Being able to hold a direct dialogue with the Mayor's office about his Facebook page...and my comments being taken on board.
It's great that social media has broken down some of the barriers between those in 'authority' and those who would like a say on matters.
Small victories and all that.
Being able to set the BBC straight when they report misleading facts about where I live...and them taking note!
Not long after this discussion Wolverhampton City Council issued a statement about the figures which were being banded about by the national press. I sent that to the BBC too!
As an avid users of Google Apps it was great to hear that Google launched a Status Dashboard for the service which alert users to any service disruptions.
Disruptions are rare, but can be frustrating, especially if you don't know if it's just you having the problem, or everyone else too!
Today I set up a Twitter account (@gappsstatus) which pulls in the Dashboard's RSS feed for those who might want to keep track of the service status on Twitter. (There didn't seem to be an official feed).
Follow @gappsstatus for updates.
"Bod, James Bod!"
Last week I was browsing Twitter (whilst I should have been working) and stumbled up this tweet by Steve Campbell from Debut Design in Wolverhampton. Having given the photo a quick look, I took my chances and replied saying that I thought it was Gadget Show host Suzi Perry. To my amazement, a few minutes later I got a reply from Steve telling me that I'd won!
I was directed to this page, where I had to upload a photo of myself, along with a brief description of how I wanted my bod to look. I uploaded a photo, and included several things in the description that I considered essential; a beard, long hair, a smile, checked shirt, dark trousers, boots, not too ginger.
I think the result above speaks for itself - it's a really great likeness, crafted by someone who has never set eyes on me in 'real life', and I'm very pleased with it. So much so that I'm now using my bod as my profile pic on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and various other sites. Whatsmore, you can get your own Bod for the very reasonable price of £20 - check out the Debut website to order one.
A couple of weeks ago, as the world was gripped with Swine Flu fever (forgive the pun!), a great game emerged on Twitter. Feeling somewhat disillusioned with the mainstream media's attempt at convincing us we were "all going to die", a bunch of twitter users began various games based around a swine flu theme.
My favourite game to emerge was the 'swine flu bands' game, where you had to come up with as many musician/band names that played on words related to swine flu as possible, and tag them with the Twitter hashtag #swineflubands - these could then be viewed on Twitter Search.
I got rather carried away one afternoon and came up with a bunch, whilst laughing my socks off at some of the names that other Twitter users had come up with.
Check out the #swineflubands I came up with here, and everybody else's here.
(Pic: 'Swine Flew' album cover by One Bad Pig, originally released in 1990, well before swine '09!)
