Fraser Talk

Argentina mourns ex-president Alfonsin

2009-04-02T01:35:00.005+13:00

Argentina's first president to be democratically elected after the "Dirty War" military dictatorship, Raul Alfonsin, has died of illness aged 82.

One month of Twitter

2009-03-05T08:12:00.002+13:00

I've been using Twitter regularly for about one month now and it's been a great tool for networking with new people.

It makes things a lot more immediate and really all about what people are talking about "right now". I've managed to catch a live webcast and radio interview which I would have missed otherwise and its excellent for the latest news.

Twitter is two years old this month and with the number of users growing rapidly there seem to be more New Zealanders joining each day, making it even more useful for communicating and networking.

So after one month I have been pretty impressed with Twitter and I can see why there has been so much mania about it. Time will tell if it's a stayer or just another passing fad.

You can follow me on Twitter @frasernz

Travel search with Wego.com

2009-02-03T13:45:00.007+13:00

Whenever someone mentions to me they are travelling overseas I always suggest checking for cheap flights on the travel search website Wego.com. I was really impressed by its results and I got some really cheap flights to Argentina myself. And now that they have an affiliate programme I have even more reason to suggest them. So here is a shameless plug. :)

Go to our New Zealand Travel page on infonews.co.nz to start your airfares search, help support infonews and hopefully get some damn cheap air tickets too. Or follow this link to go straight to their site.

If you have your own website then you too can join their affiliate program.

Thanks and happy travelling.

Project Management Software

2009-01-28T09:23:00.006+13:00

When I read Julian's blog post 15 Signs That You Urgently Need Project Management Software straight away I knew that I was a number 8. I keep a notepad on my desk and list all my work, gradually adding new tasks and striking out completed ones. When the page is no longer readable I rewrite the list on a new page.

So I decided to give ProWorkFlow a trial and my biggest regret was that I didn't try it out sooner. It was very straight forward to set it up with all the websites and projects that I manage and one of the biggest surprises was that now I work in a virtually paperless office. I still keep a pen and paper handy but so far they have been gathering dust.

The time tracking feature has been one of my favourites and with one click I can start or stop timing on any project. With the need to record my time over a fairly large number of projects and clients each month this automated timesheet is ideal for me and makes it so much easier to track where my time is going and manage my work load.

I already rely a lot on Gmail to manage my work but ProWorkFlow seems to be the missing link that I never realised I needed.

Screenshot of ProWorkFlow projects manager page:

The last 7 years in Hip Hop

2009-01-20T09:53:00.004+13:00

Skillz have been rapping up the year in hip hop (including a bit of NBA and NFL of course) for the last seven years. The 2008 one gets a bit political with some great lines in the second half. 2007 is the only one they made an official video to go with it and is one of my favourites. Enjoy

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

newszealand.co.nz relaunched

2009-01-07T10:06:00.003+13:00

newszealand.co.nz was originally setup to help myself and Peter monitor various news sources in the New Zealand media to help us with the running of infonews.co.nz.

Following positive feedback from a number of people we have relaunched the site with an increased number of sources and topics.

The website uses the Google Feeds API and is similar to Alltop.com and popurls.com which you may be familiar with.

We are continuing to add more sources and topics and hope it will be a useful resource for a range of people.

As always we appreciate all feedback so please let us know what you think.

Welcome YouTube New Zealand

2007-10-25T09:11:00.000+13:00

The YouTube team was in Auckland yesterday to launch a local version of their site and it was great to meet some of their awesome team. Apart from the slight faux pas of having 3 out of their 4 youtuber guests actually being aussies it was a successful afternoon. We got an interview with YouTube's International Manager along with comments from TVNZ and also TV3 entertainment reporter David Farrier, see our coverage of the launch on infonews.co.nz.

Our interview with David Farrier featured briefly on his TV3 clip of the launch.

YouTube's political editor chats with TVNZ

The YouTube team in Auckland

Finally some New Zealand content at the launch (Young Sid - Undisputed):

infonews goes live streaming

2007-09-23T11:28:00.000+12:00

Yesterday Peter and I took news coverage by infonews.co.nz to the next step by successfully live streaming the Barkers 600 Alive event using ustream.tv.

The event was to raise awareness of prostate cancer and was held at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland with all the participants stripping down to Barkers boxer shorts and forming a giant 600 on the field -- representing the 600 men who die from prostate cancer each year in New Zealand.

The intro from our live streaming coverage can be found here. [Blogger wont seem to allow the ustream.tv embed unfortunately.]

We still made a couple of videos for YouTube and the final coverage can be found on infonews.

The whole setup is fairly straight forward holding the DV camera while carrying the laptop connected to it a satchell bag as can be seen in the photo below. Thats me on the left getting ready to go up high in the crane with some of the other media.

The potential of live streaming makes coverage of events far more interactive with the audience and seems to be highly addicitve for us so watch this space for more live coverage in the future.

infonews TV

2007-07-24T09:02:00.000+12:00

infonews.co.nz continues to grow with new members and contributors each day and the latest stats from Google Analytics shows 16,000 visitors in the last month.

There are lots of infonews related projects that Peter and I have been keen to develop but the most recent is setting up a channel on YouTube which you can find at www.youtube.com/infonewsNZ.

For our first outing we went to the launch of the Buy New Zealand Made Manufacturing Media campaign launch and interviewed Sue Bradford, Dick Hubbard and David Cunliffe.

We also got to see some imagery from the upcoming road show and dispite hearing it numerous times during editing various videos I still really enjoy it. You can check it out below.

Kingdom of Tonga

2007-07-12T10:34:00.000+12:00

After travelling to Australia, Europe and the United States a number of times for orienteering and holidays it was great for me to explore the Pacific Islands for the first time and enjoy a mid winter holiday right on the doorstep of New Zealand in Tonga.

The week was spent swimming, snorkling, boating and generally enjoying the sun in Vava'u with my extended family. The first half of the week was spent on Treasure Island which was entirely booked out by our family and was truely a surreal place. (Pictured below)

The second half of the week was spent in Neiafu, the main town of Vava'u where there was more of the same activities in the sun plus some mountain biking and a visit to a local kava house. For the memory, below is a drive through of the main street of Neiafu.

With temperatures in the mid to high 20s it seemed like a perfect time of year to visit and a welcome break from winter, arriving back in New Zealand just in time to experience the weather chaos in the upper North Island.

Update

2007-05-13T12:26:00.000+12:00

Visits to infonews.co.nz have continued to grow as Peter and I have worked on the site over the last 2 months. We filmed at the Auckland Half ironman and our videos from this and other events can be found all in one place at endurancesport.tv.

Peter also did an awesome effort covering the New Zealand swimming champs meet in Christchurch. Peter filmed the finals along with interviews with the countries top swimmers who will be heading to the Olympic next year such as Dean Kent and Corney Swanepoel. You can check out all the videos on YouTube.

For those who complain I don't update my blog enough, I have added some links to news that I find interesting on the right. So if I haven't updated my blog in a while maybe you will find something interesting in the links.

infonews.co.nz

2007-03-12T17:04:00.000+13:00

Since finishing my journalism course down in Invercargill I have made it back to Auckland and along with Peter Hodge, a fellow student, have set up a local news website, www.infonews.co.nz.

The website is in the spirit of citizen journalism and anyone can contribute with stories, photos, event listings and YouTube videos, but the site is also complemented with professional content from NZPA. So if you haven't already, go check it out, start contributing and your feedback good or bad is welcome.

There is still plenty more work to be done on the site but thanks to everyone who has helped with their advice or support to date.

Apologies for the silence on this blog over the last few months. Highlight of the summer would be the week down in Wanaka for the long-distance triathlon Orca Challenge Wanaka. We managed to cover the triathlon, getting photos and video, while also competing as a team with Peter doing the 3.8km swim, Brent Edwards the 180km cycle and me the marathon run. You can check out the videos we made on the official website at www.challenge-live.co.nz.

I will leave you with this video I filmed of the fireworks show by Groupe F in the Auckland Domain last Saturday night:

A visit from Helen

2006-11-02T17:59:00.000+13:00

This is not a political blog (it is a Geek blog according to David Farrar), but today we had Prime Minister Helen Clark visit our journalism class at the Southern Institute of Technology for 10 minutes of Q and A. We also had National MP Bill English visit last month (see photo below). Some impressive guests to conclude my journalism course that finishes up next week. The following week sees me return "home" to Auckland.

Intern @ nzherald.co.nz

2006-10-14T15:47:00.000+13:00

I recently spent two weeks as an intern at nzherald.co.nz for my Diploma of Journalism course I am studying at SIT. It was a great opportunity and very interesting to see how the website is run firsthand.

On my second day I attended a meeting in which Neil Sanderson, online editor for more than six years, announced he was resigning. The rest of the time was not quite as eventful but I really enjoyed acting as a section editor, particularly looking after the technology section for most of my second week.

I also had the opportunity to do some graphics and created an interactive graphic showing the results of all the NZ Herald-DigiPoll results back to 1999. This is a pretty basic graph that was done in a short time, but it is an example of how online news can provide information that is not so story-centric.

There is plenty of change for online news in New Zealand at the moment with the Herald expanding its website operation and also purchasing finda.co.nz, a free business listings and classifieds service similar to craigslist.org.

Meanwhile Fairfax’s Stuff.co.nz and TradeMe are now being linked closer together with Stuff to focus on news and information and directing its property and job listings to TradeMe.

Setting up a 'kiwi'

2006-09-21T20:37:00.000+12:00

Blogosphere humour with a New Zealand connection :)

Convergence

2006-09-20T19:13:00.000+12:00

Steve Safran writes an interesting breakdown of how convergence is affecting a range of industries from internet providers, record labels and television.

He says it's not a prediction, "simply the logical scenario based upon the current and developing technologies, along with some common sense."

His analysis of newspapers sounds on the money:

You have a shot here, an outside shot, but it’s a shot. You have the most information of any source. More than local TV. Your only impediment to taking a commanding lead is your own intransigence.

Your toe-dipping into video has to become a full-on swan dive. The newspaper reporters you currently have do not make for good video reports. But they’re a start. WKRN hired an investigative reporter away from a newspaper. Why not start hiring reporters with TV experience?

As Adrian Holvaty writes, you need to stop the model of collecting a lot of information and then distilling it by the column inch. Share the information you’ve gathered. Have a report, yes. But also have the research available. The PDFs you have of the indictment? Put them up. Look at how The Smoking Gun made its bones, simply by posting police arrest reports. Do that.

Put crime and fires into context for us. Instead of the one-day “someone was stabbed” report, show us how that fits into a whole. Map out crime by each city section. Show me where I should buy a home, and where things would be a little dicey for my kids to play. Update that with every crime and fire, and suddenly your already-gathered information tells me why I should care. Otherwise, I don’t.

Invite tons of local content and contributions. Have sites dedicated to local bands and let them sell their music right there. (See “Record Labels: Weasels” above.) Make your classifieds more than text. If someone is selling a car, let them show it in motion. Then charge them more. THAT ad will get a hell of a lot more attention. Have realtors buy video walkthroughs. Have local restaurants buy video ads for their place.

Your commodity is local information now. Buy, sell, trade.

lonelygirl15

2006-09-13T12:08:00.000+12:00

Lonelygirl15 has been somewhat of a modern day who dunnit mystery on YouTube. Her personal video diaries posted on YouTube were suspected to be done professionally and much online sleuthing has been done to find her true identity and who is behind it all. One of the many unanswered questions was how she could remain anonymous for so long, but it appears coming from New Zealand has helped somewhat. MediaShift has the details.

Google Maps adds address searching for NZ

2006-09-07T19:04:00.000+12:00

It is now possible to search for specific addresses with Google Maps. Thanks Mike for the tip off.

This of course means that Google Maps and Zoomin.co.nz (and smaps) are now offering a very similar service.

One thing I have noticed is when you search for an address Google include the postcode, however they are using the old codes, not the new postcodes introduced in June this year.

The power of TradeMe

2006-09-02T17:07:00.000+12:00

Mapping website smaps.co.nz has overtaken Google Maps as the most popular Travel Maps website in New Zealand, according to Hitwise.

Smaps is run by TradeMe, with traffic from TradeMe accounting for 49% of visitors to the site. Propelled into the number one spot within just three weeks of launching, it shows the value of a link from TradeMe. The technology for the smaps website is provided by Projectx who provide their own Zoomin mapping service. Despite offering more features, including satellite imagery, than smaps, it is ranked number 6.

Smaps will also be integrated into the rest of the TradeMe website:

Trade Me plans to develop smaps by linking its electronic maps with property listings from its own site, Mr Macdonald says. Car auctions may also link to maps, letting buyers see the seller's location.

Meanwhile, recently launched Trade Me Jobs has also climbed into the number two position for Employment websites in New Zealand, according to Nielsen NetRatings.

The Goodnight Kiwi

2006-08-29T14:50:00.000+12:00

A slice of Kiwi history, this video will bring back memories for some people. (via For The Masses)

Goodbye news paper

2006-08-26T13:25:00.000+12:00

And hello news plastic. Plastic Logic have been developing plastic electronic displays which they claim will be replacing newspapers within three years. I have always followed developments with great interest, but this is the first time I have seen video of the technology in use and it is very compelling. Check out the video below or for more videos and images see their Hi-Res Downloads page. The clip from TV2 GoMorgen Danmark is very informative.

ASB Business podcast

2006-08-26T12:32:00.000+12:00

TVNZ began distributing their first podcast this week. The podcast for their morning show ASB Business is available as either audio or video.

The podcasts are another move by TVNZ to offer viewers programming content on multiple platforms so New Zealanders are able to access local shows from a variety of sources.

So far they have been offering four items per day ranging in length between 2min and 5min. Full TVNZ press release.

The Good Stuff redesign

2006-08-26T12:04:00.000+12:00

My redesign of The Good Stuff party pill website was launched this week. Complete the online survey with the password 'gs136' to get free stuff with your next order.

Citizen journalism round up

2006-08-23T12:15:00.000+12:00

Citizen journalism continues to gain momentum in the United States with CNN the latest to join the party with their CNN Exchange. Lonely Planet are also planning something that sounds suspiciously like citizen journalism.

A new term for citizen journalism is 'network journalism' and Mark Glaser explains this open source reporting concept on his MediaShift blog using my online news study as an example. Nice!

Orienteering is a sport that usually receives very little coverage in traditional media, but with all the interest in citizen journalism it is no longer such a problem. It was interesting to note that at the recent World Orienteering Champs in Denmark, each country was encouraged to have a team blog. While not all countries took up the opportunity it still provided plenty of great coverage, including "Exclusive - Hanny Tells All" when junior Hanny Allston won Australia's first gold medal at a Senior level.

And to finish up all this citizen journalism news check out this mini-documentary "Citizen Journalism: From Pamphlet to Blog." (via Lisa Williams)

Harcourts map real estate with Google

2006-08-17T19:52:00.000+12:00

Harcourts are using Google maps to show property locations. http://maps.harcourts.co.nz/

The launch of the highly sophisticated Google-powered mapping systems on www.harcourts.co.nz property listings is believed to be a first for a major Australasian real estate brand. The Google-powered maps provide Harcourts’ property listings with a street map, detailed satellite image, or a hybrid of the two with street names overlaying satellite imagery to pinpoint exactly where each property listing is.

nzherald.co.nz continues growth

2006-08-16T12:28:00.000+12:00

APN's nzherald.co.nz has achieved 60 percent year-on-year growth in advertising and will continue a strategy of organic growth. They currently have two new jobs advertised.

In the online media sector, APN remained focused on a strategy of organic growth as opposed to large-scale acquisitions favoured by rival Fairfax - which paid $700 million for Trade Me in March.

"Obviously we had the opportunity to buy Trade Me and we chose not to," Hopkins said.

Online was now contributing close to A$20 million in annualised revenue.

APN had already launched careers website Search4Jobs and planned to launch several new sites in the classified space and in other specialised business areas over the next 12 months.

The Herald's online news site nzherald.co.nz had achieved 60 per cent year-on-year growth in advertising revenue and was turning in record revenues every month, Mr Hopkins said in today's Dominion Post newspaper.

Mr Hopkins added that his management believed the advertising revenues from nzherald.co.nz could be higher than those from the Herald on Sunday newspaper by the end of the year. The site's revenue growth was expected to continue into the 2007 financial year.

More Stuff online?

2006-08-14T20:46:00.000+12:00

Fairfax Media, who own Stuff.co.nz, have appointed Nic Cola as Group Head of Digital New Zealand. This is a newly created position of an expanded division which all sounds promising for online news in New Zealand.

“I am delighted that we are able to capitalise on the talents in our wider group in this way, and excited that Fairfax in New Zealand will now accelerate our digital plans,” Ms Withers said.

“A key priority for Fairfax Media in 2006 is to implement news and information digital strategy and this appointment will trigger early rollout of a number of initiatives.

“Nic's leadership of digital in New Zealand also enhances our ability to make the best possible use of content management systems across the Tasman, and migrate online production opportunities here rapidly.”

I wonder what initiatives they plan to roll out. When I did my study of NZ news websites I noticed how little content had been produced specifically for the web. 80% of the top 100 United States news sites had reporter blogs, but in New Zealand there is a distinct lack of them.

Rugby is so popular here and with the amount of coverage it demands and gets, having an All Blacks or rugby blog would be a pretty safe bet to give the mainstream public a taste for blogs. With the amount of coverage TradeMe gets in the news, especially since its purchase by Fairfax, it seems it could have a blog of its own too.

Carnage Hill and other videos

2006-08-12T12:33:00.000+12:00

Today I dug up some old videos that people have sent me to put up on my MapTalk orienteering website and put them on YouTube. It's a great way to resurrect videos that otherwise would have been lost and forgotten about. Hopefully this will encourage a few more O videos to be put on too.

UPDATE: Check out www.maptalk.co.nz/tv for the latest editions.

Respect to The Don

2006-08-11T12:08:00.000+12:00

It has been confirmed that it was the real Don Brash, leader of the National party, that posted comments on Kiwiblog.co.nz.

"I haven't done it in the past. I don't expect it to be a daily or even a weekly occasion in the future either (but) my objective is to communicate with as many people as I can in as many different ways as I can."

Well that is a shame he doesn't plan to do more. I have respect for him taking part in "the blog world". Maybe he should take the lead from his American counterparts and start blogging. (I think he has taken advice from Americans before?)

I love Aotearoa hip hop, but if the National party want to be "cool" I would suggest they have a go at more blogging rather than trying to look gangsta.

Use of the internet by New Zealand news websites

2006-08-10T10:44:00.000+12:00

A study of websites of America's top 100 newspapers has been carried out by the Biving's Report to evaluate the use of 14 different Web 2.0 features. Other people have now done similar studies for other countries including Italy and Uk. I have done my own study of New Zealand sites. The results are below and I think New Zealand sites still have plenty of room for improvement.

Southland Times

2006-07-11T22:10:00.000+12:00

I am currently doing two weeks of work experience at the Southland Times which has been keeping me busy. It has been very interesting covering a range of stories and a great experience so far. I went to a house that had been the scene of an armed offenders call out the previous night. All the windows in the front of the house had been smashed out and I heard first hand what had happened which was quite cool.

That afternoon I was sent to a Kidzone Festival and told to write a colour piece on it. The chief reporter told me to release my inner child and this would also mean that I had to get my face painted - it was not optional. So I was a bit unsure at first, but went along with it and had fun in the end. After jumping a bike into the local stream for a story and making the Tv news earlier in the year - this time my antics made it onto the front page of the newspaper. The story I write was included along with the photo displayed.

Online future for broadcasting

2006-06-27T14:55:00.000+12:00

More video streaming over the internet is planned by TVNZ as its website traffic increases. Page impressions for on-demand video streaming of News were up 35% from April to May.

The faster, better broadband bill was introduced to parliament yesterday and TVNZ's announcement is a good sign that there will be quality content to drive demand for broadband in New Zealand.

With more content going online and improved boadband on its way, is there any point in getting excitied about digital television and the choice of up to 18 new channels with Freeview?

In the United States, where the majority of internet users are now on broadband and digital Tv has been transmitted since 1998, stations are choosing to distribute programming directly to viewers via the internet.

"If people are going to put time and energy into creating a channel, at the moment, why not create it for the Internet instead of waiting for multicast?" said a senior executive at a Big Four network who asked not to be identified.

Digital TV brings with it increased operational and programming costs and an unknown commercial value for broadcasters. Meanwhile, new subscriptions and ad revenues are being found by offering content online and surely this is the way of the future.

Podcasting in New Zealand

2006-06-19T16:16:00.000+12:00

Radio New Zealand is to extend its range of programmes that are available as podcasts. It sounds like the initial three month trial has been pretty successful.

Over the past three months we estimate that there have been 400,000 programme downloads from the Radio New Zealand website – and the popularity of the new podcasting service is growing at more than 10% per week.

Scoop has also launched an audio and video podcast feed.

Premium content?

2006-06-08T18:21:00.000+12:00

Premium content on the Herald website requires a subscription which ranges from $3 for one day through to $99 for twelve months, but why would you bother paying that when it is made available for free at subs.nzherald.co.nz?

NZ Herald editor's blog

2006-06-08T17:36:00.000+12:00

The New Zealand Herald's online editor Neil Sanderson now has a blog.

He also wrote an interesting article on citizen journalism [Premium Content] in which he said:

As an alternative [to citizen journalism], I like the notion of "participatory media", which can include everything from reader feedback to online communities built into news sites, and which seems to describe the vital relationship that ought to exist between journalists and the rest of society.

Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for their website.

War Journalist Action Figure

2006-06-08T17:25:00.000+12:00

Very cool, I want one! And very much a sign of the times. [via cybersoc.com]

Challenge Queenstown

2006-05-29T15:46:00.000+12:00

The Challenge Queenstown website was officially launched today with entries opening for this ironman-distance triathlon. The inaugural event is in January 2007 but there have already been a number of entries. This is my latest website project and was a chance to use the newly released Google street maps for the course map.

Bebo No 1 in New Zealand

2006-05-24T12:34:00.000+12:00

Bebo is the most popular social networking site for New Zealand internet users and now ranks in the top 20 websites of all categories according to Hitwise.

The website, which recieved US$15 million in financing this week, is now more popular in New Zealand than MySpace and this is reflected in this Google Trends graph.

Telecon

2006-05-19T21:24:00.000+12:00

This is a great spoof of a Telecom ad. As seen on The Techsploder.

Google maps New Zealand!

2006-05-19T12:52:00.000+12:00

Google has today launched street level mapping in New Zealand as part of its Google Maps service. The maps seem to provide very good detail and even has property boundaries. Google and Zoomin.co.nz now both offer quite similar services so I am sure it will be very competitive between the two from now on.

Thanks to Mike for the tip off!

BBC Mistakes Cabbie For Net Expert & Broadcasts Interview

2006-05-15T20:32:00.000+12:00

Kiwis Triumph in Online Oscars

2006-05-15T01:07:00.000+12:00

New Zealand web design company Shift has triumphed again at the 10th Annual Webby Awards, the Internet equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscars. They take home the Webby for Best Tourism Website for their work on Tourism New Zealand’s www.newzealand.com/travel. Shift also won the award last year, and it’s the third time they have been nominated.

Top ratings for TVNZ website

2006-05-11T13:02:00.000+12:00

TVNZ.co.nz tops the list of most popular TV and radio websites in New Zealand as measured by Nielsen NetRatings. The site attracted almost 28,000 unique visitors from New Zealand in the first week of May. It also won the Best Website award at the recent Qantas Media Awards.

Zoomin mapping service

2006-05-10T16:25:00.000+12:00

Mapping site ZoomIn continues to impress me with its service and functionality. It is now possible to easily include maps in blog posts just like below. They recently added satellite photography view and have also done an Australian version. Excellent stuff!

SIT website redesigned

2006-05-01T11:28:00.000+12:00

The website for the Southern Institute of Technology has been redesigned and at the moment the lead story is one that I wrote for the campus page in The Southland Times. I wrote it back in March and was my first story that I got published in print. Not exactly sure why it is on the SIT website now, but I'm not complaining!

Weddings

2006-04-09T12:16:00.000+12:00

Three weddings in four weeks has kept me pretty busy and I have neglected to update my blog. I had weddings in Wairarapa, Marlborough Sounds and Christchurch. It was a new experience being the MC at Andrew Thomspon's wedding in Wairarapa. Something that was a little nerve racking at first, but it was a great bunch of people and a great setting and all was well. The second wedding was for cousin Sarah who I don't think I had seen in about 10 years! It was cool catching up with some of the family and an awesome setting in Portage, Marlborough Sounds. The third wedding was in fact a civil union in christchurch and a chance to catch up with some friends from Auckland. Anyway, it is back to normal in Invergiggle now as I try to get back on top of things. I will try and keep you posted.

Making the news

2006-02-24T14:02:00.000+13:00

For my journalism course I am required to have a certain number of stories published in the newspaper. Today I made it into The Southland Times, but it wasn't a story I wrote rather a photo of me taking part in some of the Orientation week activities.

The activities included riding a minature bike into the local Otepuni Stream and also a piggy back race up and down the stream. The photo was of the start of the piggy back race but there was also coverage of a couple of us biking into the stream on the Southland TV news last night including a very brief interview with me.

A short video clip that I took of the bike action into the stream can be viewed here.

Freedom go to hell

2006-02-20T20:33:00.000+13:00

Well I guess this guy has the freedom to say what he likes! What message would you give this guy?

Live and direct from Invercargill

2006-02-07T22:40:00.000+13:00

Well Fraser Talk nows comes to you live and direct from Invercargill. I started my Journalism course today and have been down here almost a week. Some of the days have been about as cold as Auckland in the middle of winter, despite it currently being in the middle of summer, but other than that everyone I have met has been very friendly and I have been enjoying discovering a new part of New Zealand to me.

Plenty of people have been visiting my World News page so check it out if you haven't already. The page uses Google maps and web feeds from Newsvine which is restricted to registered users at this stage but if you want an invite get in touch with me.

Just in case you were wondering, I am not the only person blogging, Technorati (the 'Google' of blog search) now tracks over 27.2 million blogs which results in about 50,000 new blog posts per hour. But maybe I am the only person blogging from Invercargill...

Lazy Sunday

2006-01-29T20:06:00.000+13:00

This Hip Hop music video, Lazy Sunday, is pretty classic stuff. "Google maps is the best, double true".

Race ends for Team Sun Latte

2006-01-16T19:52:00.000+13:00

Team Sun Latte are out of the Trans Atlantic rowing race after capsizing their boat and abandoning ship. The boat had a sprung a leak, possibly from the earlier shark attack, and were awaiting the arrival of the support ship Aurora when it all happened.

At approximately 1am NZ time this morning the boat capsized. The crew had little warning, one minute they were bailing water out of the cabin the next they were upside-down. “It was quite a surreal experience going round and round in one of these boats,” said Iain. Fortunately the boat did right itself but in the process Tara received a head injury that would later require an, as yet unknown, number of stitches.

The team were rescued from their emergency life raft and hope to recover their boat over the next 24 hours.

How do you spell blog?

2006-01-05T22:07:00.000+13:00

Ok, so I started my own blog, why should I let everyone else have all the fun right? Yeah, this is pretty cool and Blogger sure makes it easy to set up your own blog. The whole interface for writing new posts is pretty flash too, its even got a spell checker! Might as well test it out....

hmmm, "blog" replace with "bloc" it suggests!?

Aaah yeah, you would think they would have added 'blog' to the dictionary!?!

A Day at the Newspaper

2006-01-05T21:40:00.000+13:00

I quite enjoyed Newszone, a Newspapers in Education interactive feature "designed to be a fun, interactive way for young people to develop an interest in current affairs and keep up with the news." Designed for kids, I still enjoyed it and had a bit of fun building my own newspaper. Found the "Day at the Newspaper" interesting and can't wait learning about the real thing when I start my one year Diploma of Journalism course in just over a month now.

It was a bad day for print newspapers in the eastern US today when the lead story for most papers spun 180 degrees from "12 miners found alive" to "12 miners dead". The Newsdesigner blog has a good selection of front pages ranging from the East coast newspapers through to some West coast ones which made it in time.

As Steve Outing says, "those wrong front-page headlines staring out of newspaper street racks all day are embarrassing." Some Editors turned to their blogs to explain their predicament.

Trans Atlantic Rowing

2006-01-04T22:18:00.000+13:00

Rob Hamill, aka The Naked Rower, is blogging the progress of Tara Remington and Iain Rudkin as the row across the Atlantic Ocean for Team Sun Latte in the Trans Atlantic Rowing Race. They started at the beginning of December and are currently approaching the half way mark.

This is a website that I designed and coded and has received quite a lot of visitors, especially when their boat was attacked by sharks which was reported on by a number of media outlets including CNN.

It has been quite an adventure so far, besides the shark attack they have also had to deal with hurricanes, black outs and curious boats. At this stage they are predicted to finish on 31 January 2006.

Web links

2006-01-04T09:00:00.000+13:00

Ok, I have added a few website links, firstly my orienteering website Map Talk along with Bass Drop run by A-Tech, aka Andrew Thompson, for all you drum n bass fans. Now if you have ever travelled with Simon or Dominic Teahan you probably now they are very keen on their trucks but you may not know about their X Trucking website, New Zealand's most eXtreme looking Trucks. It is worth a look.

No doubt I will add a few more in the future.

Went to see King Kong last night too. I really enjoyed this and was most impressed by it. Peter Jackson sure likes his long movies!

Welcome to Fraser Talk

2006-01-03T17:13:00.000+13:00

Welcome! Well after going blog crazy over the holidays on a spur of the moment decision I decided to set up my very own blog. Not really sure what I will end up blogging about but given my interests it will probably cover a range of topics from training for Ironman, Orienteering, journalism and the world wide web.