Communication

ᔥ Mashable

Len Brown comes up with daft ideas…when he isn’t forcing CCOs to rebrand at the cost of millions, or wanting to put in a rail loop at the cost of billions he is sitting in a chair like the proverbial village idiot.

If he wanted to make Auckland truly the world’s most liveable city then perhaps he could consider something like what is happening in New York City:

Payphones in New York City have largely been made obsolete by the fact that almost everybody’s got a cellphone for staying in touch on-the-go. Luckily for the long-forgotten phones that still dot the city’s streets, they’re about to get a twenty-first-century upgrade.

New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications introduced on Wednesday the city’s first payphones-turned-Wi-Fi hotspots. They’re free of charge for any nearby New Yorker (or visitor) to use for connecting his smartphone, tablet or laptop to the Internet. Internet services are being provided in cooperation with Van Wagner and Titan.

So far, 10 payphones spread across Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn have become Wi-Fi-equipped as part of a pilot program.

ᔥ Boing Boing

Dale Dougherty is the founder of MAKE Magazine and Maker Faire. He believes in a simple idea: that we all have potential to be makers. He is passionate about creating a generation who are creative, innovative, curious, and making things to improve our world.

Dale Dougherty, Maker — PART 1 from THE NEXT LIST on Vimeo.

Yesterday I posted one of John Pagani’s favourite campaign ads. It seems that teh doyens of left wing campaigning are now trying to out do themselves because Len Brown’s extremely competent campaigner and smart spin weasel, Conor Roberts, sent in this one:

This is one of my all time favourite campaign ads. It was made for Tom Udal who is a Democrat for New Mexico in the Senate

Phil Goff promised us that Labour would focus on the things that matter to Kiwi voters…like the volume of television advertisements:

There has been an ongoing debate in New Zealand for some time around volume and consistency between featured programmes and commercials on TV, where there are concerns that the audio of television commercials are broadcast at louder sound volumes than the television programme material they accompany. The issue is not straightforward, but the solutions are.

It is unbelievable that a major aprty would consider such an issue worthy of inclusion in a broadcasting policy let alone even mentioning it.

No wonder they are languishing in the polls when their much vaunted communications expert, Clare Curran, thinks that this is one of the things that matter to Kiwi voters.

Rich Henry is speaking…rubbish

Getfrank, our online magazine which originally started as a student’s idea has experienced rapid growth for four years since its launch. As with many online businesses the journey over the last few years has been an incredible learning experience with things changing on a daily basis.

As you may be aware, Getfrank has recently come under some scrutiny from the NZ Bloggers Union. We have always worked to maintain constructive, solid and positive relationships with our contributors who have provided us permission to publish their articles on Getfrank.

Getfrank greatly appreciates feedback from our contributors and readers of the magazine and as such, we are continually looking at how better we can work to provide content that our readership has come to expect and demand from Getfrank.

To our many supporters and partners, can I express our heartfelt thanks for standing beside us on this journey.

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to get in touch. We’re always here.

Regards,

Richard Henry

rich@getfrank.co.nz

The arrogance of the man. Pure marketing gooblydegook. If Rich Henry thinks making agreements three years ago and then ignoring the content providers and pocketing money when payments were due providers and thinking that is maintaining “constructive, solid and positive relationships” then he is very much deluded.

I had to contact Rich Henry, and when I did he basically told me to get stuffed tossing agreements made by his organisation out the window.

Since not a single bit of the content of his site is produced by him he essentially owes content providers around $60,000 for the past couple of years and ongoing residuals of $5,000 per month. Without the content providers content he wouldn’t have been able to say “content that our readership has come to expect and demand from Getfrank.”

Rich Henry and Get Frank plus their advertisers and ad booking agents and other business partners are thieves. They take content on false pretenses and they sell that same content to advertisers. Without the content they would have nothing to sell. They are stealing.

It seems that the NZ Bloggers Union will now have to get a little more serious with Rich Henry and Get Frank….perhaps even Shane Bradley. A little exposé into the related companies and their relationships to each other seems to be in order.

Clever: Leaving your campaign van parked near an Auckland nightspot as free advertising.

Good advertising near night spots

Oh look, what's those papers there?

Not clever: Leaving printed political emails on the dashboard of that van.

Labour staffer emailing Brown worker about left wing split on North Shore

Now we known without a shadow of a doubt the paid Labour staffers are helping Len Brown’s campaign and that they think that the left wing campaign on the North Shore is “bizarre” and has “faction problems”.

Ok it has taken me almost a week from the first contact to today to piece together a time line of a clever, but not so clever attempt to manipulate, bloggers, media and the ACT party into achieve the aims of a rogue staffer.

The reason I am posting these details is because I am really very angry at the attempt to use me to orchestrate a political outcome within a party.

There is a great deal of muck flying around and some of the documents I have been leaked have also been leaked to other media sources.

On Tuesday after Roy’s reverse coup and set up had failed my inbox  was alight with rumours, innuendo and in particular emails from two anonymous email addresses who attached various documents.

Those two emails were kiaoracuzzy@gmail.com and TMO’s Call <over1013hpa@hotmail.com>. At the stage I received the emails I had no idea who they came from but the documents attached were supposed to leave me with the impression that Rodney Hide was a huge bully and that somehow Heather Roy was being treated appallingly, along with the impression that a good mate of mine was involved with leaking classified documents to other bloggers.  However after I smelled a rat and declined to publish the documents I sought and gained an interview with Rodney Hide.

It is now that I can piece together a rather strange sequence of events, emails, phone conversations and documents that show the real story of the failed leak-gate that was supposed to take out Wayne Mapp, Rodney Hide and various other ACT staffers and members.

For the record I don’t think Heather Roy is responsible for all of this, however she must be accountable because it was done in her name.

Email from first leaker

I received the above email in response to an earlier solicitation by “Kiaora Cuzzy”, where they accused me of being a “Hide lover”. I replied that based on the information I had thus far I was pretty disappointed in Rodney Hide and then this email arrived. It contained the Version 3 document that has subsequently been posted on the NZ Herald website.

Earlier I had received another anonymous email and from the content thought I knew who had sent it and so replied attaching this document for comment. Depending on the comments received I would decide whether or not it was authentic.

Email from not so anonymous emailer

Here we have confirmation that one of my anonymous emailers is named Simon. Also that the document in question that has been leaked, not just to me but to other bloggers and to media is authentic. Note too that “Simon has also sent me a separate version.

That email contained some personal notes that are highly defamatory to the individuals named. I have spoken to each of these individuals and though they acknowledge the defamatory nature of them they think it is important for the context of the allegations to be known. They know who has made these comments as you are about find out. But before I show that email this is the one I received from “Simon” or the stage I received this the anonymous TMO’s Call. you will note that the details are strikingly similar to the powerpoint presentation published by the Herald some three days later. I received this email on the Monday before the ACT caucus had even met.

Email received by Whaleoil on Monday 16 August 2010

So, at that stage I was still in the dark. Then I received this email.

Confirmation of identity of TMO's Call

This was in response to my email asking for clarification on some of the details in the longer one previously. TMO’s Call has signed off his email as SEJ. SEJ are the intials of Simon Ewing-Jarvie and he is telling me that he amd Heather Roy are working together on the documents to be presented to ACT’s caucus Tuesday.

The next email I received from TMO’s Call contained a great deal more information, and almost all of it actionable.

Email from TMO's call with draft of Roy presentation

TMO’s Call, again signed off this email as Simon. I refuse to publish the “Interesting Questions to ask” document and the “True Facts” document is an earlier draft of the document leaked to me minutes later by “Kiaora Cuzzy“.

What we have here is a deliberate attempt to create a story via the blogosphere and via the news media by a staffer of a Minister. This whole ACT saga appears to be nothing more than a staffer capturing utterly a Minister and then running some sort of paranoid end game to unseat leaders and ministers. The reason I am posting these emails and documents is that both Heather Roy and Simon Ewing-Jarvie are refuting any charge of leaking these documents yet as you can see they are both complicit in leaking them. If they sent them to me, they sent them to others.

I have also been lied to, and I do not take kindly to those who lie.

I spent some time this afternoon with Rodney Hide in an attempt to get his side of the story and to provide some context for the apparently damaging documents leaked by “Simon” and “SEJ”. What I can now say is that from all of my information that I have gathered, including a conversation with Nick Kearney this afternoon, Rodney Hide has acted in a manner appropriate to the situation. Given that I have now learned that Simon Ewing-jarvie, has never had, and never will get SIS clearance it seems remarkable that he was allowed to so utterly influence a Minister. I have had confirmation from other sources that Simon Ewing-Jarvie was marched from the parliamentary precinct and has indeed had all access, oral, written or otherwise revoke immediately. This person has attempted to hoodwink a great many people, including me, other media and unfortunately has hoodwinked the Labour Party as well.

To use his own handle it’s now the “TMO’s Call“. I’m pretty certain the result will be No Try. Kiaora Cuzzy remain anonymous, but given the close circle of those with access to the documents it can only be one of about 5 people.

After spending nearly a week on this, I can say without any hesitation that Rodney Hide has acted with the utmost integrity in dealing with this essentially rogue staffer.