Category Archives: Internet

Internet, Media & Marketing, Social media

Twitter collaboration – keeping people enthused about blogging

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Drew B, a PR blogger, asked his Twitter contacts (including myself) for our thoughts on how to keep people enthused about blogging for an interview he was doing with the Guardian (not found the article as yet – possibly still in development here’s the story). I responded (full list of responses nicely summarised here) and the BBC Radio 5 Live blog has picked up on it (although no link love / and my real name not used)…

Still… Twice on the BBC in a week! My advice, FWIW, is to get blogging buddies – you can be spurred on by a few incoming links from friends asking your thoughts on things.

If you want to add me on Twitter, I’m over here.

Internet, Media & Marketing, Work

Managing your internet reputation

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I was on Radio 5 briefly yesterday morning, talking about how this blog helped me get my job, to support a piece they were doing on a piece of research released by a client of my agency, Viadeo, looking at NetReps, or your ‘net reputation’. You can listen again to the piece here (until Tuesday 3 April), although you’ll need the dread RealPlayer and to zip through to 1h 56minutes through the stream. The research report from Viadeo is available here.

My story is that, when I was applying for jobs in hi-tech media agencies, having a blog about “technology, media, stuff and nonsense” helped demonstrate my passion for and knowledge of the industry to prospective employers, including the guys who hired me at Brands2Life. The discussion, curtailed by the pace of breakfast radio, went on to look at the possibility of faked or negative testimonials and what they might entail, and the whole thing raised the question of how you manage your internet reputation, an issue examined in the Viadeo report.

There were a few other angles that the BBC producer talked through with me before the show. For example, does the fact that people are Googling me bother me, from a privacy perspective? No: of course not, you put it out there, you gotta expect people to find it. Given how expensive it can be to recruit people, the recruitment process (certainly in my industry) is as thorough as it can be. That said, prospective employers looking at my StalkFacebook profile, for example, will probably take little from knowing that I like Tenacious D or think that Transformers: the Movie was cool.

Another issue that was raised on the programme was how to manage negative comments or posts. Having borne witness to several internet slagging matches and the sheer lunacy that is going on right now with the death threats etc, I can see how it would be a concern. Identity online is a complex issue and there are few straightforward ways of dealing with this: even with things like OpenID there are few obvious ways to conclusively demonstrate who you are. That said, the web is increasingly a community and a conversation so hopefully, over time, you’ll develop a NetRep and identity that is unmistakably your own.

All interesting stuff. Do social business networks help address the issue of managing your internet reputation? Let me know what you think. And if you want to add me on Viadeo, or Facebook (and I really know who you are, either in person or virtually), then please go ahead.

Internet, Personal, Software

Web 2.0 software wishlist – party and holiday planning

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Ok, Lifehacker. I throw down a challenge.

I would like a web tool that helps me organise a night out where I need to check everyone’s availability, take suggestions for what to do and (democratically) or otherwise choose the best course of action for a group. I know about evite and mypunchbowl, but when you don’t know what the date is going to be, how do you avoid those reply-to-all-fests?

I would also like a piece of software to help me organise holidays. Gauge requirements, collect details where required, check dates, budget, etc.

If these don’t exist, would someone start something that does them quick and let me know? Rather than trying for another social networking site or social bookmarking site… etc? I’ll probably even pay to use one if there’s a decent, not-too-expensive one out there.

Internet

Accursed spammers

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I used to be a bit bemused by spam. I mean, how did it present a security issue or anything other than a minor inconvenience? How hard was it to press ‘delete’?

Now, a few things have happened.

(1) I’m getting spammed on WordPress in an infuriating manner. I have to scan through my comment moderation queue to check for real comments through a very long list of spam comments, some of which are 100 links long, each on a separate line. It’s time consuming and irritating and I’m sure I occasionally spam out some real comments, for which I apologise. Should I force human authentication or OpenID for commenters? I really don’t want to…

(2) I check my mail on my mobile. So spam there takes a little more time and fiddling to delete, and that’s just annoying.

(3) Lots of ‘valid’ emails get caught in spam filters.

(4) People have started spoofing my domain.

Who pays for this kind of marketing? Is it all spyware, phishing and sex-sites? I really hope they work it out soon…

Internet, Software, Technology

I Joost don’t know what to do with myself

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So, first impressions of Joost.

It’s pretty. A very slick application, transparent, dissolving menus, simple, intuitive menu overlays and EPG.

The quality is ok. I guess not everyone can have 8-16 meg broadband to support HD content (the UK’s average is around 2 meg at the moment)… suspect this could come in time. On my 22″ monitor, its a little fuzzy. The TV content isn’t all the same size either; they could add VLC’s ‘crop’ function to make all the content as full screen as possible depending on the picture orientation. That’d be nice.

It’s a little jittery. For me, anyway. Despite my ludicrous broadband connection I found a couple of channels (GameStar and Green Day) had a couple of pauses during the segments of the programmes I was watching.

The content, is, erm, lacking. Don’t seem to be too many channels natively, and my limited surfing isn’t unveiling a lot at the moment. But there’s probably a way to access everything on YouTube or something, so I’m clearly missing something. And its a beta, anyway, so good chance more will come before a public launch. The search function is pretty good.

It’s pretty interactive. The ‘My Joost’ button will make watching random TV channels at home alone an oddly kind of social. Not really my thing, but, hey, I see the value. I love the random pop quiz questions that seem to be coming up around the music videos.

I already wish: there was an easier way to channel surf. That I could blog directly from Joost, embedding videos accordingly. That there was a way to ‘favourite’ videos (just found the ratings widget. And all the other widgets. Gosh this is good).

And that’s it for now. More to come if it occurs to me.

Internet

Trivia – *updated*

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I’ve just discovered Twitter, thanks to Timbee, amongst others. Hopefully this means I’ll be less inane over here; if you’re looking for the trivial minutiae that characterises my every day existence, look over here. The Google Talk plugin is addictive, but does actually make blogging less timewasting. Or does it just mean I share things that even fewer people have any interest in? The everlasting question.

Is there an IM plugin for WordPress? Of course, I’d then have to go through and tag everything manually afterwards… (ongoing thought process that’s not worth sharing with the world…).

I’m starting to lose track of all these web2.0 registrations… argh!

Update: Fully addicted. I have started to narrate my life. I guess this lets me be a bit more like one of my heroes, Dr John Dorian. There’s even a badge in the sidebar, now, so you can see what I’m doing at any moment.

Internet, Technology

DSL down: week 2

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The escalation of the fault is absurd. As far as I can tell, it’s gone:

Stage 1 technical support
Stage 2 technical support
BT Exchange technical support
Ericcson technical support

And now the fault is being managed by some kind of crack ninja network technical support team. If anyone knows of a simpler way to resolve this, please let me know: what’s happened is that, despite the DSL being in sync at 17 meg / 1 meg, the ATM/PPPoA connection won’t resolve, so I gots me no t’internet.

I may write a song about this.