Tweet your way out of the slammer

I heard recently that anyone joining Twitter now is officially no longer an early adopter, yet when I ask people if they Twitter the response is usually no, followed by “what’s that then?” When I explain what it is people often question the point of it and simply fob it off as a gimmicky “waste of time”. Well, I wonder if they’ll think the same way after they’ve heard the story of a journo named James Cark Buck.

James was in Egypt covering an anti-government protest when he was arrested along with his translator and shipped off to the local police station. En route he took out his cell phone and sent a tweet stating one word only - “arrested”. Back I cyberspace his followers on Twitter were immediately alerted to his predicament and started to rally the troops to come to his rescue. Throughout his incarceration, James continued to Tweet to keep his network updated. Eventually his was released and sent another one word tweet “free”.

CNN.com reported that: ”Although the Twitter message helped him find contacts to get out of prison, he says it was more the power of the network he had as an American that enabled him to be released so quickly.” And James himself stated "The most important thing on my mind was to let someone know where we were so that there would be some record of it ... so we couldn't [disappear]…. as long as someone knew where we were, I felt like they couldn't do their worst [to us] because someone, at some point, would be checking in on them."

MyTake: Wow……Now I admit that I was a doubter when I first came across Twitter, but once I started using it I soon released its potential. In my own twitter group I see some amazing insights shared on a daily basis and often think that the journalists of the world should all be on Twitter to watch-out for early leads and commentary. In this instance a virtual network did more that just share insights and ideas, it helped keep this guy safe. So in conclusion, you might not be an early adopter anymore, but this could just be your “get out of jail free card” – some come and join the Twitter revolution http://twitter.com/digiwedo

Anybody want to go shopping?

Going to war with Iraq has proven to be a hugely unpopular decision on a global level. However, the most unpopular man involved has to be the US president, George Bush, and the fact that some parties are estimating that the war could cost US$3 trillion probably isn't helping him much.

A new group called the 3Trillion organisation have set up a website called "The 3 Trillion dollar shopping spree" where you can attempt to spend the US$ trillion that they estimate has been spent on the war. The main message on the page states:

"The occupation of Iraq will cost $3 trillion, America's most expensive conflict since WWII.
Can YOU spend that money better?

Here's your chance to go on a virtual $3 trillion shopping spree and prove it! First watch the commercial on the left. Then browse our online store, fill up your cart, click the checkout button, and send virtual gifts to everyone you know.

One interesting item for sale is healthcare for all Americans: "You could provide Medicaid Level Health insurance for one uninsured American. But with $3 Trillion to spend, why not cover all 45 million Americans who are uninsured with high quality healthcare.

MyTake: Consumer action on the web has long been commonplace, but this takes it a step further. It really uses the web and the medium to its full extent. It has a deep (and you could say disturbing) message at its core, but the medium used fun and easy, I don't want to say the word juxtaposition, but I will.

To vote for Corey......

Big Brother, love it or hate it, it’s still here…and it just won’t go away. I don’t want to use the word enduring (manly because I can’t stand the show) but as one of the first reality TV shows, it kind of is. I remember the first series when I was living in London - it was new and everyone loved it – the pubs even had to start showing it because customers where leaving to get home to watch it.

The point of this post is the “rumour” that Corey Worthington is going to be a housemate in the upcoming series of Australia Big Brother. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Corey have a look at some of my earlier posts here and here. But, as a quick recap, he posted details of a party he was having on his MySpace page and invited all his MySpace friends to come. The result was 500 teenagers in a small Melbourne street, a police response unit and a rather embarrassing interview on ACA (for Leila McKinnon, not Corey)

MyTake – This is a great way to reinvigorate a boring, boring show. I have a friend that works in TV production, so I know how hard it can be to come up with new concepts for a show, and this is probably one of the best ideas yet. The interesting thing is that kids such as Corey can launch TV careers using MySpace and that virtual stars are becoming mainstream stars. In a show that is quite literally all about TV, it’s funny that a web star is needed to save it.

IPTV me baby!

I got pretty excited when I heard the news that Video Ezy-Blockbuster is planning to launch an IPTV movie rental service, probably because I'm a bit of a geek, but mainly because it represented a big step forwards for an industry that has changed very little since its inception.

As a parents, the better-half and I don't get to go out that much, so the DVD shop is our friend - such a good friend that we often get the odd free rental because of the sheer volume of DVDs we rent....OK, a little bit sad I know, but I don't care. I actually like getting home on a Friday and settling in to a beer and watching a good movie, so the idea that there could be an IPTV movie rental service about to launch here in Aus is pretty appealing.

For those fellow DVD-a-holic parents, the main issues are always the same: What are we going to watch and who's going to get it? It seemed to me that the answers to both of these questions had been supplied by our new "friend", the IPTV movie rental service, but then I went digging around the net to find out a bit more. The service requires you to rent a Java-based set-top box so that you can play the movies - which is fair enough, but I'd probably prefer to by a box myself - however, the absolutely ridiculous thing is that you still need to go to the actual store to get the movie! Basically, you go to your nearest store with your iPod or other storage device and you download the movie you want and take it home, which is just - let's face it - ridiculous. Having said that, the one problem the may have solved is the availability issue, the "sorry, we're all out" response...but we don't know for sure.

MyTake - People of Video Ezy-Blockbsuter, thank you for doing this and for pulling the movie rental industry into the 21st century. But, we're big, grown-up people and we can be trusted to download the movies from a website straight to our IPTV set-top boxes. I've been saying for a while now that the future of movies is not in discs and that the video industry is going to have to do something if it is going to survive - a move like this is not only logical, it's smart. But.....why do we have to go to the stores? The only reason I can think of is the cross-sell and up-sell, i.e. the chips, soda, snacks and other movie offers. Come on guys, live the broadband dream!

Have you been RickRolled?

I think my sister was a big Rick Astley fan, but I don’t think even she would take it this far. To give you a bit of background, a trend has emerged known as “RickRolling”, where blogs and forums trick innocent readers into clicking on a link. This link then takes them to videos of Rick Astley’s song, Never Gonna Give you up (and sometimes their own lip-synced versions of the dubious 80s hit) before finally putting them out of their misery by informing them, "You've been RickRolled".

The trend recently hit a crazy high when a group of 500 people turned up at London’s Liverpool Street Station for a one of “RickRolling” type flash mob (see movie below) after the event was publicised on Facebook. As you can imagine, the regular commuters at the station were a bit baffled by the whole thing, but still entertained – after all, it is a Rick Astley number.

The most interesting part of the story is Rick’s response to the whole thing: "If this had happened around some kind of rock song, with a lyric that really meant something ... I could kind of understand that, but it's a pop song; do you know what I mean? It doesn't have any weight behind it….. But maybe that's the irony behind it." – You reckon Rick?




MyTake – Things like this pop up all the time on the web, but this is so bizarre that it’s funny. What it does demonstrate is the power of a really good web-based idea, it can go on and off the web and become ownable by so many different people and communities. In this case, it started on the web, went around the blogs and forums, then went offline with the Liverpool Street stunt, and is now back online being talked about by a bunch more bloggers – including me!

Just off to Pompeii dear, be back in an hour

Could you imagine it? You’ve just finished you dinner, you clear your plate away and jump on your CyberCarpet for a stroll around the lost city of Pompeii. Alright, so I’ll rewind a bit.

This “Cybercarpet” I am talking about is a new invention made up of several conveyor-type belts that all combine together allowing you to go for a virtually endless walk in any direction – think of it as a treadmill, but one where you can travel in any direction.

The boffins over at Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics that invented this have combined it with virtual reality headsets, which gives you a much more immersive experience than ever before - the first of which is a tour around Pompeii.

MyTake – the applications for this technology are virtually limitless – games, weight-loss regimes, training programs and so on. The really interesting thing for me would be combining the likes of this with a Second Life, sure it’s a bit of an indulgence right now when you consider the money involved, but perhaps this is the way we’ll be interacting in the near future…. “Darling, I’m off to the virtual pub”….

Is that a sparkle in your eye, or....

I love this story and simply couldn’t resist posting about it. OK, so here’s the story in a nutshell – there’s a picture on the web of US VP Dick Cheney fly-fishing, which in itself is pretty dull, but it’s a certain reflection in the VP’s sunglasses that has everyone talking.

Have a look at the pic to the right (or here for a bigger pic) and check out the reflection in his glasses – what do you reckon it is? Well some seem to think it’s a naked woman and you can see why.

The amazing thing about this is hat the whole web is buzzing about the story with bloggers and surfers all over the world offering up their own opinions on what it is: "Naked woman? That explains his heart problems!!", "Clearly the picture shows a hand casting a rod".


But one digital expert came along and spoilt the fun by stating "In one lens of his sunglasses you can clearly tell it is a sleeved arm of Mr Cheney or a fishing companion. The other lens has an extreme distortion that, without looking at it closely, could be misconstrued.”

MyTake – There’s nowhere to hide for public figures. In a week where a UK court ruled in favour of a British tabloid’s battle to post a video of Formula one boss Max Mosley in a somewhat compromising position with five…erm…lady friends, famous people of the world should sit up and take notice – you make for juicy online content! The point is that there IS a story here, even though there isn’t – once again the power of gossip combined with the web has taken it to prolific proportions.