Northern Beaches WebMan

I was informed on ABC radio regarding the shark attack in Mona Vale, Northern Beaches. Intantly alarmed and interested in the story, I intently listened to the interview. ABC radio presenter Deborah Cameron conducted the interview with Michael Brown, the director of Surf Watch Australia. Michael was apparently an ‘eye witness’ of what happened in the shark attack, retelling the morning events.

Some of Michael Brown quotes include:

We were just having a bit of a swim and all of a sudden we looked sideways and there was all this thrashing going on in the water

I could see a guy, he was out there just having a bit of a surf and it looks like a great white has come in underneath him, shot straight up, hit him like a freight train, knocked him up out of the water

I saw a bit of the tail, which looked like a [great] white

Wow, what a news story!!!!

The Shark Attack details that were released later that day…

The so called victim of this shark attack was Paul Welsh. He was rush to hospital and the teeth were later identified by a tooth fragment as a 1.6 metre wobbegong.

NSW Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan said: ‘‘It is quite possible the man stood on or spooked the shark. This shark is not aggressive and is not known to attack humans.”

My Michael Brown… what about the: thrashing, Great White Shark coming from underneath him, frieght train, the tail that looked like a Great White.

Are you serious Michael Brown?

Facts and figures:

• Typically Wobbegong sharks grow to 1.25 metres
• Wobbegong shark tails are vastly different (as per picture)
• Wobbegong sharks do not come underneath him like a freight train

Typically, this is just another media frensie regarding shark attacks, sensationalise the story for the sake of greed and making a name for themselves. Not surprisingly some more interesting facts:

Paul Welsch has already sold his story to Channel Nine News by the time his wife had driven him to hospital

Michael Brown is the director of an organisation that patrols for sharks and charges people for helicopter joyrides.

Way to go guys, good way of making some coin for yourselves. (i’m being extremely sarcastic)

Comments Welcome

WebMan, Northern Beaches Sydney

To celebrate Manly Australia Festival of Surfing, local Artists from the Northern Beaches have kindly donated their creative talents. The Art surfboards will be placed in many of the retail shops in and around Manly, adding to the much anticipated celebration of surfing in and around the area.  The surfboards will be auctioned and the proceeds will be provided to disabled surfers association and other charities.

Thanks to all the artists and MediaSpark for taking the photos.

Enjoy…

MediaSpark produced a non commercial video showcasing the insights into Surfing Australia, in and around Manly Beach. Although the video was primarily targeted to 18 - 35 year olds who are internet savy and want to be entertained… with the hopeful aim to encourage this tourism market to the area for holidays or just for day visits. To target this selective audience, MediaSpark deliberately chose a up beat, fast music, quick transitions, special effects writing, sun bursts and last but not least - interesting shot selections. Perfect for the younger internet savvy community.

The end result is an engaging generation Y - X video which entertains the audience and show cases the Manly Beach, Northern Beaches scene. But it’s not just about Surfing Australia that matters, the audience doesn’t just want to see surfing, surfing and more surfing. They want to see the lifestyle and imagery around the video, to entice a boarder but still younger audience.

YouTube is now the second most popular search engine in the world and through this video, it hopes to get a higher ranking in youtube, just think about it, when you are searching on the internet for surfing Australia Manly, what you rather click on:

• an article on surfing Australia?
• a video of surfing Australia?

Check out the Surfing Australia Video…

Comments welcome and don’t forget if you like a video like this, you can add a video for free.

Errol Barnett from CNN describes WebMan blog post yesterday very well. Have embedded it below.

WebMan

Twitter comes to age with #IranElection.

After the recent democratic elections in Iran, students and ‘people concerned’ have turned to twitter to ‘post up to the second’ information on the violence and brutality that followed the election results.

Students, typically tech savvy have been able to stay a step a head of an incredibly forceful and brutal regime to broadcast their story. They are using Twitter.

Why is Twitter so Powerful?

People are able to report media stories in an instant, no other multi billion dollar media industry such as CNN / BBC / ABC can venture into Iran.  So Twitter enables the information to come to the rest of the world - in this case it was brought to you by the students of Iran via their computers and mobile phones. This is the future of political media reporting, no rehashed journalistic interpretations, this is reported in an instant, this is a phenomenon in Internet technologies.

People like little WebMan (me) located in the little suburbs of Sydney’s Northern Beaches can follow the students in their fight for democratic change or even perhaps a democratic revolution in the Middle East.

#IranElection Links to Information, Photos and Videos

Various Tweets have have been brought to the rest of the world. For instance, check out this video of how the violence has taken place.

Could Twitter bring down Middle East Dictatorships?

Mob movement is consistent through all societies, people vote, they decide what they want, not the governments, it is the lack of ‘underground movement’ communicates to provide information of policies and factual information. Media control and manipulation in dictatorships has now met its match with Twitter, mob movements will over power the government media by sheer numbers, let the ‘tweets’ continue.

Can Government control Twitter?

Yes but No. The regime tries to block IP addresses, block-this block-that. Perhaps they can turn off other social networks. The students have outsmarted them, the students learn Internet modern communications, they are the future of modern digital media. They surely know how to get around the various technological loop holes. Such in the case with a Dutch Tweet http://twitter.com/bwernsen,  who provided a series of Iran Proxies to use.

What now for Iranian Students?

They will continue to Tweet through Twitter, they will continue to tell the world of what is going on and how they are fighting for justice and democracy. Hopefully Western Governments will take note of their voices on Twitter and go where regular media can’t venture.

Students to Protest Peacefully

In one of the most amazing and tearing jerking photos that WebMan saw on Twitter was this photo of an Iranian student helping and protecting an Iranian Riot Policeman. This is an example where students in Iran are not at war with the enforcers but the regime… it is showing us the most peaceful movements and often the most powerful, perhaps images like this can help turn the police back on the regime?  More Iranian evidence here.

Twitter HAS Come of Age

WebMan can hear your voices through Twitter… all the way from Sydney Australia.  Thank you to all those students in Iran for informing the world of your situation.

Please be Peace soon!

WebMan

Well since my blog several days ago regarding the shark attack at Avalon Beach in Northern Beaches Sydney, WebMan has taken the time to examine how the media has reported the story in Australia and overseas media.

However, firstly I should mentioned this…

Andrew Lindop survived

The survivor, Andrew Lindop has had surgery on his leg and making a great recovery. Andrew is apparently eager to get back into the water to go surfing… why?

• Because he wants to get eaten by another shark?
• Because he wants to show how brave he is amongst all the teenage girls?
• Because he wants to get surf stoked?

Well, perhaps he knows about the reality of shark attacks and how rare indeed they are in populated beaches in Sydney. If anyone is in the front line of shark attacks it has to be surfers. Due to numbers and conditions that surfers enjoy, they are the main ones that put themselves in front of these majestic kings of the ocean. Andrew like many other surfing shark victims must know just how unlucky he was on the day he got attacked.

Bethany Hamilton

My memory is cast back to a young Hawaiian surfer called Bethany Hamilton who was attacked by a shark back on October 31, 2003. The shark bit off her arm… but was she going to give up surfing? … ‘no way dude!’ In fact she has competed in various professional surfing competions all over the world. Go Beth, way to go girl. Check out the vid.

 

The Avalon Shark and the Media

Whenever there is a shark attack, especially in Australia the media goes wild…  “what a big story” big $$$$$. The media typically emphasise the hysteria of the situation, the blood, the vicious nature of the beasts. The media typically leave out facts, figures, surf conditions and the real nature of sharks. They very rarely mention that the shark ‘made a mistake’. What residence of Avalon and near by beach suburbs have witnessed is constant media attention, helicopters and journalists exploiting the situation. So how did they report it?

The Nine news

What pictures did they display? Lots of hospital shots of Andrew in a stretcher.  Interviews with frightend kids after the event. Did they interview middle age surfers with many years of surfing experience in the area? No they didn’t.

The Daily Telegraph

Headline and story… “Trouble in Paradise” geez…  Very little factual details about the shark attacks. But they certainly tried to make the most of Avalon Shark attack by ‘trying’ to relate to a story to a neighbouring suburb of Palm Beach. huh? what the? $$$$ for media.

FairFax Digital

To their credit, their stories were not as sensationalised as the others, instead they wrote various stories and make sure it was kept in the top section of their website. Fairfax Online is the most popular in Australia, no doubt their various stories are etched into many readers minds.

Express.de

This is a popular online website in Germany. They decided to put a picture of a shark being fed from a boat, jaws wide open so people can see the sharp gnarly teeth of the Shark! The picture is probably a picture from shark feeding in South Africa. Isn’t it amazing what digital media organisation will do in order to ‘entertain’ their readers. So this is the image that German’s have of Australia and our beaches? Cool, great, fantastic… just what we need to boost tourism in our desperate economic climate. What is most interesting is that there is paid advertising next to it from guess who? Can you see it? ‘QANTAS’ - Australia’s national airline company. I bet Qantas have waisted their money here, what German person wants to buy a plane ticket now to Australia, only to get eaten by a massive shark with massive sharp teeth?

Media Shark Stories are damaging Australian Tourism

WebMan has spent many years in Europe, experiencing their chilling winters. WebMan knows that European tourst love Australia and our beautiful warm beach culture. But with all this media hype? Ask yourself, what sort of image of Australia is being painted for overseas tourists? 

Bondi Chamber of Commerce vice-president Max Siano believes the recent shark attacks will hurt tourism. Sure will Max, especially if the media keep sensationalising shark attacks.

If the ’sharks were such a problem’ in Sydney, why were people surfing Avalon Beach today?

However, sharks attacks do create problems, they injure people but rarely kill people. They are not the most important stories that the media can report on. Perhaps they should focus their attention on other more important world issues such as: Affiganistan/Pakistan, genocide in mid north Africa and Cholera in Zimbawe.

WebMan.

Shark Attack at Avalon Beach, Sydney Australia Details

A shark attacked a young 15 year old surfing grommet on 1st March 2009 at Avalon Beach NSW, Australia. Andrew Lindop was surfing with his father at North Avalon Beach early in the morning when the shark attacked him, biting his calf and upper leg. There has been an alarming number of Shark attacks in Sydney this summer, most notably in Bondi Beach and Sydney Harbour.

Avalon is situated in the beautiful Northern Beaches of Sydney and it is believed to be the first shark attack by locals and residents. Although there has been various sightings over the years of schools of hammer head sharks, no one has been attacked. This recent attack will certainly create more awareness for residents of Sharks in the surrounding areas of the Northern Beaches. 

The various beaches surrounding Avalon have been closed and helicopters have been circulating the area looking for the shark. To add to the chaos a media circus has arrupted including tourists, TV Networks, Radio Stations and on lookers. 

Shark Attack Media Circus

Sharks certainly make news… within 30 minutes, the shark attack at Avalon was on the radio. Within 45 minutes, TV networks channel 7 and 9 were setting up camp. Yes, Shark Attacks create news.

 

Why are people so facinated with Sharks? The media are quick to exploit them. No doubt the Shark Attack at Avalon Beach will be headline news on the TV and front pages on the newspaper!

 

Perhaps the media should bring to our attention more environmental issues surrounding sharks and their habits? Perhaps they should interview surfers about their opinion instead of appealing to human fear? Why do they do this? $$$$$$$$$ Unless someone else can tell WebMan why?

Don’t Kill them!

WebMan is a very keen surfer himself, interestingly he wanted to go for a surf that morning at Avalon Beach but unfortunately he left his surf board at a friends place in Freshwater the day before. Generally speaking most fellow surfers are very much against the killing of the sharks after they attacks, after all we are in their territory. Humans accidentally kill hundreds of thousand sharks every year in: fishing, shark nets, pollution and not to mention the exporting of Shark Fins to foreign Countries.

It would be interesting to hear shark attack victims give their opinion of whether to kill them? The family of 51 year old Brian Guest was killed by a Shark in Port Kennedy in December 2008. The family did not want the shark that killed Brian to be hunted down. The majority of surfers agree with victims families. Let the sharks live, they are apart of nature and so is the majestic nature of riding earth’s dynamic carpet water. Let surfers live these beautiful naturistic dreams with the surrounding dangers, which include sharks.

Shark Attack Reality

Shark Attacks happen not just in Sydney, not just Australia but all over the world. Swimmers and surfers in shark know beaches and rivers know the risk of sharks before they enter the water. The reality is there is an average of one fertility a year in Australia from Shark Attacks.

Few Fertilities v’s Few Attacks…

“According to ASAF, since 1791 there has been 639 attacks and 190 shark attack fertilities”

So why does the shark not kill their victims? Is it fun for them? Well many experts say that they attack for mistaken identity for the Sharks regular food. It would be very easy for a shark to kill after biting a surfer, especially considering the shock the surfer must feel after being bitten. In most cases the shark simply swims away, even though it knows the surfer is helpless. SHARKS ARE NOT HUMAN KILLERS, THEY JUST MAKE ACCIDENTS.

Interestingly, Australian’s are:

• twice as likely to die after being struck by lighting
• 300 times more likely to to drown
• 3,000 times more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident 

We hope you get better soon Andrew and hope to see you surfing soon.
WebMan - Northern Beaches Web Designs

 

Let’s face it, many websites place such a high importance on google ranking… simple reason, they will get more hits to their website than their competitors. OK this fantastic… except for one point… in most cases these website are heavily worded and saturated with ‘keywords’, it ends up providing little benefit your website visitors and they simply click off or ‘bounce’ your homepage.

 

OK, so what to do? How do keep visitors on your home page? Well the answer is simple: you must provide them value, something interesting and something other than loads and loads of text!

MediaSpark located in Northern Beaches, Sydney provides some Digital Media solutions for websites. Their focus is to embed various media technologies on small to medium size business websites, enriching the viewing experience, keeping the visitor on the website for longer. What is also impressive is that they track and measure the effectiveness of the embedded media on websites. 

Another interesting company that provides this service is http://www.reelseo.com. They combine video with SEO experiences.

It seem inevitable Australia is heading for a recession. This potentially means less sales, more competition to get sales and clients: you need to enrich your visitor experience to improve your market appeal.

Nano

p.s Happy New Year from WebMan the website geek!

One negativity about website development is the lack of control of website presentations and functionality. Although it is quite typical of smaller budget/small business websites not to function correctly, surprisingly it is big business with big budgets too! It is very important that your business website works for everyone. Statistics show that people use a variety of ‘web browsers’ to access the www (world wide web).

I was recently viewing the popular Sydney to Hobart race to see who was winning when the website did not display properly. Surely Rolex the sponsor who prides itself on quality watches could have developed a better functioning website?

On further development and in the picture you see here, it works fine in Intenet Explorer & FireFox but NOT the Chrome Browser or Safari. Judging on the statistic above, the website will not function correctly for over  26% (9.50% Safari + 17.36% chrome) for people that use those browsers! This is really not acceptable for a large and popular website. View this badly developed website for yourselves at http://www.rolexsydneyhobart.com

Here is a List of websites that have been poorly developed within the Northern Beaches Area:

• Manly Australia - www.manlyaustralia.com.au - Viewed in Chrome, the text on the bottom of top navigation is cut off
• Northern Beaches Choir: www.northernbeacheschorus.com.au - viewed in Chrome, the white background does not display correctly.
• Northern Beaches celebrant: www.northernbeachescelebrant.com - viewed in Safari, the green text does not scroll like it does in Internet Explorer & FireFox browsers

Although these are marginal errors in these websites, it can potentially turn off visitors to your website. 

WebMan’s website tip: “make sure your website works in all website browsers”

If you find your website is not working on all the different web browsers, tell you web developer to fix it!

Nano

How do the business directories work?

Just like the good old yellow pages telephone book but instead of “let your ‘fingers’ do the walking”, it’s on the internet so you can “let your ‘mouse’ do the walking” instead. Web based directories are popular due to the fast searching power - users type in a search word or keyword to find what they are looking for. Boom, you get your results. The tradition yellow pages advertising is dying a slow death because of the popularity of the internet and Google. Google is really the modern version of the yellow pages but with a ‘global search’ ability.

Should I Pay to be Listed on a Business Directory?

• If you are a local business - “No”, unless you have cash to burn.

How does Google’s SEO (search engine optimisation) relate to Directory Listings?

• business directory services are considered websites too! The more relevant ‘keywords’ on their directory listing, the higher they will rank in google. Note: business directory rankings fluctuate a lot, google prefers website’s than directories and so do people because website’s often contain more information, pictures and more!

WebMan’s Golden Rules for Online Business Directories:

• Submit your website to all free directories, especially those that include your category of business and cover your geographical location : i.e. northern beaches, plumbing, electrician & hair dressing
  

  What the Google Local Directory Looks like

• Pay special attention to directories that provide ‘free links’, remember a directory listing normally contains dull text, no pictures, so getting the user onto your beautiful and dancing website is a bonus.
• Expect a telephone call from the business directory sales rep requesting to “buy” further advertising. PLEASE ’say thanks but no thanks’, you don’t need to pay!
• If your website is ‘under construction’ or not not built yet, submit to the directories anyway, you can still get business

• 

  This is how the directory appears in Google!

  Make sure you submit your listing with the major directory listings, google and yahoo have some.

• Track the effectiveness of your referrals with Google Analytics
• Beware of local business directory ’sharks’ that promise the world but don’t deliver

nano nano
WebMan