Hello World — this is Will Swayne. After a bit of a hiatus in activity on the Australian Blogs Blog, I’ve been charged with getting this blog going again to take up the quest of reporting on the Australian Blogosphere.
The first item of business is to assemble a crack team of bloggers to contribute to this blog in a “magazine format”, (kinda like Small Business Branding).
If you’re interested in being considered, here’s a “Job Description” of position(s), plus how to apply:
Wanted: Aussie Bloggers
AustralianBlogs.com.au is aiming to be the go-to site for what’s happening in the Australian blogosphere. The site consists of a tag-centric directory, plus a blog. AB was started by Jon Yau a couple of years back until he sold the site earlier this year to focus on other projects.
We are now looking for 6 to 10 bloggers to share the blogging duties here at the Australian Blogs Blog.
This could be for you if you are:
- Able to craft readable, interesting blog posts (you probably have your own blog right now)
- Can commit to writing a minimum of 2 posts per month, with at least 1 being at least tangentially relevant to blogging and/or the Australian blog / Web 2.0 scene.
- Familiar enough with WordPress to write and publish your own posts without tech support.
We are also looking for an EDITOR to be the head blogger and generally boss everyone around - the main duty of the editor is to keep an eye out for post quality and be main liaison point for the other bloggers in the team.
Here are some of the perks of being a blogger @ Australian Blogs:
- Basking in the kudos of being a contributing writer at the #1 blog directory in Australia.
- You get your profile on the “Authors” page
- Your “resource box” will be included at the end of all your posts
- Your link will be included in the Blogroll
- Did I mention kudos?
How To Apply
If you’d like to get involved, please send an email to me (Will) at info-at-australianblogs-dot-com-dot-au before September 19th with a brief summary of why you think you would suit the position, plus some links to blog posts you’ve done. If you’d like to be considered for the Editor role, please mention that too.
Bests,
Will
About The Author:
Will Swayne is an internet lead generation expert by day and occasional blogger by night. He is the author of the Marketing Results blog and the Acting Co-ordinator Of Bloggers @ AustralianBlogs.com.au.
Sick of the unending checkout queues?
Shitty with crappy car parking at your local mega-hyper-suburban shopping centre?
Then save yourself the hassle:
And the best part is, these guys never ask for the receipt so that they can return it for something else!
About The Author:
I’ve been dabbling with creating websites and online communities as a hobby since 2005. I used to spend the whole day working on other people’s IT solutions - counting down the hours until I could flick on my laptop at home after my wife and kids had gone to bed and hack some amateur code together and put up the website I had pictured in my head.
Why?
I just want someone to tell me they thought it was cool (or thereabouts….)
About The Author:
AustralianBlogs.com.au (via BLOG.biz) launches its first WordPress theme! YAY…(it’s even XHTML-OK…I checked)
I hope it’s a stinging blow I strike for fellow untrained, untalented wannabe web designers.
Download it here at your peril.
About The Author:
The who’s who (spoke to on the day):
Special mention (shared a group conversation with):
These are just a few of the bloggers/web2.0′ers/beer’ers and Interweb’ers that I had the pleasure of seeing/meeting at podcamp perth day 1 2007.
Credit goes out to Chris Quinn for the sweet shot of a podcamp sign.
About The Author:
You have a new idea or product or service.
It’s cool but in its early form - a little edgy and raw.
But it’s got potential.
How do you get the word out?
Hypothesis No.1: Personalise it
If you can’t be all things to all people, road test the idea with a few trusted friends. Cut it down to its raw elements and put it to them for comment.
Put a little spin on it to initiate eyeball engagement. Think of it this way: if your product was a book, what would the cover/title/book need to look like so that the potential reader grabs it off the shelf. Whether he/she ends up buying it will depend on the merits of the transaction - does the book give the reader what he/she needs/wants, but the point is you need to gather the audience before you can even start that spiel.
The AustralianBlogs experience
We thought we’d try our new idea on the inmates/housemates at the Silicon Beach House by individually labelling some beers we brought for Freelancer Friday. Small and hopefully unobtrusive but enough for Bronwen, Myles and Dave to ask the question we wanted them to: “So what’s BLOG.biz?”
Whether or not the new idea meets their needs will depend on how well we do our job in structuring our offering + whether they actually need what we offer….but last things first - let’s make them grab this little idea off the shelf for a closer look.
The Concept
The Yakka
The Execution
Myles Eftos (MadPilot Productions and PerthNorg) and Luke Evans (AustralianBlogs)
Dave Gardner (Intilecta Corporation)
Bronwen Clune (PerthNorg) and Luke Evans
Bronwen Clune and Bronwen’s beer
Beered in absentia: Richard Giles (Scouta) and Jordan Brock (Five Senses Coffee)
About The Author:
Excerpt from Water Corporation’s (WA) latest marketing push.
“water for ALL, forever”.
What I want to know is… what are the WA frogs doing to conserve our water?
About The Author:
Found this sign on the entrance to the main arena at Challenge Stadium, taking a ’state the obvious’ marketing approach.
I wonder what they class as a weapon (Scissors, toothpick, grenade launcher) and who decides?
About The Author:
Looks like we’re tracking at 80:12:8 (%) with the bulk of our visitors either typing in our URL directly or via bookmark.
About The Author:
I’ve been avoiding the Facebook and MySpace crowd since its inception - I didn’t want to be the thirty-something, dirty old man on the barstool of a teenie/twenty-sonething nightclub. However, about the time of the relaunch of AustralianBlogs (or thereabouts) Simone sent me a LinkedIn invitation. I must have signed up a little while ago as it’s fallen by the wayside like my hotmail account. So I gave i a whirl - accepted Simone’s kind invitation to link up and dusted off the resume. This time around, I pasted a link on this blog (as you can see on the top right-hand corner).
It’s terribly uncool to the digerati, I’m sure. LinkedIn’s up there with Amazon, eBay and Yahoo as the giants of the first go-around of the internet boom.
So I thought…PERFECT.
Positives
- good for finding long lost friends
- acts as an online business card or whitepages listing
- might help personal ‘trustrank’
- nice to see the track record
Negatives
- a bit narcissistic - and you do feel like a tosser
- privacy - you can’t control who sees your profile and what they do with it
- can’t hide the bad bits - think of it as web cellulite
Overall, I’ve added 30-odd friends (real friends) and a couple of acquaintances from the blog world. Not bad. The greatest tangible benefit has really been hooking up with long-lost friends but I guess it’s been some help with any interested surfers looking to get involved with AustralianBlogs.
About The Author:
I’m such a lousy unconference unattendee having missed out on the fabulous Perth Barcamp organised by Myles and mates. But my wife seems to think the newborn is much more important (plus we’re in the middle of moving house), go figure.
But this upcoming event might just be in the right timezone where I could sneak out for a few hours (just quietly):
PodCamp is a FREE new media UnConference. It’s for anyone with an interest in media and technology and covers topics such as:
* social networking
* emerging technologies
* podcasting and blogging
* creative media (music and art)
* new media development and startups
* business newmedia marketing
Below are the vitals for PodCamp Perth:
WHEN: October 27 & 28
WHERE: Central TAFE (140 Royal St, East Perth WA 6004)
COST: FREE!
REGISTER: at the PodCamp Perth wiki or email perth@podcamp.info (include your full name, website/blog address, and suburb)
The best part of PodCamp is that “you” help make it happen. Whether you want to give a presentation, volunteer to help bring it together, sponsor the event or simply want to listen and learn, it’s about you getting what you want out of the conference. Everyone is encouraged to get involved in their own way.
If you have any questions or want to get involved – email: perth@podcamp.info.
UPDATE:
Look who else is coming!
Attendees:
- Jared Madden, Emersive / Blog, Hunter Valley NSW
- Adam Purcell, redPixel / Blog, Newcastle NSW
- Nick Cowie, State Library / Blog, Kwinana WA
- Constance Wiebrands, Curtin University Library / Blog, North Perth, WA
- Tama Leaver, The University of Western Australia / Blog, Subiaco, WA
- Graeme Watson, The Film and Television Institute WA / Blog, Fremantle, WA
- Lloyd Johnson, Student @ Murdoch Uni / Blog, South Perth, WA
- Kim Flintoff, Student @ QUT/Lecturer-Tutor @ ECU / Blog, Joondanna, WA
- Kay Smoljak, Clever Starfish / Blog, Madeley WA
- Kate Quinn, LMS Systems Administrator, Blog, Dianella, WA
- Chris Quinn, Programmer/Analyst, Dianella, WA
- Simon Wittber, Blog, WA
- Trevor Bennett, Podcasting@ECU, Mount Lawley, WA
- Eran Malloch, TalkWeb TV / Blog, Bedford, WA
- Bob Cooper Swan Tafe Bateman WA
- Gary Barber, radharc / Blog, Ballajura, WA
- Jodi Linto, ECU, Lecturer, Scarborough, WA
- Lisa Billingham, ECU, Systems Librarian, Joondalup, WA
- Bronwen Clune, Norg Media / Norg
- Liam Casey, Curtin University Library / Bentley, WA
- Julia Gross, ECU Library, Mt Lawley, WA
- Mike Nodding, ECU, Project Officer, Centre for Learning and Teaching, Mt Lawley, WA
- Cat Hope, WAAPA COmposers Blog, ECU, lecturer in music, WAAPA, Mt Lawley, WA
- Eva Dobozy, ECU, Lecturer, K-7 Program, School of Education, Joondalup Campus, Perth,WA
- Chantal Morin, TV Producer www.goodenoughtoeat.net , WA
- Michael Newby, Blog, Bentley, WA
- Shane Henderson, ECU, Lecturer, Game Design, Mt Lawley Campus, Perth,WA
- Kim Tran, Blog, Marketing and the Media, Bedford, WA
- Simone van Hattem, Enjoy Perth / Blog, Perth, WA
- Pascal Wijnberg, Enjoy Perth, Perth, WA
- Duncan Riley, TechCrunch / Blog, Australind WA
- Rene LeMerle, ineedhits.com / Blog, Inglewood WA
- Mike Minutillo, Fujitsu Australia New Zealand / Blog, Stratton WA
- Jackie Pedley, West Coast TAFE, Lecturer, Joondalup WA.
- Jenny Lane, ECU, Course Co-ordinator, Lecturer Graduate Diploma in Primary Education, Mount Lawley & Joondalup
- Lutie Sheridan ECU Library, Perth WA.
- yovita Winarto ecu student Perth WA.
- skribe Forti skribe’s Second Life porn emporium, South Perth WA
- Kristy Haines Market United, West Perth, WA
- Tammy Cooksey Market United, West Perth, WA
- Shadi Moqarrabin, ineedhits.com, Yokine, WA
- Angela Han, ineedhits.com, Nedlands, WA
- Kathryn Greenhill Murdoch University Library , WA / Blog
- Stewart Greenhill Curtin University, WA / Blog
- Bruce Paulik, InsideScreen, Claremont, WA
- Dihan Wijewickrama, wellnet, The Carriage WA
- Nicholas Tan, ECU, International Student Adviser, Joondalup, WA
- Kat Black and Jasper Cook, Byte Me! Festival / VJzoo, North Perth WA
- Nick Hodge, Nick Hodge, Sydney, NSW
- Paul Montgomery, FanFooty (including Coaches Box podcast) & Tinfinger / Blog, Geelong, Victoria
- Richard Giles, Scouta / Blog, Perth WA
- Cassandra Colvin, ECU, International Student Coordinator, Churchlands
- Michael Corry, iiNet, Perth
- Sue Waters, Mobile Technology in TAFE / Podcast, Perth WA
- Penelope Coutas, EdD Candidate, Murdoch University, Fremantle WA
- Chris McCormick, Hello, Perth WA
- David Koh, Positive Gold, Karrinyup,Perth WA
- Crispin Harris, Blog, Perth WA
- Natalija Brunovs, Seedpod / Blog, Mt Lawley WA
- Nikki Haseldine, ECU, Library, Perth WA
- Kerry Johnson, Education Officer, educationau, Work: edna’s E-learning Insights Personal: Neotenous Tech, Adelaide, SA
- Nicole David, Curtin University of Technology, Web Multimedia Designer, Bentley, WA
- Ross Buncle, Perthpunk / Blog, Mount Hawthorn, Perth
- Teresha Aird, Infoactive Media / Blog, Iluka, Perth
- Michael Smith, Leeming WA
- Alessandra Morrone, Darch WA
- Matt Aird, Infoactive Media / Blog, Iluka, Perth
- Caine John, ECU Student, Perth WA
- Marziya Mohammedali, kikei.dot.net, MInT Student - ECU, Projects Assistant - UWA, Mt Lawley WA
About The Author:
Found an interesting post from Seth Godin about free postage from the Galapagos Islands.
Key thought: Getting people to do something for nothing, that they actually enjoy and at the same time create a demand for the wider community to be involved.
Recruiting agencies get your pad and pen out, becuase that right there is what I call recruitment!
The only question left now is; How does one get the ball rolling, start the momentum of hipe and loyalty to fullfilling postion/job/task you have available in your business, non-profit org, blog or other:________. ???
Ill let Seth answer that one. 
About The Author:
The Experiment:
Measure the effectiveness of online polls, and if they add any value to a website.
The Stats:
Days poll ran: 9
Total votes: 14 (12 if you don’t count the 1 vote each Jon and I contributed)
Total unique traffic during poll: 3740
Winning answer: I find polls… “highlight how lonely my website is”
Summary: 79% say no to polls, 21% say yes
Does only 0.374% of visitors willing to vote justify taking up valuable real estate on your web-page?? Are you prepared to take the risk of “highlight how lonely my website is”?
In our case it was more of a matter of giving the poll a go, the result just being a few laughs.
But hey, maybe its just the demographic (Australian Bloggers) that let us down? AustralianBlogs.com.au ain’t that lonely is it?? Would be interested to hear if there are any poll success stories out there…
About The Author:
July was a ripper month for AustralianBlogs, we:
Just when you thought you couldn’t care less about how we spent our work day, AustralianBlogs is proud to announce that August is “Double your Traffic” month. We hereby declare that our target for COB 31st of August 2007 is 20,000 unique visitors (up from 10,000 u-u-uniques last month).
For our next trick, Jon will get a proper haircut.
About The Author:
Want to know more? Listen out for the upcoming podcast where we break down the stats.
www.AustralianBlogs.com.au
About The Author:
Distracted by work obligations and the arrival of my second child, AustralianBlogs and BuggerAll bore the brunt of my neglect in the last few months.
However, things kept simmering along with the fabulous Sara Goldstein who kept a steady ship at the Sydney Weblogger meetup (now up to 124 members!) and the quite unreal Mick Real even found time to help me kick off the Brisbane Weblogger meetup (21 members!).
Having had a nice break (and being re-introduced to baby-induced sleep interruptions) I am re-energised and have begged Luke Evans - gun web designer to join the team. I’m excited to have him on board and we’ve mapped out a bunch of really exciting things to bring to AustralianBlogs.
A trashtalking hobbit trapped in the body of a profanity-impaired web designer, I look forward to being his biggest pain in the arse.
About The Author:
Kung Hei Fatt Choy.
I can’t think of a better time to launch AustralianBlogs’ latest offering….BuggerALL(.com.au, that is)! The FAQ can be found here.
I’d like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous Year of the Pig, and that over the next few weeks of festivities, that you eat, drink, indulge and get to do bugger all.
About The Author:
Richard MacManus’ Read/WriteWeb ran a blog post by Vishal Sharma in Oct06 showcasing the Top web apps in Australia. Placed in a situation where he was always going to be pushing the proverbial up the hill with a Fisher-Price Funtastic shovel, Vishal did a great job. Of most interest to me, however, were the comments on the blog post. Some great startups that were still under the radar.
To indulge my interest in this area (and also to continue on from RWW’s landmark blog post), I have created a wiki and a wiki page. Please feel free to add/delete/amend as you see fit.
· 3eep (url)
· 88 Miles (url)
· Atlassian (url)
· atmail (url)
· b5media (url)
· babbello (url)
· bluepulse (url)
· Buttonator (url)
· buzka (url)
· Campaign Monitor (url)
· Developers Portal (url)
· FactBites (url)
· Feedity (url)
· FindIt (url)
· Fullasagoog (url)
· FWDitOn (url)
· Gamespot (url)
· Gnoos (url)
· mecanbe (url)
· Minti (url)
· NationMaster (url)
· Omnidrive (url)
· PerthNorg (url)
· RaveAboutIt (url)
· Realmap (url)
· Remember the Milk (url)
· Scouta (url)
· ScribbleHere (url)
· Smooth Budget (url)
· Spyk (url)
· Studentface (url)
· Suburb View (url)
· Sukk (url)
· Tangler (url)
· The Australian Index (url)
· The Podcast Network (url)
· Tin Finger (url)
· Touchstone (url)
· Whooiz (url)
· Wyacracker (url)
· Zapr (url)
· Zipphy (url)
· Zookoda (url)
About The Author:
I spent a lot of time over the christmas and new year break thinking about the nine months that had elapsed since launching AustralianBlogs.
We had extended our local directory to include AustralianPodcasts. Added a newspaper-style aggregator of local blog posts in News2. Launched our Wordpress-driven bloghost, Weblogger. Started to experiment with a local wiki, AustralianWiki, and I even dabbled in maintaining a personal blog, RealEstate2. (We also launched the Sydney weblogger meetup, which is looked after by Sara Goldstein, the fantabulous Bargain Queen)
One achievement that I was particular proud of, was that the generous folk at Port80, thought enough of my work to select News2 as a finalist in the 2006 WA Web Awards. Kay Smoljak, of Clever Starfish (Kay + Dave + Anton), thanks so much for your coffee-buddyship, guidance and technical expertise (i.e. “web standards, we’ve got standards?“).
Not too shabby, and of course more work/pruning needs to be done in properly launching and building a successful website. (And I wouldn’t class any of mine in the ’successful’ bucket yet. It’s a nice start, but more blood, sweat and tears required I think.)
So, on to my announcement.
My balcony-time over christmas led me to think that you can’t really be working in the web if you haven’t done ecommerce.
So, the AustralianBlogs group is proud to announce the launch of our first ecommerce store, FLOWERS.org.au. We are an online florist backed up by an international floral network (with a strong local base) offering beautiful fresh flowers and free delivery Australia-wide. All proceeds go to funding AustralianBlogs.
Please keep us in mind (esp. over Valentine’s Day!)
About The Author:
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