catherine deveny axed by The Age over Logies Twitter feed

can’t say i’m surprised, or particularly displeased.

however. here’s a whole can of worms for every journalist/columnist who tweets, facebooks or blogs.

just how far can a company go in taking an employee’s ‘personal’ twitter account and attaching it to their own branding?

if deveny had said ‘i work for The Age and i really hope Bindi Irwin gets laid tonight’, that’s one thing. but she didn’t.

did The Age pay her to tweet? i’m willing to bet they didn’t. No more than the Gold Coast Bulletin pays me to tweet via my @cate3221 account. of course they DO pay me to tweet via the @GCBulletin account. and what i say there is vastly different than what i say on my personal account.

but it’s not always that clearcut.

does catherine deveny work for anyone else? are they entitled to sack her for her tweets because they don’t like the fact that the public recognise that she works for them and therefore her tweets are associated with them?

can of worms, people. big, deep can of worms.

people worth tweeting at

hey folks, if you’re of a mind to let Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, know what you think of his killer mine and it’s safety record, here’s his twitter feed. he finally said something this morning, none of it about accepting responsibility.

http://www.twitter.com/DonBlankenship

and, just for shits and giggles … karl rove … http://www.twitter.com/KarlRove … i like to give Karl a big gobful at least once a day. it makes me feel better.

facebook … *resigned sigh* … tch

i’ve made no secret of the fact that facebook is not my favourite thing. it’s all a bit high school, truthfully. and trust me, that’s not a good headspace for me.

but i am nothing if not pragmatic. clearly a bucketload of people use it. and as socnet maven for goldcoast.com.au, i’ve been up to my ears in optimising our ‘presence’ … ugh … over there at High School Central.

i have a facebook page … feel free to take a look and ‘friend’ me if you’re so inclined … and now, god help me, i have a fan page, where i’ll be posting news about whatever writing i’m doing.

so there ya go. i’ve sold out. but never fear. i shall never desert my beloved twitter.

arsing tit bum wee

god help me from my cursing tongue and the vagaries of tweetdeck.

managed to roundly curse the gold coast blaze for their godawful basketball tonight while simultaneously tweeting from both my account and work’s.

*sigh*

deleted within 10 seconds. but that wasn’t quick enough. some bitch managed to retweet it while being snarky about me swearing.

seriously. sometimes i hate my job.

i heart stephen fry

i am an unabashed stephen fry fan. he has been a complete, and self-confessed, tit at various moments of his life … most notable being the most recent when he maligned poland because auschwitz was within its borders.

on his blog, the new adventures of mr stephen fry, he just posted an entry that is not only an unabashed apology for that piece of verbal diarrhoea, but also then goes into a beautifully expressed opinion on twitter, journalism and the influence of one on the other.

Perhaps the foregoing is the most fatuous and maddening aspect of the press’s (perfectly understandable) fear, fascination and dread of Twitter: the insulting notion that twitterers are wavy reeds that can be blown this way or that by the urgings of a few prominent ‘opinion formers’. It is hooey, it is insulting hooey and it is wicked hooey. The press dreads Twitter for all kinds of reasons. Celebrities (whose doings sell even broadsheet newspapers these days) can cut them out of the loop and speak direct to their fans which is of course most humiliating and undermining. But also perhaps the deadwood press loathes Twitter because it is like looking in a time mirror. Twitter is to the public arena what the press itself was two hundred and fifty years ago — a new and potent force in democracy, a thorn in side of the established order of things.

there’s pages more, all the kind of writing and thinking that i would give my left breast to be able to create. read it. go on, you know you want to.

call it bligh faith

my weekly column in the gold coast bulletin:

SOMETIMES you have to wonder what a politician has to do to get any kind of approval out of the electorate at all.

It’s probably fair to say that if it wasn’t for the fact that the Liberal-National Party is a comprehensively unfunny joke, Premier Anna Bligh would be in a bucketload of electoral poo, right about now.

What with Gordon Nuttall’s conviction, Terry Mackenroth’s investigation by the CMC, the brouhaha over selling off government assets and the attendant roadshow to spruik the strategy, the Premier’s been hammered from all sides.

Add to that the Hey, hey this is Queensland, pay-peanuts-get-Monkees Queensland Tourism campaign, and now the Premier’s decision to appear on Celebrity MasterChef — well, it’s been a bit of a hatefest.

For the record, I think the criticism has slipped from rationality into Fringie McFringerson territory.

The MasterChef decision is not just a political masterstroke, it might actually do the state some good.

Half an hour — or more if the Premier’s culinary skills are any good — on the nation’s most popular television show spruiking Queensland products — what could be wrong with that?

The Premier is doing the show on her own vacation time — yes, she is entitled to vacation time, just like everybody else — and it’s not going to cost the Queensland taxpayers a red cent. Why on earth are people bitching about it?

Because she’s a politician, that’s why, and our perception of politicians has become so jaded, so skewed towards the negative that we’re ready to be cynical about every decision they make.

Every now and then, however, a politician will surprise you. Anna Bligh surprised me this week.

I have a Twitter friend … a Tweep, if you will … called Bernadette. Bern writes a very funny, very smart blog called So Now What? that has me in stitches.

Recently her 75-year-old, very independent mother was diagnosed with cancer, including tumours in her brain, colon, liver and lungs.

Bern’s mum is a public patient in a Brisbane hospital, had neurosurgery late last week and has been on the receiving end of some less than stellar treatment — trying to get information out of the various surgeons and specialists has been a nightmare.

None of this is new for veterans of the Queensland Health system, which 30 years ago was the best of its kind in the world, and is now a tragically crappy shadow of itself.

But when it’s your own 75-year-old mother suddenly faced with very big issues, including the depression and loneliness that go along with desperately bad health news, that becomes a rather more in-your-face issue.

Yesterday Bern became so disgusted with the state of play she wrote an open letter to Premier Bligh, posted it on her blog and then tweeted the link.

The Premier is one of those rare pollies who actually writes most of her own tweets and she just happened to be around having just announced her appearance on Masterchef.

She read Bern’s blog and immediately replied about setting up a face-to-face meeting.

Now, as far as I’m aware that meeting hasn’t happened yet, but I do know this much — when Bern went to visit her mum yesterday, suddenly there were four doctors wanting a chat and nurses were falling all over themselves to help.

No doubt the cynics, doubters and nay-sayers will be convinced that Premier Bligh saw an opportunity for some positive spin and took it with both hands.

I’m sure there’s an element of truth in that, but I think she also saw a chance to do the very elemental thing that makes a human being want to become a leader — a chance to actually make a positive difference in another human being’s life.

Hey, call me an idealist, if you like. But I prefer to maintain a little faith in the people we vote into power. It makes me a happier person.

rewards and risks of social media for newspapers

top article from editor and publisher:

The New York Times, however, is perhaps the most active social-networking newspaper. Its main Twitter account, which notes nearly every story posted on its main site, surpassed one million followers in June; its Facebook page boasts about 460,000 fans. In late May the Grey Lady appointed its first social media editor, veteran newswoman Jennifer Preston. While some staffers worried she was going to be something of a Twitter and Facebook cop, Preston says her job is to coordinate all uses of social media.

“Clearly, there are a lot of conversations and a lot of sharing on these sites, and it is important to be part of the conversation,” adds Preston, who admits she’s still learning the ropes.

But what are the pitfalls? Concerns range from taking copyrighted or private material off of a Facebook page for use in a story to twittering opinions or misinformation when the rush is on to break and update news. “It is not quite clear what the right use is,” says Andrew Nystrom, a senior producer for social and emerging media at the Los Angeles Times. “If you aren’t a friend of someone on Facebook, should you be pulling photos off Facebook? We err on the side of caution.”

Fatigue also warrants consideration. Along with writing for print, which most journalists at newspapers still do, they are updating Web stories and often blogging. Add in Twitter updates of stories and observations, maintaining Facebook or MySpace pages, and checking those of others they are “following” or “friending” and the task-juggling only increases — all as newsrooms continue to cut staff.

“If your day gets longer and you have fewer people checking behind you and you have more to do than before, it is absolutely delusional to think the journalism itself isn’t suffering,” says Keith Woods, dean of faculty at The Poynter Institute. But he adds that the social-media outlets are useful, calling them “traditional tools of journalism on steroids.”

and didn’t i get a complete taste of that ‘suffering’ this week. see completely pants day.

there’s a lot more to this most excellent piece by joe strupp. definitely worth taking in the whole thing here.

at the gold coast bulletin, and goldcoast.com.au, we have an official Twitter account (twitter.com/GCBulletin) and about 8 of our journos have accounts … i’m twitter.com/SwannellGCB.

we try not to just post links to stories, cos that gets old pretty quick, but we do try to engage the readers in conversations. it’s starting to work too.

great minds …

from cagle.com

potty about harry … and twitter

this is my weekly column for the gold coast bulletin that appeared today:

BY the time you read this I will be in some kind of post-Harry Potter haze.

That’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for those of you living on Mars.

It took a bit of a miracle but I did manage to secure a ticket to Reading Cinema’s Gold Lounge 3.45pm session at Harbour Town yesterday.

I say miracle because somewhere in the middle of Wednesday night’s State of Origin-slash-tsunami frenzy I managed to crash my computer and I’ve been without internet access at home ever since.

Chariot Netconnect, if you’re reading this, please fix. Ta.

So I had to wait until yesterday morning and a lull in proceedings here in The Bulletin newsroom before I could get online and try to book myself a seat on a comfy leather recliner, but that didn’t work either.

Potter frenzy killed Reading Cinemas’ website stone, cold dead. “Provider error ’80004005,” it said. “Unspecified error.”

That’s technospeak for ‘completely buggered’.

So I had to pick up the phone and call — speak to an actual human being.

The lovely lad at the end of the phone was very helpful, except he couldn’t book me a ticket right away because the lines were jammed with people trying to book a ticket. Eventually I received a call back.

“We can squeeze you in at 3.45pm,” he said.

“Done,” I said.

Obviously I can’t tell you how the film was because I haven’t seen it yet — if you see what I mean.

But $A27.95 million can’t be wrong. That’s how much Half-Blood Prince raked in on its midnight release in the US. One night. One country.

That smashed the previous record of $A22.66 million set by The Dark Knight last year and the $A21.4 million set by the execrable Revenge of the Sith, the (thankfully) last in the Star Wars saga.

I would love JK Rowling’s bank balance.

Fans of the teen vampire romance series Twilight, the first film of which was released last year, have been trying to convince the world that Harry Potter is naff and twinkly celibate vampires are the only form of cool left in pop culture.

It took a full weekend and 300 more screens for Twilight to bring Potter-like numbers.

I read those books and yes, they were very addictive. But the film? Not so much.

Unless you’re a 13-year-old girl, of course, in which case, honestly, you’d be better off emulating Hermione than Bella.

Bella’s doomed to lose everything that made her interesting in the early books whereas Hermione just gets more fascinating as she gets older.

Trust me on that one.

And now, from Twilight to Twitter — awkward segue, cool topic.

The Gold Coast Bulletin, as most of you know, has an online presence at www.goldcoast.com.au and we’re about to expand our reach even further.

Yes, The Bully is on Twitter.

Again, for those of you on Mars, Twitter is a social networking site where people communicate by way of 160-character updates.

It’s similar to text messaging but with a much more interactive and public approach. If you’re already tweeting, The Bulletin‘s account is, surprisingly, @GCBulletin.

You will also find some of our journalists there — news reporter Leah Fineran (@fineranswake), sports reporter Nick Smart (@GCBNickSmart) and I (@swannellGCB) are tweeting our days already and we hope to have some more of our reporters and editors set up on Twitter soon.

Our aim is to provide another way of talking with you, the readers of the paper and the website, not just about the news of the day but about issues that concern all Gold Coasters and about how we do our jobs day-to-day.

Yes, we’ll be pointing you at our stories sometimes but we also want you to get to know us and vice versa.

All the research says newspapers need to connect, or reconnect, with their communities and in these modern times we’re keen to use every means available to do that.

myspace lays off 30% …

… of its american staff.

this comes as an enormous surprise to precisely nobody who’s ever had anything to do with any social networking sites.

myspace, owned by my boss, rupert murduch, sucks. it’s sucked for a long time now, and it’s been shat on from a great height by facebook, which is now being shat on by twitter, tumblr, flickr and, well, just about anything that isn’t facebook or myspace.

myspace is the socnet for those less mature than facebook users, which is to say, pretty damn farkin’ immature.

yes, i hate them both. i admit it.

this from mumbrella:

The company, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, said it was “part of a plan to restructure itself into a more innovative, efficient, and entrepreneurial business”. The move will leave MySpace with about 1000 employes in the US.

The company was unable to say today what the implications would be for its operations in the rest of the world including Australia although Mumbrella understands that its structure is under review here too. MySpace Australia is led by Rebekah Horne, an Aussie who also heads up MySpace UK and Europe.

The company issued a straight-talking press statement. In it, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said: “Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company.I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product.”

And Jonathan Miller, News Corp’s CEO of Digital Media said: “MySpace grew too big considering the realities of today’s marketplace.”

one commenter on that story suggested this might be the real reason:

Google revenue is the difference between profitability and the opposite of profitability at MySpace and its sister sites. And unless a new deal is negotiated that can bring in similar revenue after next year, MySpace is facing massive layoffs and a general downsizing of its business, we’ve heard from multiple sources close to MySpace.

Here’s the good news: Google is at the table negotiating a new deal to take over in July 2010.

Here’s the bad news: Sources say Google thinks the deal is worth, tops, $50 million – $75 million per year, significantly less than the $300 million/year they’re paying now.

Why? Sources say that while Google has gotten plenty of advertising impressions (MySpace uses any excuse to put Google search results and Google ads in front of users), those ads don’t convert well. Add to that the dramatic shrinking of MySpace page views and the predictive modeling gets ugly.

Google knows MySpace is shrinking by about 20% a year. And unlike the last time they negotiated with News Corp., they now have nearly three years of actual operating history with the company. They’ve got real data to value the deal.

Unless Microsoft or perhaps Yahoo comes in and bids very aggressively, MySpace is going to get slaughtered in the negotiations.

yes, indeedy, it’s bottom line time. news corp credo has always been – and i don’t think i’m being controversial in saying this – make money or die.

goodbye, myspace.