IN A FIGHT to compete with the global search engine market Microsoft announced their new replacement for Windows Live Search this week.
Launching locally next Wednesday, and previewed by nineMSN on Friday, partnered companies Microsoft and nineMSN (PBL media) unveiled their new search engine Bing.com.au.
The product, of which the companies say has been two years in the making, is consider a brand change by many and more of an upgrade to what Windows Live Search currently offers.
Launching in beta to begin with it will see the launch of a bunch of new features that won’t be available locally straight away.
Hot Spots, Categorised Search and Vertical Search Categories covering local travel, health and shopping are some of the features we won’t be seeing on Wednesday.
However, Instant answers, Best match, Hover preview, Rich image search and Video thumbnail preview are some of the new innovative features we will see on launch.
When asked how long it would take for nineMSN to get its localisation team into gear, they said they’d announce something in the next month, suggesting one had not been formed.
Once such a team is initiated on its task to make the search engine more localised, the team would then take “six to 12 to 18 months” to roll out the localised features.
The two localised features that stood out from the rest, Bing cash back and a flight information tool, are features Google will no doubt look at implementing.
Driving Traffic
The companies hope to use mainstream television programs on the nine network to drive traffic to their online portal, such as using end credits and “editorial cues” that will suggest to viewers to head on over to Bing with a certain search term.
According to nineMSN director of MSN products, Alex Parsons, the Australian search engine market is worth around $800 million, and is set to become “the new rivers of gold” online. Whether it be 1 percentage point at a time, the two companies hope to grab a piece of that $800 million dollar pie.
NineMSN said that Google currently owns 90 percent of the global market, but locally nineMSN has a strong hold of it, with about 70 percent of Australian active internet users touching the nineMSN portal at least once a month.
A missed opportunity?
Initial impressions of the search engine indicate nineMSN are after more page views than anything.
By adding features that will keep users within their portal such as Bing cash back, a price comparison tool, and a flight information tool that can predict and show previous pricing of flights to certain destinations, there are quite a good number of features that could lead for a switch from Google if they don’t adopt some of the features Bing has.
One advantage nineMSN has over any other search engine is the fact they’re the default home page for Windows Internet Explorer users ‘out of the box’.
Embracing new features like a background picture that changes daily is something I think a lot of tech-savvy users are not going to be interested in. The brilliance behind Google is its ability for it to be simple, fast and relevant to use. On the other hand you have users like my mother and grandmother who don’t care about Google and love the fact nineMSN has news inbuilt into its portal as well as search.
The name
Bing… to bing…do you bing? These are some of the questions the marketing team would’ve been asked to try out on the public. A name is important. If the product is good then it really should not matter… or should it? Can you imagine nine network presenters telling you to Bing a certain product or telling us to “head on over to bing” to search for the latest video of karl stefanovic drunk? I just can’t imagine it. Only time will tell.
Tech Wired writer Ben Grubb was flown to Sydney for the launch of Bing.com.au
Claire Werbeloff, the 19-year-old that had her 15 minutes of fame extended by fabricating an eyewitness account of a shooting in Sydney’s Kings Cross, generated over 40,000 conversations online, to which the ad industry estimates is worth almost $200,000 in equivalent advertising dollars in social media.
A service that has been tracking conversations about Claire Werbeloff, BuzzNumbers, is suggesting that 41% of the 41,186 online conversations about Claire took place in social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, whilst a further 27% of conversations occurred on blogs and forums, and 12% on News sites.
The CEO of BuzzNumbers, Nick Holmes à Court, said that he was impressed by the amount of conversation Clare had generated.
“It’s been great to track the spread of conversations online about Claire over the last week,” he said
” She is this year’s Corey Worthington,”
BuzzNumbers attributes the top five Influential destinations online that contained conversations or mentioned Claire Weberloff to:
“It just shows how powerful a medium the social web is, particularly the amount of revenue it can generate for an individual or company through exposure.”
Do you think Claire deserved the publicity she received?
A NEW website claiming to save you dollars at the online checkout is attempting to break into the Australian market.
Tjoos.com.au, the seccond stage of an Australian-based US-driven start-up, is claiming to save you dollars online.
The site, already a success in in the states, has this month decided to break into the Australian coupon marketplace.
Tjoos founders, Bart Jellema and Kim Chen, were apparently frustrated with the online shopping experience they were receiving in Australia.
The two then decided they would extend their already successful Tjoos.com website to Australians.
When speaking with co-founder Bart Jelemma earlier this year, he told Tech Wired that the US market was where it was at.
“It’s very big in the US, not so big in Australia,” Jelemma told Tech Wired.
Three months on and he’s taken a different view; he’s decided to test the waters in Australia.
The Australian version of the website currently hosts 1600 coupons including 50 exclusive to Tjoos.
The Tjoos team are also working on a price comparison engine they hope to launch later this year.
“Ever since I started on Tjoos, I’ve been amazed at the lack of quality and objectivity in price comparison sites,” Bart said
“…we are planning to do the same thing as we did with coupons, create an advertisement free, high quality, simple to use site for price comparison.”
The Tjoos start-up began when Bart and Kim lived in the Netherlands in Bart’s parents attic for 3 months.
The two then moved to Australia where they bootstraped their start-up.
With Tech Wired now four months away from turning two years of age, where should it head and what should it endeavor to cover?
Starting originally as a Podcast, Tech Wired has now existed since the 30th of September 2007.
Since existing it has merged into more of an investigative blog that now endeavors to cover whatever raises the interests of its publisher, Ben Grubb.
It’s been a mix between items that interest him in the journalism world, to very topical issues such as mandatory internet filtering.
According to Google Analytics there are a fair few people who stop by to read the things that are written (around 15,000 unique browsers last month).
In terms of RSS subscription it varies due to the Podcast and news feed using the same RSS, but from the latest Podcast download there are around 500 listening to the ramblings of Ben and other contributors.
Along the way Ben scored a couple of freelance gigs. He is now working with News Digital Media (news.com.au) and iTnews (itnews.com.au), where he now covers Australian consumer tech and IT news for those in the ICT industry.
This now leaves Tech Wired on the back burner, covering stories Ben knows won’t suit the mainstream.
With that out of the way, where do you think Tech Wired should head?
AN AUSTRALIAN blogger is hoping to highlight what’s going on in Africa by setting up a blogging outpost to get a poverty-stricken community’s voice heard.
- Notable Aussie blogger sent to Africa on a one week awareness mission
- The organisation behind it wants to get the real message heard
Australian blogger and political commentator, Stilgherrian, is preparing himself for a journey to the United Republic of Tanzania on behalf of ActionAid Australia.
The initiative, as part of ActionAid Australia’s merge with Austcare on June 1, will see Stilgherrian flown to Tanzania on a mission to raise awareness of what’s actually happening in poverty-stricken countries such as Africa.
His mission is to use every available channel open to him in a “fight to end poverty and injustice”.
By embracing technology he intends to blog and hopefully upload a daily video diary of what he sees, as well as teach the local aid workers on how to do the same thing before he leaves.
The strategist behind it all, Fi Bendall, told Tech Wired that the mission, as simple as it may sound, is far from it.
“It’s been quite a long process,” she said.
Bendall added that she thought ActionAid Australia were making a bold decision by using her chosen strategy of sending a notable blogger to Africa.
Bendall said that her research showed that being transparent and open is what the mission aimed at doing.
“It’s refreshing to see them (ActionAid Australia) take this approach,” she said.
“The research says that you’ve got to keep it real.”
This was reaffirmed by the CEO of ActionAid Australia, Archie Law, who described donators as needing to see an outcome, not just a one way conversation.
“We know from research that for the public to engage with social causes, they need to see outcomes from their dollar donations, not just the devastation,” he said.
Stilgherrian and Archie will both be venturing off to Tanzania in the next couple of weeks upon approval from locals.
Tech Wired spoke with Stilgherrian just before he had his vaccinations in preparation for the trip.
When asked what he hoped to achieve from going on the mission, he said he was just going to report it how he saw it.
“As I’m going independently I don’t have to stick to a particular policy line,” he said
“I can just say what I’m seeing and honestly report my emotional reaction.”
He added that his other reason for agreeing to the mission was to experience what it would be like to live in a poverty-stricken country.
Armed with the essentials, some knowledge, and satellite phone technology, Stilgherrian doesn’t know what lies ahead.
“…(It’ll be) a very intense week of being exposed to an awful lot of things all at once,” he said.
Stilgherrian’s mission can be followed at http://stilgherrian.com/toto/
The below interview was for an article I co-authored with iTnews’ Brett Winterford.
The interview was conducted with Professor Reginald Coutts, one of the six panel members for the National Broadband Network.
You can read the full story here: Minchin rebuked by Expert Panel ‘whistleblowers’
Apologies for any grammatical mistakes in advance.
Ben: Has there been a cost benefit analysis on the NBN?
The government made an announcement on April 7th.
In terms of the broad directions of the FTTP, the core back bone, broadband, wireless, and satellite backhaul et cetera,it is all consistent with what we recommended.
In terms of the broad capital costs the number forty-three billion dollars is the original costings that were certainly around in the industry for FTTN, which is fibre just going to a node in the street and not all the way to the home.
The numbers that were really being talked about, total cover costs, were about fifteen billion dollars, of which the Government obviously was talking about 4.7.
If you look at a number of quite comprehensive reports that have been done in the UK, the BSG reports, that are all in the public domain…(they suggest that) FTTN, all the way to the home, you sort of multiply on the amount of capital, it varies on many factors, anywhere between 3 and 5.
What contributes to about 80 percent of that capital cost is what we call civil engineering works.
For example if you decide, as they did in Tasmania, to use overhead (power lines) rather than bury, that makes a significant impact on that capital cost.
If you’ve got access to ducts of not only Telstra, but other utilities, that can make a significant difference.
Ben: To put your quote of Telstra having to be a part of the solution, what do you say to that?
For the proposed NBN, in my view, Telstra has to be part of the solution, not the solution.
I chose those words carefully because Telstra having not only significant infrastructure right around Australia in terms of the copper plants, the ducts et cetera, but also because it actually does have fibre connecting all the exchanges right around the country, but also because it’s such a significant market participant, so it has to be part of the solution.
That can range from them being an investor in the NBN….potentially leasing some of its infrastructure… a whole number of options.
You can’t do something like this (NBN) and pretend Telstra don’t exist.
Ben: Did the Rudd government dream up a figure of fourty-three billion dollars?
I’d dispute that.
My response is that there is a broad basis for the number.
That goes back to….the various economic modelling that has been done in the public domain, but also a number of key consultants around the world including Ovum…who’ve done various examples of both capital and operational costs of NBN vs. FTTH.
Ben: Was there further analysis after your report?
I’m not aware of what further analysis they did subsequent to our work since the 21st of January…and I know they did further analysis.
Certainly the government has been doing a lot of work.
Ben: You guys didn’t come up with the figure?
No.
This is was what annoyed me particularly in Minchin’s statement…that the panel were not asked to evaluate the governments proposal…we’d been disbanded, we’d done out job.
I’m saying that figure is consistent with the sort of number that I’m…aware of coming out of a whole number of studies.
He’s (Nick Minchin) being the minister for opposition…I mean I guess he’s doing his job, if that’s the job specification.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today announced 16 million dollars worth of investment for Gipps TAFE in Victoria as part of the Governments 1 billion dollar TAFE modernisation. The investment is said to help fund linesman training for the National Broadband Network (NBN).
In the Prime Ministers new hip way of announcing things, today through micro-blogging service Twitter, the Prime Minister announced funding for NBN linesman training.
Julia & I just announced $16m investment for Gipps TAFE @ Chadstone. Part of nearly $1b TAFE modernisation investment across the country.
Gipps TAFE helps train linesman to help roll out the national broadband network which will take 25,000 jobs for 7 years. Massive!
- Fifty-eight percent of Australian full-time workers would like to work from home.
- Sixteen percent would take a 5 percent pay cut for having the ability to do so.
According to new research conducted by Citrix Online over fifty percent of Australian full-time workers would like to work from home, with sixteen percent saying they would give up five percent of their pay packet for being able to do so.
The research, commissioned independently and backed by Citrix, showed that 16 percent of Australian full-time workers would give up five percent of their pay packet if given the chance to work remotely, though a whopping sixty percent wouldn’t want their pay packet touched as a result.
The independent research has been released as part of a new report entitled ‘Worldwide Workplace: The Web Commuting Imperative’.
Keep in mind that the research has been backed by a company that creates software that allows you to work remotely.
This article is now available on News.com.au
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has released its response to Senate questions it took on notice regarding current operation procedures it uses to act upon when it comes to handling reported prohibited online content.
Yesterday afternoon the ACMA submitted to Parliament its answers to Senate questions regarding numerous practices it undertakes to ensure prohibited content online is dealt with appropriately.
The questions, put to the ACMA by various Senators on February 23rd of this year, were put on notice for the ACMA to come back at a later date to answer.
One of the questions, asked by Greens Party member Senator Ludlam, was whether the ACMA had been referred to any content that was found to be that of “RC – Child – depiction”, and if so, whether it had been reported to the Australian Federal Police or State or Territory police forces.
The ACMA responded by stating that where possible it notified the Country of where the content was hosted.
“In the financial year 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2008, ACMA took action on 410 items of prohibited content and potential prohibited content which were hosted outside Australia and which were considered likely to be classified RC in accordance with item 1(b) of the Films Table of the National Classification Code.”
“Of the 410 URLs, 344 URLs were referred to a hotline which is a member of the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE), for assessment under applicable legislation in the country concerned, and referral to the relevant law enforcement agency in that country, if appropriate.”
“Sixty-six items of content were referred directly to the Australian Federal Police, due to the lack of an INHOPE member hotline in the country in which the content was hosted.”
The ACMA also added that an additional 11 items of prohibited content were hosted in Australia during that period.
“In the same period, a further 11 items of prohibited content which were hosted in Australia, and which the Classification Board classified RC in accordance with item 1(b) of the Films Table of the National Classification Code, were referred to Commonwealth, and State or Territory law enforcement agencies.”
When quizzed by Ludlam about the time frame that ACMA operates by when dealing with prohibited material, the ACMA responded by stating that it acted on material as soon as possible.
“In the case of other Australian hosted content likely to be classified RC, ACMA generally issues an interim take-down notice and asks the Classification Board to classify the content within 2 to 5 working days of receipt of the complaint.”
“As the process for content hosted outside Australia does not require initial consultation with a law enforcement agency or mandate classification of the content by the Classification Board, ACMA is also able to make a decision about and take action on such material within two to five working days in most cases.”
“ACMA must ask the Classification Board to classify all potential prohibited content that is hosted in or provided from Australia.”
“This process generally takes 5 to 10 business days from the date of the request. Complaints about other content hosted outside Australia are generally able to be resolved within five business days.”
The ACMA also responded to claims from Ludlam that suggested from a study that authorities act 150 times faster on bank phishing websites than they do on child sexual abuse websites.
The ACMA saw no relevance in the study as it was conducted overseas.
“ACMA understands that the July 2008 study examined processes undertaken outside Australia.”
“As ACMA is not aware of comparable studies of reporting and take-down processes undertaken outside Australia it is not in a position to advise on such a comparison.”
“ACMA can however provide information on the general timeframes which apply to its processes for dealing with complaints about suspected online depictions on child sexual abuse.”
“Under clause 47 of Schedule 7 to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA) (and prior to 20 January 2008, clause 30 of Schedule 5 to the BSA), if in the course of an investigation ACMA locates online content that is prohibited content (as defined by clause 20 of Schedule 7 to the BSA) or potential prohibited content (as defined by clause 21 of Schedule 7 to the BSA) hosted in Australia, it must direct the host to take-down the content or otherwise take action to ensure that it is not prohibited content.”
“A person who is given such a notice by ACMA must comply with the notice as soon as practicable, and in any event by 6.00 pm on the next business day, after the notice was given to the provider.”
“Since 1 January 2000, ACMA has directed the take-down of 372 items of prohibited content hosted in Australia.”
“In all cases the content host, hosting service provider or links service provider has complied with the notice within the required timeframe.”
Many other questions were asked and are available for download online,
Some quick interesting facts:
- The ACMA revealed that it currently staffs close to 600 people on an ongoing basis and hires 26 temporary staff.
- According to the ACMA 1122 complaints about online content were received during the period 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2008.
- Forty-six of those complaints were anonymous and did not contain contact details.
- Complaints containing contact details in the form of a contact email address came from 740 unique email addresses.
