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heraldsun.com.au Herald Sun, Wednesday, June 17, 2009 3Herald Sun extratech

.»geeksville

DIANE ‘‘DEE DEE’’ DUNLEAVY,Gold 104 breakfast host

Your favourite gadget?I’m in love with the satnavlady. She and I go everywheretogether. She has replacedmy husband. He’s aware ofthis and argues with herconstantly.

Favourite technologies?Digital cameras are genius.No more spots, wrinkles orflabby bits. Just press‘‘delete’’ and deny they exist.

Most despised technology?I have a stupid DVD playerthat will only play certainDVDs and won’t recogniseothers.

Your computer?At home: The Klunker. I thinkit’s steam-driven. I shouldupdate. Main use is trawlingfor showbiz gossip and newsstories. I check my emailsconstantly. I get email for myco-host, Grubby, too. Ourtech department did set upan inbox for him but he didn’tknow it was there, so whenwe opened it there were14,000 messages in his inbox.Now I email for both of us.

Music machines?My 10-year-old son has anMP3 player and I can’t workout how to get the music outof iTunes and into thelistening thingy.

Your TV?Plasma, a whopper. Just onegiant green footprint suckingthe life out of the planet fromatop my mantelpiece. I haveto grow my own vegies andride to work to offset.

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extratechEditor: Richard ConradPhone: 9292 2317Email: conradr@heraldsun.com.auAV Editor: Peter FamilariPhone: 9292 1849Email: familarip@heraldsun.com.auAdvertising: Tony BradvicaPhone: 9292 2527

win!

TO CELEBRATE the launch of Vodafone’sPrepaid Mobile Broadband service, 10Herald Sun readers are being given thechance to win a $149 mobile broadbandstarter pack.

Vodafone’s new Prepaid MobileBroadband service gives customers thefreedom and benefits of mobile broadbandwithout any strings (or wires) attached.

Vodafone’s new pay-as-you-go mobilebroadband range includes a Prepaid MobileBroadband starter pack consisting of aslimline internet stick with pre-installedsoftware, SIM card and a 500MB dataallowance for $149.

There are recharge plans of $19 for500MB, $29 for 1GB and $49 for 3GB.

Customers who connect before June 30will be given a bonus 2GB data allowance.

The 10 prize packs for Herald Sunreaders contain the Vodafone USB modemand SIM card to get you started online, plus2GB of data.

All you need to do is plug in the USBstick modem and away you go on theinternet.

To enter this competition,ph: 1902 555 523 or SMS 1993 3300 with the

word VODAFONE and your name, addressand daytime telephone number.

Competition calls cost 55c inc GST. More from publicor mobile phones. Entries close midnight Friday.Open to Victorian residents only.

winnerTHE lucky winner of the Red Faction: Guerillaprize pack is Eliot Hird, of Narre Warren.

Twitter is a bitter tweetsymphony of mixedmessages for Adam Joseph

TwitterquetteStone on a roll:Twitter co-founderBiz Stone gets ahug frompresenter MarthaStewart as heaccepts the WebbyBreakout of theYear award at theWebby Awards inNew York thismonth.

I HAVE been playing around with Twitter— the ‘‘free social messaging utility forstaying connected in real-time’’ — for

several months now.My micro-adventures on the micro-

blogging site have got me thinking aboutunspoken etiquette on the network.

What makes for a good or bad citizen inthis microcosm of social media?

I’ve been following a range of differentpeople on Twitter, from journalists andbusiness leaders to celebrities and brands.

And, personally speaking, there are a fewthings that are sure to stop me fromfollowing you on Twitter:1. Too much of the mundaneSure, Twitter literally asks ‘‘What are youdoing?’’ but I have little interest in the factyou have a piece of sweetcorn stuck in yourteeth right now.2. Random stream of consciousnessIf you tweet more than five times in fiveminutes, you’ve probably inadvertentlywired Twitter to your cerebrum. Youshould see a brain doctor.3. Too much radio interferenceIf you seem to be having 20 different publicconversations at once and I’m havingtrouble following just one of them, I willtune out indefinitely.

But what about the poor fools who haveelected to follow me? Well, I try my best touphold good standards of social etiquette inmy Twittering.

For the most part I tweet on marketing-related themes and matters, which means Ican tenuously claim Twitter is work-related.

I try to post every weekday, usually acouple of tweets a day but never more thanfour a day. I don’t tweet at weekends(nothing religious) and I’ll never let anyoneknow if I have sweetcorn stuck in my teeth.

My posts reveal me to be a mix of the ‘‘14Types of Twitter Personalities’’ that MediaCaffeine identifies: part Purist, part Journoand part Link Mogul.

I enjoy sharing random work-relatedthoughts and interesting marketing-relatedreports, articles and blog posts.

So that’s what I put into Twitter. What doI get back from it?

Through Twitter I’ve found manyinteresting articles I would not have

otherwise discovered, from people I wouldnot have otherwise known.

I can follow the profound thoughts andmirthful musings of many people I wouldregard as opinion leaders, such as journalistsand influential thinkers.

Twitter also serves as a surrogate mediadiary for non-diarists, where you can lookback over past tweets and rediscover thingsyou’d otherwise forget.

However, there is a high degree ofrandomness in the Twitterverse.

Once you have unprotected your updates,

as I recently did, random followers are notvery far behind.

For example, I can’t quite imagine whythe proprietor of a luxury pet accessorybusiness wants to follow my musings onmarketing (and I’d have to suspect ‘‘spam’’)but hey, I’m comfortable with that.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter,please be my guest.

I will try my best to be entertaining and toremain a good social media citizen.Adam Joseph is insights manager atthe Herald Sun, and Twitters athttp://twitter.com/adamjoseph1

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