Who cares who the best and worst dressed of last night's Golden Globe Awards was?! Well... I do - DID you see Sofia Vergara, OMG. But never mind such trivial pursuits; how did Twitter fair? Best supporting actor in a television awards show broadcast?
Firstly, social Media loves a photobomb. This article from Mashable was among the top 3 links shared last night: http://mashable.com/2012/01/15/tina-fey-golden-globes-photobomb/.
But better than that, with around 40,000+ mentions of the hashtag #ERedCarpet, @EOnline (part of NBC Universal) dominated the Twittersphere last night. For the festivities, E! created a very popular real-time inforgraphic called the EOnline HeatGauage displaying in real time the number of tweets per minute for celebrities. The Link was shared over 6,000+ times. With a #TweetLevel score of 95.7, it's of little surprise that @EOline is doign so well. Currently @EOnline is ranked 4th among most popular Twitter accounts at the moment, just behind The New York Times.
http://uk.eonline.com/redcarpet/2012/golden_globes/heatgauge
Top related phrases for #GoldenGlobes tweets included “Ricky Gervais”, “Modern Family” and “Octavia Spencer” (see graph below). Octavia won best supporting actress in a film and 12,000+ tweets mentioning her name. Maybe it was her humble and heart-felt acceptance speech? That genuine and friendly tone ought to help her boost her #TweetLevel score from 58.7.
The hotly anticipated 2011 Christmas shopping season saw a rush of retailers for clambering to offer better door-buster and free shipping deals than the next. So, as a nation of consumers, did we live up to our end of the bargain? John Lewis Partnership and Next are among the retailers to have already published their data. With numbers still expected from others – for high street and online – it may be another week until we have a full picture of economic data that will make a concise story. In the meantime, eConsultancy ran a nice round-up of Christmas 2011 ecommerce stats published thus far. Of interest:
Now here is an interesting stat:
Boxing Day 2011 was the biggest ever day for online retail in the UK, according to Experian Hitwise, and represents a 19.5% increase from last year. Britons spent 13million hours shopping on Boxing Day.
This is a measure of unique web visits, not sales, however. Consider another stat to come out last week – More smartphone and tablet owners are researching products that purchasing them – 80.8% compared to 41.4% – it will be interesting to see how the e-commerce sales numbers stack up for Boxing Day and whether all this traffic converted into sales, or disappointed shoppers perusing the clearance sales with a Turkey hangover. I know I did. My money is on the stuffing.
Reposted from http://thenakedpheasant.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/christmas-by-numbers-2/
You’ll excuse me please if I don’t want to watch a BBC special reliving how “America’s day of tragedy” unfolded minute by minute. Nor am I particularly interested in watching a documentary on twins that were separated as the iconic buildings fell. I’m not interested in the NY/ Region section of the New York Times today, replaying countless stories of the “The 9/11 Decade”. It’s disaster porn, and as much as I love a good tsunami just like the next person, this one I’d really rather skip.
I know some people will say that it was 10 years ago, but some things are just.. . I don’t know… you know? Our media are in a frenzy reflecting on the decade of terror or the “9/11 Decade” as the New York Times has branded it. It’s not that I don’t care. Maybe I’ve just hit my saturation point. Maybe it’s too late to reflect on 9/11. It has been 10 years already. Maybe… maybe it is still too soon. It still feels so raw, emotion hovering just below the surface. How do you make sense of a day, a day 10 years ago, that was that day?
I get a call from my Mom every September, “Where are you going to be on the 11th? I’d like to know your plans please. I am your Mother.” What follows is a sincere plea to please stay away from buses, trains, subways and all public places. “They don’t tell us everything. There are still very real terror threats. They will target public places, you are not safe. Please tell me you’ll stay home.” She says that even though the anniversary is a Sunday this year, that doesn’t mean anything. I remind her that we go through this every year, “It’s been 10 years Mommy!” Don’t go into the city, she says, “I wish you would have moved to New Jersey”. Fine, I tell her, I won’t. It’s a Sunday anyway.
I remember very clearly going to work on Friday, 8th September 2006. I was working in Mid-town Manhattan and there was talk of people not coming into work on Monday, (out of respect or fear?) but no, it was time to move on. We had a staff lunch on Fridays and gathered in the conference room for Chinese take-away. My boss – who was in London at the time – was holding court at the table and said something, I don’t even remember what it was but a couple of girls sprung up from the table abruptly and ran out of the room crying. It turned out they both had siblings in the towers. We learned that our office building had been evacuated that day. Everyone around us walked down 32 flights of stairs, except me and my boss. Nobody said anything. What do you say? For five of the last 10 years, I was right there, but I wasn’t there. But I was finishing my last year at University in 2001 and my University was 200 miles north of New York City.
Anyone who tells you that they remember that day minute by minute is lying. Memories are fragmented, sporadic and come in bursts. Everyone remembers the weather, funnily enough. It was simply gorgeous. I was Managing Editor of the student paper at my University and Monday night was production night for the Tuesday edition. We published twice a week. I drove the paper to printers at 3AM and managed a few hours of sleep but rolling out of bed for English Lit II. My first class of the day started at 9:05AM. I remember pausing along the path that leads from the senior dorms down into campus to admire the cloudless sky. We were reading Jane Eyre in English Lit II and though I was exhausted from the night before, I was rather looking forward to that class. I mustered but the energy as if inspired by the glistening sun and walked into the liberal arts building and down the hall toward the stairs. That’s when I noticed the gaggle of students crowded outside the registrar’s office window at a TV just beyond the glass. My freshman roommate was there. “What’s going on?” I asked. She only pointed at the TV screen. We stood there together in complete silence watching the North tower burn.
I don’t remember exactly how or why, but I went upstairs to the classroom and switched on the TV. Others piled into the room and quickly sat down thinking they were late and we were already watching a movie. We simply shook our heads and pointed at the TV. We watched live as the South tower was hit. The next 20 minutes or so are a mash of memories of classmates seeing the events unfolding and the stricken look on their faces as the reality of the events settled in. My University was only 200 miles outside of New York City; a top school in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, most of the students were from the City. There was the girl whose father worked in the South tower and the guy whose brother was a firefighter. She cried inconsolably right there, in English Lit II, with 30 or so strangers. Our professor watched with us before encouraging us all to go, be with your friends, call your families, “There is no point staying here, “ she told us.
I went back to my dorm. None of my roommates were around, so I turned on the TV and called my Mom. We watched together on the phone as reports turned to United 93. “Are you watching this?!” I said to my Mom. “Oh, of course we are! Daddy didn’t go to work. We are watching CNN.” When the Pentagon was hit, I called my best friend in Virginia. Her mother had been working at the Pentagon last time I saw her. “No, she’s okay; she works at the Federal Courts now. Are your parents OKAY??!!” She remembered that my parents lived in New York, but wasn’t sure were. “No, they are fine. They live in upstate now”. I got calls from a several childhood friends. “Don’t you go to school in New York? I thought of you as soon as I heard the news. “No, I’m okay. I’m Upstate.”
Gaps in memory are a funny odd thing. At some point in the afternoon, I must have decided that I didn’t want to be alone so I left my dorm and went to the offices of the student newspaper – Pipe Dream – to seek solace in my editors desk and the comfy green sofas littered with news editors, staff writers and left over pizza from the night before. I guess I ran into a couple of members of the editorial staff because at some point we decided that the best thing to do would be to put out a special edition for the next day. I would have phoned the printer and set to work purchasing images from Getty, but I have no recollection of either of these tasks. I set to work planning the issues, blocking the stories and assigning reporters to cover angles of the story across campus. We had a very large Muslim community on our campus and a large Jewish community so University administrators were instantly worried about any clashes. I sent a reporter to go talk to the Muslim Student Union. I phoned the President’s office to get an official comment about violence reported against Muslims on other University campuses. The editor-in-chief, a pompous Philosophy, Politics and Law student, set out to write the Op-Ed piece.
I recognize now that we were all stuck in a parallel universe of sorts. Safe and sheltered from the events of the day on a closed college campus, painfully aware of what was unfolding thanks to the 24 hour news, but also frustratingly far away from family members and friends who were there and dealing with very real personal tragedy. The University swiftly cancelled classes and asked students with family members directly affected to come forward for counseling and help. Students turned up at the Pipe Dream office seeking community and something to do. Student groups organized a candlelight vigil that evening. I turned up, not with a candle, but with a camera. They don’t teach you how to cover traumatic national events in journalism classes. One of our professors got in touch to ask if we were all okay and we just said, “Yes, Ma’am, we’re putting out a special issue tomorrow and are all over it”. In retrospect, I am not sure that is what she meant.
When we put the paper to bed that night, fears over violence toward Muslim students and the growing rift between the Jewish student population and everyone else were still emerging. In the days that would follow, I think I must have gotten very little sleep. We had the Thursday paper to get out next and I’m sure I was focused on capturing the unfolding political sentiment right here on our doorstep. I also had to keep our advertisers happy that we would still put out a paper. “Would we run the Thursday issue without advertisements?” Papa Johns wanted to know. Yes, because it felt it was the right thing to do. Instead, we would allow student groups to publicize counseling sessions, student vigils and chartered busses for free. I was making it up as went.
Ten years later, I feel that I must have summoned great maturity on that day. As journalism student, a sociologist, a newspaper gal; I set my own feelings aside and took my job very seriously. There was an absolute flood of conflicting reports in the 24-hours that followed and questions; were there other targets, where were the missing planes, where was the President, who was behind this, were we safe? That weekend, the campus emptied out as students from the City went home in chartered busses. I drove to my parent’s house in Update New York. There were fears of a water shortage. The government threatened to shut down the Catskills water supply amid fears that the terrorists would poison the reservoirs that watered New York City. We bought bottled water and settled into the rhythm of 24 hour news; MSNBC in the Kitchen, CNN in the family room and 1010WINS in the shower. News media turned their attention to the personal stories and tragedies. Everyone has a personal story about those minutes; we were all there, every single American, but few of us were there. 10 years on I think very few of us have figured out how to make sense of a day of tragedy, a day that was that day.
So no, I’m not really interested to watch the BBC special. But, you go ahead.
I've just spent a very interesting evening at the London School of Economics with two colleagues from Edelman speaking with Grads about a career in PR. In the past few hours, I've been asked lots of insightful questions about my daily job, what time I get up in the morning, and how the PR industry has weathered the recession. I was also asked, on a number of occasions, to give my opinion on the worth of a CIPR qualification. Here is my opinion; a CIPR qualification demonstrates reading comprehension and theoretical thinking. If you want to work in PR, demonstrate your passion through work experience and your intimate knowledge of public engagement via Twitter, Edelman blogs, etc. A qualification is a nice to have, but really it is just a piece of paper.
I would like to register my severe dismay at two separate incidents that occurred on my daily commute this morning, the first of which occurred on the 7:51 service from Taplow to Maidenhead. This service is frequented by school children travelling, I would presume, to a school in Maidenhead. Normally very verbose and rowdy, today a fight broke out amongst the group. A youngster was slammed against a row of seats while others cheered on his attacker(s). Luckily, the excitement subsided in due course, however what if one of those kids pulled out a knife? What is FirstGreatWestern, or the schools, doing to monitor these kids and protect the rest of us?
The second incident involved a train manager and a group of individuals sitting in First Class without proper tickets on the 8:00 service from Maidenhead to London Paddington. The train manager was bullied by the individuals and they were allowed to stay in first class despite not having tickets. This sends a clear message that there is no point in paying an additional £100 or so a month for the privilege of a first class ticket. More must be done to enforce the rules. These people are not standing in First because Standard is too crowded, as they told the train manager. They are boarding at Maindenhead at the First Class carriages. I am outraged at the consistent flouting of the rules. The service has taken a noticeable nose dive and I am reluctant to continue my patronage to first class.
This is my third attempt at this blog post; my first was rudely interrupted, and lost forever, when my iPhone unexpectedly rebooted thus deleting my unsaved draft. The second was rudely interrupted when I lost the plot and the motivation for completing it. And yet, these experiences only further prove and validate my point; our innate ability to communicate and think creatively is being slowly destroyed by the very technology that challenges the limitations of our imaginations and productivity.
My grandfather, a great thinker and schmoozer of his time, is famous for saying that an intelligent person always has with them "something to read, something to write with, and something to write on". Without fail, this was recited to me before I left for my first day of school, my first day at University, my first date, etc. I have always been one of those people with a pen and a notebook in my bag, no matter where I was going, so that I'd be ready the moment creativity struck. As an adult my life has become almost completely digitized and I find that I increasingly rely on one device for all my intellectual needs. Go on, guess which one. This personal experience, plus the release of Tweetie 2, has inspired me to ask the question; is the shift to almost exclusively digital communication increasing our creative output, refining it or diluting it.
Twitter as an example. Since I became a prolific Twitter user in March 2009... no, rather, it was since I've moved to the South East and began a daily commute that includes no less than 3 hours of rail transport, that this particular thought has been niggling at me. How many great thoughts and creative ideas have been lost to the collective dialogue simply because we couldn't tweet about it?
Some days, my commute is often the only chance I have throughout the day to read my Twitter feed; sad but true. And my commute, no less than three hours either underground or at the mercy of FirstGreatWestern, is also when I tend to think the most, whether it's about the woman sat across from me snoring loudly in the quiet carriage or the headline story in today's Times. With little to no 3G coverage, most of these thought are simply stuck in my head never to be shared with the outside world, for better or worse.
A Twitter API expert, I am not, though I had often wondered if it would be possible to build a Twitter app with an offline function to enable the drafting and saving of tweets. When I wrote the first draft of this post, Tweetie, my app of choice, allowed you to save one draft at a time. Ergo, when travelling on the tube or otherwise without internet connectivity, I was allowed one thought only. This really annoyed me. Would it be difficult to allow users to draft and save future tweets, I thought? It would appear that Tweetie 2 has derailed my rant with the introduction of new features that all you to draft and save numerous tweets, though still lacking a "save" feature (you have to cancel the tweet first, and them opt to save it). Fantastic! It works.
Now, I appreciate that this is a slight departure from my original thesis, but with that statement I must pause here to offer a counter-argument with regard to drafting tweets. Online interaction is central to the point of Twitter; public, digital engagement. Without the ebb and flow of dialogue, engagement, retweets and replies, what is Twitter but a notice board? I am an influential Twitter user, if I may say so myself, because I engage within various communities. There can be no such live-engagement if you are "engaging" offline. With advances in Bluetooth and mobile technologies, I very much doubt this will be an issue much longer. Already on Virgin America and BACity, you can get Wi-FI right at your seat. Skeptics have blocked mobile service from making an appearance on our subways, but what about free Wi-Fi?
So, back to my original argument. This is not about whether or not you can assess Twitter, but rather, about whether our dependence on Twitter, as an example, for sharing and self-expression is having a negative impact on creative output. If I am not Tweeting because I've lost 3G, I might as well not exist. I tweet, therefore I am? Remember, Twitter was only an example. What I want to offer up for debate is this; how much of our creative thoughts are lost due to connectivity issues, unexpected reboots, distracted train of thought, etc?
The original tweet that sparked all this? It had something to do with shoes, but I can't remember now.
Gosh, I wish I'd written that down.
