We've just sent out a notice to extend the call for papers for the 2006 Association of Internet Researchers conference in Brisbane in September - paper proposals are now due on 21 February (there were a number of requests for extension from people who are only now getting back from their holidays). So, if anyone hasn't submitted a paper yet, now's the time to do so!

Also, some good progress on sponsors and keynote speakers over the last couple of weeks - hopefully I'll be able to say more about this soon... Other than that, this has been a week of meetings for me so far - yesterday I think I had only about one hour in my entire working day outside of meeting rooms. It would be nice to get some work done occasionally, rather than just to talk about what work needs to get done!

Following up on my "[weblink:343]" post a little while ago: in his diary, Robert Fripp has now responded to some of the reports about the launch of DGMLive, and clarified some of the usage restrictions for downloaded music which apply for DGMLive downloads. "Act rightly" is the governing phrase - an idea which is positively alien to the mainstream music industry, of course.

Jill Walker is blogging less, or so she says - this wouldn't be newsworthy if Jill wasn't a genuine A-list academic blogger, and (I suspect) an inspiration for many an academic, and others in what we might laughingly refer to as the real world, to start blogging themselves. Certainly Jill was one of those names we just had to get on board for the [weblink:158] book - and her struggles in completing what turned out to be a very insightful, and fairly personal, chapter in the book may be a sign of the times for a number of the 'early' bloggers as they're coming to terms with a) the occasional sense of stardom that A-list status might bring, and b) the fact that life doesn't stop, or stop changing, just because you're blogging it.

It's been a positive few days on either side of the Australia/Invasion Day holiday. On Wednesday we gained a major sponsor for the Association of Internet Researchers conference in Brisbane in September, which should enable us to attract a further fairly high-profile keynote speaker; more on this as we go. Later that day we aso started work on the edgeX, or "Mapping the Missing Grassroots", ARC Linkage project between QUT and UQ Ipswich with Ipswich City Council - and I'm looking forward to seeing this one get going. More work on both today, with a few keynote speaker possibilities emerging...

Well, as the year gets underway, there's some more news about my various book projects as well. Today my publisher Peter Lang informed me that [weblink:58] has been nominated for the Communications Policy Research Award at Fordham University's Donald McGannon Communication Research Center. I know it may sound clichéd, but even to be nominated for an award whose previous winners include Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney feels like quite an honour... We'll see what happens - from the Center Website it looks like last year's winner was announced in May, so there may be a bit of a wait.

I've recently posted this call for papers for the 'collaborate' issue of M/C Journal, which I will edit with my friend and colleague Donna Lee Brien at the University of New England:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 12 January 2006

M/C - Media and Culture
is calling for contributors to the 'collaborate' issue of
M/C Journal

M/C Journal is looking for new contributors. M/C Journal is a crossover journal between the popular and the academic, and a blind- and peer-reviewed journal.