Jon Stribling

My own piece of the Internet
 
Jon Stribling

What does Mothers Day really mean?

Before I start out with this deeply flawed post, I should say that I am deeply unqualified to be writing about Mothers Day as I have never been one, although I have had one (well, two but that is another story). Mothers Day and Fathers Day are cons. That shouldn’t be a surprise for any educated, sceptical individuals but based on the length of the queues to purchase Cyclamens there are a good many people who should know better buying in to the whole horrible show. They should know better. On each of their respective days, Mothers are nurtured and …

Learning to code

The first web page I ever created was pretty average. It featured an animated dancing policeman centered in the page with a delightful line about how I always wanted to be a policeman or some such nonsense. I may have also linked my name to mailto: jonstribling@cool.com which was my email address at the time. I thought I was too cool for hotmail so of course I had to use cool.com. Sadly cool.com is now a generic web design business. I still remember the magic of seeing the page I had creatgd clumsily in vim load in a browser which I …

The problem with social business

According to the tech hype, social business is the unification of 15 years of Internet trends into a nw economic model, or the potential for a new economic model. It is a model rooted in the elite world of technology and computing, and in my simplistic and reductionist view, a redefining of a customer focused framework. The idea goes that through the collision of social with business a new type of business can emerge with strategies and products driven by social principles. At its purest, this social business makes decisions through input from a community not a board, and has …

Wednesday whinge: Cooking, building, celebrity shows, and feelpinions

  This Wednesday winge is a call to boycott the cooking shows, the renovating shows, and the squawking shows. Now, I have been accused of being arrogant before. People may have even called me sanctimonious, out of touch, and hard to get to know. But on this one I am spot on: from our politics to our popular entertainment we are drowning feelpinions. Since well before Richard Burton returned from his exotic adventures in the nineteenth century and published 43 books for an eager British public Western culture has always been obsessed with celebrity and celebrity opinions. Then, as now, …

How Marketers can use Pinterest

Online pinboard, Pinterest has been reported in the tech and mainstream press as the coolest new social network on the block with amazing growth and an avid bunch of mostly female fans. In early April Expirian Hitwise flagged Pinterest as the number 3 social media website with 104 million visitors in March, and Shareaholic reported that Pinterest referred more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined. In Australia Pinterest is ranked one of the top 10 social media websites. These are some seriously impressive numbers and clearly marketers need to take notice. But before your head starts spinning about how you …

It’s all good, until the lawyers get involved

After the initial joy at the birth of a new project, every little project needs to put on a pair of big person pants and grow up. As in life, this isn’t always easy, and sometimes you may need to talk to the lawyers. Take the behemoth Google as an example of the world’s most successful startup. They have a lot of lawyers and a lot of users, and there is a massive tension between the users wanting the aspirational spirit of a startup, and the hard-nosed capitalists running Google.  The unofficial Google motto, “don’t be evil”, created by Paul Buchheit in …

We need a new national day

The nationalistic vigour seems to increase in width and girth every ANZAC day. Like a steroid addict the media can’t get enough of lavishly promoting the ageing diggers and the teary eyed young folks brimming with pride from being draped in the union jack and southern cross. We are told that the spirit of the ANZAC’s defines us as Australians. To question this absolute truth is akin to treason. Much of the fault is former Prime Minister John Howard who saw in ANZAC day an opportunity to promote his vision for Australia; conservative, white, fond believers in Queen and country. …

Australian online retail suddenly got serious

The announcement by David Jones yesterday that they will make a significant investment to transform themselves into a multi-channel retailer is a bold step and a clear sign that traditional Australian business has started to listen to customers. Rather than bemoaning changing consumer behaviour like Gerry Harvey, David Jones are taking action and launching what promises to be one of the most comprehensive Australian online stores. Whilst there has been some criticism about the speed of the delivery by Smart Company, the plan appears to me to be realistic and sensible. David Jones are rebuilding their systems from the ground …

Why no one uses Google+

At the last count Google+ had 90 million registered users, 60% of whom “engage daily”. Whatever that means. The other 40% are wondering what the hell they can use Google+ for. Except of course the SEO bunnies who are using Google+ to jack up the rankings of websites. The jury is still out on both Google+ and the SEO benefits. So how could this happen? Google have been promoting Google+ heavily, they have linked it into their search pages, their lucrative ad network, and CEO Larry Page has been touting the platform in earnings calls as growing rapidly and one …

How to stop your outsourcing going off the rails

Every startup or startup wannabe has outsourced development work to India, the Philippines, or Eastern Europe. It is more than half the cost of having it done in Australia or the USA the savings mean more funds to direct to building your business. It’s easy right? Well no, outsourcing can be a world of pain if you don’t get it right. I have outsourced small development projects and here are some tips to stop it going off the rails. 1. Define your scope clearly Make sure you define what you want very very clearly. The combination of language barriers and …