"As always, it is free to receive notifications and standard text messaging rates apply to sending," says Twitter’s Kevin Thau. "It’s the same pricing as sending and receiving text messages from friends."

To use the feature, users can simply send "START" to 0198089488. This page shows all of the official Twitter Text Commands. Twitter recommends Aussies follow the following accounts:

@australian (News from The Australian newspaper)
@delta_goodrem (Musician)
@kyleandjackieo (Australia’s #1 radio show)
@DanniiMinogue (Team Minogue judge for The X Factor)
@KevinRuddPM (Prime Minister)

To follow via SMS, just send "FOLLOW" and the username.

Twitter says more countries and more carriers will be coming soon. Aside from Australia, Twitter already has such support for the US, Canada, UK, India, Indonesia, Ireland, and New Zealand.

Related Articles: 

> Google SMS Launches

> Twitter Expands SMS Tweeting in Canada

> Text Messaging Right From Gmail

Sensis is an arm of the Telstra Corporation, a telecommunications giant, and among other things, Sensis publishes white and yellow page telephone directories.  Asher Moses reports, "From the first quarter of next year, all of Yellow’s business listings – the most comprehensive directory in Australia – will be stored in Google Maps."

 

As for that other online matter, he continues, "Google’s search engine will power the search feature and text advertising on Sensis.com.au."  Any revenue resulting from the deal will be split in an undisclosed manner.

These developments indicate, of course, that Google’s doing quite well in comparison to one Australian competitor.  And since Telstra made a mobile search agreement with Yahoo7 (the product of a partnership between Yahoo and the Seven Network), the company might be edging out at least one other rival, as well.

Google’s almost sure to throw a party or two so long as it doesn’t start to get more looks from antimonopoly entities.

How often does a product hype meet the customers expectation? What are the implications of under and over delivery?

Today, Product Managers talk about "experiential" marketing.

Is it better to deliver the expectation as promised? Tell is as it is, truth in advertising and build customer longer term trust.

What then happens when you overlay customer technology adoption life cycle?
Where do you fit on the curve? An Innovator, an Early Adopter, Early Majority, Late Majority or Laggard?.

For different products do we adopt different buying behaviour?

Marketing a new technology is vastly different than marketing a consumer product that carries little or no risk.

In the risky world of high tech, the customer will not rely on the word of the provider. The customer’s decision process is based on finding objective information from reliable sources, something the supplier cannot provide.

Sixty percent of the high-tech startup companies that succeed in getting venture capital end up in bankruptcy. (more)

Today, Internet social bookmarking is a major force in determining product success and failure.

Below is an updated summary of what’s hot and not.

On the Rise
Digital Magazines
Marketing Resource Management
Video Search Technologies
Mobile TV On-Demand
Digital Asset Management
Podcasting
Advertising Distribution and Management Software
Advertising Targeting Technologies
AM/FM/TV Datacasting
Open IT Standards in Post-Production
Internet-Driven VOD (Video On Demand)

At the Peak
Mobile TV Broadcast
Open IT Standards in Back Office
Consumer Content Creation Tools
Metadata Standards
Monetizing P2P

Sliding Into the Trough
Real Simple Syndication
Blogs
Digital Rights Management Technologies
High Definition
Interactive TV Advertising Targeting Applications

Climbing the Slope
Streaming Media

Entering the Plateau
Instant Messaging

Off the Hype Cycle
Media Servers

Hype Cycle for the Media Industry, 2005

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There is a clear relationship between economic growth and investment in technology.

The building and construction industry has the lowest level of technology adoption and the lowest productivity growth. (Note: The new NextG network will help that)

As we’ve seen with the NSW economy, when governments stuff up the building and construction industry then everything else in the economy slows down (but that’s a different story).

Governments need to make decisions which foster economic and social growth or "stick to their knitting" [sorry threw that in for Google SEO].

Small Businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy but can’t afford their own expensive communications infrastructure. They need fast and reliable standard services.

As we’ve said time and time before – make life easier for small business, don’t rip us off and you’ll earn our trust and support. Remember for every 1 big business there are about 100,000 small ones!

With small businesses in mind today Phil Burges, from Telstra (one of the three amigos) announced their BACk Telstra.

The "BAC" stands for Broadband Australian Company (for those that are interested). Personally from a marketing perspective it’s a pretty lame name for such an important subject but I can’t comment some people don’t even like the BANGitUP name! (ye gads!)

Anyway, the guts of the argument comes down to who should determine our (read you and I) telecommunications infrastructure – government or the public and Telstra?

It’s a tough one – everyone is a bit sus of big corporate abuse but innovation and government are rarely mentioned in the same sentence (excluding the ABC that is [lot’s of clever stuff going on there).

The current "competition" policy for broadband has only benefited those living close major centres. It appears current Government policy is a bad game of bluff, hoping Telstra will eventually cave in as shareholders become more and more concerned at reducing fixed line revenues.

Guess what – most of the 1.9m small businesses don’t live in the city and are stuck with a piffy 1.5mpbs ADSL. We’re not happy but have been pointing the finger at the wrong culprit.

At the moment Australia is ranked something like 17th in the world. That’s pathetic.

The future of this country lies in two areas – biotechnology and telecommunications.

Anyway, let’s you and I decide not a group of politicians playing power games. Which pollie said 8mb per second is enough? Let me tell you – a fully rendered 3D building is a bloody big file – add collabortion tools on top of that, VOIP and multipoint conferencing and your 8mb is looking like a string and a couple of cans.

To prosper in the emerging global information economy we’ll need 100mps and beyond.

If the corporate price is too expensive then we’ll opt out or on charge it to our customers as a cost of business – that’s basic economics and market forces.

As we’ve said time and time again Smart Australia requires bigger, thicker pipes to carry our data that will provide better information services. The more services the greater productivity, yes and revenue to Telstra.

Let’s just get on with it.

The BACK campaign is simply empowering people to tell government to provide a level playing field – it’s letting shareholders understand the bigger issues beyond the short term share price.

From a building industry and small business perspective BANGitUP is an active BACk Telstra supporter (though I’m not particularly happy with some of their other decisions but I’d much prefer our money going to an Australian company)

nowwearetalking – BACK Telstra

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At first glance the article heading aired of hypocracy given the telco now delivers movies and other content against local video, CD and games stores.

Tesltra, who stated in it’s public strategic direction want to move upstream in the information pyramid towards rich media content and application services – to in effect become another media and software company – a Yahoo/Seven, a Nine MSN, a Google/ News Ltd – to repeat the digital transformation achieved by British Telecom (BT) and many other telcos around the globe – to also expand it’s interests in Yellow Pages and it’s other investments.

In more detailed reading Winn appears to be saying do not get carried away with the i-phone hype. This is good advice but without doubt Apple has acheived the "innovators" tag in the market. The marketing is slick and it has create a devoted customer culture. The Ipod created a new batch of consumers beyond its historical computer user base – with the Ipod it acheived the MP3 player market leadership and the dominant position. Today there are thousands of other MP3 players on the market and as competition increases so will profit margin pressure. From a manufacturers point of view they need to find the next wave. How many Ipod users will migrate to the Iphone?

The next big wave is around the convergence of computers and telephony – in particular wireless telephony or *VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) – this is where the Iphone comes in.

As Winn says there will be hundreds of these devices to choose from by the time the I-phone launches here in Oz. There’s a lot of things that can happen with technology in a very short time. This week we have seen landline revenues drop something like 21% and Telstra Next G announce an increase in speed to the wireless network to over 14mbps – fastest in the world.

All these devices have to run across wireless networks.

After the device war settles it will be leveraging this technology on top on social and business community web sites such as MySpace, Ebay and BANGitUP where the real advancements will be made.

Footnote

*If you weren’t sure VOIP enables you to make phone calls over the Internet and has been around for a few years with the likes of Skype. The original call quality was pretty poor but has improved significantly over that time and is near business operation grade. The problem or greatest barrier to adoption for most people and businesses is that it is yet another device of communication you and I have to deal with – another number – another address on your email signature or business card – another bit of technology – another address book that needs to be maintained. Many times it easier just to pick up the phone.

As we enter into the next wave of technological evolution then there will be multiple devices – what we want is the seamless transfer of information across multiple devices. We want to keep our existing telephone number and simply have that VOIP enabled.

Telstra to Apple: ‘stick to your knitting’ – BizTech – Technology – smh.com.au

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Scott Maxworthy is the CEO of BANGitUP and the author of the BANGitUPTV blog.

Any number of people I know from Australia warned me that business is far behind the blogging/social media curve down under. Afterwards, though, I got an email from Rod Bruem, who runs a blogging website for Telstra, which provides telecommunications services. The site, “Now We Are Talking,” features about 15 company bloggers, ranging from Telstra’s chief technology officer, Dr. Hugh Bradlow, addressing technology issues, to a working mother striving to achieve an appropriate work-life balance. According to Bruem, “Our most popular blog is a cartoon blog done by one of the company accountants!” Commenting is open on the blogs.

Bruem noted in his email that Telstra has realized many of the benefits of blogging that I outlined in my talk, with notable success in challenging traditional media reporting of Australia’s biggest company. The company attracts three times the media coverage of airlinie Qantas, Australia’s second-largest company, and much of that reporting has been slanted or inaccurate in the past. Since Telstra began using the blogs to point out such lapses in media coverage, journalists who cover Telstra have been more careful, Bruem says.

There’s more to “Now We Are Talking” than blogs, though. The site is a model of transparency and conversation. Its other elements include:

• Opinion-Members of the site team sound off on “hot topics in media, telecommunications and issues relating to Telstra. We go behind the headlines, review industry developments and expose the fiction behind what often passes as fact. ” Each opinion includes a link to message boards where the public can offer their own views.
• Discussion forums-Three forums are currently active: broadband (“Should the Australian Government be doing more to remove regulations that are preventing investment in broadband?”), one on the company (“Is the new Telstra on track in delivering better services for customers and improved returns for its shareholders?”), and a forum on regulatory issues (“Are telecommunications regulations benefiting consumers or working against them? See what we and others think. Enter the debate”).
• Information-Facts and figure (“An open and productive discussion about telecommunications in Australia need to be informed by facts and data and some different points of view”)
• Shareholders-An intriguing hodgebodge of investor news, Q&A (investors submit questions) and “soapbox,” which gives shareholders “the chance to step up to the soapbox, share your investment tips, and even pass on some good advice to the CEO.”

“Now We Are Talking” is linked from Telstra’s home page, and most of the site is RSS-enabled.

If other Australian businesses aren’t paying attention to Telstra’s bold efforts to join-and lead-the conversation, they have nobody to blame but themselves for being behind the curve.

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Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.

As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self.

Telstra has also been appointed as an executive director of the company. He will be moving from California to Australia and begin his new job as soon as Switkowski steps down.

Telstra Chairman, Donald McGauchie said, “The Board is delighted with Mr. Trujillo’s appointment. We believe he well and truly meets the exacting criteria set down by the Board for the task ahead. We unanimously agree that he is the best person to lead Telstra and believe this is an excellent outcome.

“During his career he has successfully managed fixed line, wireless, broadband and directory businesses – virtually every facet of Telstra’s business. He has enormous depth, expertise and understanding in matters regulatory, operational, financial, marketing and sales and a deep understanding of technology,” added McGauchie. AP reports:

The Government of Prime Minister John Howard, has long sought to fully privatize Telstra but has been blocked by Opposition parties in the Senate, the Upper House of the Federal Parliament.

However, at elections late last year Howard’s center-right administration won control of both Houses of Parliament, clearing the way for it to pass legislation allowing the sell-off of the Government’s stake in the former state-run monopoly.

Trujillo gets to lead the company through its A$30 billion full privatization. Australia’s government is expected to sell its 51.8% stake in Telstra in the second half of next year.

“Mr. Trujillo has successfully led a number of major cultural and business change programs. We believe Telstra will similarly benefit from his pragmatic innovation, strategic and tactical thinking and outstanding implementation,” said McGauchie.

Chris is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

The search engine will be aimed at a younger demographic and will offer access to Yellow and White pages, and local search services based around Sensis-owned Whereis, CitySearch and TradingPost, a online classified newspaper. According to The Age, Sensis has begun a multi-million dollar ad campaign to raise brand awareness, including having “Sensis” appearing on city sidewalks written in chalk.

Sensis commented that their search service would be able to “link up elements of online, voice, wireless and print.” Analysts believe Telstra is making these moves in order to prevent their advertiser base from jumping over to Google and Yahoo-owned Overture for search engine marketing services.

News of the upcoming launch saw Teltra’s stock prices rise by $.02, bringing the price up to $5.01 at the close of business.

Telstra’s upcoming Sensis launch has caused Overture to sit up and take notice. According to ZDNet Australia, Mel Bohse, the managing director of Overture’s Australian division, said they plan on launching their new LocalMatch service for the Aussies by the end of the year.

Google Australia had no comment on these developments.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.