Following Australian Startups and Tech Trends

Today we showcase the story of an entrepreneur with successful ventures under his belt, Graham Dawson from Sydney, founder of OZWeather - an iPhone application for weather tracking and forecasting in Australia. In a candid interview with us, he gave insights into how he is managing and juggling. This is what he has to say in his interview with us: • How long it took to launch From idea to web app took about 2 weeks, although it used back-end infrastructure that was already in place. From a web app to a native iPhone app in iTunes took a further 10 weeks or so. • Stage of Venture The product was launched on 1st Nov 2008 and has had several incremental updates since. • Which Market Segment Aimed at the general public - Anyone with an interest in the weather. • Customers Aimed at the general public, iPhone or iPod Touch owners. Anyone with an interest in the weather. • Targeted Age Group All ages. • Users Using Service Currently about 30,000, typically increasing at a rate of 1500 per w...

Telstra announced yesterday, the launch of their Bigpond Music Platform , a venture into the online music industry by offering tracks from all major record labels in a format (MP3) that could be transferred between most music players, including the iPod, Sony Walkman, Xbox, PlayStation 3 and home media centres. This offering is in direct competition to Apple's iTunes offering which is a walled garden or a closed system. It was clear how Telstra is opening up another front with Apple in their ongoing battle in the Media and mobile space. The next obvious step for this platform would be online rental movies as Telstra has a service for its rental movies under the  BigPond Movies Entertainment b anner . While pundits were still analyzing the impact of Telstra's new service, Apple has hit back with the announcement that movies from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios In...