Charlie Gunningham's eCommerce unit at the UWA Business School won the aussiehome.com Managing Director a 'Best Lecturing Prize' recently.

"It's nice to be recognised in this manner as these Awards start with students nominating their lecturers, who then have to turn in an 8-page submission, " said Charlie, "and a Panel of Professors determines the winner."

"What other online business tries to practice what it preaches in this manner? I love being able to hand on my e-business ideas to MBA students, and marry the theory of eCommerce with the day to day experience of running aussiehome.com."

"Winning prizes like this is the icing on the cake!"

[Charlie was a teacher in a former life, teaching Economics and Business in the UK, Singapore and here in Perth at Hale School before setting up aussiehome.com in 1999 with fellow UWA MBA graduate Nick Streuli.]

[...and no, this is not an April Fool joke!]

Set up as a student community web site just 3 years ago, Facebook.com is the (Web2.0) global phenomenon that has swept the world by storm.

With an incredible 150,000 new members joining EVERY DAY, it's a powerful way to stay in touch, reconnect, and have your moment in the world wide web sun. Are you a member? It's free.

Last week we added Facebook to aussiehome.com's property pages, so there's now a link on every property on aussiehome.com for web users to share them with their Facebook friends. An easy (and free) way for your property to be promoted by 'word of mouth' and using the power of Facebook.com.

Would you like this application added to your web site? Contact CHARLIE or PHIL to find out more.

Last year it was the A$1bn online advertising mark that was breached in Australia, a watershed moment for online advertising markerting in this country, many said. (It rose a further 45% in 2007).

This year it's another key watershed moment - Aussies now spend more leisure time online than watching TV - 13.7 hours online a week against 13.3 hours watching TV.

Yes, many spend time doing both, and this has been factored into these figures to extract the primary activity. Research was from AC Nielsen; and shows time online has grown dramatically from 8.9 hours a week just 2 years ago (a staggering rise of 54%), while TV has peaked with 13.2 hours/week in 2005, rising to 13.8 in 2006 and now back to 13.3 in 2007.

In another story, that must send shock waves through the traditional media, digital music sales in Australia are rising at a staggering 126% a year (sales of digital tracks up 60%, digital albums up 89%) while the traditional CD single sales fell 42%, CD albums fell 12%.

Yes, people download a lot of music (and many might not be paying for the privilege) but there is a real $$$ market here, with almost as many digital sales being made (47 million) as physical sales (52 million, which fell 13% in one year). Not long now until digital music overtakes physical... what other traditional edifice will fall next?

In a related story, no doubt you've been reading with interest the goings on between Kerry Stokes and The West Australian Ltd (WAN).

What seems to be at the core of the stoush is the alleged slowness of WAN to develop a successful online strategy. Last year their online division turned over $600,000 and lost $1.9mn [Source: WABN].

Meanwhile, the 3 main Australian media empires seem to have well developed online strategies...

• News Ltd owns realestate.com.au (#1 property site; one you'd all be aware of!) as well as careerone.com.au and carsguide.com.au 
• Fairfax owns domain.com.au and Commerce Australia (MyDesktop) as well as mycareer.com.au and drive.com.au
• PBL Media owns carsales.com.au (#1 car site) and seek.com.au (#1 jobs site) as well as myhome.com.au and boatpoint.com.au

Notice how they EACH have their own online 'rivers of gold' equivalents in "cars, jobs and real estate".

Kerry Stokes will apparently "tell all" at a sold out breakfast meeting tomorrow. We'll be there to take notes.

Then all eyes turn to the showdown between Mr Stokes and WAN at the April 23rd meeting of WAN shareholders... this story is set to rumble on.