A Gay Big Brother Marriage?

July 31, 2006 at 4:44 pm · Filed under politics, web2.0

Again, we are reminded what a tedious backwater Australia has become when a contestant on such a naf show as big brother is a shining light for a more progressive and open-minded society. One of the recent former contestants on the show wants to marry his boyfriend and I say, why the fuck not? Not allowing him to marry is similar to saying that women can’t vote or aboriginals can’t vote or another group of Australians can’t participate in one of our institutions. Yes, marriage is an important institution so this is why all groups, regardless of their sexuality, should be allowed access to this institution. When are Australians going to be bold enough to take our rightful place as a progressive nation?

Big Brother evictee David Graham, who used the reality TV show to announce he is gay, wants to marry his partner Sheriff in a civil ceremony. David, 26, was ousted from the reality show last night, leaving two original housemates, Camilla and Jamie, to battle it out for the sixth series (link)

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OurMedia (Community Media) Conference: Sydney 9-13th April 2007

July 28, 2006 at 11:14 am · Filed under events

The conference series ‘OurMedia’ is coming to Sydney in April of next year. The last conference was in Bangalore in India; which unfortunately I missed because I couldn’t get a plane on that date. It is a strange leap from Bangalore to Sydney. Sydney is just so Third World when it comes to ICT compared to India. Sydney is home to all those cultural theorists who wouldn’t know a mother board if they found one in their Focaccia. I am sure that the Indians will teach us how to use technology as long as we keep digging rocks out of the desert to pay for it and buying books from Western Europe to ‘theorise’ it.

The Australian community broadcasting sector is over 30 years old, founded on the principles of access, diversity, localism and independence. The sector is now the largest sector of the Australian media: in 2005 there were 341 community radio stations, 54 additional stations holding or seeking temporary licenses, 76 remote Indigenous community television licensees and 6 generalist community television stations

(link)

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Why did Rupert Murdoch buy My Space?

July 25, 2006 at 10:58 pm · Filed under media, politics, social media, web2.0

Here is the interview that Wired Magazine did with Rupert Murdoch about why he bought MySpace for $580 million. Thanks to Rory of BKK Architects for the link.

Perched on the edge of a bright white power sofa on the supernaturally quiet eighth floor of the News Corporation’s global headquarters, the last thing Rupert Murdoch looks like is a fire-eyed revolutionary. Starched cuffs. Courtly manner. A month past his 75th birthday. But then he starts talking. “To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birth of mass media - which, incidentally, is what really destroyed the old world of kings and aristocracies. Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control.” And he’s smiling (link)

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Chancellor of Germany makes first political podcast

July 23, 2006 at 9:45 pm · Filed under politics, video, web2.0

In a world-first for a mainstream political leader, the Chancellor of Germany has made a political podcast. In the history of innovation in political communication, this is equivalent to Hoover and his political innovations with radio and his famous ‘fireside chats’

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A Stoaway’s Guide to the Pacific

July 23, 2006 at 8:04 pm · Filed under art, video

The new batch of interactives or ‘online documentaries’ (or what ever you call them) from the ABC are really wonderful. Check out the Stoaway’s Guide to the Pacific. It’s a wonderful story, rendered well in flash, with some truly bizzare side journeys. (Produced by the Melbourne-based crew, Arcimedia

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Lost in translation

July 21, 2006 at 5:17 pm · Filed under politics, web2.0

The problem with the ‘information revolution’ is that there is too much information. But this has always been the case; there has always been too much information and individuals, institutions, and governments have always had to balance populism (generalising the world) and social complexity.

One of the things I liked about the left-wing populist Paul Keating, was that there appeared to be two conversations taking place; the conversation embedded within a complex, modern government, and the conversation that translates this to a broad audience (in terms that we will understand in our own relative everyday life). But the thing that worries me about right-wing populists like George Bush, is that there only appears to be one conversation happening.

Is there really a complex man behind that folksy, jocular, straight-talking cowboy? Somehow I doubt it. Or at least, the decisions that he makes on a global scale do not translate well to people outside of the United States. Perhaps this is just the limits of US populism, or just the limits of their leader. Not sure. I, along with the Americans, live in a ‘middle-brow-power’ where the people traded their sovereignty for a IPod. Capture the middle-brow and you run the world. More snobs in the White House I say. The people need a good spanking because the middle-brow does not actually exist. It is an imaginary place, an imaginary place of imagined equity in the exhausted ‘cultural egalitarianism’ settler societies of Australia and America who are still fighting their 18th century culture wars with the kings and queens of Europe (long after they are dead and the new kings now wears blue jeans).

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Australian Success Story Marries his Boyfriend in England

July 19, 2006 at 11:31 pm · Filed under politics, web2.0

When I read that Darren Hayes, one of the singers in the duo Savage Garden, married his English boyfriend of 2 years in England, my first reaction was happiness. But then I realised where I was; in Australia. How sad it is that a society like Australia, that was once the world’s most boldly progressive society, is now such a mean spirited backwater. How sad it is that a society like ours can be so trashed by conservatism that even our most successful exports are illegal here. How can such a mean-spirited, personality-free, low brow, money grubber like John Howard even slither to the top of such a sophisticated democracy such as ours? I suppose it could be worse. I could be an American. How I worry about my American friends and how their once wonderful nation is also being destroyed by a socially weak and selfish administration

(PS. his music is sort of crap btw).

Monday, 17 July 2006

I very rarely make comments about my private life.

But today, as I’m about to begin 6 months in the studio to record what I hope to be the best record of my career, I feel an overwhelming gratitude for the past 10 years of being a performer. Most recently, I’ve been moving toward a career that is more closely aligned with ‘art’ than it is ‘commerce’. And in keeping on this trajectory - I have become increasingly more emotionally authentic in my music, writing and my relationship to my audience. As so many of you have given me your heart and soul over the past 10 years I thought it only fitting that I too return the respect and inform you of the most significant event in my life.

On June 19th 2006 I married my boyfriend of two years, Richard, in a Civil Partnership ceremony in London.

I can honestly say it was the happiest day of my life.

I feel lucky to live in an era where my relationship can be considered legally legitimate and I commend the UK Government for embracing this very basic Civil Liberty.

I’m proud of who I am, and after what felt like an eternity, I’m finally in a place where my heart is secure and content. And I can finally make sense of all of the searching.

I still maintain the belief that families and relationships are not commodities to be sold off for public consumption. In this regard, I am and will continue to be a public person with a private life.

I have always written songs about human relationships and our journey in life. I’ve never felt the need to differentiate or speak to a specific part of society. This hasn’t changed. I will continue to write songs for everybody and hope that the feelings and thoughts I sing about are universal. Today, as I get on a plane to return to London, my head will be filled with all the future possibilities that I hope to explore musically.

To the people who buy my records, come to my shows and demonstrate on a daily basis their love and support for me and what I do: thank you.

Your overwhelming message to me lately seems to be that you are just glad that I am happy. For this, I am eternally grateful.

To my Mum, Dad, Sister and Brother - thanks for always being so cool and loving me unconditionally.

With love and respect always


Darren Hayes

(from his web site)

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Youtube: 100 Million Crap Videos can’t be wrong!

July 18, 2006 at 8:48 pm · Filed under internet, video, web2.0

“The big news of the morning is that YouTube has announced it’s hit 100 million videos served per day. Founded in early 2005, the company has raised at least $11.5 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital. It’s one of many startups offering video sharing services, but for some reason now has an incredibly dominant position. This weekend’s announcement said that 60% of videos watched online are now served up by YouTube”. (link)

Well, it is a lot of videos. But they are mostly crap videos. In fact, most of what the ‘Information Age’ produces is crap. It’s is ok to produce a lot of crap, but let’s not get too excited about it. Let’s not ignore the ‘crap factor’ when thinking about Web2.0. The masses want crap so give them crap. A bit of crap is fine, but let’s not loose our perspective here. A bloke with a video camera is still the same bloke. Only looking at the process gets dull pretty quickly.

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The (Australian) National Forum

July 18, 2006 at 1:14 pm · Filed under internet, media, politics

The National Forum is an initiative that engages with many of the nations most important issues and political processes online. They have a whole bunch of sites; check them out.

The National Forum, publisher of this site, was incorporated as a not-for-profit company to be a vehicle to promote democratic uses of the Internet in Australia. The National Forum site is a virtual Town Square designed to provide free democratic space on the web for our citizens, and shop fronts for our institutions.

We recognise that to be successful this revolution must involve everyone: that it must harness and focus all the forces of civil and political society across the whole spectrum of views. To that end we have already enlisted as members some significant Australian institutions including the University of Sydney, the Brisbane Institute, QUT, the Local Government Association of Queensland, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy and Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, as well as prominent individuals and parliamentarians.

In our first years of operation we have concentrated on building a community through our publication, On Line Opinion. In the last 18 months we have built our legislature - the iParliament; our speaker’s corner - The Domain; an area for conversations - OnLineOpinions; - an area for deliberative democracy - On Line Focus; and the first volume of our library has been put on the shelf - Issues Briefs. We have a lot more interactivity planned for the next 12 months. (link)

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Audio Books

July 17, 2006 at 9:55 pm · Filed under books, web2.0

Over summer, whilst travelling in India, I listened on my IPod, to the whole 40 or so hours of Dostoevsky’s War and Peace (a wonderful book btw). Audio books are great for travelling, as you don’t have to carry the whole book, but apart from this, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of advantages to listening to a book be read by someone else rather than actually reading it yourself. In some ways, I found listening to a book actually more difficult as it seemed to demand so much more of my concentration. When I read a book, I always stop and reflect, but listing was often a relentless journey; sometimes I realised that I have been listening for a hour or two, and hadn’t heard a damn thing.

A new chapter in the audio-book market is unfolding, as the ubiquitous iPod transforms the way Australians listen to spoken word books (link)

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Australia’s Cross Media Ownership Laws Change

July 14, 2006 at 5:16 pm · Filed under media, politics

In line with the some what predictable behaviour of Conservative, laissez-faire ideology, the Australian Conservative government is set to change the laws that protect diversity within the Australian media system. Australia has one of the world’s most concentrated media systems in terms of ownership and the ‘cross-media-ownership’ legislation was in place to protect the Australian people from further domination by large media conglomerates; either local or international.

“Although Australia ’s media ownership laws have remained unchanged for over a decade, debate on the desirability of reform has continued unabated. This debate has been fuelled by the impact of new media technologies, a number of enquiries proposing regulatory changes, and the self-interest of those media organisations that report the controversy. The Government has long indicated that it believed the rules to be anachronistic, and its policy for the 2001 election contained a commitment to amend cross-media and foreign ownership restrictions”. (link)

As history has show us, laissez-faire policies may result in a number of new players in the market in the short term, but then as the market consolidates, large players abuse their position and ‘re-regulate’ it in favour of their own notion of ‘competition’.

Australia’s media system promises to become more lowbrow, more populists, more trivial, and less in touch with the political needs of our people and our political processes. It is our media system and dismantling the regulation that strengthens the diversity within it will simply result in less of the things that matter (like deliberative democracy). Just like oil is to the United States establishment, media ownership in Australia is the breeding ground of the nations most Conservative, and most anti-democratic forces. I just hope that the Australian people are smart enough to instill their own ‘cross-media ownership’ laws in their heads.

What do others reckon?

Further Reading:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1819913,00.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/disaster-for-democracy/2006/07/13/1152637796841.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/brave-new-media-world/2006/07/13/1152637791532.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/packer-in-pole-position/2006/07/13/1152637795995.html

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The Long View of Identity

July 13, 2006 at 2:48 pm · Filed under social media, web2.0

An excellent artictle by Andy Oram on identity and social software (Web2.0)

The vision driving this article is a fervent belief among a far-flung set of researchers, software vendors, and system administrators: when people bring parts of their identities online, they can use the internet more effectively. Commerce sites can recognize them, participants in forums can accept what they have to say, and people who share their interests can cluster more tightly with them (link ).

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Glide Effortless

July 13, 2006 at 1:48 pm · Filed under web2.0

This is an interesting new online service from ‘Glidedigital’ that combines many Web2.0 features. It is an online wordprocessor and calandar (like Google’s new calandar) and provides a facility to stream media (link).

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YouTube at its Best! (2)

July 12, 2006 at 5:58 pm · Filed under video, web2.0

Here is the second of the YouTube Vids (see previous post). This guy speaks some good shit!

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YouTube at its Best! (1)

July 12, 2006 at 5:52 pm · Filed under video, web2.0

Here is an excellent vid from YouTube! A dancing avatar in the gaming world.

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