Engaging social customers : influencing new marketing strategies for social media information sources

A global, online quantitative study among 300 consumers of digital technology products found the most reliable information sources were friends, family or word of mouth (WOM) from someone they knew, followed by expert product reviews, and product reviews written by other consumers. The most unreliable information sources were advertising or infomercials, automated recommendations based on purchasing patterns or retailers. While a very small number of consumers evaluated products online, rating of products and online discussions were more frequent activities. The most popular social media websites for reviews were Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and e-Bay, indicating the importance of WOM in social networks and online media spaces that feature product reviews as it is the most persuasive piece of information in both online and offline social networks. These results suggest that ‘social customers’ must be considered as an integral part of a marketing strategy.

Netflix : a house of cards or the new HBO?

'House of Cards' was a $100 million, 13-episode TV series starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher, that premiered in 2013 exclusively online, available only to Netflix subscribers. For over a year, Netflix had received much media attention for both its rapid international expansion and for its financial woes resulting in a plummeting share price and had some financial analysts postulating that it might not even survive. This article asks how can a company that teetering on the brink spend $100 million commissioning a TV series, let alone push ahead with global expansion? It asks is Netflix’s business model sustainable? And if it is, what does its entry into original programming mean for the future of television?

Assessing the suitability of existing spatial data for disaster planning and mitigation in Queensland

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 2003 gave in-principle approval to a best-practice report recommending a holistic approach to managing natural disasters in Australia incorporating a move from a traditional response-centric approach to a greater focus on mitigation, recovery and resilience with community well-being at the core. Since that time, there have been a range of complementary developments that have supported the COAG recommended approach. Developments have been administrative, legislative and technological, both, in reaction to the COAG initiative and resulting from regular natural disasters. This paper reviews the characteristics of the spatial data that is becoming increasingly available at Federal, state and regional jurisdictions with respect to their being fit for the purpose for disaster planning and mitigation and strengthening community resilience. In particular, Queensland foundation spatial data, which is increasingly accessible by the public under the provisions of the Right to Information Act 2009, Information Privacy Act 2009, and recent open data reform initiatives are evaluated. The Fitzroy River catchment and floodplain is used as a case study for the review undertaken. The catchment covers an area of 142,545 km2, the largest river catchment flowing to the eastern coast of Australia. The Fitzroy River basin experienced extensive flooding during the 2010–2011 Queensland floods. The basin is an area of important economic, environmental and heritage values and contains significant infrastructure critical for the mining and agricultural sectors, the two most important economic sectors for Queensland State. Consequently, the spatial datasets for this area play a critical role in disaster management and for protecting critical infrastructure essential for economic and community well-being. The foundation spatial datasets are assessed for disaster planning and mitigation purposes using data quality indicators such as resolution, accuracy, integrity, validity and audit trail.

Screen Distribution and the New King Kongs of the Online World

Like music and the news media before it, the film and television business is now facing its time of digital disruption. Major changes are being brought about in global online distribution of film and television by new players, such as Google/YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Yahoo!, Facebook, Netflix and Hulu, some of whom massively outrank in size and growth the companies that run film and television today. Content, Hollywood has always asserted, is King. But the power and profitability in screen industries have always resided in distribution. Incumbents in the screen industries tried to control the emerging dynamics of online distribution, but failed. The new, born digital, globally focused, players are developing TV network-like strategies, including commissioning content that has widened the net of what counts as television. Content may be King, but these new players may become the King Kongs of the online world.

Acquiring user information needs for recommender systems

Most recommender systems attempt to use collaborative filtering, content-based filtering or hybrid approach to recommend items to new users. Collaborative filtering recommends items to new users based on their similar neighbours, and content-based filtering approach tries to recommend items that are similar to new users' profiles. The fundamental issues include how to profile new users, and how to deal with the over-specialization in content-based recommender systems. Indeed, the terms used to describe items can be formed as a concept hierarchy. Therefore, we aim to describe user profiles or information needs by using concepts vectors. This paper presents a new method to acquire user information needs, which allows new users to describe their preferences on a concept hierarchy rather than rating items. It also develops a new ranking function to recommend items to new users based on their information needs. The proposed approach is evaluated on Amazon book datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can largely improve the effectiveness of recommender systems.

Namoi : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Namoi River winds its way through 42 000 square kilometres of blacksoil plain in the north east of New South Wales. Fed by the rivers of the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range, it contributes about one quarter of the Darling River’s flow. The river, its floodplain, wetlands, swamps and waterholes, are the traditional lands of the Gamilaraay* people. The Namoi is a very different river to the one the Gamilaraay people once knew and fished...

Katarapko : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

Once known as Crabb’s Creek, Katarapko Creek is a small anabranch of the Murray River, located between the towns of Berri and Loxton in the Riverland region of South Australia. Its 9 000 hectare grey clay floodplain is covered with blackbox, saltbush and lignum. The creek’s horseshoe lagoons, marshes and islands are the traditional lands of the Meru peoples. They fished the creek and surrounding waterways and hunted the wetlands. The ebb and flow of water guided their travels and featured in their stories. The Meru have seen their land and the river change...

Upper Murrumbidgee : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Upper Murrumbidgee cuts its way through the Snowy Mountains in south‐eastern New South Wales, snaking its way south, then turning north before dropping into the lowland and heading west to join the Murray downstream of Swan Hill. The Upper ‘Bidgee floodplain is only a couple of hundred metres wide, a stark contrast to the kilometres‐wide floodplains in other parts of the Murray‐ Darling Basin. When the floods come, they come up quickly and roar through the narrow valleys. These are the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngarigo peoples. They fished the river and surrounding waterways and hunted the wetlands. The seasonal rise and fall of the water guided their travels and featured in their stories. The Ngunnawal and Ngarigo people have seen their land and the river change...

Murray : Talking fish - making connections with the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray River is the boundary between NSW and Victoria. The river both defines boundaries and unites them with the waters that sustain townships, irrigation and the floodplain forests, including the 70 000ha of the iconic Barmah and Millewa Forest. The river and its floodplain are the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang people. The Murray is a very different river to the one the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang peoples once knew and fished...

Boken, berättelsen, pengarna I den digitala tidsåldern [The book, the story and the money in the digital age]

År 2012 är distribution av litteratur via internet inte längre en framtidsvision, utan ett etablerat format vid sidan av traditionella format som exempelvis pocketboken, den inbundna boken och ljudboken (AAP 2011; Amazon 2011; PaidContent 2011). Men den digitala tekniken etablerar inte enbart ett nytt format, utan förändrar också grundförutsättningarna för litterära konstformer och marknader. Detta kapitel behandlar en betydelsefull aspekt av denna förändring, nämligen hur den digitala tekniken påverkar relationen mellan läsare och författare och ökar läsarens inflytande över den kreativa processen. I den digitala tidsåldern är det möjligt att skapa berättelser online i en interaktiv process som involverar både läsare och författare. Kapitlet presenterar modeller för hur sådan “samproducerad e-litteratur” förändrar marknaden för litteratur och hur den påverkar den traditionella litteraturen.

Wetlands : a perspective for mapping, monitoring, and modeling

Experience gained from numerous projects conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory in Las Vegas, Nevada has provided insight to functional issues of mapping, monitoring, and modeling of wetland habitats. Three case studies in poster form describe these issues pertinent to managing wetland resources as mandated under Federal laws. A multiphase project was initiated by the EPA Alaska operations office to provide detailed wetland mapping of arctic plant communities in an area under petroleum development pressure. Existing classification systems did not meet EPA needs. Therefore a Habitat Classification System (HCS) derived from aerial photography was compiled. In conjunction with this photointerpretive keys were developed. These products enable EPA personnel to map large inaccessible areas of the arctic coastal plain and evaluate the sensitivity of various wetland habitats relative to petroleum development needs.

Analysis of damage to buildings following the 2010–11 Eastern Australia floods

This research analyses the extent of damage to buildings in Brisbane, Ipswich and Grantham during the recent Eastern Australia flooding and explore the role planning and design/construction regulations played in these failures. It highlights weaknesses in the current systems and propose effective solutions to mitigate future damage and financial loss under current or future climates. 2010 and early 2011 saw major flooding throughout much of Eastern Australia. Queensland and Victoria were particularly hard hit, with insured losses in these states reaching $2.5 billion and many thousands of homes inundated. The Queensland cities of Brisbane and Ipswich were the worst affected; around two-thirds of all inundated property/buildings were in these two areas. Other local government areas to record high levels of inundation were Central Highlands and Rockhampton Regional Councils in Queensland, and Buloke, Campaspe, Central Gold Fields and Loddon in Victoria. Flash flooding was a problem in a number of Victorian councils, but the Lockyer Valley west of Ipswich suffered the most extensive damage with 19 lives lost and more than 100 homes completely destroyed. In all more than 28,000 properties were inundated in Queensland and around 2,500 buildings affected in Victoria. Of the residential properties affected in Brisbane, around 90% were in areas developed prior to the introduction of floodplain development controls, with many also suffering inundation during the 1974 floods. The project developed a predictive model for estimating flood loss and occupant displacement. This model can now be used for flood risk assessments or rapid assessment of impacts following a flood event.

Methane and nitrous oxide fluxes in annual and perennial land-use systems of the irrigated areas in the Aral Sea Basin

Land use and agricultural practices can result in important contributions to the global source strength of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4). However, knowledge of gas flux from irrigated agriculture is very limited. From April 2005 to October 2006, a study was conducted in the Aral Sea Basin, Uzbekistan, to quantify and compare emissions of N2O and CH4 in various annual and perennial land-use systems: irrigated cotton, winter wheat and rice crops, a poplar plantation and a natural Tugai (floodplain) forest. In the annual systems, average N2O emissions ranged from 10 to 150 μg N2O-N m−2 h−1 with highest N2O emissions in the cotton fields, covering a similar range of previous studies from irrigated cropping systems. Emission factors (uncorrected for background emission), used to determine the fertilizer-induced N2O emission as a percentage of N fertilizer applied, ranged from 0.2% to 2.6%. Seasonal variations in N2O emissions were principally controlled by fertilization and irrigation management. Pulses of N2O emissions occurred after concomitant N-fertilizer application and irrigation. The unfertilized poplar plantation showed high N2O emissions over the entire study period (30 μg N2O-N m−2 h−1), whereas only negligible fluxes of N2O (<2 μg N2O-N m−2 h−1) occurred in the Tugai. Significant CH4 fluxes only were determined from the flooded rice field: Fluxes were low with mean flux rates of 32 mg CH4 m−2 day−1 and a low seasonal total of 35.2 kg CH4 ha−1. The global warming potential (GWP) of the N2O and CH4 fluxes was highest under rice and cotton, with seasonal changes between 500 and 3000 kg CO2 eq. ha−1. The biennial cotton–wheat–rice crop rotation commonly practiced in the region would average a GWP of 2500 kg CO2 eq. ha−1 yr−1. The analyses point out opportunities for reducing the GWP of these irrigated agricultural systems by (i) optimization of fertilization and irrigation practices and (ii) conversion of annual cropping systems into perennial forest plantations, especially on less profitable, marginal lands.

Thinking about Law: Perspectives on the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Law

A comprehensive introduction to the study of law. It uses historical, sociological, economic and philosophical perspectives to explore the major legal debates in Australia today. The contributors examine: the position of Aborigines in the Australian legal system and the impact of the Mabo case; divisions of power in Australian society and law; the question of objectivity in law; the relationship and social change; judicial decision-making; and other issues.