http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/twitter/ Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/should-we-name-and-shame-online-racists/ The interwebs are a cesspit of bigotry, bullying and racism, hate and snuff porn, and all things dark and evil, right? Right. But, being a human place, they’re also full of wit and wisdom and things of beauty. It’s hard to tell who’s winning, but there’s a bloody interesting skirmish going on. Twitter user @lizsinnott tweeted a screenshot from a Facebook page on which a bunch of racist nongs had posted racist rubbish about an ad for indigenous education. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/should-we-name-and-shame-online-racists/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/should-we-name-and-shame-online-racists/#item7549 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/reconnecting-by-getting-totally-disconnected/ FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/reconnecting-by-getting-totally-disconnected/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/reconnecting-by-getting-totally-disconnected/#item7524 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/weve-got-our-heads-buried-in-an-exciting-new-world/ I recently attended a VIP media launch for an Aussie singer. This in itself is news as I have two children under the age of two, so going out is rare. But the real surprise was how much the dancefloor had changed. It wasn’t smaller or lit like Saturday Night Fever (although that would have been cool). It just wasn’t heaving. Normally the music would be blamed for a subdued crowd. But I think the real problem was a new one. You see, it’s particularly hard to dance while watching an artist through your iPhone, while tweeting, Instagramming, uploading snaps to Facebook or writing a blog post. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/weve-got-our-heads-buried-in-an-exciting-new-world/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/weve-got-our-heads-buried-in-an-exciting-new-world/#item7373 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/i-dont-actually-lol-or-lmao-i-just-say-did/ We don’t just type LOL to our mates when we Laugh Out Loud at something anymore. Actually sometimes I don’t even LOL, I just say I did (OMG does that mean I’m LOTI?). Sometimes I LOL so hard, I ROFL or LMAO and laughing even harder than that means I’m ROFLMAO! I know! These are the new acronyms of our lives and we use them so often they have turned into words, peeps, ACTUAL WORDS that we say with our face. Out-loud, phonetically and un-ironically, like the way we say CHOGM. I know, Double-You Tee Eff? There are lots of these now and they come from texting and the interwebs, especially places like Twitter because it’s all about character limits. With SMSes (160 characters) and tweets (140 characters), you have to say as much as possible in the shortest possible space, so when you only have so many characters to work with, you learn to abbrv rly quickly. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/i-dont-actually-lol-or-lmao-i-just-say-did/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/i-dont-actually-lol-or-lmao-i-just-say-did/#item7164 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-the-public-took-charge-of-a-deserved-flogging/ Kyle Sandilands is such an inconsequential waste of space that I would normally be reluctant to expend a single millilitre of ink or pixel of web space on his unfortunate existence. This week I made an exception, in the first instance because of the remarkably vile nature of his attack on one of our young female staff, a sexually threatening rant where he called her “a fat slag”, talked about her breasts and her hair, and issued the creepy pledge: “Watch your mouth girl, or I will hunt you down”. All this because she wrote a completely unremarkable news piece about the unpopularity of his new TV show. I’ve decided to saddle up again today because there is an interesting broader lesson from the Sandilands episode. Not to put too fine a point on it, the long-overdue commercial destruction of Kyle Sandilands shows that it is no longer OK to be an abusive, hate-filled arsehole without facing serious consequences. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-the-public-took-charge-of-a-deserved-flogging/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-the-public-took-charge-of-a-deserved-flogging/#item7246 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/if-you-cant-handle-the-tweet-get-out-of-the-TV-kitchen/ When it comes to reality TV, this much we know: Facebook death threats and Twitter hate campaigns are very good for ratings. Just check the huge numbers hauled in by all the mass-hating on Deni Hines, reluctant anti-hero of what could well have passed by as just a paler Aussie version of one more American import, Celebrity Apprentice. Whether it was for her so-called “bullying” of fellow contestant, Polly, her brittle ego (bristling at being offered advice), or her diva antics (refusing to sing for her team’s KFC campaign because she is a vegetarian), Hines is so detested by the Twittersphere she confessed this week to being “the most hated person on TV”. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/if-you-cant-handle-the-tweet-get-out-of-the-TV-kitchen/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/if-you-cant-handle-the-tweet-get-out-of-the-TV-kitchen/#item7230 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-twitter-mob-is-smarter-than-the-PR-flunkies/ Twitter. It’s smarter than the average marketing company. More powerful, in its way, than the cleverest corporate PR machine. It’s loud, fierce, fast and honest. It’s the tool of the people and it’s here to stay. Just ask Qantas. Not for the first time this year, somebody at The Occasionally Flying Kangaroo got the wrong end of the stick. Yesterday’s #qantasluxury hashtag campaign was intended to boost goodwill for the company. They asked their customers to tweet their ideal luxury flight to generate some good publicity. It was meant to be the social media equivalent of a head massage. But it backfired. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-twitter-mob-is-smarter-than-the-PR-flunkies/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-twitter-mob-is-smarter-than-the-PR-flunkies/#item7219 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/one-million-followers-and-counting/ On Saturday night Kevin Rudd celebrated having one million followers on Twitter. “Thanks a million,”  he tweeted. But how many of those followers are members and senators of the Australian Labor Party? Kevin Rudd can gathered all manner of tallies reflecting his popularity, but he has to get a majority in the federal Labor Caucus if he is to return to the job of Prime Minister. And Julia Gillard (67,131 Twitter followers) isn’t going to help him get it. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/one-million-followers-and-counting/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/one-million-followers-and-counting/#item6693 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/blades-to-the-head-cant-stop-old-people-from-being-badass/ Earlier this week, 86-year-old Leroy Luetscher temporarily became my idol. The Arizona pensioner was reportedly enjoying a spot of gardening when a freak accident left a pair of garden shears lodged in his eye socket. That’s right, his eye socket. The handle went past his eye and through his neck, eventually resting on his external carotid artery, leaving him to walk around like some sort of Edward Scissor-Face. Luetscher, who is expected to make a full recovery, said he was “grateful to the doctors and staff” and left it at that. No blog. No finger-pointing. No attempt to use the incident to become a breakfast radio star or get a retweet from Snooki. The guy was all class and dignity. Elderly blokes like Luetscher make Jack “check out my one arm push-ups” Plance seem like no big deal. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/blades-to-the-head-cant-stop-old-people-from-being-badass/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/blades-to-the-head-cant-stop-old-people-from-being-badass/#item6608 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/six-misguided-tales-of-twitter-turning-bitter/ This weekend, Qantas was left red-faced when a person responsible for its official Twitter stream, @QantasAirways, tweeted a picture of two black-faced Wallabies supporters at the Bledisloe Cup game in Brisbane. The picture was said by many to be a racist representation of veteran Wallabies player Radike Samo, who scored a thrilling runaway try in the match. Others said it was a perfectly valid picture of enthusiastic fans. No matter where you sit on this particular issue, there’s no doubt you can get yourself in hot water on Twitter – whether you do your own Tweets or someone does them for you. Let’s look at a six-pack of Twitter mishaps and see what we can learn. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/six-misguided-tales-of-twitter-turning-bitter/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/six-misguided-tales-of-twitter-turning-bitter/#item6600 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.” But even doctored with my smarty-pants cynicism, that scrap of paper winks at my soul. Some days, I try for ‘wild’ by blasting The Buzzcocks through my office after dropping the kids at school. Other times, I aim for ‘precious’, tinkering with words in the hope they’ll flow from me to you as naturally as breath (they don’t). Now, I’m not one for malcontent. Live well, love well, don’t leave a mess and “yes, please” to another piece of cake is generally my motto. But, recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989.