We grew; we stumbled; we struggled; we survived. Bootstrapping a start-up isn’t glamorous. Trying to keep a fast-growing business alive when revenues are still small and you are funding it organically can be frustrating. Every day brings new challenges. Things you survive by telling yourself “one day it won’t be like this”.
We started off the year with a re-design of the homepage and lots of fast growth. Around the middle of year our server admin quit and I had to put a stop to adding new shows. Then a couple of months later our webdev quit. For the last couple of months we’ve been getting by with favours from friends whenever we need IT support. So it’s been frustrating on lots of levels. In March I thought we would finish the year with a million listeners a month. We missed that goal. Since March we’ve been hovering between 450,000 – 500,000 listeners a month. Now – when I compare that to some of the radio stations in Melbourne or Sydney, I feel pretty good. TPN, currently, one full-time employee. Me. No funding. No sales team. No IT team. Just me and a team of excellent, dedicated and PATIENT podcast producers who have tolerated our bumps over the last couple of years. I want to thank them all for their sense of humour when things go awry (like they did again over the last couple of days when out FTP server flaked on us) and their continued support for the TPN vision.
However, despite the struggles, it was a pretty good year. As you can see from the numbers below, we served nearly 5.5 million listeners during the year (okay, that number is slightly bullshit – it’s our monthly unique visitor numbers added together – but it sounds good so I’m sticking with it), who listened to nearly 7 million TPN podcasts (that number is legit). That’s a HUGE number, especially when you consider that since we launched in early 2005 we’ve only delivered a little over 11 million podcasts. Thinking about that 7 million number for a second – if we assume that each podcast is an average of 30 minutes long, that means you listened to us for 3.5 million hours (145, 833 days or 400 years non-stop) in 2007. No wonder your brain is hurting.
Of course I also want to thank our listeners and supporters. Those of you who listen to our shows, interact with us on the blogs, in Facebook, at MODM, Twitter, Second Life, etc. Without you we really would be what the cynics in the mainstream media think we are – people sitting in our undies, talking to ourselves.
A couple of blocks up from my house in Yarraville is our local dvd joint, Video Flash. The boss, Mike, has a large wall running down the adjoining street. He said that for years it was covered in just awful graffiti and he spent a lot of time out there with a brush and bucket trying to keep it looking clean. Then a couple of years ago, a couple of young street artists asked his permission to produce some art on his wall. He said it was okay as long as the work wasn’t offensive. Since then, he said he hasn’t had to clean the wall once. Graffiti artists don’t sabotage street art. Then, a week ago, the same guys came back and refreshed the wall with a new work. I watched them work for a while and then went out today to capture the finished work.
I think it looks terrific, adds a lot of character to the store, and I’d love to see more store owners inviting street artists to liven up their places.
Last month I recorded a couple of pilot episodes of a new podcast series where I walk around Melbourne with one of the City of Melbourne’s “greeters”, Jill. This is a project cooked up between myself, Tourism Victoria and the City of Melbourne. We’ve recorded two pilots and I’d really appreciate it if a few of you in Melbourne would grab these and do the walk while you listen to the podcast and then give me feedback on how well it works.
The first tour takes us through Melbourne’s seedy past and is called “Politics, Prostitutes and Poverty”. The second, “Lingering in Laneways” takes us down some of Melbourne’s hidden laneways to discover some of the best kept secret bars, shops and restaurants.
Get both of them at TPN’s Melbourne Confidential site.
