Chasers War on Everything, the ABC comedy show, must have had an all-time high on ratings last night with their clip showing their trip into the APEC exclusion zone posing as a Canadian motorcade. Here it is on YouTube.
Apart from the cultural value of expressing Australian identity in terms of larrikin behaviour, the stunt served another basic purpose: the test of assumptions around security. Good one!
MySpace launched impact.myspace.com in Australia today, a channel dedicated to Australian politicians and non-profit organisations.
The social networking portal features the following politicans, some of whom have been on MySpace for some time.
Kevin Rudd has 3380 friends, including Labor senators. He’s not ashamed to talk about his interests - the same list as on Facebook.com, and he’s already received 394 comments from supporters.
Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens, has 173 friends, including His Holiness 14th Dalai Lama, Xavier Rudd, John Butler Trio and Wolfmother. Brown already is a campaigner, familiar with the the mediums of medium and comfortable with his association with organisations like Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network.
Demcrats senator Andrew Bartlett’s MySpace site is a vivid orange, and features the Ups and Downs track, “The Perfect Crime”. He’s using his page to the full with an active blog. He has 196 friends, including Leonard Cohen, Make Poverty History, Liberation for Our Brother & Sister Animals, and Braveheart.
Other federal politicians featured on Impact MySpace include Steve Fielding (Family First), Peter Garrett (Labor), Joe Hockey (Liberal), Kerry Nettle (Greens), Tanya Plibersek (Tanya), Malcolm Turnbull (liberal), Warren Snowdon (Labor), Dennis Jensen (Liberal), Julia Gillard (Labor), Wayne Swan (Labor), Stephen Conroy (Labor), Maxine McKew (Labor), Nicola Roxon (Labor), Greg Combet (Labor), Steve Ciobo (Liberal), Sam Crosby (Labor).
John Howard, claiming that he would not want to lend his identity to a commercial enterprise (MySpace is owned by Fox Interactive), is represented by Howard Government (Liberal Party of Australia). As I write there are only eight friends, including Liberal senators Dr Dennis Jensen, Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull, Mark Powell, Steve Ciobo, Cory and ‘How To Vote’. What’s happening here? Clearly the Howard Government does not include the National Party. The Liberal Party of Australia come across as slow to accept friends.
Impact Video includes Macho Man! John Howard, World Vision’s Teenage Affluenza, Kevin Rudd on MySpace, Anti-Ad Where Are You? tourism spood ad.
Impact Events feature ZeroSeven, a youth initiative of the Make Poverty History campaign.
I became a friend of Kevin Rudd this week, on Facebook.com. This is not a case of bignoting. It’s more a case of telling you about the potential for social networking.
Here’s how it happened. I noticed that one of my friend’s profile included Kevin as a friend. This warranted a closer look. Was it a prank profile or genuine? It appeared to be a genuine profile, managed by Kevin’s publicity team. Well done I thought. It’s up front, encouraging people to enrol to vote, and providing accessibility to Kevin for online networkers.
I added Kevin as a friend and within ten minutes I was accepted. Not bad for 11.45 pm.
