Now that The Age of Conversation is well and truly launched on Amazon, the team behind this amazing collaborative effort can begin focusing on their 2008 publication. Once again Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton have called on marketing and social media bloggers around the world to sign up for an even bigger and better book.

This years book is tentatively titled, Age of Conversation: Why don’t people get it?  The boys have had an amazing response with 275 authors putting their hands up to contribute a chapter each. And once again, this is all for charity, with the proceeds of the book going to Variety, The Children’s Charity.

Media Hunter is fortunate enough to be involved again this year, and has been joined by fellow Novacastrian Gordon Whitehead, aka The Marketer.

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Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Channel Seven had the biggest audience in a week that wasn’t worth
winning. Deprived of of interesting drama, those Australians who
couldn’t make it to the DVD store settled for fly-on-the wall
documentaries: Border Security (7) got 1.75 million viewers in the mainland capitals, SCU: Serious Crash Unit (7) got 1.64 million and Bondi Rescue (10) got 1.57 million.

Nine did OK with the Olympic swimming trials, attracting 1.17m on
Thursday and ending the week with an average of 25.3 per cent of the
prime time audience (to Seven’s 28.5 and Ten’s 22.9). The ABC stuck to
normal programming, and was rewarded with 17.7 per cent of the prime
time audience and 1.31m for Doc Martin and 1.22m for Midsomer Murders, while SBS scored 564,000 for Mythbusters (and averaged 5.7 per cent).

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The power of social media was demonstrated today when the Age of Conversation online community combined to push their book near the top of Amazon’s bestseller charts.

A 24 hour "Bum Rush" co-ordinated by Chris Wilson saw hundreds of bloggers mobilize to promote the innovative marketing publication The Age of Conversation.  In one day the book has risen from an Amazon ranking of approximately 110,000 to finish the day at  #262 for all books and  #36 on the Business Bestsellers list.

The "Bum Rush" marketing effort saw the book’s release promoted on hundreds of websites and blogs around the world, then heavily pushed on Digg.com, where it was the fastest rising web topic in the last 24 hours.

Readers were encouraged to buy the book from Amazon, make comments, review it, Digg it and tell their friends, and discuss the progress on Twitter.

The rush started in Australia, which is only lightly represented in the book, then proceeded around the world until midnight on the US east-coast. Bleary-eyed bloggers stayed online for the entire push, giving encouragement in a real online-style festival.

The book had another breakthrough when it became listed on Wikipedia during the "Bum Rush". A profile of the book and listing of authors can be found here.

Of course thats not the end of the story. Now that Age of Conversation is well up the Amazon rankings, we want to maintain the rage and try to push it further. Its not too late to buy a copy. Buy one for your business, your clients, your friends or family. All proceeds go to Variety, the children’s charity.

Today we launch The Age of Conversation
Bum Rush on the Amazon charts. From today, you can buy the book
directly on Amazon — with all profits going directly to Variety,the
Children’s Charity.

Please use THIS LINK to purchase your copy.

And if you are buying MORE than ONE copy, please do so one at a time (this improves our "best seller" status).

Keep up-to-date with our progress over at Chris Wilson’s blog here.

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Source: MediaSpy, ABC, News.com.au

The
complete conversion to Digital Television is set to be one of the most
significant changes in Australia’s history according to the
Communications Minister, who today has announced a $37.9 million
package for the transition by 2013.   Under the package, Australia will
be Digital Only from January 1st 2014.

But the news isnt that great for Digital Radio, with Federal Cabinet
still discussing a policy document regarding its implimentation with no
timeframe for its release.

Nearly $5 million will be allocated to a ’digital tracker’ to
measure public awareness, intentions to convert and actual
conversions to Digital TV, $8.5m to the industry authority ACMA to
undertake projects related to the switchover, and $16.9m for a
switchover taskforce to work on a number of issues, including the
provision of reliable information to consumers.

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Last year I was privileged enough to be part of an innovative publishing exercise, The Age of Conversation. 103 authors contributed to a marketing book that was released world-wide via lulu.com and raised funds for Variety.

The book is about to be released on Amazon. In the meantime organisers Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton enjoyed the process so much that they have decided to have another crack this year. In  few months time the latest book Age of Conversation: Why don’t people get it? will be released with, count them, 275 authors from around the world.

Meet the authors:

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Source: Reuters, The Australian

GOOGLE has unveiled plans for a new generation of wireless devices to operate on soon-to-be-vacant television airwaves.

It also sought to alleviate fears that this might interfere with TV broadcasts or wireless microphones.

In
comments filed with the US Federal Communications Commission, the
internet leader outlined plans for low-power devices that use local
wireless airwaves to access the "white space" between television
channels. A Google executive called the plan "Wi-Fi 2.0 or Wi-Fi on
steroids".

"The airwaves can provide huge economic and social gains if used more efficiently …," Google said in the comments.

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Radioinfo.com.au reports:

Guy Ashford
has been appointed Operations and General Sales Manager at 2HD and New
FM, Newcastle.
Ashford joins the Supernetwork in this senior management role after
some 28 years of all round practical hands on experience including 18
years of on-air and programming stints at 2LF Young, 2MC Port
Macquarie, 2GO Gosford, 2SM Sydney and 2KO Newcastle. He has spent the
past 8 years in sales and has been Sales Manager at 2GO-Sea FM Gosford
for the past 3 years.

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