Warlach’s World

Wow.

Well, it’s now the Monday after I cast my plea for help to the social media winds. You can read all about it in the previous post, and I’m going to writing here with the assumption that you know what I asked for, and how people responded. What I want to cover here is a look back at what I consider the key points.

Firstly, thank you Telstra. A lot of people I’ve spoken to since the blog post went up and the storm of crazy happened haven’t realized that they responded in almost under an hour. The hardware was mailed that afternoon, arrived the next day and worked perfectly. They even included a reply paid envelope for ease of return. There were a number of people at Telstra who helped, not simply limited to Kristen Boschma and the @Telstra team, but to all of you: thank you.

However, there were some further developments: firstly the funeral was pushed forward from Saturday and is actually going ahead today; secondly, during this whole process we were obviously also talking to the hospital and in the end they came through, putting together a team, ambulance, donating oxygen and equipment needed for Doug to actually attend the funeral.

While this does negate the need for the tech, obviously I’m just happy for the best case scenario to be achieved. Regardless of if the NextG cards from Telstra are used, they still demonstrate a fantastic gesture. The goal was to get Doug as involved in the funeral as possible, so I think this is definitely a win.

Some other important notes:

• Telstra wasn’t of course the first person to say that they could help, nor were they even the first to get me on the phone. That award goes to Maralyn Kastel from The Detail Devils. Maralyn immediately contacted some of her clients in Orange and started trying to help co-ordinate if any of them could help out with equipement and support. Thank you Maralyn, you’re good people
• While some of you may have seen this story get a write up on Mumbrella and on Trib’s blog, it also permeated the mainstream press. This resulted in two interesting outcomes. One, a paper that wanted photos and approached the situation with the sensitivity of  a brick to the head. The other is a bit stranger: reportedly the ABC contacted the hospital directly to offer to help with the hook up, having “seen something on Twitter.” This is coming to me second hand, and to be honest the hospital staff were, naturally, just thoroughly confused. Certainly nobody from the ABC contacted me, but
• This brings me to my next point, how to handle this: I think Telstra, and specifically their social media crew, have demonstrated an extremely high level of competence for how to handle delicate situations like this. The paper mentioned above? Terrible. They swanned in, clearly ignored the reality of the story, and topped it all off by wanting to invade the privacy of the family during a horrible time for nothing but personal gain. Had the story been, like the Mumbrella article, about the response, fine, happy to talk – but as I actually mentioned in the first post, I’m not offering sponsorship or media rights to a funeral. The ABC I can’t really comment on other than to say: next time, contact the person, in this case me, who you heard from first, don’t complicate the issue.
• Some people have also raised the question of whether this would be as successful if I didn’t have a large number of people following me on Twitter. It’s the same question that was raised after @OtherAndrew’s story earlier this year regarding gaining a flight to New Zealand after missing his plane due to surgery. While I am stoked about the response, and don’t think it reflects on Telstra’s or anyone else participation, the possibility of a two tier system based on how loud your voice is, bothers me. That is a whole blog post in itself though, and I’ll be putting up my thoughts on this in the next week.

Once again, thank you to everyone who helped by blogging, tweeting, commenting and sharing the word. You guys were great, and it’s certainly been a wild ride. Feel free to leave a comment or your thoughts on how this all happened below. Did I do the right thing? Did Telstra? What are the ramifications of stories like this?

Hello all. Many of the readers of this blog would know I can be fairly irreverent when it comes to most things, but for once I’m being completely sincere.

The other night my partner’s grandmother passed away in country New South Wales, Australia. She had been sick for some time but was still a powerful force in the family, the very definition of a matriarch. While the news was expected, she had been fighting cancer for years, the loss of such a strong figure has rocked the family.

Her husband, Doug, has also been on oxygen for emphysema for years, and was actually admitted to hospital during her final stay, where he still remains. It is unlikely he will leave again other than to go to a palliative care facility. Patricia and Doug have been together since they were teenagers, with both now in their 80’s, and it was some comfort that they were at least together when Pat passed the other night, but this brings me to the point of this post.

The funeral will most likely be held this weekend, Saturday, February 20th, and with Doug confined to hospital he will be unable to attend. It saddens me greatly that this would be the end of their story together, but it dawned on me that through technology and harnessing my social networks it doesn’t have to be.
Essentially my goal is to have Doug at least be able to watch a live feed of the funeral, and preferably to even be able to speak should he wish to.

It isn’t that this is that much of task, technically. The funeral will be held in the town of Orange while the hospital is located in the nearby town of Blayney. By my count, and from suggestions already made to be via Twitter, what I need is two laptops with webcams, one at each end, two Telstra NextG USB modems to provide the connection, and a service to stream the content, with most people on Twitter suggesting uStream or Skype.

The real thing I need is this equipment though. I don’t need it permanently, just for the weekend, but I am essentially throwing myself on the kindness of strangers to:

a)    trouble shoot the technical side
b)    loan me the hardware, data packages etc need to pull it off.

Please leave any comments below this post and share this with anyone you know who would be willing to help. If any companies are keen to assist I will of course be happy to give you a shout out across my network for being awesome (but please remember I’m not selling branding rights to a funeral.)

Only thing to say is, go team!

EDIT: OK, some of you may have seen the original tweet from the @Telstra account but I just got off the phone with Scott from that team who said they’re in the process of sending me two NextG Cards for free to support the streaming side of the equation. There are details in the posts below but this is an amazing result and I want to thank Kristen Boschma, Telstra’s Head of Online Communications and Social Media, and the whole @Telstra team.

We’ve also managed to secure two MacBook laptops for either end. The one in the hospital will have a Input Mic and headphones, both of which I have, and we’re just in the process of looking into a better camera input for the funeral end, given the fact it wont be a close up but a wider shot. I’ll also run some tests tonight on Skype Vs uStream and see which works best for our purposes.

Finally, thank you to everyone who made calls, sent emails, retweeted this post, commented and generally lead to this result. It’s crazy to think this started just a few hours before, and while it’s incredibly soppy, you lovely Internet people never fail to amaze me.

Will update this post if any more information comes through. I’ve noticed a number of people talking about blogging about this and if you want to make sure you’ve got the whole story I can be contacted at Warlach [at] Gmail [dot] com, or hit me up on Twitter at @Warlach.

Hey y’all!

As stated in the last post, which can be read here, I ran a comp to give away a whole bunch of awesome Family Guy/Star Wars stuff in conjunction with the launch of Something, Something, Something Dark Side. Well, you people went nuts entering but we’ve finally picked the winners.

For the record, simply to make it easier, we removed anyone who didn’t use both hashtags and the link - even with that we still had hundreds of tweets to troll through, so this was actually just a way to make it easier for myself and the Board of Shadowy (but also lazy) Figures who I recruited to help judge.

So, the winners are:

The Blu Ray Pack

The winner is @Glebe2037! There were lots of fantastic entries, and this was really hard to pick, but we all agreed that the fact @Glebe2037 hit not one but multiple Home Run funnies meant he deserved to take top place. Here are some of our favourites:

Lawrence of a Labia (starring Quagmire) #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #BR http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (seen here)

Apocalypse Cow starring Meg Griffin #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #BR http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (seen here)

The Quag the Crip His Neighbour & Danny Glover #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #BR http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (seen here)

There were many honourable mentions though, and I will be happy to buy a beer for any of the following people. Congratulations guys, you rock!

STEW-E, in which he cleans up Earth, then follows a girl baby off in to outer space. #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #BR http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (by @StewartHeys, seen here)

12.874752kilometer (a metric adaption of 8mile starring stewie as “rabbit”) #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #BR http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (by @Bigclick_Dean, seen here)

The Passion of the Chris #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #BR http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (by @Leslie_Nassar, seen here)

The DVD Pack

For the second pack there was a similar problem with the entries for the DVD pack - there were too many good entries, which made choosing a winner very difficult. DAMN YOU ALL! In the end though, the winner was someone who submitted a number of winning entries: @MetalheadMick.

“An Offer Peter Didn’t Really Care For” (The Godfather) http://bit.ly/6El5QJ #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #DVD (seen here)

“Almost too old for this shit” (Lethal Weapon) #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #DVD http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (seen here)

Peter Griffin’s: The Life of Brian #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #DVD http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (seen here)

Honourable mentions in the DVD section, all of whom can also claim I owe them a drink, included these:

Quahog Dogs staring Stewie as Mr Blonde and Peter as “Nice Guy” Eddie #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #DVD http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (by @JoelyMac, seen here)

25 (Remake of 24 starring the mathematically challenged Chris) #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #DVD http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (by @NickCorridon, seen here)

Stewie Griffin’s Day Off - Stewie calls in sick to pre-school, and explores Quahog with Brian #FamilyGuyRemakeComp #DVD http://bit.ly/6El5QJ (by @Lukeii, seen here)

So congratulations @Glebe2037 and @MetalheadMick - your respective prize packs, a picture of which can be seen below, will be on there way to you soon! And thanks everyone who entered

So, some of you may have read my review of Something, Something, Something, Dark Side, the second installment in the Family Guy remakes Star Wars saga. You can read what I thought of the film here (spoiler: I thought it was pretty wicked kick flippin’) but I also mentioned in that post I’d have prizes to give away.

That day has come.

Thanks to the good people at FOX (and the bad people I guess, I mean, they seemed nice enough, but I wouldn’t go on oath that they don’t secretly kick kittens) I have two, count them TWO, big packs of merchandise to share with you Internet people. The prize packs look like this:

That’s a pic of the Blu Ray pack, but all up I have the following to give away:

1 x Blu-Ray Box Set  RRP $75.00

1 x Limited Edition Box Set  RRP $70.00

The DVD version looks exactly the same. How do you win one of these? Well, it’s simple:

With Family Guy already working on a remake of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, to be titled We Have A Bad Feeling About This, you simply have to post on Twitter what series/movie/novel/interpretive dance you would like to see get the Family Guy treatment next. This could take the form of simply suggesting a title, to adding a spin to it yourself: for example, Beverly Hills Cop becomes “Quahog Hills Cop starring Cleveland.”

Steps To Enter:

1. Follow me on Twitter so that I can DM you if you win.
2. Come up with your entry in the competition - you can enter as many times as you like.
3. Add the hashtag  #FamilyGuyRemakeComp so we don’t miss you entry!
4. Add a second hashtag of either #BR for Blu Ray or #DVD so I know which pack you want - one winner will be chosen from each group.
5. Finally, add this URL - http://bit.ly/6El5QJ - back to this post so people can know what the hell you’re tweeting about!

So a completed entry will look something like this:

Quahog Hills Cop starring Cleveland  #FamilyGuyRemakeComp  #BR  http://bit.ly/6El5QJ

Me, and a panel of judges, will chose the best entries by the end of the 23rd December so get cracking! It couldn’t be easier to enter so have a go, tell your friends and have fun

EDIT: The winners have now been announced!

We sit. Twenty or so people hushed in a small, low lit room. We’ve been lured here with promises of entertainment, of prizes, but for now we wait. Someone nervously shifts a few aisles down. Then, like a bolt of lightening, it occurs to me:

The Star Wars universe is one COMPLETELY devoid of OH&S.

This thought is probably inspired by the DVD menu screen projected in front of me showing the cast of Family Guy dressed as the cast of Star Wars and standing on a cartoon rendition of a Bespin landing platform, complete with no handrails. This is why we’re here - the special preview screening of Something, Something, Something, Dark Side, the second installment in the Family Guy remakes Star Wars saga.

I’m serious about the OH&S thing - occupational health and safety is no laughing matter, and under the Republic, the Empire or the New Republic, this is a universe that seemingly yearns for large, governmental bodies. Surely there is someone, somewhere, saying “maybe we should put a railing there, don’t people keep falling off things all the time in this Universe?”

This actually leads me nicely to talking about the film itself. To get an idea of the humour and love of the source material, one need look no further than R2D2, played by Cleveland, rolling through the base on Hoth: “I like how you’ve just nailed these electrical cables to the ice. I’m sure that’s safe.”

If you saw the first Family Guy effort in this series, Blue Harvest, then you really should know what to expect, although over all I think this is actually the superior film, as is, of course, Empire itself (sound off in the comments if you prefer New Hope or Jedi, with reasons. If you like the prequels best don’t comment just return to your cell and wait for the next round of meds…)

Don’t take it from me though, why not watch the trailer?

I will say this: the film is actually funnier than the trailer makes out. I’m serious. I know, I was asked along to the premier which might colour my judgment - I was also at the Sydney premier of Watchmen, and I wasn’t that kind then. When I say Something, Something, Something, Dark Side is a lot of fun it’s because I mean it.

Sure, it’s Family Guy, so you get those long, repetitive jokes occasionally. Yes, some of the jokes weren’t as funny as they obviously thought they were. No, it’s not a masterpiece. What it is though is a really fun take on a beloved film series, and something which breathes new life into Star Wars in many ways. I’ve seen those films so many times that I know them almost by heart - what this, and the Robot Chicken Star Wars specials, do is let me remember how much I love Star Wars while seeing it in a new light.

I did like the FOX representative at the beginning who talked about how FOX is lucky enough to have Family Guy, which reminds me of a father who has twice tried to kill his kids saying he’s so lucky to have them when they grow up to be doctors or lawyers. Family Guy of course picks up on this as well, dedicating a large part of their opening Star Wars crawl to teasing the parent company.

It’s irreverent, hilarious and, at times, just plain wrong - but most importantly, it’s Star Wars. If you like Star Wars, see it. If you like Family Guy, see it. If you like Mint Choc Chip ice cream, go buy yourself some. This is pretty much the extent of my advice on life.

The film drops late this month on DVD and, in what is meant to be a big deal, Blu-Ray (my cries for a Laser Disc edition, however, went unheaded).  I’m unsure as to whether it will be shown on U.S. television, but my gut says that regardless of that it will be awhile before we see it on Aussie TV, if at all. So, if you want to see it, buy it, OR…

Tune into this blog, and my Twitter, later this month where I’ll be giving away two big prize packs including a copy of the film and lots of other goodies!!

I know you have questions: What’s in the prize packs? How do you win these prize packs? Is Warlach wearing pants as he writes this review? Unfortunately, just like the film that Something, Something, Something, Dark Side is based on, I must leave you with more questions than answers…

In Conclusion:

Something, Something, Something, Dark Side is a pretty funny film and one that, if you’re its target audience, is definitely worth the time to see. I’d say don’t bother seeing it if you haven’t seen Star Wars, but I’d also say don’t go sky diving without a parachute - some things shouldn’t need clarification. This isn’t like a new Charlie Kaufman film - there’s no need to pick apart it’s delicate, original plot lines, characterisation or score. If you’re a fan of TV Tropes be assured that this is “Exactly What It Says On The Tin” - for everyone else, just know it’s a fun ride.

I’ve often abandoned this blog except when I want a large rant, like yesterday’s retweet discussion or my look at the VAustralia promotion. If you want my day to day thoughts, there’s my Twitter account after all. That said, I want to make an effort to update this more often and am working on a redesign. (Yes, I know, it’s ugly as sin. So is your mum. Back off)

Today I just want to highlight what continues to annoy the crap out of me: the misconception of what social media is. I’m not taking a high and mighty view, just simply stating a fact. I’m increasingly sick of people thinking it begins with Facebook and Twitter and ends with Flickr and YouTube, if you’re feeling adventurous.

It’s like going to a party. Yes, I can help you set up a Twitter account and company Facebook profile just like I can help you pick out an outfit for the party. The thing is, unless you want to learn more, you risk getting dressed up and then not going anywhere. Just sitting at home, alone, in the dark, wearing a (currently) trendy outfit.

If this is all you want , fine, but you’ll miss all the cake.

And they’re like, hey do you want to see me naked? And I’m like, no. No I do not.

Twitter accounts filled with scantily clad women asking you to come look at their profiles are nothing new. A few weeks back I was actually getting really annoyed by these kind of accounts as a new breed, which steals tweets containing trending topics and reuses them so they appear legit and generate interest, was driving me nuts. An actual follower replied to me saying they were “in need of a True Blood fix,” a message I received in my Replies column a few times a day for the next month.

This has, however, seemingly dropped off, or maybe I’ve just been lucky to not be mentioned in any of the targeted tweets.

This morning however, something I said has clearly got the sexy ladybots of Twitter all excited:

How can I resist, eh?

What weirds me out the most is they’re all different messages, it’s not carbon copy accounts that are just mentioning me, each is an individual phrase, seemingly original (if, albeit, transparent spam for anyone with 10 minutes of experience online.)

This been happening to anyone else?

Yesterday, bored out of my mind, I posted this on Twitter:

This resulted in the very funny @Nightwyrm and I trying to one up one another, which got a little silly:

Yes, it was silly, but as the title said, we amuse ourselves.

EDIT: While I didn’t know when i first wrote this post, I am now aware that this campaign was the brainchild of Droga5’s Sydney arm. Now I do. Also, there’s a follow up post in the comments that’s probably worth checking out…

Life has an interesting way of bringing together disparate parts of my life. In this case it’s Sir Richard Branson (who I simply find fascinating, I’m not his illegitimate son or anything), my High School days and my active Twitter life. This actually concerns what I would classify as a terrible marketing campaign. To this end, I’ll be citing FAILS throughout this post.

It’s OK, I’ll explain.

While going through my recent new Twitter followers I realised I had been followed by an account called @4320LA.

FAIL No. 1 – Way to make an account that looks like spam, guys.

Well, it turns out that this is a promotion for V Australia (see, there’s Richard Branson) where they have sent three strapping young Aussie boys to LA for three days. The idea? They have a camera crew with them and they have to Tweet every minute they’re there.

FAIL No. 2 – Honestly, that’s just… just genius guys. Who doesn’t love people you don’t know, or yet care about, updating Twitter. Every. Single. Minute.

But oh, it’s so much better. They have at least set up a funky looking website, www.4320la.com, however it is let down by the fact that there is very little interesting going on. The photos don’t convey the story, the tweets are short and often unintelligible, and it’s all really just a sloppy mess.

FAIL No. 3 – So, you’re paying airfares and the drinks tab for guys who clearly have seemingly little experience with blogging, Twitter or broadcasting.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. As you’ll notice, there are three guys. One is called Matt. I went to school with him, was even in his year. Hell, during Summer School before Year 7 we were even friends before I found better geeks and he found better jocks.

This is nothing against Matt, I’m actually just declaring my connection. Before you ask, I actually have nothing against the guy. I didn’t vote for him for School Captain, but to be honest he’s an OK guy, and for getting someone to foot the bill for this trip I’ve got to tip my hat to him.

Only problem is, I’m looking at this from V Australia’s point of view, so let’s take a closer looks at Matt’s special account for this little project:

Compelling stuff, eh?

FAIL No. 4 – With no interaction between the account and its followers, and no clear way to actually tell what’s happening on the trip, this, and the other two accounts, are pure spam at worse, and boring crap at best.

FAIL No. 5 – Sorry, but I can’t let this go. I mean, look at the crap. Got a hashtag on every tweet, but no link to the corresponding pic? FAIL!

This is where it really starts to ‘grind my gears’ so to speak, and the above FAIL mentioning the hashtag is key to this. Firstly, the trip is already past halfway, and while a little digging turned up some promotion, the guy’s accounts only have a few hundred followers, while the @4320LA account only has 400 something, despite following over 500.

See, it’s not really about the tweets from the guys that are meant to push this idea, V Australia, or whoever came up with this concept for them, wanted to harness the power of Twitter’s Trending Topics. How do I know this? One, I have a Crystal Ball. Two, they said so themselves:

FAIL No. 6 – While I don’t support gaming stats, if you’re going to do I’m pretty sure it’s counter intuitive to mention that’s your intention. I mean, really. When they cheat on their taxes do these guys enclose a letter to the ATO about what they’ve done?

Furthermore, as you can see by the previous tweet that this was sent past the halfway mark - if nobody cares by now guys, nobody will.

So, shall we sum up? V Australia sent three guys overseas, trying to harness Twitter and create a viral campaign. The three chums no doubt have a good time (G’day Matt, throw one back for me), and according to @4320LA_Nathan, “remember as long as we get 4320 tweets, that’s 4320 minutes filled.” Should they reach their goal, the three guys win an around the world flight, so go them, eh? The rest of us are meant to be fascinated by this, which is really where it all breaks down.

So yes, congratulations V Australia, and whichever marketing/social media/Web 2.0 guru suggested/managed this campaign. It’s nothing personal, viral projects like this live or die on luck just as much as good ideas, but this was pretty flawed from the start.

Could it have been better? Yeah, sure. Perhaps if it had been a three day video stream, combined with tweeting regularly. Hell, it could have been better if the people behind it had realised most of the search functions require multiple people to use a hashtag or similar for it to be a Trending Topic – getting three guys to spam Twitter will have little to no affect. Furthermore, no one is going to follow these guys, it would just clog your timeline with useless crap.

So, all in all, FAIL.

V Australia picks up the bill, will most likely owe these three guys around the world trips, and all it got them was some very limited buzz, all, as I can tell, on the concept rather than the execution.

Some pointers for next time:

1. Learn how the services you’re using technically work.
2. Learn how people actually use those services.
3. Probably spend more time training your winners. (Spelling could also be improved, but that’s just a personal gripe of mine.)
4. Don’t admit your overall game plan publically.
5. Come up with something actually compelling if you want anyone to pay attention.
6. This last one is just a guess, but don’t listen to anyone who uses the term “web 2.0”

Should anyone at V Australia, or anyone else really, take umbridge at my views, feel free to contact me at Warlach at Gmail.com, or on Twitter at @Warlach.

Just noticed this on the front page of Twitter, although I’m probably behind the news. I love these videos, nothing beats the beauty and simplicity of explaining tech through little pieces of paper moving around. Plus, this does a great job of showing off what makes Twitter so great and why it works.

Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

For more on how these awesome fellows “use video and paper to make complex ideas easy to understand,” head on over to their website.