Seven, Nine, ABC & SBS Roll Election Coverage…Ten Stick With Huey

After a day of Presidential pandemonium it’s not hard to focus on the media coverage of this year’s U.S Election.

With such fanfare about the campaign on its own the coverage of the actual election was due to be intense, with most Australian networks beginning their rolling coverage at 11 this morning. All except for network Ten who were showing Huey’s Cooking Adventures while the race was decided.

Ten claim to have chosen to do this in order to provide an alternative to the election coverage however it represents the fragmented priorities of a network who are struggling to find a stable ratings path. It’s a far cry from the News Revolution which took place in 2011 before quickly falling apart. With expanding hours of news and more local and international coverage than ever today’s lack of commitment marks a sad return to the less than admirable status the network’s news division held previously.

While Nine, Seven, the ABC and even SBS hosted over five hours of on going coverage, Ten stuck to its usual schedule with updates throughout the day, and although the network argues they wanted to offer an alternative to their rivals, the number of secondary channels available today would have offered more than enough choice.

It comes as Ten prepares to make a significant number of jobs redundant in its newsrooms around the country. The network has seen a dramatic reduction in ratings and profitability since 2011 and has struggled to make sustainable programming decisions throughout the year.

REVIEW: The Smith Street Band – Sunshine & Technology

‘Sunshine & Technology’ is the second album of The Smith Street Band.

From the opening of the eponymous first track, the vibe is carefree and confident. Vocals are loud and forcefully delivered, and the band bashes along behind them.

The first song to really spark the energy is ‘I Want Friends’ which immediately raises the bar. It’s poppy, catchy and simple.

“All we are are bags of bones, pushing against, a self imposed tide”

The message is a pleasant juxtaposition of dark lyrical ideas, against an uplifting chord progression.

Lead singer, Will Wagner’s voice is shamelessly confident, yet has an enviable ability to show nativity in carefully isolated sections of songs, which is satisfying to the ears of the listener.

His talk of government and how “it’s all so fucking meaningless” at the close of the song is our first display of this great ability.

‘Why Can’t I Draw’ drives the album into more pop-y territory, with a sing along chorus.

Their style verges on the divide of mainstream punk pop and old school rock and roll (think  Hoodoo Gurus). You can hear this most evidently in ‘What’s Changed’ after the second chorus. The rhythm switches to a Foo Fighters-esque feel, simmers then retreats to the basic rock beat again.

The style of playing is indeed intense for the most part, but best of all it’s an alternation of sloppiness and tightness, with tempos speeding up, slowing down, and building up out of nowhere, a welcome change to the somewhat strategically sloppy playing that is so frequent in indie rock at the moment.

It’s a big deal to name yourself after one of Fitzroy’s most notorious streets, but it really does suit the group. They sing about the street, most of these experiences have taken place on the street. ‘Young Drunk’ tells of a time when they were living above a bar, and of course being young and getting drunk, and that’s another great thing, the songs are honest.

It’s an easy way out to be calling this album ‘intense’. I would instead be calling it, ‘up front’.

The lyrics are conversational and transparent, and the music, the hardness and softness of the playing, intensity of the vocals and strumming of the guitar are simply an extension of the emotions guiding the lyrics. It’s as everyday as a walk down Smith St, with the druggies on one corner, and the joyful image of the Grace Darling on the other.

It’s straight forward, but it’s layered.

Klout

How would you feel if every interaction, every post, status update, blog post, ‘like’ and retweet was compiled into a score, which works as a social ranking? …Welcome to Klout.

Google once said, “don’t be evil”, and applied that principle to the early days of its company. As the years have gone on, that little motto has disappeared in the tech world, and although there are more little startups than ever, they’re all demanding things. They want our age, our home city, our mobile numbers and especially, our current location. And boy! do they want to send us updates on every little new thing via email.

They’re providing a service, free of charge. But what they’re getting in return is your data.

And so in the spirit of all these great tech companies pushing us to let them have it, a website has been introduced to give you a numeric score based on this data. One that will define your impact within the internet, and may also work to allow or prevent you from accessing certain sites.

It’s a social ranker, offering a status in return for you logging into social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

For instance, on Facebook, Klout will look at your friends and how many you have, status updates and shared links, how many ‘likes’ or comments they receive, and it will work out your influence on the world of the interweb.

But the thought of such a flawed system being the tool which ranks the importance of the human beings using these sites alarms me. I mean, just think of all the idiots who are going to end up with Gold status just because they get a thousand hits when they post a picture of a dog in a bath.

Kim Kardashian would definitely be Queen, with Ashton Kutcher as King. Zac Efron would be the Prince William of the social world, while Justin Beiber would be party-boy Harry.

My only relief is that Stephen Fry would at least be an advisor to the board.

It’s not such a great thing, in my eyes, when companies such as Cathay Pacific begin offering business class upgrades to those with high Klout scores. It’s not great when websites refuse entry to users with low Klout scores, and it’s completely unfair to be deprived of a job because you don’t have a high enough Klout score.

What hurts the most about this service is that it’s turning something useful, into something evil.

Klout services were initially a great tool for businesses to view their social influence. Now that anyone can view their influence in the shape of a numeric result, it’s going to drive people to social network, which is exactly what Facebook, Twitter, and, yes, Google want!

Soon they’ll have our location, private details and the power to decide whether we’re worthy enough to enter  our browsers.

God I hope my Klout score’s high.