And we’re still in the first hour…

In this guest post, NBN staffer Scott Rhodie writes an unofficial,  personal view on his experience with a hostile Twitter critic.

Last night I had a strange incident. While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated. I wrote a small note back explaining they were incorrect.

And their response? The lovely gentleman (whose Twitter profile says: ‘Father of 5 kids, Loving Grandfather of 10 Grandchildren,and 2 Great Granddaughters. love to give heaps to Pollies and Poofters’) said to me: “Go and lick Gillards C*** out U commie Prick” (I’ve edited the swear word but they didn’t).

Yup. They seriously wrote that.

In four years of being on Twitter it’s the first time I’ve been visibly shocked by a tweet.

I never mentioned politics.

I never mentioned communism.

I never mentioned sex.

Oh yeah and I’m Scottish and not a citizen in Australia so I can’t even vote here!

Yet there they were attacking me for correcting them. Which brings me to the world of the lone keyboard warrior. I spend a lot of time online and more and more I’m seeing this kind of thing. I’m used to it on forums where long-term friendships and hatreds are born. I’ve even been a moderator on a gaming forum where daily abuse was the norm but Twitter – where people are more likely to use their own names – I’m noticing a marked increase in the attacks.

Maybe it’s because I’m spending a lot more time looking at certain issues which people are passionate about but even then the debate should be cordial and without personal attacks. But on Twitter the area I have noticed the most hatred and vitriol is from the political area. It seems that when people start talking about politics there are those online who revert to the most vile and disgusting abuse … but only behind their keyboards.

I’ve never really had the urge to troll nor attack people online. I’ve occasionally defended myself but I see online and offline as two worlds that have less and less of a gap between them and people at some point will have to stop being keyboard warriors and start realising that what they say online can and will have repercussions for them offline. If you wouldn’t say it to someone in a street then don’t say it online.

Have you had any dealing with any crazy keyboard warriors?

• A version of this article first appeared on Scott Rhodie’s personal blog Kilt For Hire. His day job is as digital communications manager at NBN Co. He’s on Twitter as @ScottRhodie

Ready for Breakfast - From left: Roze, Henry, Rochford and Robinson

Ten has confirmed it will be launching its new TV show Breakfast in a fortnight’s time.

The network’s head of news and current affairs has also accused rivals of “taking cheap shots” over the launch. Ten announced:

“The wait is over – at 6am on Monday 27 February, Network Ten will make its highly anticipated entrance into the early morning news space.

“A program that throws out the rule book, Breakfast will be spontaneous, fresh, provocative and fun. It will spark conversation and debate, giving viewers the news and information they need for the day ahead.

“Paul Henry, Andrew Rochford, Kathryn Robinson and Magdalena Roze might be the newest kids on the block, but they have been chosen for their unmatched dynamic, wealthand breadth of expertise, journalistic experience and wit; they are excited to bring their conversation to your mornings.

“Some would say Paul Henry got a little too excited when he leaked the start date to the market a few months ago.

“Paul Henry says: “Apparently it’s a big deal in Australia to keep program start dates under wraps. I won’t blow the launch date for Breakfast again, promise.”

“Network Ten’s Head of News and Current Affairs, Anthony Flannery says: “Breakfast is a tough, competitive environment and we can’t wait to get into the game. Already, the opposition is taking cheap pot shots – I couldn’t be happier that they’re taking us so seriously, so soon.”

““We plan to make Breakfast a must-watch part of Australia’s day. From fact to fun, it’s going to be a fresh start to the morning TV schedule.”

“Breakfast’s mix of hosts and format will be a welcome surprise for viewers when they tune in, on Monday 27 February from 6am.”

The announcement comes on the same day Lachlan Murdoch was confirmed as Ten’s new chairman

In the short film series, located on NineMSN, Air NZ took people who had never wanted to go to New Zealand, to New Zealand, in the hope of changing their minds about the country.

The campaign, which was built on a media deal with Nine secured by PHD,  is the biggest marketing offensive Air NZ has launched in 10 years.

The four films feature four differents sorts of Australians.

The Bali girl:

The hipster:

The ‘Aussie Aussie’:

The Europhile:

Kelly Millier, marketing manager for Air New Zealand Australia said: “At Air New Zealand we know NZ is one of the best places on earth, but for one reason or another, there are many Aussies who don’t see the same fresh and progressive side of New Zealand, that we do. We figured if we could change the minds of those most sceptical, we should be able to convince those who are sitting on the fence.”

Credits:

Client: Air New Zealand Australia
Agency: Host
Creative: The Jamboree
Director: The Jamboree
Production: Candid Films
Media: PHD

Lee left The Herald to join the National Times, where he was deputy editor, in April 2011.

He will cover consumer media issues.

Lee will work with Kirsty Simpson, media editor of BusinessDay, and Bianca Hall, who is reporting on media in the Canberra bureau.

He starts on February 27.

Lee joined the Herald in January 2004 as marketing reporter before moving up to become marketing editor in 2008.

Before moving to Australia he worked at News International’s The Times in London, where he was features and news writer for the TimesOnline website, marketing columnist and desk editor of its weekend pages.

It was beaten in the 8.30pm time slot by Grey’s Anatomy on Seven, which rated with 845,000, and RBT on Nine, with 570,000.

Seven’s cookery show My Kitchen Rules won the night again, pulling in just south of 1.6m and peaking at almost 1.9m – a strong result for Thursday night viewing.

Ten’s most-watched show was The Biggest Loser, which won an audience of 679,000.

The data includes the most detailed information to date about its audience on tablet apps. The number of readers using the apps on a daily basis are currently a small fraction of those buying the newspaper or reading the mastheads online, although the growth is 300% up on last year.

Australia’s audit bodies do not yet include app audiences, so the figures are self declared. According to Fairfax, The Sydney Morning Herald is averaging 3,576 daily users of its app, while The Age is averaging 2,924.

However, more consumers are using tablets to view the sites each day – 26,684 for the SMH and 22,780 for the Age.

The newspapers digital editions – effectively PDFs of the print edition – are running at just over 3,000 a day for The SMH and nearly 4,000 for The Age.

2011 numbers (SMH in blue, The Age in grey):

The numbers will be released by Fairfax four times a year as a quarterly report, along with monthly updates.

The transparency will inevitably put pressure from the market on News Limited to relaase more details over how The Australian’s app and potentially its paywall is faring. Thus far, the company has revealed little about its numbers,

Fairfax Metro Media’s CEO Jack matthews said of the new reporting drive: “This is a very significant development in the way we present information about Fairfax Metro audiences to the market.

“As the logical next step following our restructure, this move is to give our stakeholders, including media agencies, advertisers, shareholders and analysts, a fuller understanding of how audiences are engaging with our major Metro Media brands.

“We are successfully creating a truly multi-platform experience for our audiences, so if we don’t report on how each brand is engaging with them on every platform, we are painting an incomplete picture.”

He added: “We will no longer gauge our success or measure ourselves on a single-dimension or metric, but to look at how audiences are engaging with our brands across all platforms and time-frames.”

Full version of the Fairfax Metro report (click to enlarge):

Click to enlarge

The announcement:

Adstream’s digital portfolio addresses and responds to some of the challenges experienced by the digital advertising industry and streamlines the advertising process at each stage of the value chain.

The new digital portfolio encompasses extending its central database of publisher specifications with workflow and validation tools for digital advertising and offering versioning and resizing of assets for use across multiple media including print video and online.

Adstream is also working towards enabling digital asset management of creative assets across broadcast, print and digital in a single system.

It has also introduced a new suite of products aimed at streamlining the ad serving environment for publishers, broadcasters and agencies and includes:

AdDigital: web-based workflow that helps publishers, creative and media agencies streamline the way their ads are created, validated, approved and delivered.

AdReach: leading edge, end-to-end digital advertising and marketing platform that uses the most advanced learning algorithm technology to deliver significantly improved returns for clients, agencies, media owners and developers across mobile and online display, text, video and live streaming video ads.

AdInfinity: vendor-agnostic advertising framework providing multi-vendor support for synchronous ad serving, site and market analytics, behavioral targeting and text advertising. The product suite offers a high performance, fully configurable solution that includes advanced ad operations and simple debugging features. It also offers ViziAds, which serves ads only when they become visible to a user. This industry-first AdInfinity product allows digital publishers to improve below the fold yields and reduce ad serving costs.

While AdDigital was launched late last year, AdReach and Adfinity are new products and Australian initiatives that will roll out globally for Adstream during 2012.

Adstream Managing Director Peter Miller said: “Audiences are consuming in many different ways across many devices. Access to and sharing of creative assets across different agencies is cumbersome and for publishers, relationships with vendors for ad serving are impeding innovation. Adstream is all about streamlining the processes in advertising and our suite of digital products does this in the digital space.”

AdInfinity was developed in Australia by Ashraf Montaser and Kartik Rao who chose to team up with Adstream to take the product to market globally.

AdInfinity CCO Ashraf Montaser said: “We chose to partner with Adstream for a number of reasons including its pedigree in streamlining advertising, its global footprint and, most importantly, its can-do approach to working with customers to achieve the best outcomes.”

Adstream is offering a 30-day free trial on its AdDigital product. To register, go to www.adstream.com.au.

Source: Adstream press release

• Her novel Strictly Confidential – is the PR world really that shallow?
• Getting into PR
• Does she undercut rival agencies?
• Ros Reines – love-hate
• What became of Seven’s Sweaty Betty reality TV show?
• Ending up in the papers herself

Catch future interviews from Mumbrella House by subscribing to Mumbrella’s YouTube channel.

Set:

• Bob Goodge on Starcom (0:57)
• The Straits struggles on screen, flourishes on Twitter (13:10)
• Jumptank – can media agencies be innovative? (16:52)
• The best ads of the Super Bowl (22:07)
• John Butler vs John Stamos and yoghurt (29:06)
• Excess Baggage bumped (31:47)
• The ABCs of magazines and newspapers(40:37)

You can also subscribe to The Mumbrellacast on iTunes and other podcatchers.

Direct link to Mumbrella’s iTunes store listing for the podcast

Sponsored by Southern Cross Austereo:

Studio facilities:

And very informative it is too.

(Hat-tip: David Campbell)

And there might be some subtle changes in the editorial direction which comedian Dan Ilic has helpfully interpreted…  

(Click to enlarge image)

Dr Mumbo heartily recommends clicking on the image to read the stories…

The shortlist for January’s ads is based on self nominations, Mumbrella’s own selections and reader submissions. The winners are decided by Mumbrella readers who vote by taking part in the survey at the bottom of this item. The deadline for voting is Thursday 16 February.

Campaigns are eligible whichever screen format they first ran on including TV, cinema and the web.

The shortlist for January’s ad of the month:

1. Cottees Cordial – GPY&R Melbourne

2.  Greenpeace  – Publicis Mojo Auckland

3. Kia – Innocean

4. Meat and Livestock Australia – BMF

5. Smiths – Clemenger BBDO Sydney

6. Subaru – Disciple

7. Toyota  – Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney

With the support of:

Murdoch was Ten’s interim CEO until Warburton started work last month. He replaces Brian Long in the chairmanship.

The announcement appears to contradict Monday’s prediction that Murdoch would return to News Limited as chairman.

Long said in a message to the ASX: “The Board is pleased that Lachlan has agreed to accept the role of Non-Executive Chairman. His extensive media experience will provide Ten with invaluable strategic leadership. As Interim CEO he reset Ten’s strategic vision and cost base and was instrumental in recruiting Ten’s new Chief Executive Officer, James Warburton.

“The Board believes that the combined media capability of James Warburton as Ten’s Chief Executive Officer and Lachlan Murdoch as Non-Executive Chairman provides the best opportunity for value creation for all shareholders.”

Murdoch said: “I look forward to working with the Board and our new CEO to re-shape Ten and to improve its performance for the benefit of all shareholders.”

Long will stay on the board as deputy chairman.

Zoo had the biggest fall – down by 27% in the final quarter of 2011 compared to a year before.

People fell by 26% and Picture dropped by 24%.

Six of the seven biggest falls in the weekly category were for  ACP titles. However, ACP’s OK! was the only title to achieve an increase above a single percentage point, rising by 4.6%. And Grazia, which had gone through a series of significant drops, has stabilised just above 50,000.

The biggest weekly title is still ACP’s Woman’s Day with a circulation of 372,146.

Pacific Magazines’ weeklies had a relatively stable set of figures, with That’s Life dropping 6% and New idea falling nearly 4%.

PacMags boss Nick Chan told Mumbrella: “Under the circumstances, with circulations under pressure from an avalanche of bad retail conditions, weeklies have held up well.”

“The women’s weekly sector is the biggest and most important sector – and that’s been pretty solid, down 1% period on period. The home maker sector performed well and the tween market, which has been under siege for some time, has shown some resilience,” he said.