Category Archives: Media

Very rubbery figures from ANZ

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In the first week of each month the ANZ Job Advertisements report is presented to the media as if it is some kind of key indicator (and predictor) of the health of the Australian economy. Two things have always struck me about this monthly event;

  1. Each and every month the news outlets jump on this data, and
  2. It is complete rubbish.

Let me explain. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with the recruitment industry knows that for numerous reasons some ads just aren’t real. They do not exist. These jobs never have existed and never will. They are creative figments of the recruiter to lure candidates into their databases. Bait to create the illusion of a talent pool to be used to further entice companies into the client list.

This is not all jobs put forward by recruiters of course but let us do some conservative assuming…

There are in this country around 10,000 recruitment consultants. Now let’s assume that just 50% of these place a bait ad every second month (50% of the time). That’s 2,500 jobs every month that never, ever existed except inside the mind of a recruiter.

Is that a big deal? 2,500 is surely not going to make any impact. Wrong. The September 2009 report had a total of 10,863 ads. That means the conservative 2,500 extra ads calculated here accounts for an error of about 25%.

I have more faith in astrology as an economic predictor than the ANZ Job Advertisement report.

For many years Reuters, one of the finest media outlets in the world, didn’t bother to even report the fiction that is the ANZ JAR.  But the Australian news media is so devoid of original thinking that they pounce on these rubbery figures and say, ‘thank you, thank you ANZ PR hack for not making me have to think today.’

What’s Your TweetRate?

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I think a new metric needs to be added to the social media mix. Actually a slew of new metrics to better understand your own tweet/ing habbits.

Your +TweetRate is the number of tweets you average (create) in a 24 hour period. Easy to calculate and easy to compare account v account.

Next is your -TweetRate. This is the number of tweets you are receiving from the people you follow in a 24 hour period. Again, easy to calculate. I hope some geek is writing an API for this right now!

Lastly, and most importantly, your =TweetRate. This is the number of tweets in a 24 hour period that you have read and, if appropriate, clicked on the link and read the contents of that link.

All these metrics provide fascinating insight for the individual twiterer so you can easily delete followees who fill your timeline with “having coffee”, “need beer”, or “my boss is a <insert expletive here>”

My rationale for wanting to clean the timeline is simple; it’s easy to miss the gold when the stream is full of shit.

But until some geek or nerd creates the above tools it’s a manual chore that most people haven’t the time for and subsequently great tweets get lost. Cleaning your timeline may even mean unfollowing friends or colleagues who ‘tweet because they can’.

In my timeline, these are the first to go.

The Science of Twitter

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This interesting article from Fast Company features new research that proves 9 ways you can increase the ‘retweeting’ of your tweets.

Interesting stuff except that it’s one of those research projects where now that the evidence has been published, the circumstances will change. I predict within 6 weeks, if not sooner , these ‘rules’ will be out the window.

A common occurrence with this kind of ‘benefit’ research is that the mid section of the bell curve (the big bit) will adopt these tactics in their tweeting methodology. On some levels that is not so bad. I for one like complete sentences and punctuation. I also like that if the majority of people adopted and adhered to Point 3 then twitter traffic would drop by at least 50% and therefore junk tweets may disappear altogether. Epic Win!

But if everyone tweets, as per Point 9, at 4Pm on Fridays, then there is going to be an Epic Fail as twitter falls over.

Whale fail special edition during dust storm in Sydney

Whale fail special edition during dust storm in Sydney. Thanx to @warlach for the headsup about this image.

Kick a man when he’s down? If it’s Kyle, no worries!

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2Day FM eat their dumb
2Day FM eat their dumb

Poor old Kyle Sandilands. Just when he thought he was already at the bottom comes this. An ad for 2Day FM’s Hamish & Andy’ Show running on several sites drawing content from other sites and featured this golden moment. 2Day is Kyle’s employer/handler.

It is supposed to be featuring a ‘weird and whacky’ news story. Unfortunately  this day it picked up Mr Sandilands as the weird and whacky story. I’m not saying it was inappropriate because Mr Sandilands fits the mould perfectly.

Alternatively this may have been a very direct message from 2Day managment.

No news here, news.com.au

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Just when I was starting to think that news.com.au was lifting their game comes this story;

Advertisers pay for personal Facebook information

Shock horror! Oh, the humanity. On what planet does this constitute news. It may be to the ‘journalist’ who wrote this story but for every other person on Facebook its well known. Actually, expected.

Perhaps rather than coming from a journo this ‘story’ has fallen from the mind of a Myspace (owned by News Corp) PR hack and published on all their sites in some half hearted and poorly conceived strategy to bolster the flagging fortunes of Myspace.

And the comments on the story should give the editors some food for thought – if they do in fact think at all. Consumers expect to be advertised to when they receive a service for free.

Stories like this prove that news.com.au and the larger organisation is out of touch with their audience.

Labor ready for Costello coup, secret research shows

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Left Field: Headline: Labor ready for Costello coup, secret research shows.

I clearly remember prior to the 2007 Federal Election calling into ABC 702's Breakfast Show with Adam Spencer. He had a professor of politics on who was rabbiting on about the Howard v Rudd situation. The conversation moved to alternatives to Howard as the polling was running about 99 to 1 at that point.
My question, which I thought was obvious, 'Do you think that Labor would be running internal polls on Costello?' 

The expert was taken aback and responded in the typical manner of a cornered dog – and attacked. 'Of course not' was his very abrupt reply. So abrupt Adam thought it would be best ask a follow up question based on mine. This got the expert very upset and he changed the subject in an effort to deflect his obvious unexpertedness.

My point is; an expert need not be a know-it-all. In fact a relationship will be built if you are able to listen to your audiences' point of view and reflect upon it, rather than rejecting it outright or trying to belittle them.

So good then crap

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Is it any wonder Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph is mostly used for wraping fish and chips or lining bird cages. At the end of a well written and balanced article is the following pearler:

‘The Iguanas affair – in which Ms Neal allegedly threatened the jobs and liquor licence of staff at the Gosford nightspot – has threatened to destroy the Government.”

Destroy the government? Are you fucking kidding me? Which government and on what planet!

Interesting the hack/s who penned this thought better to put their name to this crap. It could well have been the trusty idiots who call them sub-editors – not good enough to be editors or journos, just, well, sub. In all ways of life really.

But you tell me; does the last par strike you as out of context to the rest of the story?
Link: Iguanas scandal ends Belinda Neal’s career | NEWS.com.au.

The Iguanas affair – in which Ms Neal allegedly threatened the jobs and liquor licence of staff at the Gosford nightspot – has threatened to destroy the Government.

Retailers cane Sunrise over bully tactic

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Link: <a title="Retailers cane Sunrise over bully tactic | NEWS.com.au Entertainment” href=”http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,23753015-10388,00.html”>Retailers cane Sunrise over bully tactic | NEWS.com.au Entertainment.

This is a fascinating story. Boland tries to take the moral high ground using the Rudd 07 campaign line of ‘Working Families”, but falls flat because no one of the big 3 wants to play ball. Then the big 3 decide to hang Boland out to dry in the Sunday press.
Now sit back and wait. Will Boland and his team at Sunrise (ratings falling every day) step up the campaign? Or will he run away?
I think this was a neat idea executed poorly. Very poorly, Mr Boland. I suggest next time you or one of your dream team hatches a plan like this you run it past your marketing team (experts) in house counsel (more experts) and your corporate communications experts too. With a bit of thinking (big end of town style) you could have made this work.
How long with Mr Boland’s masters continue to let him make the network look like idiots and stand over merchants to their clients, ie advertisers?
If I were from those big 3 my first move would be to take all my advertising from 7 and ask Mr Stokes for a please-fucking-explain. And if I was any other 7 network advertiser I would be very worried that on-air mentions now constitute editorial enhancements. Actually, from a viewers POV, I’m worried about that too.

The secret to getting rich: get other people to do the work for free!

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The major media outlets have for a long time been wanting your images and videos to use in their broadcasts and editions. Now the cheap skates have gone one step further and are telling people what they want! We want it for free but we want you to do it better

It used to be that media outlets paid for rare pix. Now they just expect us to provide them with content.

This is how Rupert gets to be a billionaire; not paying for professionally trained photographers or videographers and letting the consumer believe that the crappy hand held image or video was the best they could get.

Storm Warning/