Is Microsoft trying to stem its losses from Bing?

If Appledystopia is right in its 2020 article, Microsoft loses US$1·5 milliard per annum on Bing. So maybe that explains why it’s worsened so much. Microsoft might well be finding ways to cut its losses, and servers cost money. Pity that none of the Bing clones are saying anything, not even Duck Duck Go’s usually […]

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Attempting re-entry into Bing’s Pubhub

In early July, I wanted to see if we could add Lucire to Bing as a news source in their Pubhub—after all, Google has us as one, as Yahoo, Altavista and Excite had back in the day. And I’d say that 25 years of publishing with an international team might qualify us as being media. […]

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Reduced Facebook? Australia is the lucky country

Whichever side you are on with Facebook imposing a ban on Australians sharing news content, this says it all about the level of intelligence over at Menlo Park.    In Australia, Facebook has not only de-platformed legitimate governmental bodies and non-profits, it has de-platformed itself.    Maybe taxing these companies would have been easier, and […]

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Back on RNZ’s The Panel: on Hong Kong’s new national security legislation

Public domain/Pxhere What a pleasure it was to be back on The Panel on Radio New Zealand National today, my first appearance in a decade. That last time was about the Wellywood sign and how I had involved the Hollywood Sign Trust. I’ve done a couple of interviews since then on RNZ (thank you to […]

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Cautiously optimistic about Boucher

When I ran for office, there was often a noticeable difference between how I was treated by locally owned media and foreign- owned media. There are exceptions to that rule—The New Zealand Herald and Sky TV gave me a good run while Radio New Zealand opted to do a candidates’ round-up in two separate campaigns […]

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Facebook exploits COVID-19 for profit, and viral thoughts

A lot of the world’s population has come together in the fight against COVID-19. Except Facebook, of course, who is exploiting the virus for profit. Facebook has done well in the first quarter of 2020 with positive earnings. Freedom From Facebook & Google co-chairs Sarah Miller and David Segal note (the links are theirs): ‘Facebook […]

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Rather locked down than living within a controlled experiment

As a dual national, I hope there’s some exaggeration or selective quoting in the Bristol Post about its report of former police officer Mike Rowland, who’s stuck in Auckland with his wife Yvonne. Apparently, New Zealand is in ‘pandemonium’ and he feels like he’s in ‘Alcatraz’.    As we are most certainly not in pandemonium, […]

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The British approach to coronavirus: by Grabthar’s hammer, what a savings

Still from AFP video I’d far rather have the action taken by our government than the UK’s when it comes to flattening the curve on coronavirus, and the British response reminds me of this 2018 post.    Just because the chief scientific adviser there has a knighthood and talks posh isn’t a reason to trust […]

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One News is hard to miss on TV, but hidden on the internet

I wanted to see what TV1 news (I can never remember its official name with all its rebrands over the years—is it One Network News, TVNZ1 News, One News, or something else?) had on GM’s decision to shut Holden, but I missed both the six o’clock and the Plus One screenings. I headed online with […]

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The standard Chinese New Year news report

Janos Perian from Pixabay Every year, I hear or read a news report along these lines here: It’s Chinese, or the lunar, New Year today, and Asian communities all over New Zealand are coming together with their families to celebrate. It’s the Year of the Rat, which means it will be a lucky and prosperous […]

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