DISQUS

'Chopper' with Eric Bana is one of my favourite all time movies! Little known in the US, but it launched his movie career (prior to that he was a stand up comic on the Aussie version of Sat Night Live).

For a recent view of the real Mark 'Chopper' Read, check out this video: http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/video-chopp...

Pretty much spot on... but is a butter beans like a butter face?

Blogging this is undoubtedly the best thing you've ever done. You have enriched my life, Woodland Creature.

Thanks for the heads up on this mate, I'm in.

Thanks for the comments all, I hope you'll continue to lend your support to the event!

Ryan - I don't have a formal relationship with charity:water (I'm just a committed suppoter of their mission) but I can point you to their position on bottled water here:

Question: “Isn’t bottled water evil? Why are you using plastic water bottles?”

Bottled water has gotten plenty of bad press lately. The industry is now $16 billion a year, and 38 billion plastic bottles get tossed into landfills each year. And 24% of all bottled water is actually just tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi. What could be worse?
We think the fact that 1 in 6 people on our planet are forced to drink polluted water is worse. We think seeing 4,500 kids die each day from diseases like parasites and diarrhea is worse.

We are not a bottled water company. We want to give everyone on earth access to the same clean, safe drinking water that comes out of our taps. Our $20 bottle was created in response to the gratuitous excess of wealth and waste we see everywhere. There’s nothing special about the actual bottle. We pay 34¢ for each one, and the water comes from a spring in upstate New York. What is special, is what that $20 does for people in need. Early on, we pledged to always give 100% of the money away – very much unlike for-profit companies whose bottom line matters most.

We don’t want people to buy charity: water bottles because they are thirsty.

In fact, most people don’t even drink the water. Our bottles costs $20. You’d have to be pretty wealthy to get your 8 glasses of water from us everyday. It would cost you $160!
That’s why you don’t buy a charity: water bottle because you are thirsty. You buy a charity: water bottle because the money helps one of the 1.1 billion people around the world in desperate need gain access to safe water. You buy a charity: water bottle because you know that your $20 purchase is really a donation, and you know 100% of that donation will make sure that one of those 1.1 billion people is never thirsty again.

I bought one of your $20 bottles. Now, what happens?

Here’s where we get excited. Every $20 bottle can give at least one person clean water for 20 years. And when we turn those $20’s into freshwater wells, they produce an incredible amount of clean water each year that comes from the ground. An average well can produce 666,000 gallons of water a year for a community of about 500 people, and can be built for only $5,000. That means each bottle of charity: water can produce the equivalent of 20,000 bottles of water for someone that currently doesn’t have clean water. That’s a lot of water.

Yep, you are an NYC girl mate.

Offends women?? Take it from me - it offends Rugby players more!

I'm really worried I'm going to wake up with this after my next big night... if so I blame you.

Gold - this gave my roommate and I a handful of belly laughs when we got home from the pub tonight!

Great work Pete!

And don't be too modest mate, your network produced a huge amount of funds in a really short time period!

I think the important takeaway is that the charity:water September campaign doesn't end here, despite the amazing results we saw on September 18. Personally I've had an extra an extra $295 donated in the 24 hours since my blog post (largely through the generosity of video blogger Steve Garfield) taking my total to $937.

Great stuff, how much further could it go in the 2 weeks until October?

Very interesting - could this mark the coming of age of the Aussie political blogosphere?

This kind of approach works well overseas (look at all the US political group blogs and networks), plus the link to Crikey's audience and brand will really help them.

I'll be following this closely - thanks for the news Duncan.

I like AllTop - handy starting point in niches for newbies.

I know they don't claim to be the definitive list in any niche, but the PR list is down right terrible. They've missed many, many really good blogs and they've included some extremely strange choices.

It'd be understandable if it was hard to find a list... but there is SO many PR blog lists out there - AdAge Power 150 as a starter, my colleague Constantin's comprehensive list, I even saw a new list pop up on the weekend (granted it's not very accurate either).

All in all I give AllTop in general a B+, AllTop PR though can only achieve a FAIL :).

Well said mate. Like you, I'm a bloke attending BlogHer. In my case I'm accompanying a client who is a real part of the community, but I'm really excited to attend personally.

I went to BlogHer business in NYC this year and it was one of the best events I've attended in this space. Great content, and more importantly a wonderful positive vibe.

Looking forward to seeing you there mate - and I assume we'll have few problems finding each other in the crowd :)

Nice mate! In my previous life chasing Racing Cars around Australia my sports agency worked closely with the Australian Ford camp (our big motoring battle is Ford vs Holden) - as a result I still have a lot of love for that brand.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Why not raise my hand?

http://twitter.com/paullyoung

I work for social media agency Converseon:

http://twitter.com/converseon

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Has anyone seen Richard Laermer since this panel?

The badpitch blog would have to be near the top of the list... I'm really concerned for the poor blokes safety. And that would wipe out one of my favorite blogs!

David - this looks like a scene straight out of Luke Armour's PR Murder Mystery Podcast.

Have you heard it? Here's the link: http://armourpr.wordpress.com/2007/04/26/a-virt...

I recently had an older male blogger add me on Facebook and then informed me through this feature that 'we hooked up' at a British pub.

We did have a nice lunch... but I only had two beers and it would have required plenty more for us to firstly 'hook up' and then for me to not remember it.

I put it down to a cross generational and cultural communication gap (and hopefully not a result of horse tranquilizers...)

Geez - makes you think there would be fertile ground for Haviana thongs to step into the world and interact with the Aussie SL community.

Hi there,

I just clicked across to your blog after seeing an incoming link. I like it! Consider me subscribed.

Cheers,

Paull Young

I noticed this article and thought exactly the same thing Chris. My first visit to NYC was last week and I've never been to a city with so much branding and visual pollution.

A couple of interesting quotes from the article (especially when juxtaposed with reading Jaffe's book):

From an Advertiser who cast the only dissenting vote against the Sao Paolo law:

“I think this city is going to become a sadder, duller place, Advertising is both an art form and, when you’re in your car or alone on foot, a form of entertainment that helps relieve solitude and boredom.”

And a quote from a random consumer:

“The truth is that there are so many banners, billboards, placards, signs and posters all over the place that they’ve lost their impact, and I hardly pay attention to them anymore. So what’s the point in the manufacturer of a product paying for advertising if all it is going to do is block my view and irritate me?”

Look at those two quotes, which one is based in reality?

Hi guys,

Enjoying the blog so far. I'm a big fan of the crayoncast concept, I'm sure it will really take off.

One quick thing about the blog - it would be great if the author's name appeared with each post when they appear in RSS readers.

It's always good to know who is writing a post on a group blog without having to click through to the site. It'd also help your subscribers become more familiar with the members of your team who haven't blogged before.

Keep up the good work guys! It's always a hard slog getting a new blog and podcast up and running.