to Rocketboom ex-partners Andrew Baron and
Amanda Congdon
, than the video blog re-emerged from its two-weeks hiatus. Fronting the first edition of
Rocketboom 2.0 Beta
was
Joanne Colan
, a former MTV Europe VJ, who certainly bears a resemblance to the popular Congdon. After a humorous shot of executive producer Baron quivering on the floor, the new "interim host" hit the streets of New York in
today's episode
to try her luck at trading up - a la the experience of
Kyle MacDonald
of
One Red Paper Clip
fame. On the Rocketboom
comments page
, viewer reaction to Colan was mostly positive although a couple of viewers predicted her English accent would not wear well with US viewers. Maybe they haven't realised that this internet thing actually extends beyond the USA?
- - - posted 9.21am by Neil Sanderson
As promised, we today have
responses to your questions
about rising property rates. Thanks to everyone who participated, and for full coverage of the issue, please visit our special report
Rates on the rise
.
- - - posted 10.00am by Neil Sanderson
Wednesday July 12, 2006
Do you have a question about property rates
in the Auckland region? As part of this week's special report,
Rates on the rise
, we're taking questions from readers to put to the Councils. Responses will be published tomorrow.
[Email the Herald]
- - - posted 10.41am by Neil Sanderson
Reader comment:
It's a sad moment, as innocent lives have fallen victim to global terrorism. The attack is not just on Mumbai or India, but on the all the peace loving countries of the world. My deepest condolences to all those families who lost their loved ones. I woke up at 5.10am to be greeted by the bomb blast news on my laptop. I was accessing DD News' live streaming which was jammed as it ran out of bandwidth. I contacted my family and friends. Most of them are OK; I am still waiting for confirmation from some more. My friend's aunt was in an adjoining compartment, but had a lucky escape - thank God! My next priority was to inform all my readers, since
The Global Indian
is the only Indian publication in New Zealand with the capability of emailing all of its readers. Due to urgency, I could inform most of my readers, not all. I have been receiving messages from friends from all over the world - Indian and non-Indian alike. I was really touched. Thank you everyone for thinking of us in this hour of crisis. The Herald had done a great job of reporting the news quickly, and by providing a platform to share reactions, as a vast majority of 100,000-strong Indians in New Zealand are either from Mumbai or have friends there. Warm regards.
- - - posted 9.49am by V Gangan, Editor, The Global Indian
Reader comment:
i have being trying to find news on your website of the bomb blast in mumbai india,it does not appear on your website as of 6.20am wednesday, although the event happened some 12 hours earlier,either i am looking in the wrong place or u do not report important news.
- - - posted 6.44am by Mohamed
Response:
Thanks for the message Mohamed. This event occurred in the middle of the night, NZ time, when we do not have editors on duty. Our information is that the first bombing occurred at 12.54am NZT.
The story
was posted on the nzherald front page at 7.05am and we will continue to update it throughout the day.
We also have a
special section
on the bombings.
- - - posted 9.43am by Neil Sanderson
More terrorism this morning
with multiple bombings of trains in Mumbai, India. At the moment, it appears around 160 people were killed by bombings on five trains and at two stations. We don't know if there were any New Zealanders affected, but if you have information or are concerned about Kiwis who may have been in the area, please
contact us by email
. We'll compile the information and post it on nzherald.
- - - posted 8.58am by Neil Sanderson
Tuesday July 11, 2006
Reader question:
Eldernet is an on-line database for older people and their families and has traditionally had a link to your web edition of the Herald with articles classified under the Aging section. This was a valuable tool for us and for our readers. We often found new articles on the site every day that applied to all aspects of the older person. However in the last few months we have noticed there has been a massive change - often there are no new articles and we find that some articles that should be (or would have been) classified in this section are not there at all.
- - - posted by Esther
Response:
Thanks for your message Esther. Our classification system is partially automated and partially dependent on human editors. We have about 2000 classifications and we are constantly improving the system's accuracy. Thanks to your feedback, I have today made a number of changes which I hope will result in more relevant content appearing on our Ageing page. If you or your readers spot stories on the Ageing page that seem inappropriate, or believe that a story has been overlooked, I would appreciate knowing the specifics so I can try to determine the cause.
Also, in case you are not aware, we have other classifications that might interest your readers, including
Retirement
and
Retirement villages
. You might like to browse the
full list of subjects
.
- - - posted 1.55pm by Neil Sanderson
And so another World Cup comes to an end,
decided on penalties
and somewhat overshadowed by Zinedine Zidane's
bizarre headbutting
of Marco Materazzi. Thanks for following the Cup with us on nzherald. And special thanks from me to deputy editor Paul Smith and our online team for providing fast and comprehensive coverage, to our newspaper colleagues for analysis of the games and their impact, plus a special thank-you to our blogger,
Robin Martin
, who spent his football holiday giving readers back home a fan's perspective.
- - - posted 11.10am by Neil Sanderson
Monday July 10, 2006
The BBC has announced
the winner
of its
competition to redesign
the
bbc.co.uk homepage
. In setting out the assignment, Ashley Highfield, the BBC's Director of New Media and Technology said: "We need to come up with a personalised BBC homepage that will provide users with a starting place for their journey through BBC content and beyond." No promises that any of the competition entries will make it into production, but still interesting to look at.
- - - posted 2.50pm by Neil Sanderson
Thanks for coming to see us. Last week nzherald recorded a record number of visitors - 528,000.
- - - posted 2.45pm by Neil Sanderson
