Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Does the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ever read the responses to it's blogs? Who cares if Twitter wants to change it's frontpage? Wow, it has a search function. That's never been done before. There is no basis here for reasoned discussion and debate unless you wish to discuss whether or not Amanda Bonnen's landlord was right to sue her. This is simply a glorified press release.
Can we please change the channel.
Well now the insanely popular micro-blogging service Twitter is following suit. The changes are initially aimed at helping newcomers to the site navigate their way around and understand the brave new world of tweeting.
There are Youtube videos with more hits than Twitter. Facebook is far more popular, as well as being able to keep its members interested.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

At last, an entire article on Twitter; just what your audience has obviously been waiting for!

Oh no, wai...

*** Shakes head in utter disbelief ***

Do the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ have shares in twitter?? Im sick of hearing about it being mentioned on their broadcasts, and now increasingly the blogs posted. I feel that it is a completely miss-guided attempt at getting to young people. As the vast majority of this demographic use facebook and cant stand twitter. Therefore please stop wasting my license fee and revert to reporting/blogging on worthwhile subject matter

Regards

A infuriated young person....

Why not discuss the changes to the Yahoo site and related overhaul of its mail service, and whether it is likely to change its fortunes?

Yahoo is probably used by more people that read this blog than Twitter is. (And probably used by more people generally worldwide than use Twitter.)
Is Yahoo copying ideas from both the Flock browser and Facebook?

And 'insanely popular' - did you know that Twitter loses 60% of those that sign up to it. They try it, then bail out.

Yet another half-twitted article about Twitter and the twits that use it?

But why post it in a Blog? Why not just twitter it to any twitter-loving twits that care?

I use Twitter, I also use Facebook, and sometimes I even use Yahoo - but I never use the front page of any of those service. The point of the social sites is to check on my friends, so I have my page bookmarked. Similarly, Yahoo has offered its personalised homepages for over a decade now, and Google offers a similar service...

Why do these sites expect us to care what's on the login screen when they encourage us to stay logged in at all times?

Whats the point of posting a comment if the comments are never read!
Whats the use in hosting a blog if Twitter is all that is said!
Whats the point of being in Silcon Valley!
And sunning up like Maggie in Cali
Your leaving the rest of the Tech world down a dark alley
And boring your readers to bed!

I thank you!!!!!!!

If I'm honest, I hadn't noticed any change. ;-)

You're joking of course.

Anther blog about twitter.

Fantastic! it must be nearly 24 hours since the last one.

if anyone wanted proof that the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ doesn't pay a blind bit of attention to the responses post on their "tech" blogs then this latest entry provides it.

Yet another! Twitter blog.

Your myopic view of technology and total disregard for the opinions of dot.life readers, licence fee payers, is simply beyond belief.

Bye, its been uneducational.

Twitter this, twitter that, you ever seem to do is twitter! Surely, as a ridiculous number of people who read this blog have already stated, there is something else to report on in Silicon Valley?! There MUST be. Most people don'y know twitter exists, then many don't care and then there are the few who have made accounts and most of those never actually use them! I only use it like an RSS feed so I can get multiple news sources. Please DON'T make an acticle about it though!

Does it change twitter so that it actually has a point?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

If this should be anywhere it should be in a news article. Not a blog.

What is this obsession the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ has with Twitter?

Frankly I'm getting to the point of not bothering to come and read the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Tech blogs any more because they just seem to be puffer articles for Twitter. I don't pay my licence fee to pay journalists to simply act as glorified salemen and women for other companies.

Lets see some proper journalism in the blogs, rather than just regurgitated press releases.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The only thing more tedious than another Twitter story is the non-stop moaning that takes place afterwards....

If you aren't interested, don't respond. That's the best way to get them to realise that people don't care about Twitter stories.

Look, if you don't like Twitter, you can always ignore articles about it. The same way that if you're not into sport, no one#s forcing you to read the sports section.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This is dot.life - a blog about Twitter from Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

A big fat who cares!

Loads of companies re-design their websites all the time. Be Broadband redesigned theirs last week, much to the dismay of their customers yet I didn't see that reported here.

Only a very small fraction of your audience care about twitter, the rest of us are sick of every 3rd word in every news story being twitter.

I like twitter and some of the coverage on this blog - but I do agree that there is too much focus on it.

I also think that the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ should respond to the "not another twitter blog" comments.

More about Twitter from the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ! Why don't you go Tweet yourselves and give us all a rest!

Last Thursday I posted something very similar to what a lot of people have written as to this being simply marketing. Unsurprisingly the moderators chose not to make it visible.

The thing is there is so many other things to talk about - what about the TED talks last week? What about Yahoo and Microsoft in talks again? What about the broadband report that was on the site yesterday. Wouldn't it be nice to engage your audience and find their views on this? But no go on flog the dead horse.

No one cares about Twitter other than those who use it. By use we're talking about the content producers not the people who follow. The subset of the latter from the former is so small but you wouldn't know that because you spend all your time in this microcosm thinking it's the biggest fish forgetting the size of your pond.

At least show us you have an interest in technology and not twitter.

Does anyone use twitter outside of celebrities, journalists or apparently protestors. No students or anyone else I know uses it beyond a curious signup and cursory glance

I did not realise that we paid bbc journalist to promote twitter.
How utterly unenlightening this article was. Please can we have proper journalism from the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ rather than this drivel.

I'm not moaning but I'd just like to say I don't understand how a website changing it's home page merits a blog by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ..

Tt's not revolutionary. It will not change how people use Twitter or attract new people to join so this article is pointless.

Fair enough Twitter has 40million users (even that's debatable!) but when Amazon for example changed it's layout there was no OTT reaction.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

"insanely popular" Yes, amongst media types and celebs. Amongst the rest the ones who sign up realise it has very little use in real life and do not use it.

I try to keep my posts positive to the discussions at hand but I have to agree with the majority that this obsession with Tw*tter is getting ridiculous.

Quote: "For the fun stuff think Oprah, Ashton Kutcher and irrelevance."

Irrelevance? Are you sure? It can't be so irrelevant if you took the time to mantion it. You didn't even have to state the context; the names in a twitter blog are enough to tell the story. How is that for relevance?

Oh, I get it. It's the obligatory British cynicism. I forgot to raise my guard before I stepped in.

yet more proof the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ blog format is utterly pointless as comments are clearly never read. I work in IT with 100+ other IT professionals and no one uses Twitter. I'm tempted to write a crawler just to analyse what percentage of articles and blogs contain the word Twitter to show you how ridiculous its gotten.

"Well now the insanely popular micro-blogging service Twitter is following suit."

Except it isn't insanely popular. It's used by comparatively few people who account for about 90% of its traffic.

Let it go. No-one cares.

I'd be interested to see if stories containing the 'T' word get read more than others- that would at least explain something, and have some actual relevance to what people who read this blog care about- do you get more hits. Does it actually matter seeing as there's no ad money on this site?

Listen up Auntie Beeb. I've sat back and tutted at the people complaining about the number of Twitter blog entries, but enough is enough. There are far bigger tech stories worthy of comment today than a Twitter home page change.

Please expain to us what this obession with Twitter is?

Oh I don't know...

Stories about a fad service that no-one cares about are obviously far more important than ones about, say, two giant companies co-operating to mount a challenge to the dominant internet search provider.

Obviously.

I can't believe why people would click on a story about Twitter - you know with Twitter in the title and then moan that the story is about Twitter. I predicted as much just before I clicked on the link.

Britain and it's moaners, always good for a wry smile (or should that be grimace)

Its good that Twitter is making efforts to embrace non-techies, further expanding it's reach. It's changed the way I interact with online friends and is an important part of me being able to let customers quickly know of updates to my company.

Personally it also changes the way I browse the web, because when Twitterfox pops up a notification I can make my mind up if I want to read more about the story, and click on it or if the 140 characters tells me all I need to know.

There are many advantages to Twitter, and Twitter related products and software and it comes in to it's own on devices like the iPhone (yes, moaners other smart-phones are available)

Blue_Blood1 the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ may head hunt you and you could end up in Silcon Valley and just blog storys about Twitter and get paid !!

@blue blood

it's not about me moaning i don't see the relevance changing a home page has.

I suggest everyone reading about this, everyone seeing the blatant, non-Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ partiality towards a commercial service gets up and does something about this. That's what the free internet is for, after all.

The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, and I have mentioned this before, has a long, creditable and absolutely essential history with impartiality. It is Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ policy, I believe, to refrain from advertisement of anything that isn't also a public service. Which Twitter is not.

Maggie, you're advertising Twitter. Plain and simple. The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ does not advertise. The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is a public service, that we pay for. We do not pay you to provide advertisement and exclamatory soundbites. We pay you for your service - news.

I will be emailing the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ about this, referring them to the many, many examples of absolutely blatant advertising on the part of both Maggie and Rory. Referring them to what is not just a breach of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ policy, but a breach of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ spirit, too. I am not complaining about poor-quality journalism - I am complaining about the lack of honest, impartial journalism itself.

What's Twitter?

#39

"I can't believe why people would click on a story about Twitter - you know with Twitter in the title and then moan that the story is about Twitter."

Because the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ should not be pushing Twitter, it doesn't push Heinz Baked Beans (and I bet far more people make use of that commercial product than Twitter...) at every opportunity like they seem to relish doing with Twitter, I'm not suggesting that the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ should go back to the era of masking commercial brand names, far from it, but were is the blog about - for example - the MSN instant messaging service, or indeed any brand of baked bean?!.

The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is, for some irrational reason, totally obsessed with Twitter. Rather than trying to make a story out of Mr Cameron's momentary slip-up when asked if he uses Twitter perhaps the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ should be reflecting on the wider message contained in his answer, Cameron was spot on...

I really do wonder why the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ employ these hacks. Rory wasn't too bad until recently but Ms Shiels must have got her journalists degree out of a cereal packet because.

Either that or she's fallen out of the twitter tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Please Maggie and Rory for the sake of the people who pay your wages do some proper technology reporting and blogging for a change, either that or go work for a tabloid organisation.

*BREAKING NEWS*
FOUNDER OF TWITTER SNEEZES WHILE TWEETING.

#40
Here's hoping.

#44

All points exactly spot on, but:

The story is about Twitter, and the fact that it's hopmepage has changed. The title says so, so everybody knew what the story was about before they clicked on it. Yet 99.9% of people despite knowing what the story was about, still clicked on the link, read the story and then moaned about being about Twitter
Well what do you expect when the article is titles "Twitter's front page makover"

Perhaps the issue isn't Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's coverage of Twitter/iPhone/Apple/A.N. Other tech, it may be the fact there there isn't enough blog posts, so rather than reducing comments about these techs/companies the tech blog should look to cover more stories about Symbian and loads of other tech/companies which can barely get anyone outside of its OWN forum interested them enough to create Internet buzz.

The fact is, Apple & its iPhone have changed the way many people work/communicate/leisure time - yes more people own Nokia's but who cares.
Facebook/Twitter and a whole host of websites have done the same, perhaps too many twits do make a... but a look down the recent blog posts shows Spinvox, Twitter, Spotify, Facebook, Spinvox, ISPs & file sharing, the web aged 20, 118800, stehpen fry on copyright

Yep, you read that right a measly 1 Twitter story (yes just ONE), I don't think its the beeb tech department which is obsessed with Twitter but the people who click on the solitary headline with Twitter in its title and then moan the story is about Twitter

ps The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ does cover stories about Heinz, they are in the relevant Business category

Wow! The reaction here to Twitter is quite amazing. It really does seem to polarise opinion. Twitter has become the third biggest traffic source for a number of sites out there (just below Google and Yahoo or Bing) and its growing faster than almost any other site or service online. It certainly is news in the technology world.

I have nothing against people who don't use Twitter - the great thing about the web is you can choose - but there are a good number of people who are interested. The 27,544 people following @bbctech certainly are. So just don't bother clicking on articles with the headline Twitter - its quite simple really.

There are a number of things Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Tech don't get quite right (I'm a bit uneasy about their recent attacks on Spinvox, which seem a bit OTT), but I have no problem with them reporting changes to Twitter.

I have to be honest, I clicked the link to this blog, scrolled right past the "story" (term used loosely) and read all the comments.

I love the British public. You all echo my sentiments exactly.

Blue_Blood1, jamiembrowm, I dont think the majority of posters are actually objecting to Twitter itself but the total saturation coverage of it from dot.life despite peoples protests dating back months.

Compare Maggie Shield postings to those of The Telegraphs or The Guardians technology blogs.

1 in the last 25 blogs from The Telegraph has been about Twitter.
1 in the last 30 blogs from The Guardian has been about Twitter.

All 4! of Maggie Shields latest blogs have been about Twitter.

Thats a problem from a supposedly impartial publically funded organisation.


David Cameron was spot on....

#47. At 12:06pm on 30 Jul 2009, Blue_Blood1 wrote:

"The story is about Twitter, and the fact that it's hopmepage has changed. The title says so, so everybody knew what the story was about before they clicked on it."

So what, do we get a story about Microsoft, OpenSuse, AppleMac (or who ever) when their homepages change, no, so why do we get a story about Twitter...

"Yep, you read that right a measly 1 Twitter story (yes just ONE), I don't think its the beeb tech department which is obsessed with Twitter but the people who click on the solitary headline with Twitter in its title and then moan the story is about Twitter"

I suggest that you actually check just how many times Twitter gets mentioned on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ blogs...

#51

Yes, I did check which is why I listed ALL the recent stories for your convenience. Twitter was only one of them, yes I'm aware Twitter receives a lot of coverage historically, but in the recent stories list Twitter is just one of the many variety of subjects.

OpenSuse, Symbian, Various Linux distros, Nokia and any other company change their homepage often and without coverage, but Twitter's change of homepage is far more than just sticking a new jpeg on - it actually shows the changing demographic of the 3rd biggest traffic source to many websites (2nd biggest traffic source to mine) on the whole of the web.

The story behind the story is bigger than a mere homepage change.

#50

1 in the last 25 blogs from The Telegraph has been about Twitter.
1 in the last 30 blogs from The Guardian has been about Twitter.

All 4! of Maggie Shiels latest blogs have been about Twitter

Maggie Shiels, is part of the blog team, the team as a whole provide blog coverage for anything from copyright issues to Windows 7, from how social media is having an effect on box office & album sales to who's footing the bill for digital britain.

If one employee does have an obsession with a particular company then if someone had mentioned it early on amongst all the moaning, people might have been able to have a conversation about the former techie/geeky side of social media (Twitter) appealing to a wider demographic, so much so that they've felt the need to change the one of most visited homepages on the Internet.

As it is, the comments in nearly of of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ techs blog posts are rapidly making the whole blog pointless because all anyone seems to do is moan

Moan about how MS ripped off another company's idea years ago
Moan about how desirable Apple's products are to general consumers
Moan about how their favourite linux distro doesn't get mainstream coverage despite it being installed on precisely 0.000003% of the worlds computers
Moan about how another identikit Symbian doesn't get coverage, when it doesn't even get people outside of it's own forums interested
moan, moan, moan!

It's obvious that the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ don't actually read the comments, but it would be nice to see some feedback concerning the excessive postings about Twitter.

And yes, Cameron was, (for once), right.

#52. At 5:42pm on 30 Jul 2009, Blue_Blood1 wrote:

"Yes, I did check which is why I listed ALL the recent stories for your convenience."

But that is not what I said, go and check how many times Twitter gets mentioned in Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ blogs, not how many articles or blogs there are about Twitter...

"but Twitter's change of homepage is far more than just sticking a new jpeg on - it actually shows the changing demographic"

No it does not, all it shows is that someone at Twitter Inc. decided to change the homepage, nothing more.

Tengsted,

They do read the comments. Take this from Rory himself, from Twitter:

" have I got caned in comments here - really like no 10. Also "synthil" who always pops in to say he hates dot life."

You can find that Twitter post here:

It's nice to see our tech reporters cowardly dribbling behind their Twitter pages without actually answering for what they're doing. As was mentioned by a commenter on another Twitter-blitzed blog post here, the comments are supposed to be a dialogue between the journalist and the reader - that is the purpose of a blog. If you ignore the comments altogether, and fail to spark reasoned debate with your readers, you don't really have a blog anymore, you have propaganda.

It's nice to see our tech reporters cowardly dribbling behind their Twitter pages without actually answering for what they're doing.

Yes, it is rather pathetic!

I like twitter

I like reading interesting articles about it

I thought this one was interesting

Twitter was in the title, why did you all click on it?

I'm pleased for you ringsting, really I am.
You like reading about Twitter, and you're being well looked after by the dot.life blogs team.

However, I'm interested in a whole lot more that just Twitter, and while there are interesting posts about Tech, there is no need to continually refer to Twitter in those ones, or claim that the word of Twitter affected a films attendance.

And as for clicking on it? What are regular readers of these blogs meant to do? Just ignore the whole of dot.life as there might be yet another Twitter post? No.

Well I don't click on the articles I keep seeing about Spinvox, because I am not in the least bit interested in it. Pretty simple really.

The fact of the matter is a lot of tech information and news is being transfered through twitter at the moment, and even though it may be a fad, it is also a valid, and popular communications platform.

Should they also not be mentioning that they received a phone call or an email because it would be promoting that particular technology too?

@60

Just consider if they did say they received information by phone/fax/email/carrier pigeon in every post. It would be rather bad journalism. Yes?
So why refer to Twitter every time, if it's just a means of communication?

And as for not clicking on the Spinvox stories, that's fine, that's your choice. That's a "I'm all right, Jack" attitude though. You also don't know what you're missing. It might even mention your beloved Twitter!

Let me clear one thing up, I don't "love" twitter I just think it's a good system for getting information. It is really good at what it does and will quite possibly shape up the way we communicate in the future.

I'm hardly one of those tech evangelist people (like the apple zealots) I'm just moving forward with technology.

I read the first post on Spinvox and saw that I wasn't in the least bit interested in it and so I just didn't click on any of the others. The whole point of a front page with links on is that you click on the ones that seems interesting and not bother with the others. Do you really read every single item on the technology page just because it's there?

To be honest I really don't understand your argument. Why don;t you just vote with your feet and find a tech blog that doesn't mention twitter...good luck.

Do you really read every single item on the technology page just because it's there?

Erm, yes.
And there is a problem with that?

All I would like is balanced, and interesting Tech Blogging from the Beeb.
With the recent spate of needless Twitter articles (c'mon, Twitter did not affect the film Bruno), we're not getting that currently.

As for other Tech blogs, they can bang their own drum as loudly, and to whatever tune as they want. I'm not funding them through the licence.

A noted point on the license fee front there.

With the current Twitter situation, a good analogy would be thus. Imagine a government that ploughs a considerable deal of public taxation into the construction of a 200ft tall, solid gold effigy of their nation's leader. When asked by the bemused public why they were doing this, and what justification they could offer to such waste, they either failed to reply, or made it known that they, as the government, felt it relevant beyond reasonable explanation.

We've established that you, as journalists and professional bloggers, do read the comments. Would you perhaps enlighten us why you are using the money of the British public to perform an entirely partial advertisement service for a non-affiliated American business? Would you perhaps make personal use of the comments system, as opposed to letting the comments fester and bubble among infuriated readers?

Man you guys need to lighten up a little

I see that on the National Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ news tonight when they were talking about internet use the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ used a "browser" page to put up some stats about social networking site usage. It featured the Twitter logo and the twitter url in clear view.

Just WHAT is going on at the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ?

The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is obsessed with Twitter and I am sick of hearing the word mentioned. Have they signed a deal with Twitter or something? It reminds me of the U2 Yoko Bono promo saga.
Sort it out chumps!