Last week, a new Australian news site, The Wall, launched into public beta… Why is this exciting I hear you ask? Well, The Wall, simply put, is a very different (and refreshing) take on the traditional news based web sites.

The Wall describes itself as:

…a new kind of social news site that provides a unique view of the stories that are being shared, discussed and debated in Australia. The site covers the latest breaking news and will often pick up stories ahead of the news cycle. Each topic will feature links to the best articles, pictures, videos and commentary.

And then goers further to explain that:

The Wall extends far beyond a traditional news website, highlighting conversations Australians are having around sports and music events, TV shows and conferences as they are happening.

In simple terms, The Wall is exciting because the news it publishes is the news that we, collectively, are already sharing and discussing online. It’s the news that social circles are finding most interesting right at that particular moment.

So any point in time,  you, the avid news reader, can ensure your finger is on the collective internet pulse of Australian news by monitoring The Wall.
Give it a try!

Open TheWall.com.au in your browser right now, and leave it open!

Come back and check it out throughout the day, share stories with friends on Facebook or Twitter and check back often. You wont be disappointed!

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I Pity the Fool who doesn’t keep an eye on Trendsmap today!

Mr. T., April 1st 2011

Don’t be fooled, check here before you:

• retweet a post,
• share a link,
• email a link!

Trendsmap has you covered with real time coverage of all the #AprilFools chatter on Twitter as well as trending links and media.

I’m on the train heading home after a busy week and decided to post.

But it goes to show that consumers (that’s you and me) can pretty much do anything from our iPhone/android/tablet these days. So, as business owners/operators, don’t ignore the local and mobile opportunities.

The social media specialist walks into the bar and thinks “I need to find the influencers here, they are the key!”

The old school marketer walks straight to the bar, asks for the manager, and starts pitching a sponsorship deal.

The search engine marketer walks into the bar and buys the beer…

I’m not yet sure why there’s a big road in the top graphic, but it’ll come to me.

I just figured that it looked old school, like ‘The Information Superhighway’… 1999 all the way… When we were worried about Y-2-K…

So I admit it, I’ve been slack on the blog posts of late, sorry, but it’s been pretty busy at work.

I’m also the guy who tells his class at RMIT  to ‘blog regularly, or not at all’…. so yeah, I FAIL.

But I will  write more, so ask me questions here or on twitter or on quora.

I will answer them.

Great job Rob!

I hope you all enjoy the interview.

A sponsored link for webmaster tools.

Is this new? I’ve not seen it before,  and I don’t recall ever seeing the disclaimer ‘Google promotion‘  instead of ‘Sponsored links’..

Interesting!

Perhaps Google have finally given in to pressure… But I am still seeing them buy ‘sponsored links’ for other terms.

SERP

Awesome: ‘Google Grants is now available to AU non Profits…’

I click on the ad…

404!

Fail!

Background – In May, my car got trashed by a hail storm in Melbourne and After much back and forward it has been written off.

So the good, is I don’t have to go through the headache of getting it repaired, the bad – I love my car… and to add insult to injury, I’d spent $900 replacing the radiator 2 weeks before the attack of the killer hail storm occurred.

Anyway…  enough about me!

So my tweet was actually to see if CGU are monitoring their social media presence.

Verdict is no they are not.

In this day and age, there is simply no excuse for a consumer focused company to not be monitoring Twitter and Facebook etc. No excuse at all… CGU even have a Twitter Account!

I really wasn’t expecting much from them if they did respond to my tweet.

To be honest, I would have just liked a reply.

I’m also pretty sure the reason for the delay is the sheer number of claims post the ‘Killer Hail Storm’. That’s cool, I get it, but CGU, you need to communicate better if that’s the case.

The point of this post is that I was playing the disgruntled consumer who vented via twitter, and I got nothing back… Nothing! But the good thing, for CGU, is I’m actually not super disgruntled, just a little frustrated.

What CGU, and any other consumer facing service not listening to the social web, must ask themselves  is how many really disgruntled customers are complaining about them on Twitter every week only to have their voices go unheard?

Shame.