The culture argument is a pretty important one, although the bulk of the site is indeed event listings.
I guess the argument here is that the GOVT is providing taxpayers and tourists with a public service, with public funds. Who's to say Eventfinder and other similar commercial ventures will be always around to provide such a service? But that statement is a bit of a catch-22 when the presence of nzlive.com contributes to the possibility of commercial alternatives not being around anymore. ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Bennett To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 11:01 AM Subject: [phpug] Re: [OT] whynzlive.com That's definitely not what we're saying at all; you've listed three commercial websites we're happily competing with. Incorrect - Newzealand.com is run by Tourism New Zealand, which is a crown entity: http://www.tourismnewzealand.com/tourism_info/about-us/corporate-overview/corporate-overview_home.cfm Newzealand.com is not a commercial enterprise - it's aimed at increasing travel to new zealand to benefit the economy as a whole with no direct benefit to Tourism New Zealand itself Having the government with its limitless public purse start up in competition, attempt to duplicate your business model, and refuse to co-operate despite a mandate to share though is quite different. The government and it's *cough* 'limitless coffers offers a whole range of information, aggregating much of it from disparate sources: http://newzealand.govt.nz/ It also has a vested interest in promoting NZ culture, heritage, arts and tourism. I'd be more worried if the govt was doing nothing to promote these things. I don't mean to come across as rude - you've built Eventfinder and are running a successful business from it - for that you get my respect. However, this is clearly an emotive subject with opposing views and your commercial interest makes you far from impartial I'm afraid. Regards, Paul --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
