TO NZEDGE.COM GLOBAL COMMUNITY

FROM BRIAN SWEENEY, EDITOR NZEDGE.COM

Greetings and welcome to the many, many people who have registered and sent mail in response to our full page ad in the Sunday Star Times "The Global Community of New Zealanders." Advertising works! Site traffic was up 500% immediately and has settled to about double the previous peak. We have been embraced with messages of affirmation, support and offers of help. Thank you all. http://www.nzedge.com/pictures/ads/index_ads.html

We're not hot on frequency so please bear with the volume today...

First, Kevin Roberts and I had a great time in Christchurch and Dunedin on 10 August when Kevin made speeches...Dunedin was especially hot so we're back on October 19.

Second, we're deep into architecting the next level of nzedge.com to provide greater connectivity, networking, ideas exchange and transacting. It's slow because we've got the day job to deal to, but in the next two months expect a very cool online shop, idea forums, links and listings, an essays page, more dialogue and research about the Kiwi Diaspora (including the Richard Poole-inspired, University of Auckland-conducted research into the views of 930 here-and-there Kiwis about being here- or-there); we're looking at ways people can invest and can give back...and the first site upgrades available today are...

2000-story newzedge archive. This part of the site is a digest of achievements of New Zealanders here and overseas who have made it in a small or a major way in the global online media. We've designed 35 categories for exploring, namely:

ARTS: Architecture / Dance / Film & Television Lord of the Rings / Media / Music / Opera Russell Crowe / Theatre / Visual Arts l Writers

INNOVATION: Business / Medicine & Health Science & Technology

SOCIETY: Community / Education / Nature Politics & Economics / Spirituality / Te Ao Maori War & Peace / Births & Deaths

SPORT: America's Cup / Cricket / Golf / Rugby Watersports

STYLE: Design / Fashion / Taste / Wine

TRAVEL: Adrenalin / New Zealand

http://www.nzedge.com/media/index.html

We've made a decision to leave on each archive page the dead links, ie stories no longer available on the server of the particular publication. It's frustrating, a dead link is a dead possum ("Driving south and travelling/not much over fifty/I hit a possum...") but we figured it's better to know the story existed than not at all. If anyone is desperate for a copy of a dead story let us know; we've kept hard copies...

The other upgrade is to our picture galleries. They get major hits, we've re-scanned many of the pictures, sized them up a bit, standardised the navigation... we have several other photo galleries in the wings to make nzedge a richer visual environment.

In NEWZEDGE today, news of ordinary Kiwis doing extraordinary things around the globe, as reported in the online editions of The Independent, BBC, Daily Mail and Guardian from South Africa, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, The Times, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Seattle Times, The Scotsman, Empire, ArtForum, Ottawa Citizen, The Guardian, New York Post, The Australian, Time, The Sunday Times...

* 20 years since 81 Tour: "Amandla!" 
* Patricia Grace nominated for Booker 
* Xena moves to X-Files 
* Scott Dixon outdrives vets in Chicago 
* Zed signs with Interscope for Silencer 
* Hamish McKay showcases art in Basel 
* Rings cast passionate about trilogy 
* Elizabeth Knox' novel "lush and dark" 
* NZ-designed supernose detects disease 
* Reading recovery revered in Toronto 
* Brendan MacFarlane's dazzles Paris 
* Toa Fraser's No.2 hot from Mt Roskill 
* "Green & gorgeous" - veldt view of edge 
* Sam Neill in BBC science blockbuster 
* Sam Neill in Jurassic action 
* Fur Patrol Melbourne 
* Emily Perkins does Sunday Times 
* Yankee Dangle in Queenstown 
* Douglas Lilburn cut out the best bits 
* Kemel Ataturk on Gallipoli command 
* Michael Campbell's fitness routine 
* Kiwi windpower to Pakistan 
* Plus several great wine stories http://www.nzedge.com/media/index.html

To me the best post-Knowledge-Wave-conference -recovery moment (I don't mean to be jocular, there is a brillant midden of research and thinking at www.knowledgewave.org.nz) has been the repatriation and celebration of the life and achievements of Don Clarke. I saw him on Murray Deaker's show a few nights ago and witnessed a great and humble man talk about what it took to be the best in the world ("it's all about timing" and "my brothers and I kept fit by picking up bales of hay, thousands of bales of hay"). I was a kid playing half-field footy at Campbell Park in Morrinsville in the early sixties when The Boot came along on Saturday morning to give us a show, and simply booted the ball through the goal from halfway, again and again...Ponty Reid showed us how to pass...

Go the All Blacks at Stadium Australia on Saturday night; play out of your skins and give us a big shiver up the spine.

Thanks for staying with me.

From The New Zealand Edge

BRIAN SWEENEY co-founder, 
editor, producer 
www.nzedge.com 
brian@nzedge.com