I recently had the good fortune to host the Commercialisation EXPO 2006 conference held in Melbourne. It covered all the right areas and was a great success, but it is clear that one troubling issue remains – the chasm between innovation and marketing is as wide today as it has ever been.
It was an outrage. In March, celebrity US blogger Arrianna Huffington caused a squall of controversy when she cobbled together quotes criticising the Iraq war from various articles and interviews with George Clooney, gained approval from Clooney’s publicist and ran the post on thehuffingtonpost.com under Clooney’s name, with a few of her own words tossed in for good measure. It was perceived as an assault on the central tenets of journalistic professionalism and drew fire from many quarters (leading to her qualified apology when the great man arced up). But The Huffington Post is a blog, not a newspaper of record, and Ms Huffington had as many defenders as accusers during the affair.
It was an outrage. In March, celebrity US blogger Arrianna Huffington caused a squall of controversy when she cobbled together quotes criticising the Iraq war from various articles and interviews with George Clooney, gained approval from Clooney’s publicist and ran the post on thehuffingtonpost.com under Clooney’s name, with a few of her own words tossed in for good measure. It was perceived as an assault on the central tenets of journalistic professionalism and drew fire from many quarters (leading to her qualified apology when the great man arced up). But The Huffington Post is a blog, not a newspaper of record, and Ms Huffington had as many defenders as accusers during the affair.
After nearly a decade of protest, Show Business has discovered the web. Whether it is Disney selling episodes of Desperate Housewives on iPods, Fox screening prime time TV shows on the web or Hollywood Studios selling full versions of their movies online, this year has seen a major turning point for the titans of Tinseltown. Now everyone is scrambling to unlock new networks and future fortunes.
On mention of the word “mashup”, approximately half of you will immediately and unselfconsciously think of boiled spuds. This is a given.
Now, mashups are the latest boom trend at the cutting edge of Web 2.0. In short, they are hybrid web-based applications combining taken from more than one source. In the brave new world of Web 2.0, linear is boring. Mono is tres uncool. You’re all invited to the mashup jamboree … as long as you know how to share.
Lists. Endless lists. The latest curse of the web are those endless swimming pools of customer data – most popular, most active, most tagged or downloaded. Personally, I hate them. They tell me nothing, other than other people’s aggregated bad taste. Worse, they miss one of the internet’s most subtle and powerful features – the discovery power of networks.
Has it really been six years since the world’s first wave of internet entrepreneurs fell through that plump cloud they’d conjured in the sky, taking with them the turgid hopes of our fledgling new economy? It’s been six years peppered with hard luck stories, investor reluctance and, lately, cautious hope rekindled. Australian internet startups were in the thick of it back then. The survivors emerged with slightly bloodied noses and wisdom far beyond their years.
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