Comments on: More myspace friends?

By: Darlene

Darlene — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:11:19 +0000

That’s a funny site, and so much better than a lot of the stuff that attempts to be satirical on the web.

Check out the fake Alex Downer site while you’re at it.

By: Lord Downer

Lord Downer — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:48:12 +0000

Soon Howard and Rudd will be getting up before they go to bed. What next? Eating gravel?

“What do you expect them to do – fall on the ground and grovel, eat gravel? Get real!”

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:12:08 +0000

Heh.

By: Helen

Helen — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:38:13 +0000

Mark Bahnisch, a Griffith University sociology lecturer, said Mr Howard was wasting his time.

“He uses the medium really badly. There was no particular reason to make an announcement about a Tasmanian hospital on YouTube.

“Politicians need to immerse themselves in the online medium and use its specific features — its interactivity and its capacity to create a ‘viral’ effect.”

For heaven’s sake, Mark!
Don’t help him!

By: another outspoken female

another outspoken female — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:09:36 +0000

Soon Howard and Rudd will be getting up before they go to bed. What next? Eating gravel?

By: Fred B

Fred B — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:57:38 +0000

Methinks Tim’s spot-on with youtube = press call without pesky questions from press.

He cares a bit about the comments, otherwise they wouldn’t be being regularly purged. Thousands of them were repeatedly torn down, put up again, torn down again, from first JHo YT, and it’s happening again, even less time between purges this time.

It’s ironic what, this technology, supposed to be democracy’s great hope, in practice being used to sidestep the opportunity for scrutiny that the old-fashioned press conference afforded.

Oh for the day when the mainstream press sees the censorship aspect, the voice of the people being denied, as THE story.

Hmmm, Rupert thinks, how can I monetise comments?

By: grace pettigrew

grace pettigrew — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:58:11 +0000

In both his YouTube forays to date, Howard’s message has been posted at around 5 am. Rudd was getting up earlier and earlier and beating Howard with first appearances in the media, so maybe Howard’s essential strategy with YouTube is not merely to engage with yoof, if at all, but to trump Rudd in the daily news cycle with new policy announcements absent pesky journos…

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:48:47 +0000

He doesn’t care what the YouTube comments or video replies say. He is simply using YouTube like he used Alan Jones and friends before, but even better. Don’t give a press conference where pesky journalists might want answers.

Even better would be for whole press conferences to be put up onto these video sites without editing. At the moment you get the excerpts of them filtered which best fit to the bias of the particular tv/radio station. Even just watching both the SBS and ABC news shows some interesting differences in way stories are presented, let alone comparing against coverage by a commercial network.

By: espey

espey — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:43:09 +0000

On a slightly on-topic note, the proprietor of myspace.com/kevinrudd, a supporter page, is offering the profile name up for sale, with bidders to name their price. It's interesting to see a sort of domain squatting arising on myspace, where the site has become so ubiquitous that a Kevin Rudd subdomain might actually have some value!

By: tim

tim — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:17:39 +0000

Sent that lingustics joke to my linguist Mum. Had me in stitches. But maybe that’s just me…

To the point, though.

Mark, not sure if this is part and parcel of your point that Howard is using YouTube more to shift coverage in the MSM than for its form, but I see it as a clever way of making an announcement absolutely free of opportunities for critical evaluation.

He doesn’t care what the YouTube comments or video replies say. He is simply using YouTube like he used Alan Jones and friends before, but even better. Don’t give a press conference where pesky journalists might want answers. Simply put out a nice video statement, get a bit of kudos and attention for the way you’re doing it, and get your message through to first bite without any critical analysis. Clever.

Pity it’s not working, though.