Pacific Highlander

How to use Twitter

If you’re like me you would have only recently heard about Twitter. Twitter is a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, instant messaging service or on the internet.

Twitter first came into my inbox in early August via a press release about filming of the Sony Bravia Play-Doh TV ad in New York. By the time I worked out what it was the shoot was finished along with twittering about it. I finally decided to join up to take part in a Twitter experiment associated with the Australian Blogging Conference on Friday last week.

So here’s how it works. You sign up at www.twitter.com. You have the option of using instant messaging services (like GTalk) and your mobile phone to receive and send messages. Then you add people to your ‘follow’ list using email addresses.

Little did I know that Twitter had been online since July 2006, the creation of co-founder Evan Williams of Obvious. Evan of course is known for his development of Blogger along with Meg Hourihan.

Politics and Press

Twitter is likely to become a standard tool for politicians and journalists. Senator John Edwards has used Twitter to update people on his presidential campaign trail. Someone thought it would be a good idea for Kevin Rudd and John Howard.

BBC is using Twitter to post micro bulletins, as is ABC News

Ways to Use Twitter

Chris Brogan at LifeHack suggests six ways to use Twitter

1. Get quick human answers
2. Share briefings on conferences and news
3. Friendsourcing - accessing a network of friends and acquaintances
4. Micro Attention Sharing - small mini blog entries
5. Direct people to good causes
6. Stay in touch with what friends are doing without being intrusive

Craig Childs at Lifehack has another list:

1. Use Twitter as a To-Do list
2. Personal or professional messaging service
3. Provide a newsletter

Postkiwi Twitter

I’ve managed to connect Twitter up with my Facebook profile and as a special feature in the Pacific Highlander sidebar. The Facebook application doesn’t appear to be updating instantly but I’m sure that problem will be ironed out. If you’re interested in following my evolving stream of consciousness visit my Postkiwi Twitter profile. I imagine it could be useful to have a number of Twitter profiles to be used with different networks or for different purposes. But I’m not in a hurry to head down that track quite yet.

Tags: Blogging, Internet, Technology, twitter

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Australian Bloggers Conference

I spent Friday at the Australian Bloggers Conference, held at Queensland University of Technology in Kelvingrove Rd, Brisbane. The conference was put together by Peter Black, a member of the staff in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation.

The conference opened with Peter Black’s questions, “Why are blogs becoming so ubiquitous?” and “What is unique about the Australian blogosphere?”. Panelists were Senator Andrew Bartlett, Duncan Riley and John Quiggan. Unfortunately, due to a business commitment, I missed most of the first session. Derek Barry at Woolly Days and Kate Davis at Virtually a Librarian have an excellent summary though.

I attended the workshop on the politics of blogging, led by Mark Bahnisch, Andrew Bartlett, Brett Solomon (Getup!) and Graham Young (Online Opinion). Mark Bahnisch, blogging at Larvatus Prodeo, demonstrated for us what can happen when hierarchical online and academic pontification oozes into the supposedly egalitarian setting of a blogging community. There’s a big difference between a seminar with a time limit of an hour and an online experience in which many people can have their say at length without impinging on the say of others.

We got to see the power of the Getup! online community as we witnessed their appeal for advertising funding work in front of our eyes. (See my story at Duncan’s TV Ad Land). See Derek Barry’s summary and Joanne Jacobs’ post on this session.

Political bloggers Brett Solomon, Andrew Bartlett and Graham Young

Other morning workshops focused on researching blogging and blogging research, Creative Commons and legal issues.

Over lunch we had the launch of Marett Leiboff’s book, “Creative Practice and the Law“.

The workshops I attended in the afternoon were focused on building a better blog (with Duncan Riley and Yaro Starak) and the future of blogging (with Dan Walsh of Kwoff.com). The latter discussion included some reflection on the impact of social networking sites and applications such as Facebook and Twitter.

Perhaps the most profitable part of the day was the networking over coffee and the evening spent at the Normanby Hotel networking with people like Des Walsh and Matthew Smith (Bogosity). It was great to meet up with Megan Bayliss from the Australian Carnival, and with Elliott Bledisloe at Creative Commons. Elliott and I were able to compare notes on the recent furore over Virgin Mobile’s use of Flickr images for their Are You With Us or What? campaign.

Better bloggers Yaro Starak, Duncan Riley and Matthew Smith

Believe it or not, this conference was absoultely free for participants. The facilities were provided by QUT. The other costs were covered by Microsoft Australia, and the two recently formed networking sites www.kwoff.com.au and Getup!

For more posts on the conference click on the Blogoz tag below.

Tags: Australia, Blogging

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Duncans TV Interview at Disassociated

John Lampard, known for dissecting the {SubSet} culture since 1997, has recently posted an interview with me at his blog, disassociated.com. The interview follows a format of five questions he’s using to profile Australian bloggers.

Here’s the five questions John asked me.

1. What prompted you to become a TV ad reviewer of all things?!

2. How much time a week would you spend doing research, and watching TV, for the blog?

3. In your opinion what makes for an effective TV ad?

4. What sort of things do you think ad makers should avoid doing when producing commercials?

5. So are TV ads underrated creative genius, or merely a distraction TV viewers must tolerate?

Read my replies at Disassociated.

Tags: Australia, Blogging, Duncans TV, TV Ads

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »