Social Media

Well, what did anyone expect? Facebook removes harmless pics of Aussie mums breastfeeding, and what, we’re surprised? Gee, who’d a thunk that a massive corporation that exists to profit from banner ads wouldn’t share our values?

Facebook’s moral universe is admittedly rather haphazard. Its automatic boob-detecting software got onto those breastfeeding Mums much quicker than the site had on other occasions removed pages dedicated to hate and vilification, or pages that cruelly mocked the innocent dead.

But here’s the thing. Facebook is not an arbiter of values, nor should it be. It has its own rules and its practices, and anyone who uploads content onto Facebook cannot reasonably expect its editorial policy (or lack thereof) to align with their own values.

Continue reading "Stop expecting Facebook to be your friend" »

Some friends of mine had lunch on Saturday with a mate who spent so much time artfully composing photos of the gathering to post on Facebook they never got to have an actual conversation. It was as if my friends were just attractive extras, hired to play a part in this bloke’s nicely curated published version of his excellent life.

I’ve also written before about paying hundreds of dollars for a great experience only to miss it because you can’t bring yourself to switch off your iPhone. It’s a modern curse. And in cases like these the greatest danger is your friends will be busy next time you suggest a photo-shoot, neatly disguised as a catch-up.

But what happens when the urge to document an event gets in the way of saving someone’s life? There is a terrible story out of the flood-affected Queensland town of Roma this morning about about a woman who was swept away by raging waters while six brave, still-connected-to-reality men tried desperately to save her.

Continue reading "Life slips away while you’re filming it on your phone" »

The Facebook ban on photographs of women breastfeeding their own children raises some important issues about freedom of choice and the role of social media in setting behavioural standards.

There is no valid reason for any social media network to ban legitimate pictures posted by women of themselves breastfeeding their own children.

Such pictures can help normalise breastfeeding and educate others about how breastfeeding is done in real life.

Continue reading "Facebook’s being a boob over breastfeeding pics" »

Commercial aviation is the safest form of travel because the industry has learnt from past accidents by abolishing the culture of blame.

The Costa Concordia disaster is the cruise ship industry’s chance to improve safety and ensure that avoidable tragedy never happens again, but that chance will be missed if only one man pays the price.

In Italian courtrooms there is a sign which suggests: La legge e’ uguale per tutti – the law is the same for everyone. There is no asterisk on the sign, though it should be noted the term “everyone: does in fact mean “everyone except some”, including former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who conveniently changed the law while in office to spare himself prosecution, and, more recently, the captain of the Costa Concordia Francesco Schettino, who shall be afforded no such privilege.

Continue reading "Law must navigate the treacherous social media seas" »

The interwebs was aghast at the news that there may or may not be a sequel to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in the near future.

A teaser trailer has been making the rounds featuring Matthew Broderick as Ferris all grown up reciting the classic line from the 1986 film “How can I handle work on a day like today?”. The nine second clip uploaded this weekend by user “chuckachucka2012” has managed to get the world’s attention.

It appears that the mysterious video clip was made as a Super Bowl commercial (the Super Bowl is next week) but what it’s meant to advertise nobody knows.

Continue reading "Has the Ferris wheel rolled around again?" »

In 1945, an intelligence officer wrote a letter to his three-year-old son on Hitler’s personal stationery.

“The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe,” he wrote in elegant cursive. “Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins.”

Last year, the letter became a permanent addition to the CIA’s private museum in Langley.

Continue reading "This year we should all go a little bit postal" »

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.

Continue reading "Should we name and shame online racists?" »

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.

Continue reading "Reconnecting by getting totally disconnected" »

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.

Continue reading "We’ve got our heads buried in an exciting new world" »

Ah, the holidays. How good is it to relax on the couch to watch the cricket and – hang on, my phone’s beeping.

Gee, I’d better respond to some of those work emails.

And there are notifications on Twitter. Someone’s tagged a photo on Facebook. Looks like there’s a job offer via LinkedIn. And I should check out who’s on Google+ while I’m at it.

Seriously, do we ever turn off anymore?

Continue reading "We all need to tune in, turn off and chill out" »

What happened
Sheen, the son of the excellent Martin and the star of a crap blockbuster TV show, destroyed his immediate career in a drug-, women- and media-fuelled tizzy of spectacular proportions.

There were signs that Sheen’s life was starting to careen out of control in January when he went to rehab after a series of public shenanigans. Two and a Half Men was put on hiatus.

But the kerfuffle didn’t really get started until Sheen called up a US radio show to tell the world just what he thought of Two and a Half Men and its producers. He declared the TV show was: “A pukefest that everyone worships” (right on, Charlie) run by an “AA Nazi” and “blatant hypocrite”. Producers, who were sick of Sheen’s issues and his partying, ended production.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #9 The Sheen comes off Charlie" »

A few weeks ago Greenpeace turned its “greenmail” forces on national franchise chain Bakers Delight, telling customers they soon would be eating bread made from genetically modified wheat.

There was no justification for the claim, and no thorough examination of the merits or otherwise of GM crops.

Said Greenpeace on Facebook: This week we are suggesting that Bakers Delight change its well-publicised motto: “Bakers Delight bakers use real ingredients to bake unreal bread”. To the less snappy motto: “Bakers Delight bakers use risky genetically modified ingredients to bake unreal bread”.

Continue reading "Not a grain of truth in sneaky Greenpeace tactics" »

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.

Continue reading "I don’t actually LOL or LMAO, I just say I did" »

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.

Continue reading "How the public took charge of a deserved flogging" »

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”.

Continue reading "If you can’t handle the tweet, get out of the TV kitchen" »

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.

Continue reading "The Twitter mob is smarter than the PR flunkies" »

So the truth is out. If you have forty bazillion Facebook friends, chances are you have a lot fewer buddies in the real world.

News.com.au reports that according to a recent survey, the number of friends Australians have is their number of Facebook friends divided by 11.

I guess you must be a little lonely if you’ve only got 10 Facebook friends. Punchers, it’s (hopefully) a bright, beautiful and promising Monday. What’s on your minds?

So a Puncher got invited to a big birthday bash a little while ago.

The invitation was sent over Facebook. The Puncher was only really an acquaintance of the person whose party it was, but was happy to have been invited.

After all, the Puncher had a really good conversation with the acquaintance at a party not all that long ago.

Continue reading "Friday dilemma: Should I snub the two-faced host?" »

In an interview discussing his increasing philanthropy late last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noted that “when you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.”

Facebook, for Zuckerberg, has a role to play in power systems. It can be a political tool for leaders. And he’s right, but only conditionally; a number of other groups need to come to the party before we can consider social media a tool for good.

I spent a recent weekend helping Year 11 students understand what it means to be a leader, and I can safely say that I don’t share the pessimism about our future that the majority of headlines concerning ‘young Australians’ seems to show. But nor can I say in good conscience that the future is all roses.

Continue reading "We don’t expect much from youth so that’s what we get" »

There’s an awful lot of hand-wringing these days over the binge drinking epidemic. Well, here’s a really obvious thought. Maybe all those teenagers and 20-somethings are only living up to the example we’ve set them on all kinds of fronts.

Think about it. Society today is full of bingers. We’re all bingers. We consume anything and everything in ever-increasing proportions, usually to the point of excess and often to the point of vulgarity.

Forget the obvious cases of food and booze for a minute. Take entertainment. Remember the days when you’d passively sit back and wait for your weekly instalment of TV drama? That is sooo 2005.

Continue reading "FOOI #13: Young drinkers aren’t the only bingers" »

If a meteor were spotted tomorrow hurtling towards the Earth, you could bet that some shirtless Mike Sorrentino clone would spend his final minutes lip-syncing Rihanna in an attempt to rake up hits before impact.

As astronauts snapped the glowing explosion with their mobiles, old people made out on the beach and random 17-year-olds concluded their wedding vows, he would grin triumphantly. “At least I’m famous,” he would say as the television turned to static and the chanting began.

At any given moment, millions of people are sprinting toward fame, with no clue as to what they’ll do if and when they finally grasp it. Encouraged by the handful of well-publicised success stories, they cheerfully upload their auto-tuned vocals, tear-streaked rants and subway dance routines.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #8: We can’t all be famous" »

There’s only one thing worse than a person who spends all their time on Facebook. The person who spends all their time on Facebook bagging it out.

You know the ones. Well, how could you not. They’re always on the damn thing. Posting riveting status updates such as: “I hate you Facebook” and “Grrr, what’s with all the changes?”

Fact is, nobody forced you to join up in the first place. Second fact - it’s actually really easy to quit Facebook. You just delete your account, end of story. But still they stay. Moaning, posting and updating.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #6: Dump Facebook" »

I’m going to say it – gay people have it easy.

The homosexual community may not have many rights when it comes to matters of the heart but in terms of negotiating bedroom bureaucracy things are so much more… uncomplicated. At least in the social networking space. 

The other day I joined Blendr, the “straight” version of gay hook-up app Grindr, in the hopes it would make a good story.

I wanted to see if the new incarnation of the reportedly invaluable GPS/social networking Grindr app - used to arrange trysts with nearby users - would work for us straighty-180s.

Continue reading "There’s more fun to be had if you face your desires" »

It’s good to be big. But being big doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing good things. 

Think what people mean when they refer to Big Pharma, Big Liquor, Big Tobacco, the big supermarkets - and talk about the big banks.

Brace yourselves - we’re entering the age of Big Social.

Continue reading "First there was Big Tobacco. Now there’s Big Social" »

“As the number of available outlets for political news grows, so does the tendency of citizens to self-select which news to consume and which to ignore.” So says Georgetown University’s Rebecca Chalif, in her 2011 study Political Media Fragmentation: Echo Chambers in Cable News.

This statement seems obvious and fairly innocuous on the surface. Thirty years ago, people were vastly more confined in how they consumed their news - it was perhaps three TV channels and one or two newspapers.

According to the Australian Market and Social Research Society, the media has become far more fragmented over the last 15 years. Free-to-air TV has gone from five to 17 channels with over 120 subscription channels available, and we have over 600 newspapers and 1,500 magazines available to us.

Continue reading "Do you ever really listen to the other side of the story?" »

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.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd: One million followers and counting" »

So what are we to make of 2011, a year in which one has hardly been able to catch one’s breath in between momentous events (and it’s only just September!). 

We have had major environmental disasters (the Queensland floods, the Christchurch earthquake, the Japan earthquake/tsunami), and the spectacular fall from grace of seemingly unassailable powerful men (such as Tunisia’s Zine el Abadine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Osama Bin Laden, IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (even though rape charges were recently dropped), and Rupert Murdoch).

For the second time in a few years, the global economy teeters (including the first downgrade of the US’s sovereign debt status since 1917 and the very real possibility of the demise of the Eurozone). Anders Breivik wreaked havoc in a murderous rampage in Norway.  We also have a new state in the form of South Sudan. There have also been flashbacks to unfortunate episodes of the 1980s, with a major (and ongoing and unresolved) nuclear emergency in Japan’s Fukushima recalling the Chernobyl disaster, famine in East Africa, and England’s recent riots recalling unrest under Thatcher, oh ... and on a nicer note, a Royal Wedding.

Continue reading "If no news is good news what do we make of 2011?" »

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.

Continue reading "Six misguided tales of Twitter turning bitter" »

Great bosses send you emails full of praise. Smile when they see you. Give you feedback on everything and take you out to lunch.  A bad boss tries to own your thoughts.

Two different men, in two very different jobs, over the past two weeks were fired for posting stuff on their individual social media accounts that their employers found inappropriate.

Continue reading "Your boss does not own your thoughts" »

Since the beginning of the London riots, everyone’s been talking about social media and, confusingly, The Planet of the Apes.

Specifically, folks have been discussing the possibility of shutting down social media during crazy, violent times (let’s not worry about the apes thing, for now).

The discussion, dry as most of it has been, has prompted me to think about what the world would be like if social networking sites were actually suddenly switched off.

I’m told there’s a giant switch hidden somewhere in the desert. What if we all woke up tomorrow and Twitter and Facebook were gone, replaced by a link to a 57-minute video of Bob Katter building a tiny model ship in a glass bottle?

Continue reading "Turning off social media would be a riot" »

A good mate of mine is a humble bloke who goes about doing good works without fanfare.

He once worked in the Aboriginal studies department of a top Australian university. While he’s someone who rarely has a bad word to say about anyone, he had some choice ones about his (all white) former colleagues when we recently had a chat about the hypocrisy of eco-yuppies.

He reckons the people he worked with were some of the most pompous, self-satisfied bunch of wankers he’d ever come across. It was as if working in an area that was perceived to be ideologically correct gave them a free pass to behave however they wanted.

Continue reading "Slacktivism isn’t real activism" »

Humans are social creatures and require human contact but the digital age has caused a seismic shift in how we experience life and engage with others.

Gen Y for example is now the most connected generation the world has ever seen.

Australian social commentator Hugh Mackay has labelled this as a new form of RSI - Reduced Social Interaction. He says people are not getting the ‘‘emotional nutrition’’ of spending time face to face with others.

Continue reading "You ‘like’ your friends. But do you really LIKE them?" »

We worry if we’ve got too much or too little; we notch up our conquests and proudly slip that number into conversation; and we spend more and more time trawling the net looking for it.

We’re looking for friends. Or followers. In the past year, there’s been an 82 per cent jump in the amount of time Australians spend on social networking sites and nearly 10 million of us log more than eight hours a month on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Problem is, all this skimming of Wall posts and retweeting is only making us feel more isolated.

Continue reading "1048 friends, 4598 followers, 1 lonely soul" »

Love is all around. It’s in the air, on the air and online. Unfortunately it’s mostly self love. Studies show narcissism is on the rise. Far from being mythological, some say it is now an ‘epidemic’, with people falling so hard for themselves they can no longer relate to others.

US congressman Anthony Weiner’s self love overflowed onto Twitter, leading to punderous headlines, turgid analysis, and a drooping career trajectory. Silly Weiner obviously looked in the mirror one day and thought: “Wow. That is just so good I can’t keep it to myself.”

Narcissism covers a spectrum of self love; from a healthy self esteem through to unhealthy self infatuation, which can lead to abusive, controlling behaviour, a lack of empathy towards others. It’s this far end, where self love overrides all else, that is getting out of control.

Continue reading "A vain love: The FIG JAM phenomenon" »

Since the dawn of life, there has been death. And since the dawn of death, there have been endless vain attempts, some gallant and some desperate, some real and some imagined, some tragic and some inspiring, to grasp the key that unlocks immortality.

One of the earliest literary works, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is preserved on twelve clay tablets recovered from the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal’s ancient library collection and depicts a hero’s search for the secret to everlasting life. Jumping forward almost two thousand years, Oscar Wilde’s fictional character Dorian Gray was consumed by his desire for eternal youth.

The human preoccupation with preventing death is as alive today as it was in the times of Ashurbanipal and Wilde.

Continue reading "You might be dead, but you can still win arguments" »

As the planking epidemic enters its second week, some tough questions must be asked. Is the Government doing enough to prevent youngsters from lying horizontally on inanimate objects?

Should the Prime Minister use the next COAG meeting to secure sign-off from the States on a national anti-planking strategy? If so, what form should the campaign take?

It’s simply not enough for Julia Gillard to declare herself tough on planking and tough on the causes of planking. Maybe we need a well-funded advertising campaign, backed up with appearances by celebrities in the schools, to drive home some powerful anti-planking messages. Friends don’t let friends drink and plank. Re-think your first plank. Drink. Plank. Bloody idiot.

Continue reading "Tough on planking. Tough on the causes of planking." »

Remember the good old days, when lying flat was called sleeping?

Well, now it’s planking – a new craze that makes some people laugh and others seriously cranky.

‘Planking’ is lying face down in a weird location and posting a photo of your exploits online. Check it out on Google Images and you’ll find plankers lying stiff as boards atop basketball hoops, A-frame ladders, supermarket shelves, boom gates and railway tracks.

Continue reading "Plankers: Don’t take it lying down" »

In one of the earliest scenes in The Social Network, the nerds are shown using the net to rank the hotness of women at their university. That nerds are still using Facebook for these very same purposes a decade on should surprise few.

In recent days a private Facebook group has been exposed as trading in images of women. Of pilfering snaps from the pages of friends, of reposting them, of ranking the women like cuts of meat.

In a surprising twist, a group which clearly demonstrates no ethics apparently has a code of conduct for members including a mandate to never discuss the group, a rule I daresay imposed for fear of outing oneself as a geek, a letch and as a perv rather than to preserve any Stonecutter secrets.

Continue reading "Facebook ‘friends’ can pimp you out for kicks" »

The exact time and date of the beginning of the end of civilisation is said to be recorded on the birth certificate of an Israeli baby.

Arriving suspiciously close to last week’s planetary alignment, Like Adler wasn’t fooling anyone.

While reportedly exceptionally cute and a source of profound joy to her parents - Lior and Vardit - many believe she is also a harbinger of society’s downfall.

Continue reading "Like, I totally give this name the thumbs up" »

There’s a new craze in town, haven’t you heard? Stretch your body across an unlikely object, take a pic of yourself, post it on Facebook, then act like you’ve done something really clever and original.

Don’t fall, though. If you do, you could end up like 20 year old Brisbane man Acton Beale, who is believed to be Australia’s first planking fatality after he fell from the balcony of a Brisbane apartment on the weekend.

Allow us to express our condolences to Beale’s family and friends. Now allow us to explain why planking is the dumbest thing we’ve heard of since train surfing, line dancing and Australian hip hop music.

Continue reading "Planking: like plankton only not as intelligent" »

For nearly a decade, the question of what Osama bin Laden might look like ran a close second to where he might be located.

Do years of murderous terrorism escalate the hair greying process? Would he be with beard or without? And what are the dress regulations for 21st Century villainy? Semi-criminal or smart homicidal?

In the long years between the September 11 terrorist attacks and Operation Assassination, these were key questions faced by US authorities as they tried to keep the visuals on their wanted posters and card decks up to date.

Continue reading "Osama: a frail, pathetic poser" »

Of all the things I’ve lost online, I miss my mind the most. On Friday I forgot a friend’s name for almost a minute. And this was an actual, real friend. Someone who’d been a guest at my house.

After a little Wiki work and web MDing on my phone I come to the conclusion that I probably had early onset dementia. The next day I mentioned my ailment to one of my friends - whose name I can recall because I see it every day in my Twitter feed (@juzzycullen). She told me she had the same problem and we agreed it was unlikely that we both had dementia.

We decided it less likely we’re suffering a digital-age DDoS attack on out brains. A personal Future Shock if you like.

Continue reading "HELP! I lost my mind online" »

One day, I will tell my four-year-old son that “there’s no place like home” and he will think I’m a genius.

The rest of you, however, will feel a sudden and overwhelming urge to pummel me in the face with a box of Hallmark cards and smugly present me with a “get well soon” card from the same batch.

But why are we taught to avoid clichés like the plague? What’s wrong with using the odd well-worn phrase?

Continue reading "Avoid this cliche-ridden column like the plague" »

Now that Osama sleeps with the fishes, the world inevitably turns its attention to what comes next. We’ll tell you what comes next. The jokes, that’s what. In fact, they’re already here.

We’re not dancing on anyone’s grave. We’re just faithfully reporting, in the old impartial style of reporters of yesteryear, the great mirth outbreak around the world in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s very timely demise.

Normally, there’s a cycle with this kind of stuff. It goes: death, shock, respectful pause, joke outbreak. Not this time. Yesterday it was more like: “hey, shame they had to kill Osama. A much better punishment would have been to capture him alive and make him go through airport security for the rest of his life!” Boom, tish!

Continue reading "Rifling through a bin laden with comic gold" »

This week, Facebook pages have been brimming over with pictures of same-sex couples kissing. The pictures are a protest against Facebook because a photo (actually a still from EastEnders) of two blokes having a pash was removed.

Facebook have now apologised, saying the removal was a mistake (check out the exclusive news.com.au story here). Maybe it was, but people are right to be cynical when discrimination against gay people is still seen as OK by many sections of society.

Growing up, there were some things I couldn’t get my head around. Differential equations were one, homophobia was another.

Continue reading "It started with a kiss: Gay protests in your Facebook" »

Safe sex used to be simple. Step A: take one vending machine prophylactic. Step B: use it.

These days, everything is much more complicated. These days, protecting yourself from “going viral” may also involve checking for hidden webcams and erasing your ex-partner’s flash drive.

Most of Australia is now familiar with the case of the 18-year-old Australian Defence Force Academy cadet whose peers called her a “skank” and a “dirty whore” after a male cadet secretly recorded the two of them having sex.

Continue reading "When old misogyny meets new technology" »

One steamy night in February 1974, I went with friends to hear the great blues guitarist B.B. King in concert at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion.

All went well until, an hour or so in, King collapsed on stage and had to be carried off. I left the Hordern in search of a phone box.

The first one was broken. Finding one that worked, I stuffed some money in, rang one of the copy-takers at ABC News and dictated five lines of copy.

Continue reading "A journalist kicking it old school on Twitter" »

I don’t usually write about myself, because I’m interested in issues rather than personalities. Some commenters - not speaking of you, James - frequently try to derail conversations by launching personal attacks, and the best response is to ignore these and concentrate on the topic at hand.

In this case, however, I can make an exception because the topic is me. It’s good to be recognised, even in a tongue-in-cheek way. Not just because it amuses me or inflates my ego, but because it means my message is being heard.

Of course, I don’t expect James to suddenly renounce the errors of his ways and become a born-again conservative, but then that isn’t my purpose.

Continue reading "Erick responds: I am just one voice" »

Anonymous says:

“While searching around Facebook for a rellie of mine the other night, I came across my niece, my brother’s daughter. I haven’t spoken to or seen him for years. I don’t like him one little bit. Now here’s my problem. My niece has her profile set for the whole world to see and being a 19-year-old you can just imagine the crap that’s on her page. The way employers are using social networking sites to dig into the lives of potential employees these days, she wouldn’t even be considered for a job.

Continue reading "Friday’s dilemma: My niece is exposing herself on Facebook" »

If there is one thing I like about Twitter, it’s hashtags. In case you aren’t part of the Twitterati, hashtags refer to the “#” that allows debate or discussion on particular topics in Twitter between users who would probably otherwise never get in contact with each other.

For example, there is the #AusPol hashtag that discusses Australian politics and the #qanda one that discusses the ABC’s Q&A programme every Monday and a million other hashtags on every topic under the sun. I often use them when I post Independent Australia articles on Twitter to get them out to a wider audience, for instance.

But they can also be on frivolous matters as well — and this is where the fun really starts. Yesterday a hashtag arose called #rejectedbnetourismslogans, which, as the name suggests it is all about creating slogans to poke fun at the city of Brisbane. I’m not sure why or who suggested it, or why, but it has gone viral with thousands of contributions, most of them quite funny:

Continue reading "Brisbane. It’s reasonably close to the Gold Coast" »

My daughter came home from her school camp on Friday and when I asked who was in her cabin, she said, ‘two really nice girls and some mean girls. We tried talking to them but they completely ignored us.’

Aaagh! Mean girls! Sugar and spice laced with arsenic.

Bullying of all descriptions is abhorrent. Last week’s viral footage of bullied Sydney boy, Casey Heynes, ground-slamming his young taunter in the playground, polarised those who saw it. Many were appalled at the potential lethality of the act and at the outpouring of support for Casey that followed it. They jousted with those for whom it seemed that watching Casey deliver brutal come-uppance to his bully was almost voyeuristically cathartic.

Continue reading "Girls or boys, young or old, karma gets bullies in the end" »

About 10 years ago in southern California a young fellow by the name of Ryan McPherson hit upon the idea of bribing homeless people with bottles of bourbon to fight each other, and to film the ensuing brawls for a series of movies entitled Bum Fights. The movies, four of which were made, were hailed as just the latest example of a sick society in irreversible decline.

Homeless groups said the movies encouraged violence against people living on the streets, as well as dehumanising and mocking them. Amid threats of legal action, the producers agreed to stop making the films, and were forced to pay compensation to some of the homeless men involved.

The idea of filming a staged fight between the homeless as a form of entertainment would be regarded by a normal person as offensive to dignity and decency. In Australia this week we’ve learned that a depressing number of people – tens of thousands of them in fact – will have a hearty chuckle watching a couple of kids laying into each other in the schoolyard.

Continue reading "A dumb, webbed-up nation cheers on the fat kid" »

As fossil fuels dwindle and we struggle to feed a hungry population, the world faces a new shortage. As we speak, implausibly rugged scientists are being taken by chopper to a secret bunker while Robert Redford does his best to convince an old special forces type to leave his forest cabin for one last job.

They told us the supply wouldn’t last. “Ration it out,” they told us, “there’s plenty to go around”, but we didn’t listen.

That’s right, because of our greed and refusal to acknowledge the finite nature of our resources, the world has run out of Charlie Sheen jokes.

Continue reading "Witty tweets beat twitty bleats on Twitter" »

The growth of the internet as an information and communications tool has always been tied intimately with the promise of connecting people beyond geographical and ideological boundaries, of expanding our knowledge through unprecedented access to multiple viewpoints.

This ideal is still embraced by some, notably in discussions of the “Twitter Revolutions”, but in a practical sense it’s as relevant as a physical Encyclopedia.

For most of us day-to-day internet use is fast moving away from providing individuals real choice, and ironically this is due to the “personalisation” of the web experience.

Continue reading "Big Brother is watching and he’s making you stupid" »

For observers partial, impartial or militant, there is now a barometer for the turbulence in the Middle East. The Qatar-based news outlet Al Jazeera has set up an online tool to track Twitter updates from Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen.

But if you’re an aspiring insurgent worried that your movements are now more visible to the government you’re trying to topple, rest assured – social media will find a way.

When Libyan secret police monitored Facebook and Twitter, revolutionaries seeking to oust Muammar Gaddafi from power turned to a dating site called Madawi, assuming aliases from “Sweet Butterfly” to “Melody of Torture” and exchanging coded messages. Their missives, and their mission, are another entry in a series of social media-attributed uprisings that has already claimed the scalp of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.

Continue reading "When the medium becomes the message in the media" »

Online anonymity has been a hot topic on The Punch recently. Here, Lucy looks at the pros and cons of revealing your true self.

Many people will call you a coward - or worse, a bully - for hiding your real identity online. But unless you’re troll or an aggressive poster, most of the time that’s far from the truth.

Like a dress-up box for adults, the internet has become a place for people who want to engage in debate, throw around ideas, complain about their lives or just muck around - without their real name.

And there are several perfectly valid reasons for doing it.

Continue reading "Four reasons it’s OK to ditch your real self online" »

If the internet is to be believed — and I see no good reason why we shouldn’t believe everything we read on the internet — Facebook has become essential to staging a revolution. As the Web 2.0 (or are we up to 3.0?) commentators keep telling us, if you’re planning on toppling a dictatorial regime, then best first spruce up your Facebook profile.

But we in the West who already inhabit the sunny uplands of democracy haven’t been slouches when it comes to using Facebook to effect large scale social change. A case in point: I recently came across a Facebook group set up to fight the good fight against noisy children in restaurants.

I hadn’t previously noticed this scourge, but apparently restaurants across the nation have been overrun by parents. Even worse, these parents, many of whom would have you believe are responsible and upstanding members of society, have been thoughtlessly taking their children along with them.

Continue reading "Families have dined out on the public long enough" »

The internet is emerging as one of the big heroes of the pro-democracy, anti-despot movement in the Middle East.

It’s regarded as being right up there with that courageous Gaddafi impersonator who’s been suggesting absent members of the Libyan army are simply retreating to rest and relax.

Thanks to the cybersphere, Arabic members of generation TXT are using mobile phone cameras to film political violence and then uploading the footage online.

This, in turn, is leading to more civilian fury and more amateur surveillance.

Continue reading "The internet: From revolt to revolting trolls" »

Readers, as we’re sure you’re well aware, The Punch is Nigeria’s main national newspaper. It is also, you may be interested to learn, an Australian news and opinion website of considerable standing.

Many of you may mistakenly believe you’ve arrived at the website of your national newspaper. No doubt, then, you’re bewildered by the lack of coverage of the trial of Judge Salami, who is charged with some very serious crimes, possibly against smallgoods. Some say he once put Spanish olives in a Greek salad. Don’t you hate that? String him up, we say.

Let us, however, be clear. This is not the online presence of said Nigerian newspaper. This is The Punch in Australia, where our coverage of the Salami trial has been minimal, to say the least. You will excuse us, we trust. And to those of you who have become our Facebook friends – you will stay friendly with us, yes? We love having you as part of our big, happy family. Truly we do.

Continue reading "Welcome, Nigerian Facebook friends. Please send money." »

Remember the sound of a telephone ringing through a hallway?

The kind that attached to the wall and had a long, curly, plastic cord that could wrap around your arm but never quite stretch as far as the couch.

It was bulky too; heavy enough to need its own table or a hall-stand that doubled as a storage cabinet for the inevitable pile of White and Yellow Pages crammed underneath it.

Continue reading "The romance of a phone with a curly wurly cord" »

The notion that one person’s status update can spark a revolution has gained momentum in recent years.  The “Twitter Revolution” is now a familiar concept. Before it was applied to the current protests in Egypt, the term was used to describe the election riots in Moldova and Iran in 2009 and last year’s Tunisian street demonstrations.

As well as being an attractive media catch-word, the moniker has been regarded as apt because the political upheaval in each of these cases was organised using technological networking tools, including SMS, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Social networks are powerful instruments for connecting and uniting strangers with common objectives.  The Obama 08 campaign was fought perhaps most intensely on the internet, where followers were offered intimate access to “Obama Everywhere” (or at least on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Black Planet, MiGente, LinkedIn, MyBatanga and DNC Partybuilder).

Continue reading "The revolution will be Twitterised" »

His muscles are permanently flexed, his fashions impeccably zhooshed and his fringe swing puts Justin Bieber’s to shame.

He is Ken doll and he has just celebrated 50 years of hyper – yet exquisitely ambiguous – masculinity.

To mark such a momentous jubilee, this column will now tackle the big questions about Barbie’s tackle-less escort. Big questions such as:

Continue reading "Happy 50th, Ken: May you freak us out for years to come" »

Oddly-coloured, self-indulgent and attention-starved. That’s how Ian Thorpe came across at yesterday’s glitzy, jam-packed press conference.

Yesterday, I wrote glowing things about Thorpe. I couldn’t, and still can’t, say enough about his genuine, intelligent commitment to the welfare of indigenous Australians.

Then came his presser, where none other than the CEO of Virgin Blue announced Thorpe’s comeback to competitive swimming.

Continue reading "@IanThorpe’s epic press conference fail" »

It’s no secret that I am a fan of Facebook.

It should be no surprise that I like it. I am a 30-something, stay-at-home mother, and I work from home part-time, freelance.

And it is a lonely life. Activities with babies last one or two hours, then it’s you and the baby or toddler, toys with bells and blocks.

Continue reading "Don’t let today’s technology control you" »

Are you offended by the C-word?

Had I asked that question a decade ago, the answer would probably have been “yes”.

But the C-bomb has been blowing up in the strangest of places – like the Facebook page of archconservative Lisa Oldfield, wife of right-wing radio broadcaster David Oldfield.

Continue reading "Dropping the C-bomb is no longer a cunning stunt" »

I woke last Thursday morning wondering whether my sister was dead or alive.

That day, the Brisbane River was expected to peak at 5.5 metres.

Suze lives in the city’s west, near Ipswich.

Continue reading "Saved by the social network" »

Am I missing something here? I don’t Twitter, tried Facebook for about a week and found intelligent and literate friends were writing banal crud.

I know, I know, I’m a dinosaur. What do you expect? I started out communicating mechanically using a cordless, battery-less typewriter.

I now have a bracelet made of old Remington or Royale typewriter keys.

Continue reading "Facebook: putting readers ahead of the words" »

I always wanted to be Indiana Jones.

In addition to being the quintessential whip-cracking he-man, Indy got to dig up ancient relics and shiny physical memories of glories past.

Archaeology has always had a magical appeal to me. There’s a real romance to it that few other pursuits can match.

Continue reading "What would Indy think of Facebook?" »

Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey has dramatically decided to step away from a campaign to regulate the purchase of goods online from overseas. Harvey has blamed a torrent of social media abuse as prime reason for his departure.

Harvey said the attacks were “vicious and hateful” and, as for the campaign, well, it was “bad timing”.

However, Harvey really bells the cat when he says ‘you might have got a nasty phone call or a letter back in the old days but now anything slightly controversial, these people, whoever they might be, they go for you zealously and with hatred all over Twitter”.

Continue reading "Gerry Harvey: How Twitter toppled a retail giant" »

Who is the real victim in the AFL nude scandal case? The 17-year-old girl who alleges she slept with a star AFL player and then was dumped and ignored by his club?

Or the other footballers who have been publicly humiliated after homoerotic images of their post-season bonding flooded the net? What makes this scandal problematic is that the young woman’s aggressive, clumsy attempts to exact highly publcised retaliation have left us struggling to identify who is the victim in this grubby scenario.

Both sides in this case are making blatant public grabs to claim the moral high ground and the public’s sympathy, but both have opened themselves up to voracious public condemnation for their behaviour.

Continue reading "Playing the media can be a dangerous game" »

Do you ever feel as if you’ve fallen asleep and woken up to a whole new world order? As if society’s moral compass has shifted while you’ve had your back turned for five minutes?

Let’s take yesterday’s AFL nude photo scandal as a jumping off point (as distinct from the AFL Grand Final rape allegation scandal, or the various NRL sexual assault scandals that have otherwise unfurled this year). I’m talking about the scandal that has seen nude photos of St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt and his teammates Zac Dawson and Nick Dal Santo, apparently taken by a fellow Saint, plastered all over the world wide web.

What I find myself wondering is the following: When did the team-building process expand to the practice of photographing your fellow players in the altogether?

Continue reading "Ignoring the homoerotic elephant in the locker room" »

There were loads of good things about 2010. But for some reason, we can’t remember many of them now. Neither can Newsweek. They’ve listed their top 13 here, and it included Bieber’s hair, Vuvuzelas and skinny leg jeans.

That got us thinking: what got up our noses this year? Here’s our top 10. Add yours below.

1.  The Federal election
Got a spare week? Then maybe Rob Oakeshott can explain what happened.

Continue reading "Punch list: what we won’t miss about 2010" »

This Christmas do yourself, your friends, your colleagues and your family a favour – don’t tweet drunk!

With 2.5 million Australians now using Twitter, the fastest growing social networking site, the ability to embarrass yourself is only a click away.

Over 85 per cent of Twitter usage is via mobile devices such as iPhones and Blackberries. In turn, most tweets are done on the run, in public and often in a hurry.

Unlike drunk texting, which is one-to-one, tweeting is one-to-many, with your indiscriminate remark about your inappropriate boss now potentially going to hundreds. Worse still, despite the anonymity that Twitter allows through profiles, you may be being ‘followed’ by an ex flame, an unfriendly colleague and even your creepy uncle.

Continue reading "If you’re over 0.05 step away from the Twitter machine" »

Shane Warne, bless him, has more than a quarter of a million followers on Twitter, and Liz Hurley just more than 41,000.

Presumably they also have email accounts, mobile phones, postal addresses and numerous other ways to contact each other. But in a generous gift to the public, perhaps inspired by the new openness a la Wikileaks, they carried on their flirtation in full view of anyone with an internet connection.

The day celebrities work out that when they write stuff online people can see it will be a sad day.

Continue reading "Shhhh ... nobody tell these people the internet is public" »

I became an Uncle again in early August of this year. Within minutes of having arrived at the hospital to meet the newest member of our beautiful clan, I had taken a photograph of him, and posted it on my facebook profile.

Within minutes of doing that, I had a message of congratulations from a first cousin I have never met, and who lived far away in the remotest parts of Northern Italy.

At first I thought this interaction and the technology that allowed it was simply marvelous. In discussing it with my mother, Madame Perin still found it impossible to believe. Not unlike the reaction she had when J.R got shot.

Continue reading "A picture tells a thousand lies" »

RIP Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Serena Williams, and Elijia Wood. For today at least, they are dead, digitally speaking.

They are amongst a host of celebrities who have signed on to stage their “digital death,” that is, they have temporarily pulled the plug on their Twitter and Facebook lives until their loyal followers stump up $1 million for World AIDS Day.

But this cyber stunt raises an interesting possibility – what if we like this blessed silence? What if we find we don’t crave their incessant inanities and misspelt, mangled English?

Continue reading "Instead of paying them to Tweet, let’s pay them not to" »

My Facebook profile has been a source of confusion and anxiety for several of my loved ones over the years. To be precise, it’s where ‘single’ has been listed next to ‘relationship status’ for longer than I care to confirm.

Yup, I’m 22-years-old and single. Very, very single. Apparently the spinsterhood clock is ticking for me, and it’s ticking pretty loudly.

The reaction I receive to my single status has been a source of amusement to me in recent times. The head-tilt and lip pout, followed by the ‘oh really?’ comment has become incredibly predictable. The ‘all in good time’ speech that follows has also quickly become an expectation.

Continue reading "Thanks, but I’m not dying - I’m just single" »

I’ve never been addicted to gambling, drugs or smoking. My drug of choice is Facebook, which I got hooked a few years ago and became obsessed.

Although I still visit the social networking site for a daily hit of notifications, my addiction has slowly lessened in its intensity overtime.

The breaking point for me was finally owning up to the realisation that too much of my time was wasted looking at pointless status updates and photos belonging to people I don’t ever see in real life or speak to.

Continue reading "Modern bullies hide behind a computer screen" »

In today’s society, most Australians are pretty comfortable with sharing personal information, with at least one major caveat – that we clearly know what our information is being used for.

Understanding how the information that organisations collect from us is used is the key guiding principle of our Privacy laws. Our privacy regime is consent-based – if you understand why private and personal information is being collected and consent to the purpose for which it is being collected then that information can be used for that purpose.

Social media and the more successful Internet business models fundamentally challenge this notion – because commercial success is often predicated on knowing as much as you can about your individual users and being less than upfront about how that information will be used.

Continue reading "What is Google really doing with your personal details?" »

“@Marty yeah that gear was craaazy, can Dezza get anymore of it? #bestnightever.”

That’s the kind of crap that’s going to get some poor MP de-throned in twenty years time.

Journalists and political nasties are going to have a field day in 2030, with millions of Facebook photos, status updates and tweets to trawl through.

Continue reading "One day only the most boring will prosper in politics" »

Technology is changing the way we communicate with each other – and not for the better. Gone are the days when “catching up” with friends required that you be in the same room, or even the same city.

Nowadays many of our closest relationships are mediated by machines, and it’s taking a toll on what was once considered civilised society. We are forgetting how to speak to one another face-to-face. We are switched-on, but we’re getting more and more disconnected from our true selves.

There is one product more than any other that has led to this worrying state of affairs.

Continue reading "Society has gone to the dogs because of technology" »

I have always been a great communicator. Sometimes excessively so.

My first report card – in kindy - said “Josie talks too much.” I am known to like a good chat.

I even studied “Communications” at uni and my job demands constant interaction with people.

Continue reading "Communication shutdown to promote understanding" »

With those Facebook geeks-made-good-then-turned-bad immortalised in the new film The Social Network (that opens today)  it’s been on my mind (geddit, I made a FB joke) about what life might be like if they never cracked the coding for it.

How would we know people had hooked up, shacked up, broken up or got knocked up?

People’s nights of debauchery would go unnoticed without the obligatory Sunday arvo upload of pics.

Continue reading "Facebook stole the romance from human relationships" »

Facebook is an easy target. With its size and history of privacy gaffes, criticising it is like taking aim at the proverbial barn door.

The same could be said for the online world in general. When we are faced with a social problem, from cyber-bullying to privacy breaches, it’s much easier to blame technology or the company that provides us with it than to take responsibility ourselves.

We can truthfully say that the internet has changed us, but once we start talking about how and why we need to factor ourselves in as well.

Continue reading "Blaming technology when society goes wrong is lazy" »

Dope, ignoramus, racist, communist, queen-kisser, Nazi, apologist, shill. Dunderhead, knucklebrain, fantasist, doofus, conspirator, idiot, and twit.

If you recognise these as terms applied to you before you’ve had breakfast on any given working day, then I hope your blog is going well.

The internet has turned insulting journalists into an art form. Now, why waste time on amateur, blunderbuss-style sprays of death threats and comparing a writer to animal genitalia, when you could make a cutting remark every time? In order to help make your sledging as effective as possible, The Punch asked some of Australia’s most widely-read online writers to share the one thing readers say in comments or feedback that makes them want to quit blogging. Their answers may surprise.

Continue reading "Hitting journos where it really hurts: a handy guide" »

A challenge from a former Howard Government spin-doctor on Twitter this week set me to thinking, not for the first time, about how journalists, especially ABC journalists, in the age of social media, can maintain and protect their impartiality.

You should know first that I use Twitter mainly to disseminate work by other people that interests me. I post links to articles, essays, video or audio, and jokes to leaven the mix, which reflect the fairly wide selection of reading I do on the internet every day.

A proportion of what I post is also breaking news. So for example, when the Deputy Speakership was decided this week, I posted three ‘tweets’ in quick succession, giving the vote numbers: one from @annabelcrabb, one from the political blogger @mfarnsworth, and one from @ABCNews.

Continue reading "Taking the twit out of Twitter and finding value" »

Apple released its newest incarnation of music management software last week, and unsurprisingly dubbed it ‘iTunes 10’. Flaunted amongst the new features is something called ‘Ping’, the ability to sign up and follow friends and strangers alike through iTunes, communicate your music tastes and discuss artists.

Apple claims it to be a way to ‘get to know your music by getting to know your friends’. After a cursory examination I went to Twitter and typed ‘WTF #Apple #iTunes #Ping’, laying out my initial superficial assessment bare for the world to see.

In centuries to come, ‘digital archaeologists’ may need a Rosetta Stone of some sorts to decipher what I said. Indeed, many of you reading this may wonder WTF I was tweeting about, so let me explain my standpoint in a way that 140 characters wouldn’t allow.

Continue reading "#isanybodyoutthereupfora realfacetofaceconversation" »

Kayne West is unabashed. It’s why I like the guy, and it’s why many others don’t.

He’s the only superstar capable of the kind of outburst the world witnessed at last year’s MTV Music Video Awards — when he leapt onto the stage and announced that Beyoncé Knowles should have won Best Female Video mid-way through Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech — an outburst that also bestowed on him the title of being the only superstar who can claim he’s been called a jack-ass by the president.

Now, after the most damaging period of his career, West has attempted to resurrect his public image using Twitter.

Continue reading "Kanye West bypasses press by going berserk on Twitter" »

He spotted her from across the room did Matt, a friend (and his real name).

It was two weekends ago and the cute brunette in the corner of the South Brisbane house party was just his type (“Leggy, petite - like Summer from The OC but with huge cans’‘) and he was enamoured.

Eager to find the perfect pickup line, Matt found out her name and hastily typed it into his iPhone Facebook app. “She’ll have a favourite movie, or something on her profile we can have a sweet convo about,’’ was his reasoning.

Continue reading "The perils of love in the time of Gen Y" »

Wendy Francis is the Family First Senate Candidate in Queensland who caused outrage at the weekend when some highly offensive claims about homosexual couples were posted on her Twitter page.

The @Wendy4Senate account, which displays all outward signs of being the work of the candidate herself, included this doozy: “Legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse,” were posted, with no indication they were written by anyone but Francis.

In the face of national criticism, Francis yesterday put out a statement that was part apology, part claim of media victimhood and part a dump on her own staff.

Continue reading "Blaming your staff makes you the Twit, not them" »

I sent a rather indignant email to Bob Brown the other day. I followed it up with an equally frustrated voicemail.

Essentially, I berated him for not being the inspirational and credible figurehead that he has been for the environmental movement for decades. I questioned his lack of visibility in an election that arguably presents one of the most monumental and significant chances the Greens have had of becoming a very powerful political force.

Senator Christine Milne’s media spokesperson Tim Hollo replied to my accusations (charitably also acknowledging that he understood my frustrations) with the simple question: “Why is the media complaining about the fluff and nonsense and policy vacuum of this election campaign, talking about the Greens having the potential to hold balance of power but completely ignoring the Greens’ policy launches?”

Continue reading "Where’s Bob Brown? He’s campaigning, just on the web" »

Headhunters have been digging around digital dirt, ever since Google became a verb. Since there’ll be a few politicians looking for new jobs after the election, I thought it’d be amusing to analyse their tweets from an employment perspective and ask “would I, as a headhunter, offer a politician a job based on their twittering?” 

I’ll disclose from the outset that my analysis is based on no more than my past six months hanging out in the twitter-verse building up my business, and from my time as a recruiter. For something more sensible and scholarly take a read of this research: Social media and the 2007 Australian election.

Continue reading "What pollies’ Tweets tell us about their employability" »

Good communication is critical in rugby and some of the stars of the Australian rugby team have taken it off the field and onto the web with a burst of activity on Twitter.

Perhaps it’s from the giddy highs of their win against South Africa in Brisbane on Saturday, one of the best performances an Australian team has put on for many years. But over the weekend some of the squad’s key players have been hyperactive on the social network, talking to fans and pulling back the curtains on the Wallaby camp as they tweet about their roommates, pets, and practical jokes.

The tweeters comprise most of the Wallaby back line that starred on Saturday: Quade Cooper (@QuadeCooper), Matt Giteau (@giteau_rugby), James O’Connor (@Rabbit832), Drew Mitchell (@drew_mitchell) and Adam Ashley-Cooper (@AdamCoopy).

Continue reading "Wallabies backs running some new lines on Twitter" »

If you are reading this then my job is half done; you’ve started reading this article.

Maybe the headline piqued your interest; perhaps the accompanying image caught your eye; or maybe you are just procrastinating at work. Either way, it’s an honour and a privilege to have your attention for this fleeting moment.

You see, your attention is becoming an increasingly valuable thing. At any moment of the day there are a multitude of entities vying for your interest; some will be trying to sell you a product or service, others will be trying to educate or inform you and some provide little more than a distraction.

Continue reading "May I have your attention please!" »

Want to lose all your friends on Facebook in record time? Then keep up the boring status updates people - you know who you are.

It can start with a nag about your partner because they forgot to take the bins out, but on other days you might make reference to how “cute” they are. Some people log on just to say how bored, tired or drunk they feel, while others detail their children and or pets bowel movements and feeding patterns.

Paying out the boss and whingeing about work is also popular and then there’s the tortuous holiday countdown; I challenge anyone to come up with a more aggravating update than those that begin: “Only 35 sleeps till I’m out of here!” 

Pointless, mindless and repetitive these, albeit short sentences, raise the petty ire; they’re what the dislike button was made for and in its absence, drive the weak-willed to secretly “hide” your feed from their profile pages. And it’s only going to get worse because this week Facebook registered its 500 millionth user.

Continue reading "How to be a Facebook killjoy" »

We are all familiar with the television debates between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition that occur in the lead up to a Federal election - but are Australians ready for online election debates?

Last month, NSW held what was billed as the first election debate on Twitter between NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell with mixed results including descriptions of it being chaotic, and confusing.

The increasing “US Presidential” style elections in Australia, with the focus almost entirely on the personality of the leader, suggests that other important developments in the US will be taking place here.

Continue reading "Leaders could face up to voters with a full web debate" »

With the federal election less than five weeks away, the Australian media is set to go into political overdrive. News bulletins will dedicate additional time to the exploits of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott and in the brief period since the election announcement, we’ve already seen both leaders swoon in the presence of some opportunely-located children.

Newspapers will dedicate additional pages to the dissection of election campaigns, talkback radio will be dominated by sceptical treatment of election promises and “the worm” is likely to resurface in televised debates between the two leaders.

In great news for the legions of Chaser fans, the boys will return to the ABC in the coming weeks to preview the election in their trademark style. The folks behind The Gruen Transfer will also roll out a handful of special episodes looking at the abundance of party advertising that is sure to flood our daily loves in the lead up to the election.

Continue reading "Tweeting the election: And the people’s hashtag is ..." »

I’m looking at a series of pictures by the photographer Robbie Cooper, and they’re making me think about computers, the cyber world, and our changing relationship with reality.

They’re from a book called Alter Ego – a project in which Cooper travelled the world taking pictures of people alongside their ‘avatars’ – the images they construct for themselves in cyberspace games like World of Warcraft and Everquest.

Some of them are funny, like the skinny kid who appears as a superhero or the obese boy whose avatar is a Viking-like warrior – and some of them make you wonder what’s the point, such as the woman whose avatar looks exactly like her - but one pair of images really stays with me. 

It’s the little boy in an oxygen mask, with stick-like, atrophied arms and hands resting on foam support cushions, next to the image of a menacing figure in full space armour.

Continue reading "The internet is making us more adaptable, not dumber" »

In a Courier Mail article this week Karen Brooks wrote that there was a lot of cyber hate on Twitter and Facebook directed at Masterchef Australia contestants.

She alleges Masterchef nice has been turned into Masterchef nasty on social networking sites, and some of these remarks were sexist, racist and homophobic.

As prolific tweeter I must be on a different stream as the majority of tweets I see are witty, and commenting mainly on what is being shown on the screen.

Continue reading "Don’t blame the armchair critics for Masterchef attacks" »

I like technology.  I like the fact that technology allows me to be an actor for a living.  You see, without technology like television, I wouldn’t be where I am today. 

Yet there is something sinister about the way technology is changing our lives. 

I sometimes think that each new marvellous technological invention gives us yet another reason to spend less time with each other.

Continue reading "The joy of unplugging from our tech-stressed lifestyles" »