Surfarama

A couple of new features at Delivr:

• Images are now attributed with the photographers Flickr user name, rather than the old "view original at Flickr". This provides some nice context when you're doing image searches.
• And you can now link (easily) to all your own Flickr photos available to be sent as digital postcards via Delivr. Just select the "My Images" option and submit your Flickr user name. It should return just your images, although you must still make sure that they use an appropriate CC license, otherwise they'll not show up.

Hope this is useful. Thanks to Heather Champ (Flickr Community Manager) for prompting us on the addition of Flickr user names to attribution links...should have done this from the outset.

Feedback welcome.

Tee hee. Jason Kottke is doing a great remaindered links retrospective...dancing baby anyone?

Tom Coates is wondering where are all the UK start-ups? I've been thinking about this too, but I wanna know where are all the Australasian internet start-ups? There is loads of creative talent around, doing some really nice work, but I don't see the ambitious start-up tackling the emerging opportunities in web services, microcontent, RSS, or social media...The cycle is coming around again and there's no reason we can't contribute from downunder.

Now, hopefully I am wrong! If you are starting something in Australia or NZ I'd love to hear about it.

I am pleased to announce that Surfarama has completed its acquisition of Google and after merging the Google operations into Surfarama HQ, we are now open for business.

Flynn's walking frame,
originally uploaded by Charles.

I've got a stack of photos to be uploaded at some point, but in the meantime here's Flynn with his Wassily walking frame...he pushes this all around the living room :)

You know that it is the product of some devilishly clever marketing dudes, expressly designed to make you pass it on to all your friends...and that in itself makes you not want to.

But sometimes you can't help yourself, which makes it worse, because you know they've won. They've captured your attention and made you their vehicle, their word of mouth lackey, their bzzagent (and you don't even get paid)...damn them, I think I'll pick up a six pack on the way home.

CARLTON DRAUGHT BIG AD

Just in case anyone has been trying to reach me via email, please resend anything important sent in the last 12 hours or so.

The whole network around the data center hosting my various domains lay down and went to sleep last night so nothings been getting in or out. Actually this is symptomatic of poor service ever since my hosting company was acquired...

All of which is leading to some changes. They don't know it yet but I am taking all my business else where. Hope to have migrated everything in the next couple of weeks.

It is hard to understand how John C. Dvorak can misrepresent the Creative Commons so comprehensively...come on, think man, it isn't rocket science.

Delivr provides a great example of the benefits of the Creative Commons...if all photos on Flickr were under traditional Copyright then Delivr would not exist. It could not exist because you can't use any copyrighted images in this kind of way without permission...

But thanks to the the Creative Commons, Delivr is possible, and can use images from Flickr available under a more flexible license. In simple terms, the Creative Commons licenses incorporate varying levels of permission.

The way the Creative Commons is set up the license holder can be very specific about how others can re-use their work. For example, they can choose to allow re-use for commercial purposes, which means if Delivr ever started charging to send postcards (it never will of course), then we could narrow the search to include only those images available for commercial purposes. Or license holders can choose to make their work available for use by others, but with the exception of derivative works. And infact Delivr does filter out images from Flickr with this No-Derivs license because the digital postcards the site generates are effectively derivatives of the original images.

What's so hard to understand?

It has been a full on couple of weeks...I arrived in London on Tuesday last week for a few days in the office, and from the moment I arrived there was nothing else in the media except for a running commentary of the goings on with the IOC in Singapore, before it was announced on Wednesday that London had won their bid to host the 2012 Olympics...bloody good news, and London was rightly stoked. We were living in Sydney during the 2000 games and if 2012 is half as good it will be great for London.

Then things went pear shaped on the Thursday morning with the suicide tube bombings,and since then there's been nothing else in the media, as you'd expect. The whole nation stopped to observe 2mins silence yesterday and it was quite moving. I gotta say I think the Londoners were amazing in the way they've handled it all...I was more freaked out than most of the locals I've talked to.

This week I've been in a another workshop, but my personal highlite for the week was going to the Seth Godin marketing soiree hosted by Hugh MacLeod. I nearly didn't go, but mustered the energy at the last minute and am really glad I went. Seth was great, and I am now brimming with inpiration about how to market my projects and the chance to meet some new people was cool as well, including Loic Le Meur, the first customer I have actually met in person. A great way to spend a Monday night, thanks Mr MacLeod.

Now I am getting ready for the 24 hour long haul flight back down under, and I am hanging out to get home and see Jennifer and Flynn...apparently he's got a new tooth :)

I thought something was up when I was walking to the office from the hotel this morning...loads of Police cars and Ambulances racing around and all the Tubes stopped with everyone milling around...details are still sketchy but the BBC is reporting atleast two bomb blasts.

And I've got a sick feeling in my stomach.

UPDATE: Cell phone network seems to be overloading. I got bumped off a call and havn't been able to connect since. Even the landlines are behaving oddly.