Twitter

I woke up yesterday morning to horrific news. My favourite iPhone application of all time, the time-wasting fun-machine photo social network Instagram, had been snaffled up by Facebook for a frankly mind-boggling sum.

Apparently a picture is not worth a thousand words, it is worth $1 billion.

Oh Instagram, why did it have to come to this? After wiping away my tears, the enormity of the purchase sank in. Here was a company of 13 employees being valued at more than the New York Times.

Continue reading "Another billion reasons to hate Mark Zuckerberg" »

You can bet Liam Stacey or @liamstacey9, now wishes he’d laid off the shandies last weekend. The 21 year old British student has been sentenced to 56 days in jail for incitement to racial hatred. After firing off a series of racist and offensive tweets about footballer, Fabrice Muamba, when he collapsed during the FA Cup tie at Tottenham, last Saturday.

British police across the UK were notified about Mr Stacey’s offensive tweets at the time of posting on Saturday afternoon. Much of Mr Stacey’s thread has since been taken down, so here’s just a taste of what he had to say: “LOL. F*** Muamba. He’s dead!!! #haha.”

Swansea District Judge John Charles described Stacey’s comments as “vile and abhorrent” and said he had no alternative but to jail the 21 year old man. “It was not the football world who was praying for [Muamba].... everybody was praying for his life,” he told the court. 

If only the long arm of the law was always so swift and righteous. And harsh.

Continue reading "Sentenced to jail for 56 days after vile Tweet" »

When Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch during Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final, many people audibly gasped.

Some spoke words of concern, while others simply held their breath.

Liam Stacey - a 21-year-old Welsh biology student - saw it as the perfect opportunity to alienate the entire world by openly mocking the unconscious player and posting a string of racist and sexist comments in response to criticism from other Twitter users. Obviously, the lad isn’t the first to haphazardly press a bunch of keyboard keys in a decidedly racist order. But being the most most recent to do so probably makes him more idiotic, in many ways.

Continue reading "Twitter for (racist) Dummies" »

SOCIAL TV. Have you ever heard such an obnoxious buzz phrase?

The words alone make me feel exhausted.

And yet the last few years have spawned a number of social TV apps like Fango and GetGlue, that are designed to give audiences a place where they can get together and bitch about TV shows and movies. So, like, Twitter?

Continue reading "I’d rather watch this than use your stupid TV apps" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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.

Continue reading "Blades to the head can’t stop old people from being badass" »

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" »

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" »

Last week The Punch posted a piece on a fantastic news picture of a couple kissing amid a riot. Then the proverbial hit the fan, with all sorts of rumours - including a suggestion it was the scene of a sexual assault - so we closed the piece until we could work out what was going on. Well now we know (sort of) and the piece is open again, here. And here’s a great look at the situation from a new contributor, Jen Vuk.

Against the tarnished backdrop of the escalating violence in Vancouver last week a startling image of a couple lying on a littered and damaged street and seemingly lost in their own tantric moment caused a meltdown of the most spurious kind.

Within hours of going online the image not only went viral, but had its own Twitter account and its first photo-shopped meme showing the couple on a freeway. While the riot, caused by the city’s hockey team’s championship loss, which left 150 people injured, property and shops destroyed and led to almost 100 arrests had but all been forgotten, our curiosity in the then mystery duo seemed to grow by the nanosecond.

Continue reading "Love, PR, and other catastrophes" »

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" »

Sex and alcohol used to be the weapons of choice if you wanted to attract fellow uni students to a meeting.  The ad industry has known for decades that sex sells. 

And now we have the internet to tell us in even more precise detail just how attractive humans find sex, scandals or booze – preferably all three.

So should we be surprised that, as Lindsay Tanner’s new book Sideshow highlights, the media don’t love good policy, but they simply adore “sexy” stories? 

Continue reading "We are all to blame for the dumbing down of politics" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

“@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" »

At some point in the past decade, geeks became cool.

Like the products they created, geeks began to be marketed as friendly and helpful types that everyday people could turn to to solve problems or get more out of life.

Sometimes they even seemed to be attractive to women. The Social Network should go some way to ending all of this.

Continue reading "Social network geeks aren’t cool, just angry losers" »

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" »

Quick someone hold the babies, Angelina Jolie may about to be trumped in the unabashed pursuit of profile building philanthropy. Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, singer LeeAnn Rimes and actor Tim Robbins are just three of the big names giving support to the latest social media craze: TwitChange.

The brainchild of an Atlanta minister seeking new ways to raise money for children of the Haitian community, TwitChange is also the latest way for celebrities to show how much they care, in 140 words of less, just as long as you’re willing to pay for it.

Continue reading "TwitChange: celebrities show they care" »

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" »

THE internet has broken my heart in the past fortnight.

We had such a great relationship. She was funny, knowledgeable, sexually adventurous. She let me hang out with my friends whenever I wanted and bought me DVDs.

It took time, but it turns out she’s one of those crazy chicks and two of her most exciting attributes - WikiLeaks and Twitter - have gone south. Honeymoon over.

Continue reading "Internet, I think we should have a chat over coffee" »

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!" »

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" »

The image below is map of Australia but it’s not just any map, it is taken from a social media website called ijustmadelove.com. Yes, it’s a map logging the location, time and date of where people have had sex.

It also allows them to detail what type of sex they had, whether it was inside, outdoors or on a boat and to rate it using a 5 star system.

It is, in many ways, a sign of the increasing trend within society to reveal more and more private information and explains why in 2008 Webster’s dictionary had to create a new word – “overshare”.

Continue reading "You just did what? The rise of the oversharers" »

You might think NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell have a lot on their plates - like trying to come up with ways to get NSW out of the infrastructure black hole we’ve fallen into. After all, this week was Budget week in NSW.

But our two political leaders have developed a new hobby - taking pointless potshots at each other on Twitter. Is it dignified? No. Entertaining? Not really.

O’Farrell, whose Tweets you can see here, has taken to referring to his counterpart as KKK (geddit!). And Keneally, whose Tweets you can see here, uses it to flog dead political horses, like her assertion completing the Kokoda Track is no biggie.

Continue reading "As a state crumbles our leaders turn into Twits" »

For anyone who still cares, I thought it might be interesting to compare and contrast the recent public outbursts of arguably Australia’s greatest female controversialists, Catherine Deveny and Miranda Devine, and see if we can get to the bottom of this tirade titlefight.

In the pinko lefto red corner we have Deveny. Weighing in as a self-proclaimed “serial pest”, and “cultural terrorist”, this fiery feminist heavyweight from Melbourne is best known for her quick left jabs and rapid fire uppercuts, such as “I do so hope Bindi Irwin gets laid tonight”, and the other cracker about Rove McManus’s dead wife.

In the neo-conservanista blue corner we have Devine. Weighing in as a devout Roman Catholic and smug upholder of our dwindling moral high ground, this Sydney based journalist is best known for her elusive footwork and sneaky right hooks, such her now classic gay sledge, “You’ve had enough of rogering gerbils I see”.

Continue reading "To err is Deveny, to be a hypocrite Devine" »

I was having a quiet day at home doing a few laps on the wheel and nibbling on a pellet when all of a sudden the phone is ringing off the hook, asking me if I would care to comment about the fact that some neo-con fruitcake called Miranda Devine and a gay bloke in Sydney were having a massive stink which, frankly, has got nothing to do with me.

But faster than you can say Richard Gere, there it is: my name is back up in lights again, and for all the wrong reasons.

If you’ll excuse the analogy, the whole thing is a massive pain in the arse. But I have decided to go public in a final desperate bid to scotch the stereotypes which are perpetuated about the gerbil lifestyle by the likes of Devine.

Continue reading "A black day for Australian gerbilism" »

If you thought the Catherine Deveny-Fairfax-Twitter saga was over, think again. Another similar but less blockbusting sequel has unfolded which has already, uncharitably, been labelled Gerbilgate.

It began on Saturday night when columnist Miranda Devine became involved in a “tweet war” with a 20-year-old university student named Justin Barbour. Devine suggested that Barbour “rogers” gerbils.

In the wake of Catherine Deveny’s sacking last week, Twitterers have started baying for Devine’s blood – but before you make up your mind on this latest development, here is some background. (Justin Barbour’s reaction is below, too.)

Continue reading "Gerbilgate" »

The more air-headed exponents of social media have had a busy time of it this week, trying to transform Melbourne comedian Catherine Deveny into a cause celebre for the anti-censorship cause.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, all the hoopla about the British poll being “the first twitter election” has evaporated as the campaign has turned on the work of traditional journalism and conventional public discourse.

It hasn’t been a great week for social media. Despite its many benefits – sharing content with like-minded people, engaging in conversation about topics of mutual interest – two of its key limitations have been laid bare by these unrelated events.

Continue reading "Twitter overloaded with the abusive and inane" »

Context/ noun 1. the parts of a discourse or writing which precede or follow, and are directly connected with, a given passage or word. 2. the circumstances or facts that surround a particular situation, event, etc. (Macquarie Dictionary Third Edition).

I’m not a fan of comedians being censored or sacked for going over the top, and think The Age has probably just cut off the most interesting thing about itself. But Catherine Deveny, who likes to think she’s holding up an unforgiving mirror to Australian society, has mounted an intellectually limp defence of her Logies night idiocy.

The belligerent iconoclast has relied on the same weak “out of context” argument, which is usually the fallback of misogynist clerics, the likes of whom Deveny would rightly pillory with relish.

Continue reading "Don’t take this out of context: Deveny is full of it" »

The bizarre behaviour of Young Liberal National Party Nick Sowden in calling Barack Obama a monkey underscores one point pretty well: how out of touch a lot of people in the Young Liberals are.

For all the outrage around Sowden’s comments on Twitter last night, the broader point beyond a university student doing something stupid, is what it says about this disproportionately powerful group.

Sowden gave a radio interview today in which he defended his behaviour, drawing on the famous Sandilands defence: I was taken out of context.

Continue reading "If you needed reminding young Libs were out of touch" »

Walking into Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco you’re acutely aware of your existence in the present.

At Twitter, here and now, you are in the heart of a company that is hottest on the internet (and possibly off it) and right now millions of Tweeters are their sending their thoughts via this office. 

This would make Twitter co-founder Biz Stone the man of the moment.

Continue reading "The Punch meets Twitter founder Biz Stone" »

Online memorials have been getting a bad rap lately, and in many ways, rightly so. The cruel comments posted on the Facebook memorial page for murdered Brisbane 12-year-old Elliott Fletcher are nothing short of repulsive.

Even after the furore over the posting of pornographic images on Fletcher’ s site, insensitive and offensive comments persist. Amid good wishes to Elliott and his family, Matt Jackson has written on one Fletcher tribute page, “im famous, im on the world famous post hahahahaha hi mum im on tv lol.”

Scroll down. One of three “fan photos” at that page’s left shows Fletcher in life, grinning under tousled hair, with the words “Woot I’m [sic] dead” written over him in thick red marker.

Continue reading "Don’t kill off online tributes because of bad press" »

Public outrage over the shocking vandalism of internet tribute sites for two young Queenslanders who died in terrible circumstances has again raised questions over freedom online.

The worldwide web next month celebrates its 21st anniversary. It has grown from a single web page to more than a trillion unique pages and is expanding rapidly every day.

Social network sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube transformed the web from largely static pages under a website owner’s control into something more fluid, with people interacting on the websites to create content.

Continue reading "What next for Facebook after its nightmare week?" »

Considering the complex cloak and dagger diplomacy surrounding US-Iran relations deputy US State Department Spokesman Robert Duguid comes out with a pretty open account of how and why the State Department asked Twitter not to close down during the post-election uprising in Iran. 

“We don’t have anyone on the ground in Iran; we haven’t since our hostages were set free in 1981. So for us just knowing the information was coming out that this real information, or at least piecemeal information that you knew was happening on the day was important,” Mr Duguid told The Punch from Washington.

“It was also evident to us that without social media being available that those groups who were opposing the crackdown and opposing the election results would not have a voice. So yes we learnt that Twitter was going to go down for maintenance. So we talked about it upstairs at the public affairs section, and one of our number knew the folks at Twitter.”

Continue reading "The diplomatic tightrope in the age of Social Media" »

Another week, another internet service that needs joining to see what the hype’s about. The web was supposed to make life easier, but all it seems to be doing lately is inventing more ways to bombard people with babble.

Google Buzz‘s launch last week was wrapped in an increasingly familiar aura. As with the iPad launch, there was huge excitement from some nerdy types but a resounding verdict from much of the public has been a sigh and a shrug.

Instead of capitalising on excitement, new products have to overcome fatigue. There’s the effort setting up yet another profile, then somehow remembering to check back on it in between reading the news, monitoring tweets, Facebook status updates, doing the footy tipping, watching that Hitler video everyone’s talking about and getting to your reading recommendations all while trying to manage your phone and email inbox.

Continue reading "I’m sorry but the internet is starting to suck" »

There have been a few additions to the site you might like to know about.

Want to take up a reader’s point directly with them? You can now reply directly to them by clicking the “Reply” icon at the foot of each comment.

The Punch also now has a Facebook page, where there’ll be occasional updates during the day. Just log in to Facebook, browse to the Punch Facebook page, and hit the “Become a fan” button. You might even get to know other fans of the site through it.

Continue reading "New features on The Punch" »

“She is DEAD! F*CKING HAVE RESPECT FOR HER!” - Part of Tila Tequila’s tweet stream.

Hollywood has responded to the tragic death of 30-year-old heiress Casey Johnson in the only way that Hollywood can; by turning the attention away from the departed and on to themselves by outpouring their grief and sympathy - in 140 characters on twitter. The celebrity obsession with the micro-blogging site seems to be more addictive than prescriptive medication in LA.

Lindsay Lohan, DJ Samantha Ronson, Paris Hilton and Tila Tequila have all tweeted about the heiress’s death.

Continue reading "Tila Tequila and the end of grieving in private" »

Ten days before Christmas a toddler drowned in a backyard pool somewhere in the US. It was tragic yet unremarkable among other all-too-familiar stories except for one detail: his mother tweeted his death.

You can read the story and other opinions about the tragic drowning here and here.

This week Twitter was once more buzzing as the bizarre death of Johnson & Johnson heiress, Casey Johnson, was announced via the tweets of her fiancée, television personality Tila Tequila.

Continue reading "Tweet and be damned" »

Journalists tend to adopt a natural default position whereby censorship is deemed to be one of the purest forms of evil, and that we should fight any government which tries to curtail the freedom of adults to make up their own minds on what they say, watch and read.

Over the past few months I’ve found that my personal default position has been challenged, oddly enough, by the anti-censorship lobby. Lobby is a bit of a loose term - there is no formal lobby as such - it’s a pretty diverse and disorganised conglomeration of humanity, containing authors, artists, journalists, information technology experts, social media enthusiasts, twitterers and the like.

Large - and in my view, largely stupid - sections of this group have had the surprise effect of turning me into a closet fan of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. Not because his internet filtering plan is a work of genius. Far from it.

Continue reading "Vacuous critics give censorship a good name" »

My name is Leslie Nassar, you may remember me from the side-splitting online satire of Fake Stephen Conroy, Today Tonight, and iSnack 2.0. Ah, The Internet, where even the most obvious and mediocre of writers can become a Celebretard.

I’ve been asked to write about the Harold Holtification of Fake Stephen Conroy.  I only have a few hundred words to play with and every article that references Twitter must, by law, contain an excruciatingly detailed history of the author’s use of the service, so let’s not dilly-dally.

When Twitter launched in 2007, I joined the microblogging site thinking I could sate my hunger for telling complete strangers (most of them foreign) about my favourite sandwiches. Disappointingly, it turned out that people were more interested in discussing politics than listening to my opinion on multigrain sourdough breads (I am opposed to them, naturally).  So I deleted my account in disgust.

Continue reading "Why it was time to kill off Fake Stephen Conroy" »

I was a late Twitter convert, only joining up at the behest of a friend who regularly spoke of its virtues in connecting with her fellow poets and Gertrude Stein enthusiasts.

I am a bit ambivalent about contributing to conversations surrounding the latest social networking fads but the other day I had a realisation that I get most of my news from Twitter.

The realisation came to me as a bit of a shock, when I was talking to my housemate about the Liberal Party leadership woes.

Continue reading "Twitter: News at the speed of light" »

I recently gave an address at the Media 140 Conference in Sydney about the impact of social media on journalism.  I was invited to speak about the ethics and professionalism of the way I use twitter.  Today’s post is adapted from my remarks.

My guiding principle is ‘If in doubt, leave it out’. 

In other words, when it comes to what I put on twitter, I err on the side of caution - as I do with what I write or broadcast generally.

Continue reading "Well-readhead: How and why I use Twitter" »

Don’t you hate Twitter? All those people, twittering away, typing all that rubbish, telling people about their lives as if any of us are interested.

As if anyone cares what they ate for lunch today or what they’re watching on TV or what they think about So You Think You Can Dance. Isn’t it just rubbish?

Of all the modern social trends I find personally offensive, Twitter has the greatest direct negative impact on my day-to-day life. All the banality. All those people being so dull.

Continue reading "A world of twittering fools dizzy on the helium of idiocy" »

Note: The ABC’s Mark Colvin from the PM program gave this speech yesterday at the Media140 conference in Sydney.

Since I’ve been asked to speak about Iran – and I will speak more about it shortly – I want to begin by acknowledging that in the last 24 hours, people – many of them young people – have been shot at, beaten and arrested in Tehran and other Iranian cities.

It’s the thirtieth anniversary of the sacking of the US Embassy in Tehran - a key part of the Iranian Revolution – which turned into the Islamic Revolution – and demonstrators have been out on the street, turning the Republic’s own slogans against it, shouting ‘Marg bar Diktator’, Death to the Dictator, instead of ‘Marg bar Amrika’, Death to America.

The reaction has been swift and violent. It’s a reminder that whatever power Twitter may have it is as nothing against determined men with guns and batons. I’m reminded of Peter Cook’s evaluation of the power of satire. It “did so much”, he said, “to prevent the rise of Hitler in pre-war Germany”.

Continue reading "Iran, Twitter and the new media world" »

There’s a big crack in the dam of official censorship today. An attempt by one of Britain’s most formidable law firms to stop media coverage of one of its clients backfired spectacularly when the information it was seeking to suppress was distributed around the internet to millions of users in a matter of hours.

In what will become a case study for how the internet has changed the balance of power in the control of information, solicitors Carter-Ruck and their client Trafigura were forced to drop an attempt to gag media coverage of an 87-word parliamentary question about the alleged dumping of toxic waste off Ivory Coast.

The question was on the public record and available on the internet yet The Guardian was prevented from reporting the question, who asked it, or why it was being gagged.

Continue reading "When the web makes a fool of censorship" »

I still remember exactly where I was when I found out both my parents had passed away. I remember every smell, every colour and I remember exactly what I was thinking as if it was just yesterday.

It’s a horrible thing learning someone you love has died, and I still am completely in awe of those who passed on the news, and provided the support and care I needed at the time.

Today news broke of a Western Australian family who yesterday learned their daughter had died in a car crash via a Facebook post.

Continue reading "Facebook is not the place to find out your child is dead" »

Twitter just announced “Lists” as its latest feature. Utilising a Steve Jobs tactic, Twitter Lists are not yet available, nor are they being resold on ebay as Google Wave invites are, but they are “Soon to Launch”, says Project Lead Nick Kallen, on the company blog.

When available, Twitter Lists will enable “people to curate lists of Twitter accounts”. What does it mean? Unlike Facebook, whose raison d’etre has evolved from connecting Harvard study buddies to the “people in your life” and ultimately making the “world more open” - Twitter wants you not only to connect with your In Real Life friends - but also to topics of interest - via Lists of People.

Continue reading "Suggestion to Twitter: think Australian, start here" »

Following England’s cricketers on Twitter is becoming almost as entertaining as watching them on the field.

Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson led the way, giving us the inside track on everything from room service meals to the perils of only packing two pairs of underpants for a tour.

Swann, in particular, went the extra mile by providing details of a stomach bug he picked up.

Continue reading "English cricketers do something right" »

The burgeoning social media landscape has brought with it frightening new possibilities for brand-trashing on a global scale: people using Twitter or blogs to spread derogatory remarks about your company; a disgruntled employee posting an “insiders” video on YouTube. You have no idea how it all started, and even less of an idea about how to stop it.

It seems every @tom, @dick or @harry can have an opinion.

In recent years some of the biggest US companies have experienced the ugly side of social media’s reach and a recent Australian survey showed one in four of us would boycott a product after reading negative comments on social media sites.

Continue reading "How to fight back when you’re trashed on the web" »

This simple graphic illustrates one way the internet can be used to get an insight into a person, by analysing publicly available information associated with a name. I’ve chosen, for no particular reason, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull. Through the rest of this post are similar profiles of a range of Australian public identities.

You can enter your own details into the Personas tool here. If you feel uncomfortable watching the process of this tool scouring the web for information about you, that’s the idea. It was designed to show you have a publicly available profile which you cannot control.

Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it’s intended to highlight not just how you are seen on the web, but “for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories.”

Continue reading "What does the web think of you?" »

“we (sic) will not be silenced!” tweeted (sic) Joe Hockey yesterday, in response to suggestions he should stop jibbering on Twitter during Question Time and pay attention to Parliament instead.

At least his jibbering allowed him to make a political point for the Opposition in a week that showcased what a sham Question Time can be. Better-than-expected GDP and unemployment figures were a gift to the Government, and ministers lined up to use the data against Opposition questioners like clubs on baby seals.

Questions from the Opposition about the billions of dollars being sprayed to every corner of the country by the Rudd Government were batted away as ministers took the opportunity to portray reasonable queries about the schools spending as economic idiocy on the part of the Coalition.

Continue reading "Let them tweet" »

Earlier this month I spoke at a social media conference in Melbourne. When you wear a badge that says you work for Rupert Murdoch at these events, it’s like sitting in the middle of the Collingwood cheer squad in a Carlton jumper. With some people the best you can hope for is that their initial horror will eventually subside to a mild hostility.

I was there to speak about strategy for social media, including Twitter, which The Punch has engaged to a fair degree of success. It is second only to the mighty Google in terms of the number of readers it helps the site reach. My presentation was on using social networks to connect with people.

The Social Media Summit 2009 came just days after the announcement that News Corporation planned to charge for access to its websites. It was the hottest topic of conversation in the wings and with the exception of one or two people, the view among the delegates was that it wasn’t going to work.

Continue reading "Psst, Twitter: You might want to help save big media" »

I am a social media whore. That’s the point of it all right? There’s a lot you can know about me from what music I listen to, what concerts I’ve been to and yes, even occasionally what I just ate.

There’s even a 12 second video somewhere of me dancing in a tutu to What a Feeling by Irene Cara.  All of which I chose to share across a number of social networks I belong to that include Blip.fm, Twitter and 12seconds.tv and I’m comfortable with that.

And then there’s Facebook.

Continue reading "Six million Australians are selling their lives to Facebook" »

I’m addicted to Facebook. It’s not uncommon for me tie a piece of elastic around my arm and shoot up a dose of the online social network eleven or twelves times a day.

Even when I’m not actively stalking someone or randomly updating my status, Facebook is constantly idle in the background, ready for someone to start up a Facebook Chat conversation.

There are now 6.7 million Australians on Facebook, although you’ll have to take my word on that. I’m just a blogger and not a real journalist so I didn’t do any research on that statistic, I just asked Twitter.

Continue reading "What if you had a birthday and nobody poked you" »

Mobile phones are the new cigarettes.

Not when it comes to cancer, of course. That’s still unproven, according to mobile phone companies which have much deeper pockets than this humble scribe.

No, what I’m talking about is the way we’re ditching the fags for another addictive accessory. Instead of going downstairs for a smoko, we fondle the slimline package in our pocket, relishing the thought of our next text or tweet.

Continue reading "Is there a quitline we can ring for telephone addiction?" »

Bumble and Aggers. Watch or listen to coverage of the Ashes from England and you will soon be familiar with these two fellows.

Both are now building a strong following on Twitter. The Ashes (sorry #ashes for Twitterers) is ideally suited to Twitter. Plenty of pauses between play, statistics-a-plenty and each moment easily encapsulated in 140 characters.
Bumble otherwise known as David Lloyd, is a regular in the Sky Sports Commentary Box – by gum, he’s the lad with the broad Lancashire accent.

Continue reading "How Bumble and Aggers tweeted their way past tea" »

Today on The Punch we are running a special package on social media with a focus on Twitter.

At the moment news outlets are red hot with stories about Twitter and other social media platforms.

From reflective pieces about why Twitter is slowly sucking away our ability to communicate with each other in real life, news stories about its role in the Iranian post-election protests to authors looking to use the platform as a gimmick to publish their bad novel about “a San Francisco family forging its place in history”.

Continue reading "Twitter special: why The Punch says it’s okay to Tweet" »

Australians want their politicians to be “in touch”. They want us to listen.

Adapting to new technologies is critically important for politicians. In the 1960s, successful politicians had to embrace the new medium of television.

.

In the US, John F Kennedy understood the immense power of communicating directly into people’s living rooms

Continue reading "Get busy Tweeting or get busy dying" »

For something that’s so easy to use, it’s suprisingly hard to explain exactly what makes Twitter so great.

But after sticking by a personal pledge to avoid Facebook for two years and having suffered the reeling effects of this decision on my diminished social life (why can’t people just email photos and invites anymore?), Twitter caught my attention straight away.

Furiously fast paced and jam packed with information, the 140 character tweets can bring out the best in succinct news reporting, people’s creativity or just a damn fine sense of humour.

Continue reading "Twitter: a guide for the uninitiated" »

If our linguistically challenged forefathers had the option to Tweet their grunts and moans, I’m almost certainly positive they would.

OK, maybe not. But I’m sure cavemen and women used to lay awake at night, stone and chisel in hand, thinking about the self-absorbed things they could etch for people in far away villages they would probably never meet.

Hi, my name is (@newsbee) Lanai – and I’m a Twitterholic.

Continue reading "My name is Lanai and I’m a Twitterholic" »

When the Opposition Leader has time to Twitter about his pet dog’s blog, you’ve got to worry that this newfound obsession with social networking is being taken too far.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a self confessed Twitter/Facebook junkie, hell, friends have to confiscate my iPhone to have a decent conversation with me over lunch these days.

And I’m the first to defend Kevin Rudd, or @KevinRuddPM as he is known in Twitter-land, for resorting to new-media to talk to voters.

Continue reading "It’s okay Malcolm, we don’t need to know about the dog" »

Social media proved itself an an extraordinary tool today with the best coverage coming out of the Jakarta bombings provided by people on the ground with mobile phones and Twitter accounts.

But today’s events also proved that no matter what you think of journalists and the major media outlets they work for - there’s a reason why we filter information and images.

There’s a photograph all over the internet right now you won’t find on any mainstream news site - and nor should you. It shows a victim of the bombing, believed to be from New Zealand, who is now being reported as having died from his injuries.

Continue reading "Citizen journalism: you might not like what you see" »

We live in an era consumed by communication technology. Walk into any home, library or education institution and you are bound to find a young person tweeting, poking, emailing or texting a friend, rather than engaging in a face-to-face conversation.

We know from studies that most Australian teenagers use instant messaging at least once a day and that when given a choice, young people nominate the internet, not TV or their mobile phones, as the one piece of technology they could not live without.

Undoubtedly, there is immense value in young people possessing these new communication skills - but are they losing the ability to effectively communicate face-to-face in the process? 

Continue reading "Tweet all you like – but don’t forget how to talk" »

UPDATE 10am: I’ve put the answers in after the jump

Kevin Rudd just posted this on his Twitter page:

“Don’t tell Swanny about the birthday cake. He is not on Twitter so won’t know about the surprise!” (Sorry if you’re reading this Mr Swan).

Has the Prime Minister jumped the shark? What’s next? “OMG - you should have been in Cabinet - epic fail from Swanny on interest rates.”

Here’s ten real Kevin Rudd Tweets and ten fakes - can you spot the difference? We’ll post the answers in the morning.

Continue reading "Take the Rudd Twitter quiz" »

While we officially record our sorrow at the passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett - and anyone else who’s carked it in the past 20 minutes or so - it’s worth noting the terminal case of death-mania which has struck the media today.

Leading the charge was Richard Wilkins on Channel Nine who aired the hoax story that Jeff Goldblum had died, apparently from a fall. Nine boldly declared Goldblum to be deader than disco and ran with the story for a full ten minutes before airing new details which had come to hand, namely that the star of The Fly and Jurassic Park was considerably less dead than originally feared.

The official, pissed-off word came on Twitter from Kevin Spacey.

Continue reading "OK can everyone who isn’t dead raise their hand" »

UPDATE June 25: The Twitter user quoted at length in this column reappeared after three days of silence, saying he was stiff, sore and bruised, and now outside Tehran, but still alive.

It seems to me that many people are still trying to find out as much as they can about the situation in the Islamic Republic, even though a week-and-a-half has gone by since the election.

Journalists tend to treat stories like, literally, ‘nine-day wonders’, because few, anywhere, about anything, stay on the front page for much longer.

Yet at least on Twitter, as I write, among the top ten trending topics are ‘Iran elections’, ‘Iran’, ‘Tehran’, ‘Mousavi’, and ‘Neda’. Neda, by the way, was the name of the young woman shot dead by paramilitary forces at the weekend.

If you haven’t seen the footage or the still picture of her lifeless, bleeding face already, it’s probably because you can’t face it. I sympathise; yet Neda’s may yet become the face of events as they unfold in Iran. Whether it’s a revolution or a counter-revolution, and whether or not it succeeds, it will make martyrs, and martyrs are central to Iranian culture.

Continue reading "The death of Neda: Iran’s potent history of martyrdom" »

You get kicked in the head, are bleeding and think you probably need the cops, what do you do?

A: ask someone nearby to call the police

B: use your mobile phone to call the police

C: use your mobile phone to log onto Twitter and tell your 1,030,000 followers to call the police for you.

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton might not live in the real world with the rest of us, but they were allegedly real bruises he was sporting last night - and real police officers required to sort out what happened after he chose option C.

Continue reading "2009 personified: “I’ve been bashed” in 140 characters" »

The Daily Show team digs out the best clips from the archive for this stuff. Here’s Stewart on unverified social media info driving coverage of the Iran elections.

At some ungodly hour this morning I was standing in my dressing gown on the driveway with the neighbours waiting for someone to come and turn off the deafening fire alarm - there was no fire.

As I stood there contemplating the sheer injustice of losing 20 minutes sleep I was overcome with the urge to Tweet about my peril.

Luckily, before I unleashed my self-indulgent rant I looked at the Twitter feed on my phone and all of a sudden my situation didn’t seem quite so bad.

Continue reading "The Iran election has changed the mood on Twitter" »

A recent edition of the New Yorker carried a cartoon that depicts a man about to be executed by firing squad. Beside him an executioner holds out a mobile phone and asks: “Last tweet?” (You can see it here)

This is an incisive analysis of the wild variance of the content on Twitter. Suspected previous tweets for our cartoon hero: “Just about to go through security.” Or: “Putting on my hood now.” It’s the Twitter rollercoaster. One moment you can be reading about someone eating an egg sandwich. The next, you can be reading first-hand news of one of the stories of the year and looking at a photo like this:

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s creator, says the service will be a success “when it’s not talked about so much”, and when people just use and accept it “like electricity”. Amen. The incessant hype and stream of stories has become a bore. Yes, it breaks news in ways traditional big media outlets cannot. Yes, it’s yet another challenge for big media companies to get to grips with. Yes, it’s a valuable search tool. Twitter’s success is proof, though, of something much more unsettling - or exciting, depending on your point of view.

Continue reading "Yeah, Twitter’s great. But what’s the next big thing?" »

Slack-jawed Queenslanders from Logan, Roma and Warwick, brooding hermits in remote South Australian hamlets who can’t explain the sudden disappearance of their parents, Tasmanians who get on a bit too well with their cousins…stand aside the lot of you.

As of this weekend’s referendum, Western Australia is officially the most backward state in Australia. The state that’s synonymous with sun has embraced darkness for an extraordinary third time, with a majority of sandgropers siding with the cows and the curtains to reject the devilish communist plot known as daylight savings.

Continue reading "Official: WA now the most backward state in Australia" »

Here’s how The Punch team summarised the Budget shortly after the lock-up ended. Enjoy - and follow us on Twitter to stay in touch. Links at the foot of the post.

BUDGET: Shane Warne implicated in $57.5 billion deficit #ausbudget09 #thepunch

DEFICIT: Wayne Swan won’t tell you this in his speech but for 2009-10 the deficit will be $57.5 billion #ausbudget09 #thepunch

DEFICIT: Swan unveils “deficit exit strategy”. It’s the war on terrifying levels of spending #ausbudget09 #thepunch

Continue reading "No sex until April 2010: The Punch tweets the Budget" »