Bryan Taylor · Storify

Don't be a new business troll

Bryan Taylor — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:32:29 GMT

I was shocked to watch a 'marketing consultant' abuse M&S this morning in an apparent attempt to win business today so I thought I'd recap it here.

Storified by Bryan Taylor · Thu, May 03 2012 09:32:29

Marks & Spencer - not a contentious brand in the least has embarked on a campaign to drive recycling of clothes which is nicely incentivised in my opinion. It's a forward thinking campaign from a progressive British brand.

Shwop : Marks & Spencer

We're starting a fashion revolution. It's called shwopping. We think that old clothes shouldn't just be thrown out, they should have a fu...

The campaign includes ads on TV, web of course and some promoted tweets. If you haven't encountered a promoted tweet yet, you will soon. Invasive, maybe slightly, but as digital life evolves most of us are OK with a few unsolicited tweets or Facebook updates.

And that theory generally holds unless you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed, had a few too many cups of coffee -- or you're a marketing troll. I'd love to know if people agree or if I'm missing something here? Anyway here are the tweets for you to judge for yourselves.

Just got this promoted tweet by @marksandspencer in my timeline. Seriously? That's your approach? #epic #fail http://pic.twitter.com/P2Azzok8 · Jonathan MacDonald

@marksandspencer You urgently need guidance on modern marketing and the paradigm shifts in socialised industry. Contact me asap.
— Jonathan MacDonald · Thu, May 03 2012 00:38:29

@marksandspencer Your twitter promotion strategy won't work, the money your spending will be wasted, people will start to dislike you.
— Jonathan MacDonald · Thu, May 03 2012 00:39:32

@marksandspencer And although I know you won't allow me to help, I wanted all this on the record for the future.
— Jonathan MacDonald · Thu, May 03 2012 00:40:28

Wow. What's going on? I just don't get it.

#SunBreakingNews - More Murdoch Bashing

Bryan Taylor — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:48:53 GMT

Twittersphere continues to beat up on The Sun and Rupert Murdoch, but the News International machine continues to chug along and satisfy punters

Storified by Bryan Taylor · Tue, May 01 2012 04:48:53

A light-hearted story has kicked off a bit of a Tweetstorm as people continue to try and damage the publishers reputation

New Statesman - The Sun brings a new meaning to old news

Current affairs, world politics, the arts and more from Britain's award-winning magazine

If you'd rather take a more considered (albeit still negative view) of Murdoch and his ability to run a global company, the FT weighs in here

Murdoch 'unfit' to run global company - http://on.ft.com/JPpslr
— Financial Times · Tue, May 01 2012 04:00:55

But what the vocal Twitter community doesn't realise is that more people actually bought The Sun according to the latest ABC audited circulation figures

Murdoch taking a Twitter beating but ABC circulation figures show a MoM increase for The Sun #SunBreakingNews http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/sunday-sun-circulation-drops-24/4001165.article
— Bryan Taylor · Tue, May 01 2012 04:24:10

Sure the same figures show a dip in the Sunday Sun (or Sun on Sunday) whatever we're calling it

Most Sunday rags dipped last month - Sun on Sunday (24%) Mail on Sunday (3%) Sunday Mirror (30%) but SoS circ still dwarfs its competition
— Bryan Taylor · Tue, May 01 2012 04:30:20

Why is this happening? My guess is that 67% of the Sun readers are ABC1C2 Adults and like Murdoch they don't care or take notice of the comparatively small number of people tweeting their views.

Sexy cloud storage?

Bryan Taylor — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:05:30 GMT

A round-up of cloud storage providers, reviews in the media and some lightweight predictions.

Storified by Bryan Taylor · Mon, Apr 30 2012 07:05:30

If you work in PR, media, marketing or creative industries in general - you will have repeatedly gone to battle with big files... and likely struggled with memory sticks, ftp services and the odd IT manager. Good news, things are changing for the better. Here's a round-up of cloud industry news (and a few views) of an emerging tech sector that should offer immediate benefits to consumers and business users.

DJ please: its sexy and you know it... (couldn't resist sorry).

Solid industry round-up of cloud storage services from el reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/27/box_cloud_differentiates_itself_from_dropbox_etc/
— Bryan Taylor · Mon, Apr 30 2012 05:32:10

The Register, a fav tech publication of mine has reviewed the major cloud storage services including: Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive. Google moving into this space has created appropriate attention - it's an obvious move for the technology giant... and a move that is sure to squash the growing smaller, less well know competition.

Growing competition and ensuing clutter has not deterred other players from fighting for a slice of the market. In the next few days more announcements are expected.

More cloud storage bandwagon - hello: LG and Samsung http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/30/lg-cloud/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
— Bryan Taylor · Mon, Apr 30 2012 05:40:23

So is cloud storage sexy? You bet it is for a few reasons: revenue, ownership of digital assets (or where people go to use them) and the ability to offer services around the digital assets. Simply, its the future.

A bit more investigation. I did a search for 'cloud storage' and there were about 20 more companies jockeying for position. You might have heard of some of them: IBM, NetApp, Rackspace...

What I find really interesting is that nobody seems to be talking about Amazon?

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)

It allows you to offload your entire storage infrastructure onto the cloud, where you can take advantage of Amazon S3's scalability...

There is quite a lot of debate and predictions about how the industry will develop. One thing that's for sure is a sector shakeout and I'm doubtful about the possibility of acquisitions. With such a commoditized service and low-to-no switching costs, companies would be wise to hold onto M&A budgets and instead focus them on customer acquisition and retention.

Unless of course a big social network decides to go on another pre-adolescent shopping trip without its parents, not naming any names of course.

Wanted: a job. Advice for graduates.

Bryan Taylor — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:25:19 GMT

How I'd future-proof myself if I was entering the workforce tomorrow... Young people have it very tough these days...

Storified by Bryan Taylor · Thu, Apr 26 2012 09:25:19

Tuition prices are rising

TUITION FEES PROTEST: London streets in flames again as 25k go on rampage

By Daily Mail Reporter UPDATED: 08:12 EST, 15 December 2010 Demonstrators smash into police van and steal uniforms Two officers injured a...

And job prospects are grim

Grim Jobs Outlook Continues For Young Graduates | NewsFeed | TIME.com

Think it's hard out there for new college graduates? Well, it's even tougher than you think. According to a new analysis of U.S. data by ...

Faced with having to actually apply some brainpower and work for a living I got thinking... what would I do if I was a clever, but admittedly lazy twenty-something entering 'the real world?' If you're hoping for a 'silver bullet' answer stop reading now, but I will try and point out a trend.

First of all, let's agree one point. To be successful, you need to figure out how the internet works -- technically and socially.

Then consider the wide-ranging impact that digital actions are having in the physical world (this is the place where people shake hands, talk, experience things, get rained on etc...) So...

Exhibit A

3 Students Expelled Over Facebook Posts About Killing Classmates - CBS Chicago

Three students were expelled from a school in northwest Indiana, for comments they made on Facebook, about which classmates they would li...

Exhibit B

Twitter erupts with racism after Capitals beat Bruins | CTV News

Boston Bruins fans are reeling after a stunning overtime loss in Game 7 Wednesday night, but others are reeling from the racist backlash ...

Exhibit C

Ched Evans rape victim 'named and abused on Twitter' as girlfriend stands by Wales footballer

Jailed star is included in PFA League One Team of the Year Identity of victim, 19, 'discussed online by Twitter users' Club launches inve...

Three different examples to showcase my thinking, but what holds them all together? The obvious answer: unintelligent gits, but let's leave them be for a moment.

Each story combines communication, social media and law.

Exhibit A: The Facebook death threat example is quite straightforward. If you utter death threats in social media or in a pub you should expect action.

Exhibit B: Hockey fans in Boston abuse a black player and tweet derogatory comments in general after he scores a sudden-death winner to eliminate the Bruins from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

This example is a little more complex as Twitter profiles can be somewhat anonymous and people deleted tweets and even accounts after realising their mistakes.

My questions: what would happen to a fan that shouts racist comments in the arena? How much personal information should Twitter be obliged to give to law enforcement agencies to try and hunt down people hiding behind anonymous handles? Should the ISP be responsible to give Police addresses and phone numbers that are being racially abusive?

Exhibit C: Ched Evans has been convicted of rape and has been jailed. Following his arrest the name of the girl he raped was 'released' and is now being abused by incensed fans and other players. Without going into too much detail this is against the law as victims have privacy rights. Since Ched being locked up a teammate has been suspended by his club after he branded the victim a 'money grabbing little tramp'.

My questions: Once the girl's name is released should people on Twitter (re-tweeting for instance) get in legal trouble? How should Twitter respond? Should it block tweets with her name? Or should it reveal account details to law enforcement agencies when people tweet? And what if they're in different countries?

I'm not saying become a lawyer or a 'communicator' (marketing person) but I am thinking that it would be worthwhile to spend a little time and effort (set up an rss feed) to understand how digital life and law is progressing.

At the very least you could get a job explaining things to older people.

Or if all else fails, join the thousands of self-proclaimed life coaches, motivational speakers (ahh, ahem... cough, unemployed people) on Twitter.

Livin' In A Van Down By The River - Matt Foley Motivational Speaker - His Full Scene · mjmcnult

Tom Watson Twit-rape intern

Bryan Taylor — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:49:56 GMT

26, January 2012 - an intern for Tom Watson, Labour MP, West Bromwich East thought it would be funny to tweet from her bosses Twitter handle...

Storified by Bryan Taylor · Thu, Jan 26 2012 05:49:56

I should log out of my twitter so that my intern doesn't twit-rape me...
— tom_watson · Thu, Jan 26 2012 05:19:21

Quickly picked up by Watson's 65k + followers... the RT's started flooding in.

RT @tom_watson: I should log out of my twitter so that my intern doesn't twit-rape me...
— Sun Politics · Thu, Jan 26 2012 04:51:21

The intern clearly realised the mistake...

My boss is in a meeting, i've made a terrible mistake, im very sorry everyone, it wasn't meant to be offensive! logging him off now! sorry!
— tom_watson · Thu, Jan 26 2012 05:19:21

... some of the more compassionate Twitter community started a hashtag to save the intern

RT @sizemore: @tom_watson #savetheintern < Indeed, lesson learned now - better than having to train another one!
— Michelle Rodger · Thu, Jan 26 2012 04:54:50

Watson reclaimed his Twitter handle and apologised

I sincerely apologise for the recent tweet. A lesson learned for a young intern. She's also very sorry. I will deal with the matter offline.
— tom_watson · Thu, Jan 26 2012 05:19:21

But the Twittersphere was in full swing with #SaveTheIntern trending globally...

wow, #savetheintern is the second highest global trend right now. i think it's: transparency, swiftness, and a dumb mistake ppl can id with
— ben goldacre · Thu, Jan 26 2012 04:49:42

15 minutes after my Storify post The Telegraph ran the story

Tom Watson's Twitter account 'hijacked' by intern - Telegraph

The politician apologised after the "young" intern, who has not been identified, accessed his account on the micro-blogging site on Thurs...