Making History in the new Social Media Sphere

Melbourne, Australia. - Getting public funding for news stories is a novel idea in the world of news producers who have traditionally relied on advertising sponsorship to pay for their business costs. In Australia, Swinburne University is currently experimenting to see whether or not social media can fly with just community sponsorship.
First Australian Story
Its first published story to be funded by the community hit the Internet earlier today titled, "In Search of Non-Toxic Housing for Health's Sake". It covers the plight of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) sufferer, Katherine McIntosh, who has been left effectively homeless due to the life-threatening symptoms she experiences from being sensitive to chemicals. This story is part of a series aimed at covering 10 personal stories of the most common problems faced by CFS sufferers.
Second in the World
This experiment in social media by the Melbourne-based university is the second in the world given that it is modelled on the US-site "Spot.Us". The site has been dubbed, "YouCommNews".

Social media celebrates its "sweet 16th" birthday!

This piece of history is recorded in the book published by McGraw-Hill Australia that I co-authored titled, "sharetrading@home.anytime.anywhere" (see http://www.mcgraw-hill.com.au/html/9780074711057.html).
The following is an excerpt:
Australia gives the internet mobility
However, it took another technology breakthrough to bring to reality the promises of the Internet of information anywhere, any time. This technology breakthrough took place in Sydney, Australia in the offices of the mobile phone company, Vodafone Australia.
On the dull Monday afternoon of 26 September 1994, the world's first GSM mobile fax was received at about 4.30pm from a laptop computer connected to a Nokia 2110 GSM mobile phone in transit on a suburban Sydney train. This spelt the dawn of the "Mobile Information age". The speed of the fax transmission was 9600bps, which is about three times slower than the speed of a normal phone fax transmission.
About two weeks later, the same laptop computer with the same mobile phone was connected to publicly demonstrate access to the Internet via CompuServe's online service from a mobile phone and download a full-colour weather map of Australia. It worked. The other digital mobile phone to be used for the same demonstration was the Siemens S3. This also worked.
Shortly after, Vodafone's global head office in the UK released the world's first digital mobile phone fax and data service. A journalist for one of London's top newspapers, present as the launch of England's National Lottery, took advantage of the new service to meet the paper's first-edition deadline of 6.30am. Having used a digital camera to take a picture of the event at 6.10am on a Monday morning, the journalist immediately hooked up his digital mobile phone to his laptop computer, made a call using the Vodafone service and sent the digital picture electronically via e-mail.
The e-mail made it to the newspaper's central computer system just minutes before the deadline. Thus, the picture was used in the paper's first edition as the journalist had intended. "It was a great achievement. Without the electronic camera and the Vodafone Data service, the picture just wouldn't have made the paper. We are at the dawn of a new age," the journalist commented.
This breakthrough brought the Internet to the screens of personal communications electronic mobile devices and instigated the development of the Internet-enabled mobile phone, the WAP mobile phone. Mobile phone engineers at Nokia, in Finland, worked together with other members of the Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) Forum (including engineers and computer programmers from Ericsson, Motorola, Microsoft, IBM, Compaq and Toshiba) to complete their development of the Mobile Internet traffic-management program standard, dubbed "WAP". Consequently, they launched the world's first WAP mobile phone in 2000 and, in essence, freed the Internet from being deskbound. This time the data transmission speed was 115Kbps, that is, around twelve times faster than the first GSM mobile fax transmission.
Once again, Australia featured as one of the first markets in the world to trial the new WAP mobile phones by deploying the country's first mobile banking service thanks to Telstra and Westpac."
The Vodafone team that made it all happen was Lester Pearson, Vodafone UK's Manager for Telecommunications and Computers, who was in Sydney at the time training up the local engineers; Sujeet Kumar, Vodafone Australia's Telecommunications Development Engineer; myself as Vodafone Australia's Value-Added Services Product Manager; and to make sure it worked on Nokia...Nokia Australia's Data Products Manager, James Campbell.

How can you help with a solution for Chronic Fatigue Sufferers?

The blog has been silent. That's the way it is with a CFS sufferer...action and then inaction. The energy is expired until the next time. It takes energy. It takes time to refuel. One learns quickly that time is a non-renewable resource and it must be used wisely. For the CFS sufferer every minute of energy is more precious than gold. Things get done as quickly as one can because time is precious and then the energy runs low again. This is why it is difficult for a CFS sufferer to get on with life at the same pace as everyone else and this is another reason why they suffer. They try to keep up but time is short and energy levels are low. What can you do to help?

Why does my memory fail me?

Imprisoned. She used to be quite eloquent in her speech and funny too! Now it is a struggle to string thoughts together let alone words. She knows what she wants to say. She just can't find the words. Her memory is not as good as it used to be. Names are the hardest! "Everyone struggles with names...but not like I do," she says to herself. "What is his name?" She can see the face but doesn't quite remember how they met or why it is important to speak to him today. His name is important. She has to find it to get his number from her mobile's contact list. But it escapes her. Trying to ask for help is no use. They can't quite make sense from the description she gives.  He was the guy that was introduced to her...something about getting him to take a look at her superannuation. It might have a clause about access to funds for suffering from a total and permanent disability. She decides to go through the contact list on her mobile phone in an effort to jog her memory. She looks at the list blankly. "I know that it is here somewhere!" It's no use. Nothing. No recollection. "It's OK," she says to herself,  "You have tried. Get some rest now. You can try again later. Who knows...he might call you!" And with that thought, she put her phone down and crawled back into bed. It's just after 11:00am in the morning and it sounds like rain outside. How pleasant the sound of rain when one exists in a fog of tiredness. It has a name this foggy condition. They call it, "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome". Ah, the rain drops. She can hear them...drip, drip, drip, tap, tap, tap. A lullaby to sooth the prisoner. The phone rings. She's fast asleep. And the tap in the bathroom continues to leak.

Find out what the big boys are not covering!

There are many stories that the big boys are missing!
But that does not mean that you need to miss them too!
Australian stories will now have the opportunity of being given the chance to be heard thanks to Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology's Public Interest Journalist (PIJ) Foundation. Tomorrow it will launch YouCommNews as part of the NEWS NEWS 2020 Conference at the Melbourne Writers Festival 2010.
Check it out!
Get involved!

The loudest cry is the silent scream...can you hear it?

Everyday there is yet another doctor shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Sorry...we can't help you!". The patient is typically a young lady who only 12 months ago was quite healthy and doing really well. Passionate about life and making the most of it! But today, she is a shadow of herself...she can't quite explain to the doctor all that she is experiencing...it's just not that easy to explain. It hurts. It pinches. It drains. It's her body turning against her and now all she does is sleep! She knows she has things to do...but they keep piling up. She tries her best but just getting dressed is tiresome enough! She can't eat. She can't sleep. Her eyes hurt...it's the sun...it is too bright...oh...and that smell...where is that coming from? Everything about her is sensitive. The doctor listens but is now looking at the clock. Time is up! "I'm sorry...we don't know much about CFS...try and eat healthy foods...try not to do too much. Call me if it gets worse." And she quietly shuffles out of the doctor's surgery and stares blankly to those in the waiting room. Speechless. She looks to find where she has to go next...she can see the door but she knows that she cannot walk outside...there is something she has to do...but what is it? The receptionist tries to get her attention. She smiles at her. Finally, the CFS patient motions towards her and asks, "Do I need to do anything else?". The receptionist gives her the bill to sign and says, "It's OK. I'll bulk bill it for you." and she smiles. But the CFS patient is baffled. She doesn't make a fuss. She does what she is told. She signs it but is unclear at what exactly just happened. She just wants to go to bed. She is tired. She is very tired. And she asks herself that same old question: "How could this happen to me?"