Opinion | Features

• Peter Greste freed from Egyptian jail after more than 400 days behind bars

  Australian journalist Peter Greste is understood to be starting his journey home after being freed from an Egyptian prison after being jailed last year along with two colleagues. Numerous reports have cited a Cairo airport official as stating Greste is being deported and is on his way to Cyprus with his brother Michael, with Egyptian officials suggesting he had been released following presidential "approval". The Al JAzeera trio have always maintained their innocence after being convicted of aiding the banned Muslim Brotherhood, although Greste's colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed have not been released.

• Has Dumb Ways to Die been effective?

  While Dumb Ways to Die has won more creative awards than almost any other it has not been able to replicate that success in the coveted effectiveness categories. Miranda Ward investigates whether the much-vaunted campaign was ultimately a failure.    Recently AdAge named Metro Trains' Dumb Ways to Die campaign as the 12th best campaign of the 21st century, an accolade largely based on the its creative prowess after it stormed the Cannes Lions advertising festival in 2013 to become the most awarded campaign in the history of the awards. However, questions have been raised over how effective the campaign was in its goal of keeping Melburnians safer around trains, after it failed to win metal in the Creative Effectiveness category at Cannes last year, and picking up just a silver and two bronzes at the Australian Effies in 2013.

• Streaming won't kill TV, but it's going to make media buying harder

  The new range of video streaming services will not kill TV, but will make it harder still for advertisers to reach mass audiences argues Paul Brooks. In a world where everything changes, nothing changes! I remember a presentation back in 1998 with the opening slide posing the inflammatory statement “The death of Television.” I cannot recall how many times I have been asked or presented that question in the last 17 years, but what I can recall is only last week I was asked it again by a ‘media expert’.

• Why is commercial radio the last bastion of middle aged white men?

  Australian radio networks need to start embracing diversity to stay in touch with the changes in society argues Sunil Badami. When I first started broadcasting on ABC Local Radio a year or two ago, a listener texted in to say ‘how great it is to hear an ethnic face on the radio.’ I joked that I didn’t realise “our” faces made any noise, though I supposed with “our” mouths open, they made as much noise as anyone else’s. But for someone like me, born and raised in Australia to Indian parents, it hasn’t always been easy to see or hear faces or voices like mine in the media, especially commercial media.

• Credit where it's due: Nick Baker

  Nick Baker has shouldered the responsibility of marketing Australia as a holiday destination not just to the rest of the world, but to Aussies as well. As he finishes his seven year stint at Tourism Australia tomorrow, we give Credit Where it's Due to his efforts.     Imagine coming into a new job as a marketer where the last campaign has just been described as a "rolled gold disaster" by the Prime Minister. This is what faced Nick Baker when he came into the big chair of chief marketing officer at Tourism Australia, inheriting the infamous 2006 'So Where the Bloody Hell Are You?' campaign that did more for Lara Bingle's career than Australia's image.

• Think you can put social media in a box? Taylor Swift proves otherwise

  The Prime Minister might be prepared to shake off social media as 'electonic graffiti', but the traditional media impressions gained by the Taylor Swift Hottest 100 campaign tell a different story, argues Patrick Baume.  The P.M. again called social media ‘electronic graffiti’ over the weekend, after he faced extensive social and traditional media criticism over his decision to award Prince Philip an Australian knighthood, on the same day Triple J shot down the #Tay4Hottest100 campaign. So if both ends of the cultural spectrum are saying it’s ok to ‘ignore’ social media, there must be some truth there, right?

• New gadgets and gimmicks to keep us watching sport live on TV

  TV networks are investing in new gadgets, camera angles and social media devices to keep viewers hooked on live sport. In this cross-posting from The Conversation Marc C-Scott of Victoria University looks at what's coming next. Australia’s love of sport appears to be more from in front of a TV screen than actually attending any event live, and that could be on the increase given some of the new technology heading our way. Samsung has confirmed that its new Sports Live app – on display at this year’s Consumer Electronic Show in the US – will be available in Australia later this year, but for which sport codes has still to be announced.

• Sustainable competitive advantage: the fallacy

  The speed of change in business means the notion of businesses having a sustainable competitive advantage is no longer a reality argues Dan Monheit.  Sustainable competitive advantage. What a beautiful, romantic, delusional idea. An idea that somehow still gets plenty of airplay.

• Content marketing predictions: Why I’ve ditched my crystal ball

  Last year Cameron Upshall made a series of bold predictions on how the content marketing world in Australia would develop in 2014. Here he bemoans the lack of change. Australian brands had a fair old crack at content marketing in 2014. But unfortunately the market didn’t mature as fast as I thought it would in 12 months. This means the content marketing milestones I predicted we would reach by now are still a fair way off.

• Why #tay4hottest100 is good for Triple J

  The campaign to get a Taylor Swift song into the Triple J Hottest 100 has created a lot of column inches in recent days. Matt Saraceni argues the controversy is good for the station and how it should capitalise on #tay4hottest100 come Australia Day.  If Taylor Swift places Number one in the Triple J Hottest 100 -- I will eat a hat. Any hat you care to name I will consume it. There is absolutely no way that will happen. I’d bet a nudie run on it. In fact I am. However, “Shake it Off” appearing in the countdown will be one of the best things to happen to Triple J and its audiences and everybody should be hoping it happens. Let me explain….

• A first look at Stan

  Yesterday streaming service Stan invited some members of the public to have a first look at the new platform. Mumbrella editor Alex Hayes looks at what it has to offer. Of all the streaming services being talked about at the moment (and yes there are a lot - Presto, Netflix, Quickflix etc.) the one that's most intrigued me is the joint offering from Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media - Stan. So when I got the invite to have a preview of it which went out to the public yesterday, I leapt at it. However, my initial impressions were not good.

• Suffering from a talent crisis? Get off your backside and grow your own

  The industry constantly bemoans a lack of skilled new employees. In this opinion piece David Ponce de Leon argues they need to do more to help nurture the talent. The skills shortage issue continues to be a challenge for different sectors of the communications industry and at the dawn of a new year the topic seems to be heating up again. Everybody is talking about how hard is to find the right talent or the right skills for their own particular business needs. It’s almost as if a good old whine about the skills shortage ‘crisis’ has become the norm.

• Never tell anyone outside the agency what you're thinking

  It might not be the mafia, but agencies require a cone of silence about their internal workings to the outside world argues Eaon Pritchard. At the beginning of 'The Godfather', Santino 'Sonny' Corleone is in a clandestine meeting with Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo in which they discuss a potential partnership in Sollozzo's nascent heroin business.

• Virtual Reality: changing games or game changer?

  Virtual reality technology is becoming a hot property. Here Tyler Greerasks whether it will really have a reach beyond video games. One day back in the early 90s I switched off the Sega Mega Drive and got myself along to an exhibition touting itself as the new frontier in gaming: virtual reality. Strapped in to a cumbersome, heavy piece of machinery I played Dactyl Nightmare, a dreadful Cubist nightmare which left me disoriented, ill, and disappointed for the state of the machine-human relationship. Not fast enough could I return to Sonic the Hedgehog and my new-found appreciation for the human-couch relationship.

• Social influencers and the law - where does it stand on disclosure?

  After Australia Post was found to be paying for social media endorsements which were not disclosed and with more brands looking to social media influencers in their campaigns, Stephen von Muenster looks at where the law currently stands on the issue.  It is evident from a casual gaze through social pages or comms industry commentary that brands are turning to ‘social influencers’ to promote their products through online social channels with the intent of influencing consumer purchasing decisions in favour of their products.