17 July 2023
American filmmaker Greta Gerwig shares thirty-three films influencing her new feature, Barbie, and a varied collection it is. Titles include Saturday Night Fever, Playtime, The Truman Show, The Philadelphia Story, Heaven Can Wait, Gold Diggers of 1935, and (of course) 2001: A Space Odyssey.
There’s quite a few films here that I haven’t seen. It seems to me if you’re looking for some film watching inspiration, Gerwig’s list makes for a great starting point.
17 July 2023
Australian cafes are among those bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis. Many are dealing with rising overheads, and reduced revenue, as their customers — who are negotiating increased rent or mortgage payments, among other things — feel compelled to reduce discretionary spending.
As a result, many cafes are going out of business:
About one-sixth of cafes advertised for sale now will close down before finding a buyer. In May, ASIC data showed business insolvencies were at the highest monthly rate in eight years. So far the insolvencies have been dominated by construction firms, but hospitality is expected to overtake it in 2024, credit reporting agency CreditorWatch said.
At a large shopping centre I visit in Sydney’s east, I’ve seen about half a dozen coffee shops close in perhaps the last twelve months. While myriad factors could account for this, including a noticeable decline in foot traffic in the centre, rising interest rates and inflation are surely also to blame.
It’s sad to see. For many people, operating a cafe is one way of realising the dream of owning a small business and being self-employed, together with creating work opportunities, both direct and indirect, for other people.
15 July 2023
Threads banner image, by Meta.
If Threads, Meta’s recently launched micro-blogging app, takes off and becomes as popular as the likes of Twitter and Instagram, a community of book readers and fans is bound to form. As was the case on Instagram, Threads’ Meta owned stablemate, where a thriving and lively book community interacts under the #Bookstagram hashtag.
But where there’s a social network, there’ll be an active community of book lovers. On rival micro-blogging network, Twitter, the bookish use the #BookTwitter hashtag to label their tweets, making them visible and searchable for fellow literary mavens, while on while on TikTok, BookTokers share book content using the #BookTok tag.
Presently hashtags are not functional on Threads, but they, along with a bevy of other features, are on the way. It’s therefore only a matter of time before book readers will be able to connect with bookworms on Threads. That’s good though, it gives the bookish time to devise a community name and hashtag to use on Threads. But that’s hardly going to be difficult.
The hashtags used by the book reading communities on Twitter, Instagram, and BookTok, are simple and to the point, and the same will doubtless apply on Threads. Which makes BookThreads the logical choice. I first saw the term used by Australian book publisher Pan Macmillan Australia on their Instagram page, though someone else may well have used the moniker before.
So #BookThreads it is, at least if you ask me. And just because hashtags still aren’t functional on Threads doesn’t mean you can’t use them. I’ve sporadically been including them on posts, probably through habit, as I imagine others have to, and I’ve used #BookThreads on at least one of my Threads posts. But by adding #BookThreads to your bookish Threads posts now, means you’ll be immediately be visible to the Threads book community, when hashtags become operational.
But what are your thoughts on a hashtag and title for a potential Threads book community? Does BookThreads make sense, or is it a terrible idea? Do you have alternative suggestion? Let me know in the comments below, which will be open for a week or so after this article is posted.
15 July 2023
Threads, Meta’s micro-blogging app, may only be a week old, and boast a relatively small membership of one-hundred million, but some analysts are already predicting, boldly perhaps, the Twitter clone may draw in revenues of eight-billion dollar per annum by 2025:
Evercore ISI analysts reportedly said they expect Threads to add $8 billion to Meta’s annual revenue by 2025. Nevertheless, while marketers and brands are already experimenting with the app, they really want to know when ad formats will be available.
This is the eight-billion dollar question. Part of Threads’ present appeal is the relative absence of advertising. I think most people appreciate ads of some sort will need to make an appearance at some point — this playground Meta has made for us has an overhead after all — but the way they are deployed will be critical.
Any misstep could drive users away, and potentially bring an end to Threads. As a comparison, Twitter, with a membership of some 368 million daily active users, made four and a half billion dollars in 2022, chiefly from advertising. Whether we get to see the 2023 numbers remains to be seen.
Via Matt Fleury.
15 July 2023
Australian food critic Besha Rodell, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:
What is Australian food? Is there even any such thing? These are questions I’ve been pondering, researching and, at times, vigorously debating, for decades. We are not Europe. We are not Japan or Korea. Aside from the food of our incredibly diverse — and until recently, often ignored — First Nations cultures, we do not have thousands of years of edible history to draw upon and call our own. This makes the question harder to answer, but it also frees us from some of the bonds that tradition can impose.
I was once part of a community of design creatives called the Australian Infront, where all of these thoughts and questions were raised, except we were discussing design not food.
The group’s objective was to elevate the perception of Australian web design, as we felt the work of local designers was being overshadowed by designers, well, everywhere, but especially in North America and Europe. But we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly Australian web design was, while also working out what it meant to be Australian.
Perhaps we should have framed the question/s from a food perspective instead.
14 July 2023
Book cover for Unknown: A Refugee’s Story, by Akuch Kuol Anyieth.
Some late news to hand… the National Biography Award 2023 shortlist was announced yesterday, Thursday 13 July 2023, and includes the following six titles:
Established in 1996, and presented annually since 2002, the award honours the best published work of biographical or autobiographical writing by an Australian writer, and is administered by the State Library of New South Wales. The winner will be named in early August 2023.
14 July 2023
News articles mentioning first edition publications of well-known books have been featuring in the news feeds I read recently, and here’s another one.
This time, a first edition copy of The Hobbit, the 1937 novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien, sold for ten-thousand British pounds on eBay last year, after being donated to a charity shop in Dundee, a city in Scotland. The book had been sitting in a back room at the shop, and despite being well looked after, the store manager was at first doubtful it could be offered for sale.
The price realised is not the highest figure a first edition copy of The Hobbit has fetched in an auction sale before, but it says a lot about what might be quietly lurking on the shelves of charity shops.
14 July 2023
Australian actor Bryan Brown, speaking at the National Press Club this week, has joined calls for content quotas to be imposed on shows broadcast by streaming services in Australia. Local content quotas have been on the agenda for some time now, and are something Australian federal arts minister Tony Burke believes are necessary to support the Australian arts sector.
Australians spend billions of dollars on streaming services every year, and Brown thinks some of that money should be invested into stories that are about Australia, not just stories set locally:
What we are saying is that a percentage of that two billion bucks should go back into being stories that are actually about Australia. That are Australian stories, not just stories that are set in Australia with, in the main, American accents. With that extra money that we can get from the streamers, allows us more time to develop, allows us more time to be able to shoot, therefore allows us to make our shows reach the great heights that we want them to be.
In response, Bridget Fair, of FreeTV Australia, an advocate body representing local free-to-air television broadcasters, expressed concerns that quotas could drive up production costs:
The Australian screen sector is booming. With independent data from Screen Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing that there is more production in this country right now than ever before, the Government needs to be very clear on what problem it is trying to solve. Simply adding fuel to an already raging fire of cost escalation in the production sector will have a significant impact on the ability of Australian broadcasters to continue to deliver the Australian programming that our community relies on.
It’s a hoary old chestnut, but quotas, if not applied correctly, have the potential to back fire. Aiming to have twenty-percent of shows seen on streaming services that are about Australia, made in Australia, is admirable, but not if the results are poor quality stories.
14 July 2023
Some of the books belonging to Charlie Watts, the late drummer of British rock act the Rolling Stones, will be auctioned later this year. Watts was no casual book reader though. Some of the items in his book collection include first edition publications of titles including The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Christie’s describes the cache, which includes rare editions of books by George Orwell, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, among others, as “an unparalleled library of modern first edition books, the finest and highest value collection of its kind to come to auction in over twenty years.”
11 July 2023
Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram profile displaying his Threads badge.
The launch last week of Meta’s Twitter-like micro-blogging service Threads has been a riotous success, if the one-hundred million sign-ups in its first five days are any indication. Threads seems to have been the much wanted breath of fresh air micro-bloggers were waiting for. The Meta made app not only offers ease of use, but comes largely unencumbered by the baggage of Twitter, or the confusion some people have experienced with Mastodon, another micro-blogging contender.
Of course it is early days. Threads is not completely without its drawbacks. Privacy advocates have voiced concerns about some of the user data Threads is collecting. And compared to, say, Twitter, many features micro-bloggers are used to — hashtags for example — remain absent, though it sounds like more functionality is on the way.
One feature however that may have surprised many Instagram users after signing up for Threads, is the appearance of a number on their Instagram account, situated just below their username. The image above, a screen grab of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram page, is an example of what I mean. From what I can gather, the symbol that looks a little like @1, is called a badge, or a Threads badge, though, in some cases, it could just as easily be called a badge of honour.
In short the badge, which can only be seen on the Instagram app, but not the website, tells the world what number member you are of Threads. It also links to your Threads page, and anyone tapping on the badge will be taken there, if they are a member themselves. It is of little surprise that Zuckerberg, as CEO of Meta, scored the surely much coveted badge number one. But aside from letting everyone know how quickly, or not, that you became a Threads member, might the badge have other value?
As in financial value? I mean, who wouldn’t want to have Threads badge number one adorning their Instagram page? While it is fair to say the chances of acquiring this particular badge number are pretty much non-existent, might other badge numbers become something people would be prepared to pay top dollar for?
Speculating on Threads badge numbers however would be fraught with difficulty. For one, Threads needs to take hold as a serious micro-blogging player, for the badges to accrue any value. As I said earlier, there has been a rush to sign up for Threads, but how many people will remain active on the platform long term? If the initial burst of enthusiasm wanes, Meta might decide to close Threads down, rendering the badges worthless.
But that’s not to say there might still be interest in the badges as a commodity. While the ultra-low badge numbers are probably in the hands of those who will not let them go, come what may, there may be people potentially interested in trying to acquire double, or three figure numbers. Or so-called “golden numbers” that may be higher, but are possessed of some subjective value to a would-be buyer, or even a Threads badge number speculator.
666, anyone? Or perhaps a year of birth? Or possibility any relatively low number that makes the owner look like they are an early adopter. But while someone may be interested in buying a particular Threads badge, that doesn’t mean the sale process would be straightforward. Even if the price was right. And the transfer were to evade Meta’s notice. Anyone selling their in demand Threads badge number would have a few things to think about.
They would be giving up both their Instagram and Threads accounts, and may lose their possibly cherished username, and followers, in the process. While an arrangement might be reached with the buyer to give up the username, there’s the risk it might be snatched by someone else, if the seller doesn’t move quickly to re-secure it. The seller would also need to get their original followers on board at their new Instagram and Threads pages, something not necessarily straightforward.
Some sort of legally binding written agreement would also need to be in place to ensure each party to the transaction did what was required of them, at the requisite times. Buyer transfers money, seller surrenders account passwords, things like that. Perhaps a brokering service to cater for such a transaction could be engaged to oversee the sale. Maybe there’s a business opportunity for brokers, if the sale of Threads badge numbers becomes commonplace. Oh, the possibilities…
But the prospect of a marketplace for badge numbers emerging, is likewise, pie in the sky possibility. That’s too bad, some of us might have been millionaires for a minute there, at least in the recesses of imagination. But also read this Mashable article by Sam Haysom. See that image as you start to scroll down. The image bearing the somewhat ominous notification, stating “this temporary badge lets your followers know that you’re on Threads and sends them to your profile if they have the app.”
What? The Threads badges are only temporary? Where’s the fun (and millions) in that? If then you do wish to cash in on your Threads badge number, move quickly. And whatever you do, don’t tell the buyer the badges are temporary…
