How’s this for a decent software pricing model : rent QLab for $3 a day? QLab is a pretty amazing looking piece of event software that allows control audio, video, and MIDI from a single workspace. It offers sample accurate synchronisation of audio and video across different machines, sync for incoming timecode, real-time video and animation, camera control and quartz composer integration for customisation. Browsing through the features, plenty of well considered detail is evident, and it looks to be a powerful and flexible solution for controlling many sources of media during a live event. You can buy the pro bundle for $599 US, but for a lot of people, the $3 a day licence would be pretty ideal for one-off events. It’s a wonder more software companies don’t get in on this sort of model. And other industries too.
Car Sharing
Taking a leaf out of Kurt Vonnegut’s book, and looking at civilisation from a distance – we do seem to be a species of oil crazed demons, intent on paving the planet over, and shuffling ourselves around in vehicles that weigh a whole tonne all by themselves. In cities with better urban planning and public transport, it’s obvious to citizens living there that not every single person needs to own a car to survive. Extending this idea another step, car sharing is about renting out cars for short periods of time and thereby reducing the amount of cars needed for a suburb. Some people need a car daily for various reasons, but for others who only need the occasional trip, the car sharing service can save a lot of money ( and other problems such as maintenance etc ). If you drive less than 15,000km a year you will probably find carsharing will save money. There’s three main car sharing groups operating in Sydney and Melbourne, each blowing their own eco-trumpet about the benefts of having access to a newer, fuel efficient car when you need it, and through sharing it with others, effectively reducing the amount of cars needed.
Flexicar, phone 1300 36 37 80 GoGet, phone 1300 769 389 Charter Drive, phone 1300 135 358
Renting Two Wheels?
Like car rentals, daily bicycle hire has long been an available option for visiting tourists and wandery folk. Arguing that the short trip rental could appeal to the general public, and potentially encourage them to leave cars at home, the Victorian Government has launched a $5 million scheme which will see 600 bicycles available to pick up or drop off at 50 different bike stations across Melbourne. Subscriptions cost $50 a year, $8 a week or $2.50 a day – and the first half an hour of every trip is then free, $2 for the next half an hour and so on. A credit card is needed to participate, and helmets aren’t included, so it’ll be interesting to see whether people find bringing a helmet into the city more convenient than bringing a car. [ Yet to see a single blue bike ‘in the wild’, though plenty of them seem missing from their racks around the city… ]