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Maggie Shiels

The Twitties

  • Maggie Shiels
  • 8 Sep 08, 15:44 GMT

I realise this following post about Twitter should only be 140 characters long, but you know me better than that by now surely?

In case you are unaware of Twitter, it's a micro blogging service that allows you to wax lyrical and extemporise on any subject you like all in the confines of the magic 140 characters.

Twitties websiteIt's a challenge and a half to sum up life, love, the universe and your nightmare boss in such a pithy fashion. But it's something that is being recognised by a consulting firm in Philadelphia which has decided to honour the best Twitterers and Tweets with an award competition called The Twitties.

Charlie Chambers of iFractal told me that "We saw so many neat things here in the office and how creative people had been with it that we just thought this would be a fun thing to do."

To that end Charlie and his cohorts have a created a dozen categories from Flirty Tweets to Best Breaking News and from Best Avatar to Funniest Tweets. He admitted beer might have helped in the creative process in coming up with the different groups.

In regards to Twitter's technical problems over the last few months with the service more or less conking out, the issue is covered in the Best Putdown category which includes this entry from killregrets who tweeted "twitter: 60% of the time it works every time."

Ouch!

So what are the glorious prizes on offer? A luxury cruise? Furs? Jewelry? Loadsa money? No that would all be so crass wouldn't it? Charlie told me he hopes the Twitties will simply make people famous. At least within the Twitter community.

He admitted they did think about offering prize money of $140 but when they started to add it all up, they nixed that idea as simply too expensive.

Over at Twitter HQ, co-founder Biz Stone told me he was "flattered by the idea of the awards" and has himself in the past thought "it would be great to make a fuss about a particular tweet." He even offered to throw some T-shirts in for prizes.

Voting is open until the 12th of September and the winners will be announced online on the 1st of October.

My favourite so far is from tj in the Straightman Tweet category. Tj tweeted "I told him about a problem. He said he'd "throw some bodies at it." He's a mortician. The problem was a sinkhole. I'm trying not to worry."

Rory Cellan-Jones

Broadband Britain - how fast, how far?

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 8 Sep 08, 10:09 GMT

How much is it going to cost to bring ultra-fast broadband to Britain? Well, BT and Virgin say they're both doing just that over the next couple of years, for an investment of a couple of billion pounds between them. But, according to today's report from the Broadband Stakeholders' Group, the final bill could mount as high as £29bn.

So why do the two companies most likely to build a next-generation network think it can be done for so much less than the government's advisory group has calculated? Well, it all depends on what you mean by "ultra-fast broadband" - and by "Britain". BT's recent announcement was a step-change in its policy towards fast broadband - previously it had been highly sceptical - but it was still only talking of covering 40% of the country, and relying mainly on "fibre-to-the-cabinet" not "fibre-to-the-home." Similarly, Virgin's plans involve building on its existing infrastructure rather than digging up half the country.

What the Broadband Stakeholders Group does in today's report is look at both ends of the fast broadband spectrum. The £29bn bill is for a full fibre-to-the-home option for the whole of Britain. It puts the bill for fibre-to-the-cabinet - the cabinet being that box you see on the corner of your street with the trailing wires and a BT engineer pulling his hair out - at a far more manageable £5bn.

So which are we going to get? Well the BSG doesn't really have any answers to that but it does warn that we are staring at a new digital divide of enormous proportions whichever route we take - and the faster the broadband we choose, the bigger the gap between town and country is likely to be.

To illustrate that, it's produced two maps showing which areas of Britain will get fast broadband quickly and which face a very long wait. One map involves the fibre-to-the-home option, the other fibre-to-the-cabinet. The BSG, unusually for a rather staid government advisory group, is also issuing a rallying cry. It's telling people in far-flung parts of Britain, where the bill for extending a fast broadband network will be eye-wateringly expensive, that they need to start making a noise now. The message seems to be "make enough fuss and you can make sure policy-makers don't leave you out when it comes to building the future of Broadband Britain."

So have a look at the maps - and work out which side of the digital divide you will fall in.

Maps showing areas which are getting faster broadband

PS.You can see the maps in greater detail here (in pdf format).

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