GDay World 361 – Livewire Launch
Posted on 19. Feb, 2009 by Cameron in Podcast
Today my guests are Omar Kalifa, Managing Director, and Cinnamon Pollard, Partnership and Marketing Manager, of a new social networking site that is bring officially launched today called LIVEWIRE. According to their site:
Livewire is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Starlight Children’s Foundation and is supported by funding from the Australian Government under the Clever Networks Program and in-kind contributions from Starlight and Livewire partners.
Together we are working towards keeping children & young people living with illness or disability connected
It’s estimated there are over 400,000 children and young people aged 10-21 years old coping with the impact of living with a serious illness, a chronic condition or a disability in Australia.
While I think a social networking community for young people with serious illnesses is a good thing, I am concerned that this site has cost $14.7 million to set up, with half of that money coming from the Federal Government. I asked Omar and Cinnamon where the money went.
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I am not convinced at the points that has been put across about this project, if that much funding is allocated you would think there are strong solid ideas and the developers will know these ideas back to front and be able to debate every point solidly. But I am not too convince about the explanations.
I agree that the argument was not made that this effort required the development of proprietary CMS and social networking tools. It still sounds as though that money would have been better spent going towards more outreach, research, and custom content, while using existing open source solutions (which can usually be customized quite nicely).
You should have asked Cinnamon if thevine.com.au cost $14.7m to setup …
What a brilliant concept. This should be globalized. Well done Omar and Cinabun