found this article by a frustrated Austin Modine and I hope it will help some of you to get out of this confusion

Are you a digital design student or just starting your career?

Amnesia Razorfish – AdNews Interactive Agency of the Year for 2006, 2007 and 2008 – is committed to helping young designers and students get the best start in their career possible and is hosting an evening of seminars and dialogue this 7 ^th & 8^th of April from 6pm to 9.30pm.

REGISTER ONLINE at www.amnesia.com.au/openstudio

With the success of last year’s program we’re opening our doors again and this Open Studio 2009 will be even better. For a recap of last year’s event, visit www.amnesia.com.au/openstudio2008

Open Studio is open to all design students and young designers and is focused on giving practical advice on a variety of topics through short seminars and one-on-one sessions with our Senior Designers and Art Directors.

The evening runs over two nights and includes seminars and info on:

Portfolio preparation
Tips and tricks on how to prep your portfolio for interviews

Ideas out of thin air
The best techniques for creating ideas and brainstorming

From student to designer
How one of last years’ Open Studio attendees ended up working full time for Amnesia Razorfish

A different side of social
Facebook, MySpace and Twitter like you’ve never seen them before

Designing and developing with Flash
The dark art of Flash explained

Portfolio review
We’ve seen a lot and can help you tweak yours

Creative surgery
Designer’s block? Get some advice from our Art Directors

Best of all, it’s totally free, no strings attached!

Space is very limited and it’s first come best dressed, so register immediately to avoid disappointment.

Learn more at www.amnesia.com.au/openstudio

The next version of the OS, which will arrive mid-year will offer developers “over 1000 new APIs” to work with.

Highlights of the feature-set include:

• Cut, Copy and Paste! – and about time too.
• MMS! – Quite frankly the lack of MMS was embarrassing to me and a source of amusement for those around me.
• In-App purchasing – A cool idea, but a way for iPhone app developers to potentially nickel-and-dime us to death.
• Peer-to-Peer connectivity – LAN games? Sweet.
• Push notifications – Developers will be able to build message, sound and badge alerts into their apps.
• Landscape keyboard available everywhere – Write texts and emails with a larger keyboard.
• Voice memos – No need to buy a separate app for this now.
• System-wide search – Easily find things in your messages, notes, mail and media files.

Sadly, the capability for applications to run in the background and (official) video recording using the camera is still out.

TUAW.com have a feature round-up here.

Apple have also released a video of the full presentation here.

Update:
- Telstra has published some ‘facts’on the situation (here):
- @StephenConroy has stated he has been asked to stop Twittering (here).

Much more than a prank – a piece of Twitter History:
So the Twitter account @stephenconroy as written by Leslie Nassar, a Telstra employee, was today shut down. Whilst some called Nassar a prankster, those who followed @stephenconroy know that this was a brilliantly written, satirical, entertaining and fun parody that was never in doubt as a fake. In fact it brought some well needed humour into a debate about censorship and the internet filter in Australia. We even played a part publishing a list of suspects (which really was all part of the fun and quite the opposite to being a witch hunt as some saw it).

Even the real Senator Stephen Conroy seemed to think the character was healthy satire (as stated in an SMH article), and >1500 followers on Twitter were regularly drawn into @stephenconroy’s daily musings and conversations. Amongst the followers were many of the “Twitterati” (high reach Twitter users) as well as journalists and other key influencers. It is safe to say that Nassar has a strong base of support in the community.

The Censorship Debate:
It raises an interesting debate and all eyes will now be on Telstra to handle the matter with dignity and fairness. There is clearly a conflict of interest for the corporation given its pending deals with the government. However most neutral observers would agree that Nassar kept the debate a considerable distance from his employer. The broader reaction has been one of disappointment at the termination* of the @stephenconory twitter account (although it is suspected that Nassar may have removed this to avoid conflict with his employer). Many consider the profile a part of Twitter nostalgia given the brilliantly written tweets that were posted daily. History has shown that brands that censor rather than support in these situations do not fare well. We’ve set up a poll below to let you voice your opinion:

TAKE PART IN A POLL:
Did Telstra make the right decision in silencing @stephenconroy?
http://twtpoll.com/3gzjri

Finally:
If you feel strongly (ie: should Telstra ask Mr.Nassar to continue to run the @stephenconroy account please post a comment below).

Todays smh article:

Click image to visit SMH story above.

A while ago, we got a brief: a campaign with no media, only social, to support the Aussie Home Loan Guarantee. Along with the brief came a TVC, which depicted a mortgage broker jumping out of a plane, promising $300 to anyone who he couldn’t find a better home loan deal for.

Mid-way into our second brainstorming session, a bit of a ridiculous comment was made: why don’t we throw a real mortgage adviser out of a plane?

It stuck.

Today we launched the Aussie Freefall Challenge, and the star of the show is Duane Brown: a karaoke-loving, soccer-playing, Glenmore Park-dwelling husband and father of two. He’s been with Aussie since 2007 and last year was awarded NSW/ACT’s Mortgage Adviser of the Year. And we get to chuck him out of a plane. Laurel asked us if he was a fake person; we promise, he’s not.

The mechanics of this contest are pretty simple: go to the site, pick your co-ordinates, and on April 6th when Duane straps on his parachute and lands, the person who guessed the closest location wins $3,000. (The next 50 people to guess closer get $300 cash). Bonus codes which boost chances of winning will be posted on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.

Oh, and if you’re interested in giving Duane some pointers, he’s all ears.

The traffic we know is a lot larger than this as the 69,000 UV’s do not account for mobile and desktop traffic to twitter.

The move has been explained by MD Tim Brooks as a ploy to “invite the developer community in”, to keep inline with the Guardian being a “value-driven and not a profits-driven” company and to build an ecosystem around its brand.

Detailed information about the release of Open Platform can be found on the Guardian’s website. They’ve even explained how you can use the Data Store for you, should you be interested in such information.

This news comes just after the New York Times unveiled Times Extra, which features integration of related news and blog feeds alongside their online news coverage.

Expect to see more of these moves by old media who are, by all accounts, struggling to fit into a world being progressively dominated by the digital medium.

Yesterday, Mars sent the NYC-based agency a cease and desist, and the site was shut down at 6pm EST.

A bit of background: Tom Ajello was ECD at Agency.com, and worked on the Mars account during his tenure. According to a spokesperson, the idea the logo generation was originated while he was working on the award-winning Snickers.com, but was never developed. Ajello left Agency.com in 2007 to co-found POKE with Aaron Rutledge and Michael Kantrow.

The site, in its short existence, attracted an average visit time of 5-8 minutes and 80,000 users and, in stark contrast to the much-talked about Skittles debacle, created mostly positive interaction with the Snickers brand, even if it was an unofficial/unauthorized experience. The brandjack was explained by POKE as being created in “good faith to add a bit of utility to Snickers’ offering”.

This could have, theoretically, been integrated quite easily into the brand site (if inter-agency politics and egos didn’t play a factor the decision.*) Instead, in their short-sightedness, Mars decided to shut down the site — something that was generating no revenue except for shits and giggles.

As far as I know (and correct me if I’m wrong) but there was no offer to make use of a concept that was generating really positive conversation; conversation that Mars didn’t pay for, that wasn’t being exploited for profit, that could fall under the category of say, fan fiction. AMC got that very wrong when they first dealt with the Mad Men accounts, and then realized the error of their ways and corrected it, seeing the value of fans running the conversation (and the possible detriment of their brand if they continued to act like corporate overloads.)

There’s nothing wrong with mistakes — we’re all making them — as long as there’s a lesson learned. Mars had a perfect opportunity to turn this into something positive and instead, they’ve alienated a community who had nothing but love for their brand. The fact that the same agency/brand collaboration that bought the internet Skittles.com not two weeks ago, makes this whole situation even more headscratch-worthy. Maybe a little bit of new-fashioned engagement envy? Who knows.

*this is pure speculation on my part. I have no idea about the internal workings or sentiment around this subject.

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Heather Ann Snodgrass is Amnesia Razorfish’s Social Media Adviser. You can find her on Twitter here.

The race around the office is gold! I want a test track like that here at Amnesia Razorfish!