Then, on approximately Friday, 10th June, this happened:
And it wasn’t because I had decided to capitalise on my site’s massive traffic by turning it into a highly profitable music-based search portal (because it doesn’t get any).
What had actually happened is that I lost my domain name. This is because my domain provider, Web Mania, went out of business without telling me. But they did notify me that my domain was due for renewal – back in April. They sent a reminder email saying,
To prevent any disruption in service, it is important that you renew your account before it expires.
Yes Web Mania, it is important – which is why I did it immediately. I paid my renewal fee, and received email confirmation that said,
Thank you for renewing your account. Payment has been received.
So I naively assumed everything was fine. I mean, Web Mania took my money and sent me email confirmation that they had renewed my domain.
Unfortunately, one vital step was somehow missed from this process: the bit where they actually renewed my domain. That bit didn’t happen. I was no longer master of my domain, and I only found out that Web Mania had gone into liquidation by googling it when they didn’t reply to my emails or phone calls. There was absolutely no indication on their site, I received no notification by email, and there wasn’t even an apologetic message on their helpline.
And it looks like I’m not the only one. I can’t say I ever thought to contact my local paper about my website going missing, but this man did having been in exactly my situation.
Q. What do you call a man with a metal pyramid on his head?
A. Dominic, apparently.
That answer probably isn’t the clever pun you were expecting. But it is the truth. Now you’re wondering which man is wearing a pyramid on his head. Let me show you. It’s this man:
I spotted him yesterday in the Leicester Square Pret A Manger, sketching in a notebook.
And how do I know he’s called Dominic? I’ll get to that…
As you may or may not know, I work at the BBC as part of a team producing the Comedy website. I’m writing this as a personal response to the many people on Twitter asking what the #bbcpop hashtag was all about.
Last night, we hosted an event in London as part of Internet Week Europe. It took the form of a Popcorn Comedy night – a mix of live comedy and funny videos sourced from the internet, with the opportunity for anyone interested in developing comedy for the web at the BBC to chat with us and find out how to get involved.
And, seeing as this is Internet Week, we used Twitterfall to display the #bbcpopbackchannel so that the audience could have fun interacting between acts – and comment on the stuff they were seeing.
Did you just say #bbcpop?
Yep. So that’s the origin of #bbcpop. It was a backchannel for people at the event to play with amongst themselves, completely uncensored. We knew people would have fun swearing on it – it was an adult comedy event attended by creative, playful and above all, mischevious people.
One of those people was Nat Saunders, co-creator of Misery Bear. Noticing the temptingly big screen, he gleefully tweeted:
Nat is a very funny guy and has quite a following on Twitter. Within literally seconds, the screen was flooded with swearing and re-tweets:
This was funny for a few minutes, but by then the screen was so deluged, it was impossible to join in with the conversation. Tweets from people actually at the event were instantly lost in the landslide of abuse: the hashtag was picked up by hundreds of people in the Twittersphere who used it as an opportunity to get whatever beef they had with the BBC off their minds, or just join in with a Malcolm Tuckeresque swearfest. These people had no clue what the tag related to, and seemed often to believe their tweets were being displayed to a meeting of BBC executives. I know Nat meant absolutely no malice and was just having a bit of fun.
Wiping the slate and then shitting on it again
So at that point, I suggested wiping the slate clean: let’s start with a new hashtag (#bbcpopcorn) so that people’s tweets from inside the event would have a chance to be seen.
Unfortunately, as is perhaps inevitable, this was seen by some at the event as ‘censorship’:
Despite the intention being the opposite. Once this had happened, there didn’t seem much point in trying to defend against a tsunami of mischief. The original #bbcpop, meanwhile, had apparently become so ‘successful’, it was a trending topic.
I’m not sure what I’ve learned from this as a social media host. In the aftermath, I’ve seen people tweet that it’s “taught the BBC a lesson about the power of Twitter”. If the lesson is supposed to be that Twitter is a public space and people can use it however they wish: I already knew that.
And of course I’m not at all surprised that Nat’s original, naughty call to action generated such an enthusiastic response. I know this because I’ve been there myself: remember when Skittles replaced their whole website with a twitterfall? I was one of the people who took advantage of it.
It’s happened repeatedly when corporations have displayed an uncensored feed of public tweets on their websites. We scoff at their naivety. Don’t they know that anyone can say whatever they like?! Tee hee!
So was this another Twitterfail?
Not quite. There’s a crucial difference: this wasn’t the BBC’s ill-advised footsteps into unmoderated social media. This was a backchannel for an event, just like any other. And usually you don’t expect them to be full of unrelated abuse from people who aren’t there (though it’s obviously a risk).
As a user it’s easy to instantly write a single mischievous tweet and include a hashtag. Poof! It’s gone. On the receiving end, the cumulative effect of these individual tweets is a slightly depressing torrent of apparent abuse – especially when it’s nothing to do with the hashtag it’s attached to, being written by people who have no idea of the context.
I was surprised by some of the (quite high-profile) people involved. Shouldn’t they haven known better? What if it HAD been seen by a room full of executives, and not comedy fans?
So I suppose my lesson was this: as a user, if you’re joining in with mischief, think before you tweet – whether that’s at Stephen Fry or a faceless corporate entity, know your facts first.
There’s a dark side to Twitter that has emerged in recent times: snap reactions to ‘news’, unthinkingly aggressive herd behaviour that can amount to bullying. It’d be an overreaction to say that happened here, but it’s an echo of that behaviour – the instant and unrelenting tide produced by thousands of seemingly ephemeral snide comments.
So, come on tweeps. If you’re going to participate in a public medium, why not behave like the friendly, thoughtful people you really are?
And, if you are a faceless corporate entity planning to use a public tool as a private backchannel: if you’re not planning to moderate it as you go along (which would be censorship), maybe you need a different solution. Unless you’re hosting Swearfest 2011, of course.
I leave you with my favourite bear:
This post was entirely my personal opinion and not that of my employer.
I don’t know what you did at Christmas this year and you could argue – quite rightly – that it’s none of my business. But here’s what I did: I cut together a load of video footage I’d shot of great bands throughout 2007.
What I did next was completely fail to publish it on this website. Never mind though – I’ve done it now. So pull up a chair, sit on it, and endure 15 minutes of pure actual video.
Bands featured include: Operation Wolf, Lardpony, Yeborobo, BARR, Shimmy Rivers And And Canal, Les Savy Fav, Hundreds, Tens & Units, The Chap, Hands on Heads, Tea With The Queen, cLOUDDEAD, Mika Miko, Dananananaykroyd, DJ Scotch egg, Liars, Everybody Is Going To Die, Heseltine and Gay Against You. I hope you find something to your liking.
Hey! Have you heard? Single Frame have gone digital!
If that means nothing to you, then you’ve pointed your browser at the right website. Let me explain: Single Frame are a very good band from Austin, Texas who at the time of writing have been active for around eight years. Their diverse creative palette merges energetic, synth-riddled indie rock with less lazily definable sonic experimentations. Saying they’re a bit like Xiu Xiu channeling post-hardcore probably won’t be much help, but if those words don’t render you completely bewildered, they might at least point you in the right direction.
Sadly it’s fair to say Single Frame haven’t reached the level of recognition here in the UK that they deserve. This could have a lot to do with the general unavailability of their records in our highstreet entertainment chains, but now, thanks to this new thing scientists are calling ‘the internet’, distribution shouldn’t be such a problem.
In what’s becoming an increasingly familiar story, Single Frame have parted ways with their label to return to their (not inconsiderable) DIY roots, self-releasing the new and imaginatively titled SFep as an iTunes Plus download – along with, at 50 units, a very small run of limited edition CDs.
iTunes Plus is of course Apple’s vaguely insulting new iTunes Store ‘innovation’, the ‘plus’ being that the MP3s are encoded at a higher quality than the regular store and provided DRM-free – surely as it should have been in the first place. But this does mean reasonable pricing and international availability, and now wherever we are, we can all enjoy a little bit of the Single Frame musical action-pie.
So I bought that EP from iTunes, and I loved it. Then I thought “I really don’t know anything much about this band”, and then I thought “maybe I’ll ask them some questions” and then I did and they responded and now I invite you to listen to the EP and read what I asked and see what they said.
In what’s becoming an increasingly familiar story, Single Frame have parted ways with their label to return to their (not inconsiderable) DIY roots, self-releasing the new and imaginatively titled SFep as an iTunes Plus download – along with, at 50 units, a very small run of limited edition CDs.
