And so it begins. The National Party’s transport spokesman, Maurice Williamson, said yesterday that commuters could face bills of up to $50 a week for tolls of $3 to $5 a trip on new motorways or similar “roads of national importance”. Read more
If you travel every day…that’s $2,600 per year. If National get in…I guess we now know where we’ll be spending our tax cuts…
LOL?
It was cool to read an article on Stuff today that had positive things to say about both Zillion and happysheep.
On Zillion…
“Zillion was runner-up in the 2008 Netguide trading awards, and is the self-proclaimed auction alternative to Trade Me.
Three of the better features that emerge from the two pages of comparisons with Trade Me include the streamlined buying system, a “Wanted” list and that auction starting prices are the reserve prices.
The streamlined buying system is refreshingly simple. As soon as an item is won through auction or bought via Buy Now, the buyer is directed through a payment process that begins by selecting shipping method and address and ends with payment details.
The buyer is prompted at each stage of the process, circumventing the relatively long-winded back and forth exchanges that are familiar to Trade Me users.”
On happysheep…
“Happy Sheep is a classified site that combines event notifications, flatmates and flat rentals, a personals section, jobs and services and a for-sale section.
Happy Sheep has borrowed the vast majority of its features from its immensely successful American counterpart Craigslist and European equivalent Gum Tree.
Happy Sheep is at the forefront of the movement towards localisation. After registering, users are asked to pick the city closest to them from the five major centres, ensuring that the classifieds available for viewing are relevant to the user.”
Our decision last year to switch Zillion to “no reserve” auctions was in response to buyer preference away from auctions where the seller’s desired selling price is unknown, as described by this article’s author. Earlier this year Trade Me followed suit although continue to allow a reserve price if the seller pays an additional listing fee. It’s encouraging to see a journalist (especially one employed by Fairfax) do his part to educate buyers and sellers on alternatives to Trade Me.
Related links:
Earlier this year I reported that Zillion members who use Slingshot as their ISP were able to read and access other people’s private information on Zillion, including private messages. Slingshot accepted responsibility for the problem, claiming “browsing and authentication issues” (probably due to the misconfiguration of a proxy appliance) and the issue was eventually resolved.
So I was therefore shocked today to read this story on the nzherald…
“Slingshot customers trying to use their own accounts were directed into random email, Trade Me, Facebook and Bebo pages.”
“User Michelle Smith also saw another person’s emails through Facebook.”
“On the Cre8d Design blog, Rachel wrote: “This afternoon I tried logging into Gmail as I usually do to check my email and discovered that I was logged into someone else’s account.”
“Mr Andrew’s account became public and someone who was signed in under his name downloaded pornography to his page.”
“Another user, Roxanne, found her profile showing National party leader John Key as a “friend”.
Sound familiar? Imagine what it would feel like to know someone else was reading your email, your Facebook messages etc. If you’re a Slingshot customer…that’s exactly what’s happening.
How do Slingshot get away with this? It’s the third time (that I’m aware of…probably more) this very serious problem has occurred. What’s to stop it happening again?
If I were a Slingshot customer I’d be switching ISPs immediately. No question.
Related posts
For those of us working in New Zealand’s internet industry, yesterday’s announcement that Telecom’s annual profit of $713 million was down 15.5 per cent from $844 million in the 2006-7 year raises the obvious question – what’s happening with Ferrit?
Ralph Brayham, Ferrit’s then General Manager, was reported last year as saying that Telecom expected to spend about $12 million on Ferrit in the 2007-2008 financial year, matching its contribution for the previous two years.
Gosh, I would have killed (OK maybe not killed) for this kind of money when building Zillion. I think we went up against Trade Me with about $20,000 in the bank…and it was our own money!
Given that Ferrit continues to generate disappointing results, especially when compared to its “smaller” privately funded competitors, isn’t it about time Telecom cut its losses and returned its attention back to improving broadband?
I’d love to see what the team at GP Store (the red line) could do with a $12 million dollar annual budget. But either way, I know whose shares I’d rather buy…
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