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A Twitter-related Sydney Morning Herald debut

19 September 2011 in Internet, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | No comments

Today I returned to the print media with an opinion piece, Trends on Twitter brief but telling, just like in the real world, in the Sydney Morning Herald.

It’s an overview of Twitter’s “Trending Topics”, including the observation that marketers who try to game the trends are probably wasting their time. Research by Hewlett-Packard’s social computing lab [PDF] shows that there’s probably no point in focusing on the “influencers”.

Topics will trend or not based on whether people found it interesting to retweet at that moment. Just like Yahoo! Research’s Duncan Watts said a few years back.

Somehow I managed to refer to the fisting incident without using the word “fisting” itself.

I wouldn’t have thought about writing this piece myself, being too immersed in Twitter to realise that it needed explanations. Blame Joel Gibson, the SMH Opinion Editor. He commissioned it and did a decent job of improving my Sunday-written words.

I think it’s quite sweet that Fairfax decided to explain my name.

Dell’s useless customer “service”

02 October 2008 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | 5 comments

[Update: This problem has since been resolved. Please also read How Dell fixed my monitor order for the full story.]

Dell logo

Dell, I’m not happy with you. I’m not happy with you at all. Your incompetent customer service has screwed up the timelines for an important project for a new client, yet your blind, stupid corporate machine blunders on like a brain-damaged slug.

If you read my Twitter stream yesterday you can probably skip this post. However I will document this little disaster because I’m still waiting for Dell to provide the promised explanation and I’ll point their people in this direction. I have specific questions at the end.

In brief, though, it was a customer “service” disaster. I’ll continue to recommend Hewlett Packard’s well-engineered computers and excellent service to my clients.

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