ITV recently aired a show called Tiktok: Top 100 2024. I probably don’t need to explain what the programme was about, the title leaves very little to the imagination. It was hosted by comedian Joel Dommett, who did a lot of the heavy listing, as he counted down the top 100 videos, alongside sharing facts and figures about what else is successful on the video sharing app, and how rich some of the content creators may actually be.

I’ve only been on Mastodon for just a couple of days but already been very curious about the discussion over ‘quote tweeting’. On Twitter, the quote tweet is a much-used feature that allows you to embed a previous tweet in your own and add thoughts. It was brought in to help users share other posts without eating too much into your own character count. This hasn’t been a feature on Mastodon (helped by the fact the character count is higher anyway!) but now more people are flooding to the service, it’s become a highly requested addition.

Wahey, I’m on Mastodon! You can find me here and I hope to be using it as a full on Twitter replacement and actually engaging with it rather than falling into the on-again-off-again pattern that I had with the bird one. My path to Mastodon has essentially been: Oh, something’s up with Twitter, it’ll probably be alright though, continue as usual All anyone talks about on Twitter now is the demise of Twitter. Check less often Third party apps have been switched off. You want me to use the website? Mm, no, that’s Twitter fully gone for me I know everyone’s talking about Mastodon but it sounds complicated and no one is really there and do I even need a Twitter replacement? Hmm, I am missing the discovery part of social networking - the news, the memes, the rabbit holes of film trivia, the jokes, the fascinating facts Ooh, Ivory (terrible name for it but great app!) is out which makes Mastodon as easy to use as Tweetbot was for Twitter! Okay, well, there may not be everyone here yet but if I don’t move, I can’t be sad no one else is moving across either. Let’s all move! And so, here we are. I wrote previously that I’d be blogging more because some of the little things I would previously just have tweeted now had nowhere to go. I’m still going to try and keep that mentality, because my blog is my castle, but I do think there’s a lot of benefit in having a functioning social space like Twitter was. Hopefully Mastodon can seamlessly fill the gap, but we shall see!

Yesterday, I wrote a very short post about photos of the moon that didn’t have a lot of point to it other than ‘wahey, photos of the moon!’ I realised that previously, I might have just tweeted something like that, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Twitter is going through some stuff right now.

We’ve recently invested some time and energy in using Flipboard to share posts, pictures and shows from Sidepodcast, which meant having to learn to use the crazy thing. Primarily an app, Flipboard allows you to browse through content from Twitter, sites and various web locations in a gorgeous looking magazine style. There’s absolutely no doubting that it’s a good way to peruse content. I found it quite hard to get my head around though. From the app, you have to find the content via some kind of stream that is already in there - ie, a Twitter account or someone else’s magazine. I couldn’t see there was an easy way to add content without navigating through many circles of hell.

I joined Pinterest recently. I know this isn’t groundbreaking news, finally signing up to a social network that’s been around since 2010. I tried signing up once before but they didn’t have my preferred username so I had to go away and sulk about that for a bit. Pinterest, in my limited experience, appears to be one of those social networks that is different things to different people. I can’t see myself getting a huge amount of use out of it, as fun as it is to browse screenshots from film and TV, and ogle cute pandas. I can see how it would be very handy for creative types, and businesses.

TV and film does very well on Twitter. Besides live tweeting essential events and posting instant reviews to films you’ve just seen, there are also the endless accounts packed with quotes (I follow some Friends and some Simpsons ones), and those that go a little beyond that. In the past, I’ve seen a few “recreation lists” whereby someone sets up a few accounts to do the back and forth that a play or some dialogue requires.

Last time I checked, the new Formula One season was still something like 80+ days away. The beautiful off-season stretched luxuriously ahead of us and there was all the time in the world to knuckle down to some projects. Then I blinked. Now there are 20 days left. That’s like, three weeks. The off season is all but over and what do I have to show for it? Well, actually, I have a book. I wrote a new book all about the upcoming season. We’ve publicised it all over the place, but if you haven’t heard about it yet, do check it out - Pocket F1 Handbook: Guide to the 2012 Grand Prix Season

365 F1 Stories chronicles a tale from Formula One’s vast history for every single day of the year, with a variety of different topics on offer. From driver birthdays, to important races, to those little moments you might have missed, there’s plenty on offer in the books. If you’re not completely convinced, or have bought the books but haven’t read through them all, there’s a quick way of getting a teaser for what’s happening on the day in question. The 365 F1 Stories Twitter account has a daily teaser update for you, posing a question related to the relevant story in the book itself. For example, a couple of days ago, this was the update:

Google have confirmed that they’re axing a few more of their side projects, including the terrible Buzz and the less terrible Jaiku. I was a big fan of Jaiku in its days pre-Google, using it as an alternative to Twitter. As Mr C commandeered the @sidepodcast Twitter account, I was looking for another way to represent Sidepodcast in social networks. I headed straight towards Jaiku, and was impressed with what I saw. I liked the little images you could use to demonstrate what kind of update you were writing, and I really liked that it had direct commenting on each status. It was slightly easier to follow a conversation than on Twitter.

I’d spotted this book creeping up the charts but ignored it, because I figured it was a rant about how Twitter is bad for the world. A recommendation changed my mind and so I gave it a go. As it turns out, it is a rant against Twitter, but only from a self-confessed Twitter addict. Grace Dent loves and uses Twitter a lot, and has plenty of experience to guide new and old users through the weird world of the microblogging social network.

I have often expressed my frustrations at Twitter, and continue to have a love/hate relationship with the microblogging platform. At the moment, I’m more on the love side, though, and anything that makes it even more amusing can only be a good thing. Yesterday, I was introduced to the concept of That can be my next tweet! It’s a site with one of those annoying URLs that is impossible to remember, even though it looks good in the title bar.

Twitter is a strange beast, isn’t it? Everyone uses it differently. For some, it is a means of promoting their work. For others, it is a place to follow comedians and laugh at jokes. Some use it as a replacement RSS feed, following those streams that are simple “new blog post” updates. Others use it as a way of keeping in touch with the family. A handful of people follow only celebrities. Some follow and don’t type, others type and don’t follow.

We all know that I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. I swore off it for a while, and when I returned I left the design as a default wallpaper - one you can get to under the settings tab. I looked on as many, many people put photographs and custom backgrounds on their Twitter account, and I never really felt the need to do the same. Since the World Cup began and Tweetdeck had all manner of problems (not all brought on themselves), I started going to the website to tweet more and more. At least when you see a fail whale you know where you stand.

(Note: I really wanted to call this post ‘Don’t Cross the Streams’ but I knew people would be mad it wasn’t about Ghostbusters.) I am so very up to date with TWiT podcasts now that I have even impressed myself! I was just listening to this weekend’s episode of This Week in Google, and there was a section of it I found really interesting. About half an hour in, they started on the topic of the Library of Congress creating an archive of all Twitter streams. That led on to some fascinating conversation.

Just a couple of things to note: I gave Chrome a try, I did, honest. I set it as my default and I used it for a couple of days. I really like the transition when you drag a tab to become a new window. Beautiful. I missed the Copy Link as Text Firefox plug-in something chronic. And when I was doing some F1 Minute stuff, Chrome was copy/pasting in a really funky way. Then it wouldn’t let me log into Gmail at all, no errors, just refreshing the page all the time. At this stage I have to say, it’s good but it’s not for me. I’m sorry. I know I have let you all down. For a long time, I’ve been scratching my head and wondering why people have their Twitter updates populate their blog. Aside from a little bit of extra content, I couldn’t figure it out. Mostly, I quite like it, it’s a good way of catching up with those conversations that Twitter doesn’t want you to see. Grr. Now I’ve figured it out, though, because it’s an excellent way of keeping your tweets for yourself. A backup of Twitter, if you like. Putting all that info out into the cloud is all very well, but if Twitter goes down (which isn’t out of the question!), it’s gone. Also, I have to hold up my hand and say I’ve been very un-MFC in the way I keep my to-do list. It’s been a scrap of paper. I tried lots of different systems, but it’s a habit you have to get into, and I couldn’t break the pen and paper thing. Thing is, then I lost the paper, and I was really mad. There is definitely something to be said for online productivity tools. I am now using a combination of Doris and Ta Da List, and I’m going to make it work this time. No more paper for me.

Ah, hmm, well, this is quite embarrassing. I quite recently wrote a post about swearing off Twitter, and naturally, after making such a fuss about it… well… I’m back on Twitter. So, moving on. It appears that my old installation of Smarter Than… was hacked and the feed essentially ruined (thanks to John for alerting me to the fact). Something weird was happening with the site a while ago as well, so I have bitten the bullet and decided to head on back to the hosted Wordpress.com. Dealing with self-hosts is always a pain, and aside from the lack of theme choices, the dot com version seems to work as well as you’d hope.

A few weeks ago, I left Twitter. I was a sporadic Twitterer anyway, but I did like reading the updates from everyone and keeping up with people I otherwise probably would not. I gave it up for many reasons, but mostly because all the changes that have been made recently take away functionality for the way I use Twitter. They are obviously focusing on the general public now, and that means making Twitter mainstream, instead of leaving it how it was.

Mashable has a brief article about a new advert taken out in the USA Today newspaper from chewing gum company Trident. Supposedly the tweets were discovered naturally, rather than the writers being sponsored to talk about the gum, and everybody was consulted to make sure they approved being included in the ad itself. A bizarre concept of micro-blogging turning back into print media.

I saw this story ages ago, was going to blog about it but promptly forgot. A father looking for his long lost daughter bought a domain of her name and set up a simple message saying: When you read this, please send me an email. Of course, nothing happened for a long time, but eventually the girl in question, April Becker, googled herself and found the site. She emailed the address and after some verification on both sides, father and daughter were reunited. At the time, she wrote on her Facebook page:

Here are a couple of Twitter bits and pieces I have found that I wanted to share - when Twitter does good. Cabbie’s tweet reunites lost Blackberry with owner - a simple tweet saved a lot of headaches, which is a really nice story. However, the way Twitter is organised at the moment makes this kind of thing really unusual, as you have to be searching for something specific and just happen to see the tweet in question.

There are studies emerging all over the place regarding who actually uses Twitter and what they get out of it, and it seems as though the powers that be are starting to take notice. The social networking site has long since ceased to be a place where you answer the original question “What are you doing?” In fact, I just had to go and check the website itself to see if it actually still featured the question above the text box. It does, which seems odd.

I was recently perusing the Podcasting News site and found an article with some new media tips from Trent Reznor. Now, I am only vaguely aware of Mr Reznor, not being a Nine Inch Nails fan, myself. However, it was the tips themselves that fascinated me. And by fascinated, I mean baffled. It starts off well. Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic.

I’ve noticed a couple of posts recently, in my feed reader, that suggest apps that will help to keep track, and even publish your own lifestream. I sat back for a minute, and thought, how many social networks can there be? I know there are some niche ones out there, book clubs, wine groups, things like that. But how many actual social things are there? Then I discovered one of many User Name Check sites, that allow you to see where your preferred username is taken, and which sites you can still go to nab what you want.

It seems like social networks are suddenly starting to realise that if people are going to put their lives on the internet, then they might want to have a proper identity. Facebook have introduced what appear to be called “vanity URLs” to your profile. It seems a bit mean to say that having your profile accessible by something with your own name rather than a bunch of random numbers is vanity, but that seems to be the name that sticks. My profile is now accessible via: http://www.facebook.com/christine.blachford.

There are a plethora of Twitter apps for mobile phones, and I know the iPhone is over-run with them. As a G1 user, the Android platform has less options, but there are a few worth looking at. The one I have settled on is Loquacious, which is actually a paid for app. It’s only a couple of dollars, though, so that didn’t put me off. There’s a 14-day fully featured demo, and I can honestly say the one thing that really sold it for me is that when you type a tweet - there’s a character countdown!

Way back when, Twitter was hugely unstable and we all defected to identi.ca. Now, Twitter has bolstered it’s infrastructure, and even with the mass invasion it still seems to be holding up nicely. So, I started watching people on Twitter, then I set up my identica username on the site and shared the dents/tweets across both platforms. Now I’m starting to think that Twitter is the place to be, and here’s five reasons why:

The BBC seem to have gone a bit doolally over Twitter. First it was Jonathan Ross spending at least ten minutes discussing the micro-blogging site with Stephen Fry. Then Radio 1 picked that up and ran with it, with at least three of the DJs signing up for Twitter accounts, maybe more. Whilst it’s good to see radio branching out even more into the online world, this seems like a really odd move for the BBC. Couldn’t singling out one particular site go against their non-advertising charter? I haven’t heard a single DJ suggest that other social networks are available.

The new look. Yes, okay, you can still view via the ‘old Facebook’ but presumably this will not always be the case, and I’m not a fan. It takes ages to upload photos. I tried to put up 5 pictures and it literally took half an hour. I timed it and everything. Messages from groups. I join groups to visit occasionally, have a look around, see what’s in the discussion boards. I don’t want messages sent to my inbox every day. Surefire way for me to unsubscribe. When searching for a person, the profile pictures are too small. How can I tell if that’s the right person by looking at a tiny square of photo. It posts EVERYTHING to yours news feed. You can’t just go there, browse around the games and see what they’re like. If you even look at something, people will know.

Just wanted to point out that I’m currently in the midst of loving identi.ca. If you’re fed up of Twitter’s flakiness, and want something a little bit prettier, then identi.ca could be for you. I’m busy posting there at the moment, amazed at how many 140 character sentences I have come up with already, having only been registered for a week. If you’re interested in following me, head to identi.ca/christineb. I highly recommend it.

Design revamp for ‘$100 laptop’ I always thought the old one looked like a cartoon, and whilst aimed at kids, I found it quite off-putting. The new one looks beautiful. Twitter: Something Is Technically Wrong Well, I gave up already. Gyllenhaal confirmed for ‘Prince of Persia’ Firstly, I didn’t know there was a film. Secondly, that Gemma Arterton is everywhere right now, and I still haven’t seen her in anything.

Twitter appeals to the short-form writer in me. I used to run a site called 101 Words, which essentially a short post every day about random stuff, but that was crucially 101 words long. Exactly. It became quite an art to fit all your thoughts for the day into 101 words. Twitter is the same kind of thing. There’s something about having a short space to get your message across that makes it a much easier place to share things. You don’t feel like you have to explain things, because let’s face it, you couldn’t even if you wanted to. There’s no room to go into detail, people are either going to get it or they’re not.

The thing is, I didn’t set up my Facebook account, it started out as a promotional tool for Sidepodcast. It still is that, but now I have started to take more of an interest in the whole social networking thing. I logged in and today, of all days, it wished me a Happy Birthday. Because as it wasn’t specifically about me when it was set up, the account’s birthday was defaulting to Jan 1st.