Don't blame me for creating stories on Twitter, says Stephen Fry

Don't blame me for creating stories on Twitter, says Stephen Fry

Posted by
Mercedes Bunz Tuesday 17 November 2009 11.23 GMT
guardian.co.uk

The millions of Twitter users make stories - I only point them in a direction, says Stephen Fry in speech to conference


Stephen Fry, speaking today at the 140 Characters Conference in London, said:

"There is a power of Twitter. We can't deny it any more, well for sure not as a celebrity Twitterer. A year ago, nearly no one heard about Twitter. But things move so fast today - and the bewilderment, content, disbelief with which Twitter was greeted ...

They called it the most banal and pointless waste of time. And do you know what they say now? Now they say: Our Twitter strategy is ...

It is a very odd thing when people think they are being smart when they speak not as humans but as business people. They say, I need a phone that does this, I need a social network that does that. You know what? I know a lot of executives that lead big companies, and they talk about what excites them and what convinces them. They are driven as human beings.

And you know what? Before humans are reasoning, they are emotional beings. With gadgets you communicate with other people, and therefore this is an emotional internet that you have. Not just plain function. It will come as no surprise that as the next big thing it wasn't designed as business for business. Twitter was created to babble to each other. Remember it was called Twitter and not serious debate or marketing tool.

It is important for all of us to understand its nature. It is human shaped, not business shaped. And the swell will move elsewhere if you try to make it all neat and attractive. The greatness and the magnitude of its energy will all move.

Think of Twitter or the internet like the invention of the printing press. 1450 - when there were no printed books and about 500 years later there were 20m. The press became available for a great number of people. There was a new freedom of the press. This caused upheavals. Huge numbers of magazines, broadsheets and pamphlets were published. And the most popular ones were not called "the Debate". They were called the Idler or the Spectator.

There was no class more contemptuous of Twitter than the commentating journalists. Why should we care about what Britney Spears had for breakfast, they said. So may I ask you, why do you write about it in the paper? The journalists said, who needs this Twitter thing and in the next moment you read: Follow the Daily Mail on Twitter at ...

But like with the printing press, Twitter changed the situation. People like me, Twillionaires [people with more than a million followers], we can cut out the press from our PR requirements. It used to be a pact with the devil. You wanted to inform the press about a new film and they said they will interview you, but only if they are allowed to ask you around other themes about your private life. Today, Britney Spears tells her PR manager, why should I care about that this journalist of this newspaper with big circulations, I will reach this circulation just by typing into my keyboard.

So well, whole newspapers are on the one side filled with resentment against Twitter, on the other side they are using it and searching Twitter messages. By the way, have you recognised, they are using it as a feed, the deadwood press doesn't say stream. Puzzling.

Then there are good moments. There was the case of Trafigura, which forbade the Guardian to write about it. It caused a storm on Twitter, which I joined in quite late as that morning I came from the gym - it is pathetic, I can't believe I said that but it is true, and the thing reached such a heat by 1pm or 2pm that the lawyers had to do something about it. This can be considered a victory.

Or a journalist from the Daily Mail wrote about something very awful which happened to affect a friend of mine, although I don't make a big deal about that fact. But I saw this brilliant answer from Charlie Brooker and so commented and pointed there. And then they said, 'Who the hell does Stephen Fry think he is forbidding this journalist to think freely?' Well I never did.

But because of the weight of my numbers I am now credited or blamed for inventing these stories. But this is not the way Twitter works. The Twitter millions create the story. You can only point them in a direction. It is like with your parents, when you come home and say you did this because a friend told you and they go like: well if he told you to stick your head in the fire, would you do that?

Twitter is about participating - by which I mean you tweet and read other people's tweets. Then you understand it, and get its rhythm. But remember: It is about being authentic. These things are human-shaped."

Fry is afraid that Twitter will be swamped by PR professionals. What do you think?

I Wish I Knew Who You Were, And Who You Worked For (Automatically)

Article on Twittercism

Lots of people have multiple accounts on Twitter, for various reasons. I can’t tell you the number of times I get a message from somebody out of the blue and I’ll think, “Hey, I know you, don’t I?”

But who is it?

Some detective work later, I figure out that the reason I know this person is because I’m following one of their other accounts. Perhaps their business account. Maybe their personal one. What bugs me about this is I might have a friendly relationship with this person on one of their accounts, but have no idea who they are on another. Or even that they have another.

What I’d like Twitter to offer (and this would be entirely opt-in) is a way for multiple accounts to be linked together. This would be great for businesses that have main accounts and lots of additional ones for their staff. Like Twitter themselves, for example. When you visit the Twitter profile, all their employees should be right there, too. With titles and responsibilities. And if I stumble across an individual employee, it shows that they’re linked to Twitter.

(Think Twitter + LinkedIn.)

Some people do this now in their bios, but it’s kinda awkward, and doesn’t translate well into manageable data.

It could even work a bit like a newsfeed, with one main account pulling the updates from everybody else. So, if I wanted to really follow Google, for example, an @GoogleTeam user could be setup so that everybody who worked for the company could be followed via that one account. The different users would feed in and I could reply to them accordingly.



(Think Twitter + RSS.)

And it wouldn’t have to stop at businesses. Participants in sports teams could link together, as well as social groups and other clubs. You could start your own tribe.

(It might even come with privacy. You could direct message everybody in your tribe with one click. Wouldn’t that be convenient?)

As it is, it’s awkward to find out all the people that work for any corporation on Twitter. I’ve been trying to do this for Twitter themselves, and Dave Winer is doing some great work with his 100twt project. (Check out what the people who work for the New York Times are saying.)

I’d like to see it automated. I think it benefits businesses and customers, which is rare enough to make it very worthwhile.

Read this and more at Twittercism

Charlie Brooker on how to save newspapers

You know what'll save newspapers? Magic coins. Yes, magic coins. And I've just invented them

Hello reader. Where are you reading this? In the paper? On the website? On an iPhone?

Is the Guardian even available on the iPhone? Bet it is. There's probably even a little downloadable application that lets you turn the pages by tilting it to one side. After all, there's an "app" for everything. There's one that turns the iPhone into a motion-sensitive light sabre: it makes wooshy Star Wars noises as you swipe it around. Really passes the time during the unrelenting march to the grave, that.

I'm unmoved in the face of friends screaming at me to join the iPhone cult. It's horrible. Here are a few iPhone apps I'd like to see:

1. An app that makes the iPhone scream 'I'VE GOT AN IPHONE!' each time the user pulls it out of their pocket. Once activated, it would be impossible to switch off. The only way to stop the constant embarrassment would be to repeatedly crack the device against a wall, or preferably your own face, until it shattered.

2. An app billed as a "comical toilet paper simulator". You switch it on, pretend to "wipe" your backside, and hey presto: the screen appears smeared with virtual pixilated poo. But – ho ho – just like the screaming iPhone app above, it's a permanent booby trap. Once you've performed your first comical wipe, in a frankly desperate bid to impress your non-iPhone-owning friends, it's impossible for the screen to revert to its original state. Instead, you're left with no option but to go home and cry.

3. An app that makes your iPhone unexpectedly oscillate and explode halfway through a conversation to a loved one, sending thousands of miniscule shards of plastic and silicon hurtling into your ear canal like a swarm of angry pins. As a bonus, the detonation also blasts your hand apart like a spent casing. Why? Because you bought an iPhone, silly.

Still, there's a good chance you're reading this on an LCD display of some description, rather than on paper. There are advantages and drawbacks to both platforms. The paper version can be rolled up, scribbled on, and read on the tube. If I write something obnoxious – something about the hilarious inherent low-self-esteem of iPhone owners, perhaps – the page can be torn out, screwed into a ball and thrown across the room, thus providing a slender amount of catharsis. (Come to think of it, iPhone owners can probably download an app that makes a satisfying "thwock" sound as they bat the paper ball across the room with their ridiculous handheld toys). Paper is tactile, and that's a plus. Trouble is, you have to pay for it.

Not so online. In Webland, it's yours for free. Better still, the byline pictures are slightly smaller, so there's less chance you'll be sick. But it isn't tactile. Here, catharsis comes in the form of interactive feedback – so if (for example) you're a uniquely inadequate, unfulfilled and unattractive sort of man, and the article you're reading happens to have been written by a woman – any woman – you can vent your annoyance in a series of inadvertently revealing messages, then masturbate into a sock. (This describes 33% of all messages on all news websites. Check if you don't believe me.)

Still, at least the misogynists know what's making them angry. There's an astounding level of unfocused rage on the internet, which is weird considering it's full of people getting something for nothing. Films, TV shows, music, newspaper reports . . . none of it costing a penny.

But newspapers won't be free for ever. At least that's what Rupert Murdoch thinks, and he's probably evil enough to know. Last week he announced the Sun and the Times are to start charging for their online editions. But will it work?

Nope. Not until someone perfects a system of universal online micro-payments once and for all. Some simple means of easily "tossing a penny in a cup" for the internet is required. Everyone knows it; no one's managed to crack it. Sure, there are systems such as PayPal (familiar to anyone who's used eBay), but they're fiddly and boring. What's needed is something universal and user-friendly.

But more than that, it should be fun.

That's right. It should be intrinsically fun to spend money. How? Huh? Wuh? Listen. If you ask me, one potential answer to the newspaper industry's woes lies somewhere in videogame design. A simple payment system shouldn't just be easy to set up: it should be intrinsically satisfying to use. It should feel positively Nintendo. Look at the Wii. Look at the micro-games in Rhythm Paradise, or Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, both on the Nintendo DS. That's how online payments should work. They should have the illusion of being tactile.

On your desktop: a cartoon purse filled with fat gold coins. Pull out a penny. It shimmers on the screen. Drag it toward a "coin slot" situated right there on the web page you want to view, and drop it in. It disappears with a satisfying ker-chunk. And you're in. If you're feeling cavalier, you can throw your coin toward the slot; with practice it won't bounce off the rim. And hey, iPhone users: we'll even let you play. You can "fling" coins from your phone directly on to the screen.

One page costs one penny: not too off-putting for anyone – and crucially, the teeny spoonful of fun and satisfaction you derived from playing with that virtual coin each time is worth the penny anyway.

Has anyone else thought of this already? If not, consider it patented right now, by me. I'll settle for 0.001% of every penny spent for all eternity, thanks. And now, over to the Dragons.

Article by Charlie Brooker via The Guardian

Murdoch to charge for news website access

Guardian News article about media mogul Rupert Murdoch's plans to charge for news website access

In what can only be seen as an 'interesting' move, Rupert Murdoch has announced that you will have to pay to access The Sun, The Times and News Of The World websites as of next year.

Currently all of these websites offer free access to stories that are in their newspaper equivalents that day, but this is all set to change according to Murdoch.

Murdoch's words seem to be spurred on by a $3.4bn (£2bn) net loss for News Corporation for the financial year to June. This is something that has been put down to restructuring, writedowns and a slump in commercial revenue.

It is unlikely that people would be prepared to pay for news which can readily be accessed on other news channel sites however could this lead the precedent for future pay per view news access bu other news organisations?

Full article can be read here

The King of Pop is Dead and nearly took Google with him

Love him or hate him, pretty much everyone on the planet knows who Michael Jackson is and will remember the moment when they heard the news that the controversial pop star had died on Thursday 27th June 2009. A news flash interrupted my weekly fix of Question Time to broadcast the news and I knew this was going to be a big news event. As many other people did I immediately turned to the internet to "Google" the news of his demise. BBC news report states

Millions of people who searched for the star's name on Google News were greeted with an error page

.Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker confirmed this in a statement

"It's true that between approximately 2.40PM Pacific and 3.15PM Pacific, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson and saw the error page,"

It seems however that Google was not the only company who felt the strain of the public scramble to search for more information. The microblogging service Twitter is also reported to have crashed with the sheer volume of traffic by users. The BBC reports

Queries about the star soon rocketed to the top of its updates and searches. But the amount of traffic meant it suffered one of its well-known outages.According to initial data from Trendrr, a Web service that tracks activity on social media sites, the number of Twitter posts Thursday afternoon containing "Michael Jackson" totaled more than 100,000 per hour.

Many celebrities took to the internet in particular using Twitter to pay tribute to Michael Jackson.

Philip Schofield: Now sadly confirmed that we have lost such a gifted performer as MJ. What a terrible tragedy on so many levels.

Stephen Fry: Goodness. Michael Jackson. Poor old soul. Oh dear.

Demi Moore: I am greatly saddened for the loss of both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Especially for their children!

Ashton Kutcher: Now the ap confirms aswell. Rip Sending love and light to family and friend but especially his kids.

Miley Cyrus: michael jackson was my inspiration. love and blessings

Samantha Ronson: Say what you want about Michael Jackson's private life (just not near me) but NO ONE can deny his talent, his compassion and his legacy.

Peter Andre: "Michael Jackson dying is absolutely devastating. I am totally shocked. MJ, you're the best."

Lance Armstrong: Terrible news about Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett. My best to their friends, fans, and families.

As I said in the beginning of this article love him or hate him he was certainly one of the most famous popstars on the planet.

State of the Twittersphere June 2009

Hubspot have compiled an interesting factfile using data on 4.5 million users they have collected from Twitter Grader.

For instance:

• 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
• 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
• 68.68% have not specified a location
• 55.50% are not following anyone
• 54.88% have never tweeted
• 52.71% have no followers

• The average user tweets .97 times per day
• The average user has tweeted 119.34 times in total
• The average user has a following-to-follower ratio of .7738

Some interesting Statistics on Tweets

users are frequently using Twitter to interact and communicate with other users rather than just answer the “What are you doing?” question.

• 1.44% of all tweets are retweets

• 37.95% of all tweets contain an “@” symbol (mentions)

• 33.44% of all tweets start with an “@” symbol (replies)

Many users are reaching the 140-character limit in an attempt to get as much content as possible into every update.

The report can be found at the hubspot website

Twitter Etiquette: Five Dos and Don'ts

Twitter Etiquette: Five Dos and Don'ts - :
Good article on Cio website informing Twitter beginners of the basic rules of etiquette for the service,

like any social network, the Twitter community has its own set of unwritten guidelines — or etiquette — that dictates good (or bad) behavior on the service. Some people call it Twittequette. So before you stick a foot measuring 140-characters-or-less in your mouth, check out their advice on how to follow and un-follow, share politely, direct message appropriately, and more"

Twitter Etiquette: Five Dos and Don'ts - :

Guy Clapperton on the big TV makers switching on to supplying an internet widget as standard | Technology | The Guardian

An article by Guy Clapperton in The Guardian reveals the big TV makers are about to allow people the opportunity to access online television through their set tops. Clapperton writes

For a few years now, the television industry has been talking about "convergence" between the internet and television. It's slowly becoming a reality: more and more people are connecting their computers to their TVs to view photos, listen to music and other activities that cross over between the two; now television manufacturers are starting to add functions to their TV sets that will allow people to share photos through social networks, play online games, watch YouTube and other material found on the internet. YouTube is a barometer of this shift, as people move on from watching short clips or videos to looking at longer works and whole programmes, and the BBC's iPlayer, plus the versions from ITV and Channel 4, also make full-length programming available on computers

This may yet pose a threat to traditional broadcast outlets as they struggle to keep up with the rapid developments of technology and increasing competition from up and coming online broadcasters but the signs are showing that they are swlowly taking up the gauntlet and fighting for survival in this new digital era.

The rise and rise of Twitter | Technology | guardian.co.uk

"In November 2008 a total of 40 articles appeared in British local and national newspapers that included the word 'Twitter'. Though a quarter of them were published by the Guardian, this paper's technology correspondent nonetheless found himself explaining to general readers that 'Twitter, a mobile social network, has generated lots of buzz'. The Daily Telegraph, quaintly, was still using the word to describe a way of talking.
The following month, 85 articles appeared on the subject. By January 2009, it was 206. But those were still the dark ages. Hot on the heels of the Twitter plane crash came the site's first live action celebrity lift catastrophe, when the actor Stephen Fry, a tweeter so prolific that one hopes he still eats, offered breathless updates from the stationary elevator in which he briefly found himself marooned. (His followers total is now 350,000)."

Article at guardian.co.uk

John Prescott to lead internet campaign

Report on the Guardian website

"John Prescott has been chosen as the unlikely leader of Labour's general election campaign on the internet, as the party prepares to launch a low-budget battle for a fourth term in government"

What on earth is going on? John Prescott does not strike me as the most computer literate member of the Labour party. On further reading the name Alistair Campbell appears

Last night Alastair Campbell, former director of communications under Tony Blair, who also has a large following online, said it was clear Prescott was succeeding in motivating Labour supporters online in a way nobody else could. "You cannot imagine a cabinet minister getting the huge support he did for a campaign on bankers' bonuses. What JP has shown is that he has an ability to cut through to voters that needs harnessing. Because he is no longer a cabinet minister, he can be a bit edgier. It is about making it fun. It is part of modern campaigning."

The knives are out for you Gordon Brown and it looks like Campbell and co are sharpening them to boot

One is twittering: Her Majesty the Queen's latest foray online - Telegraph

Article from The Telegraph

"She emails her grandchildren and her Christmas message appears on YouTube. Now the Queen has taken a further bold technological step by becoming the first member of the Royal family to have an official engagement tracked on Twitter."

Wonder what her user name is?

Facebook at five: The toughest challenge is yet to come - Telegraph

How long before the popularity of Facebook fades? An article in the Telegraph, comments on the future of Facebook: Facebook at five: The toughest challenge is yet to come - Telegraph: "For many internet users, especially youngsters, having a Facebook account is as important as having a mobile phone. Social events are organised through Facebook's pages, and it is used by millions to share photos and videos.
However, the next five years look a lot tougher for Facebook. The honeymoon period is well and truly over, and there is anecdotal evidence, at least, that 'Facebook fatigue' is setting in with some users. The greatest difficulty the website faces is 'user stickiness' – remaining sufficiently dynamic, interesting and relevant to retain its members"

Are government ministers allowed to poke, tweet and use social media? | Technology | The Guardian

An article in The Guardian: asks : Are government ministers allowed to poke, tweet and use social media? "This week, the government's Power of Information taskforce set out a list of 25 urgent actions for the public sector machine - from Downing Street to local councils and NHS organisations - to take to embrace social networking, blogging and other such phenomena."

MediaShift . Journalists Still a-Twitter About Social Media | PBS

Excellent post on journalists fascination with social media site Twitter


MediaShift . Journalists Still a-Twitter About Social Media | PBS: "Journalists are obsessed with Twitter. Obsessed. They use it, talk about it, analyze it, deconstruct it, reconstruct it, love it, hate it, capitalize on it, become experts on it, monetize it, argue about it, and become micro-famous on it. They are mesmerized with what it is and they are as giddy as Tom Cruise on Oprah just thinking about what it could be."

Digital Britain - Interim Report

A comprehensive analysis report of our digital economy titled Digital Britain , assesses the UK’s readiness fully to exploit the dramatic shift to digital technology as the basis of huge parts of our economy and private lives, drawing on expertise from across Government, regulators and industry.

The Interim Report has just been released

China blocks 41 websites for distributing porn-China-World-The Times of India

BEIJING: China has blocked 41 websites after getting Google and other search engines to apologise for carrying porn and lewd content. This is among the measures taken by the government to 'purify' the Internet during a month-long campaign launched last week." Read more:

The Global Community

The Machine is using us

ICANN Watch - Questions that everyone should be asking

To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet.

ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit partnership of people from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers.read more on the ICANN website

ICANN Watch say however

ICANN says that it is private, non-profit, consensus-based, California corporation charged with technical coordination of the Internet. Some others, including some of the people behind this web site, worry that ICANN has a somewhat manipulable idea of what constitutes a consensus, or that ICANN's close relationship with the U.S. Department of Commerce might make it a "state actor" under U.S. law-- a formally private body that has the same legal obligations to provide due process and non-discrimination as a government agency. read more on ICANN Watch website

This is worrying for the future of a free and open internet. Censorship of the internet is already a highly controversial topic and more people need to be made aware of the role of ICANN and the close relationship it shares with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web users 'getting more selfish'

The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online. BBC NEWS | Technology | Web users 'getting more selfish'