So what is MEGA i hear you ask? Here is some information from the MEGA website…

We welcome teams and individuals to join MEGA and be part of Australia’s mobile future.

What’s in it for you?
If you are a mobile, digital content or ICT company wanting to develop new mobile products and services, develop your staff in innovation and commercialisation, meet highly skilled potential employees and pitch for investment then MEGA is for you.

If you are an individual with creative, IT or business skills and you would like to collaborate with like-minded people with complimentary skill sets to create new products, services, start up a company, pitch for investment, increase your skill levels for employment and meet potential employers then mega is for you.

What does it involve?
Industry presenters and mentors share their leading edge expertise to provide a hands-on workshop program to take teams through:

• Market research and analysis
• Idea generation and evaluation of ideas for products and services
• Testing the technical and business feasibility of those ideas
• Producing a business plan or business proposal
• Pitching to potential investors

You will also be supported by a large MEGA support network of industry, education and government (see the partners page to see who is involved).

Communication, collaboration and teaching and learning are supported by the use of Web 2.0 technologies.

The project culminates with a high profile Pitch Day with industry experts and investors.

If this looks something you might be interested in, then register for the free seminar being held in Melbourne on Thursday the 9^th of July between 4.30pm and 6.00pm at the Telstra Executive Briefing Centre in Collins Street Melbourne.

For this years MEGA I’ve taken on a role as a business mentor under my Digital@HoneysuckleCreek / Upper Yarra Digital Media banner, and am really look forward to seeing what participants will come up with :)

UPPER YARRA DIGITAL MEDIA

New logo – note: there is also a version of this with a variation of the colours

Old logo

UPPER YARRA WEB HOSTING

New logo

Old logo

It’s going to be called “Purefold” and will be based in the period just before 2019 where the move was set.

It could be good…or it could be bad…but I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

It’s also being brand-funded with WPP, Publicis, Aegis and Naked Communications signing up clients to take part in it.

Links:
Official Ag8 announcement
Official Purefold FriendFeed discussion
Campaign article on the brand funding

The 24 Worst Domain Names Ever

Well…that house is up for sale.

Now that would be a cool house to live in :)

Upper Yarra Web Hosting is a service from Upper Yarra Digital Media that provides both pre-configured and custom tailored webhosting solutions on servers currently available in Australia and the USA.

Shared hosting prices start at AUD $7.95 a month, and all shared hosting packages get two months free if you sign-up for one-year. We can also organise dedicated servers if you need them. Currently all hosting is provided on a contact us first basis so that we can deliver exactly what you require at the best price, but we are looking at offering a simple automated setup service if enough people desire it.

We also have a partnership with a company that is initially developing premium Joomla (and later WordPress) templates as standalone packages for purchase, which wil also be available bundled with a hosting package. More info on this as they get closer to opening.

Upper yarra Web Hosting also provides a domain name purchasing service with prices that even i can’t believe. .com domains go for AUD$19.95 per year and .com.au domains go for AUD $39.95 for the standard two year period. A number of other Australian and generic domain names are also available at great prices, with DNS management available on every account.

Visit Upper Yarra Web Hosting for more information.

I started Upper Yarra Digital Media in early 2009 to provide a wide variety of digital media and digital services to community groups and small to medium businesses in the retail and tourism industries across rural, regional and metropolitan Australia.

The available services cover everything from early stage strategy and project architecture, through to design, programming and content creation (copywriting / photography / video / audio), seo, digital marketing and online advertising.

Some of the above services are offered in-house and others are offered seamlessly by a wide range of partners, some of which i have been using since the mid 1990’s.

Upper Yarra Digital Media also operates Upper Yarra Web Hosting. The business is owned by Honeysuckle Creek Pty Ltd and you can find more information on all of the digital business owned by Honeysuckle Creek at Digital @ Honeysuckle Creek.

Digital @ Honeysuckle Creek is not an actual business, but it has been designed as a central spot to disseminate the news and highlights of the digital media and digital services business that are owned by Honeysuckle Creek Pty Ltd, which i founded in late 2006.

The businesses currently include: DSS46 Digital (opening soon) and Upper Yarra Digital Media, which also operates Upper Yarra Web Hosting.

Info on Upper Yarra Digital Media in the next post.

Honeysuckle Creek Pty Ltd was founded in late 2006 as an umbrella organisation to look after the many and varied projects of its Founder and Managing Director…that would be me, Mick Stanic (aka SplaTT).

Anyway…the first project group is “Digital @ Honeysuckle Creek” which highlights the Honeysuckle Creek owned organisations that work in the digital media and digital services sphere. Those organisations currently include: DSS46 Digital (opening soon) and Upper Yarra Digital Media, which also operates Upper Yarra Web Hosting.

A few more project groups are planned in the future that will operate under the Honeysuckle Creek structure, and these will include businesses that are outside of the digital media and digital services sphere. Most of these have been ideas floating around my head for a number of years and information on some of them will probably appear during the course of 2009.

But before i get to them, next up is a post on Digital @ Honeysuckle Creek.

In case you are interested, the name Honeysuckle Creek comes from a spot south of Canberra, and was the location that housed NASA’s Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station that provided the first 8 minutes of video from the Apollo 11 moon landing, this included Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moons surface and uttering the famous sentence, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind“.

Ever since i visited the site in the late 1990’s, i was always amazed that even though Australia, and in particular this location, had played such an important part in the first moon landing and space exploration in general, we were never really taught about it. I believe that this particular location is one of our countries most important historical locations in the technology area, and i always thought it would be a good name for a company involved in technology…and so Honeysuckle Creek Pty Ltd came into existence.

• Honeysuckle Creek Pty Ltd
• Digital @ Honeysuckle Creek
• Upper Yarra Digital Media
• Upper Yarra Web Hosting
• DSS46 Digital (launching soon)

More info in the coming days.

I’ve gone through stages of posting a lot and then posting hardly anything for ages, but keeping this blog has been a great experience and has been instrumental in meeting some amazing people (many of which have become good friends over the years) and also led to being involved in some great projects.

Anyway…below is a small snippet of data from the site usage stats.

NOTE: 2003 only had data from the 23rd of March 2003 till the end of the year, 2007 only had posts made between the 1st of January 2007 and the 4th of October 2007, 2008 only had posts from the 26th of Febraury 2008 till the end of the year, and 2009 only has data up to today (23rd of March 2009)

While the stats for SplaTT’s Blog declined during 2008, i have started a number of other websites and blogs covering more specific areas that have taken a bit of my time…that’s my excuse ;)

It certainly doesn’t feel like six years has passed since i started the blog and i hope the next six years will be just as interesting as the first six years have been for me. And for those of you that have read my ramblings during that time i hope you have enjoyed them and will stick around for another six years :)

Left the Upper Yarra Valley in Victoria at 5.30am on the morning of Thursday the 12th of March and started the long drive up the Hume Highway/Freeway to Sydney. After a fuel and lunch stop I arrived in Sydney at around 3pm and popped into favourite Glebe cafe called Well Connected for a coffee. Wandered around Glebe Point Road for a while and then drove down to Woolloomooloo and had a “pie with peas, mash & gravy” at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels before checking into the “Blackett Hotel” in the city.

Friday started with a wander around the the city before attending an AIMIA Board meeting at lunchtime. Caught up with some friends in the afternoon and then jumped in a cab and headed down to the Australian Technology Park in Eveleigh which was the venue for the 15th AIMIA Awards.

The Awards was a great event with over 700 people attending and both the “after party” and the “after after party” were a great opportunity to catch up with everyone. All of the entries and finalists were great so a big congratulations to the 24 winners…well done :)

After being woken way to early to the sounds of Australian Navy marching bands in George Street on Saturday, i checked out of the hotel and caught up with an old friend for lunch at Bar Italia in Leichhardt before catching up with a supplier who has became a good friend over the years.

I left Sydney on Monday morning and headed for Canberra where i had a meeting with the main organiser behind the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. I’m helping out to organise a logo and other stuff. My interest in this is that I’m fascinated by a particular location and its story in Australia’s space involvement…so much that my umbrella business, “Honeysuckle Creek Pty Ltd“, is named after the “NASA Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station“, which was located south of Canberra and was responsible for picking up and transmitting the Apollo 11 moon landing, including the footage and audio of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moons surface (Honeysuckle Creek site – wikipedia).

After the Apollo meeting I caught up with and stayed with some close friends in Canberra on Monday and then on Tuesday headed south for the Snowy Mountains region after first stopping at the Mount Stromlo Observatory, the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex and the Honeysuckle Creek site.

A quick lunch at Jindabyne and then the drive continued onto the Alpine Way through Thredbo, over Dead Horse Gap, passed Tom Groggin and though Khancoban. I then crossed back into Victoria and had a well deserved beer at one of the pubs in Corryong after which I followed the road from Corrying to Omeo and onto Bairnsdale before stopping for the night after what was huge 11 hour drive from Jindabyne.

Wednesday morning saw me making a quick dash for the V21 conference in Melbourne which was certainly worth the effort. Well done to the team at AIMIA Victoria for putting this on…looking forward to next years event.

Spent Thursday at the EYEfi office before finally returning to the starting point in the Upper Yarra Valley late on Thursday night…finally home :)

The schedule so far has an AIMIA National board meeting during the day on Friday, the 15^th AIMIA Awards on Friday night, catching up with some friends in Sydney on Saturday, driving to Canberra to catch up with friends on Sunday, meeting with Apollo 11 40^th Anniversary people on Monday hopefully (i ‘ll explain that one later) and if i have time, one last trip on the as yet unsealed Bogong High Plains Road before it gets completely covered in bitumen.

The plan is to be back in Melbourne to attend the V21 conference on Wednesday the 18^th of March, which has been organised by the Victorian AIMIA Committee.