Twitter

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.

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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" »