Thanks to Reinhardt at Mollers Down Under, I learnt that a toilet paper company has embraced Twitter to promote its brand.

Envirosoft, or Encore Tissue, has a Twitter handle @SafeTissue.

The bio proclaims: “Australia’s only Toilet Paper endorsed by Planet Ark. Made from 100% Recycled Waste Paper. A Better Choice for Our Planet!”

I’m vaguely aware, of course, that companies and organisations have Twitter and Facebook accounts. Although I’m no expert in social media, I would have thought these accounts should inform and engage readers.

@SafeTissue teases with snippets of information, but fails to deliver with any consistency. For instance, I was intrigued to learn: “December has been a huge month for SAFE; so much so that we ran out of our Double Length 6pk for a short period (ranged in IGA & other independent supermarkets). Stock is being shipped now and will be avaliable again soon”.

That’s a relief, especially if you’re holding out for the truck to arrive.

That was the most recent tweet (and Facebook update) on January 8.

I’d really like to know why toilet paper stocks were flying off the shelves. Is there a link between Christmas festivities and demand? Do extra indulgences have a downside, or an upside in the case of toilet paper manufacturers?

The previous tweet and Facebook update was on November 20: “Best wishes to the Sea Sheppard (sic) crews on the “Bob Barker” and “Steve Irwin” as they prepare to head back to sea. There (sic) a hardy crew and lifes (sic) tough out in (sic) the ocean, but Safe Toilet tissue is bringing a little softness to thier (sic) day.”


I can only assume that @SafeTissue sponsors Sea Shepherd, but again this was an isolated, tantalising post with no supporting information.

I’m sure the crew appreciates the comfort, but how did Safe Toilet come to be a sponsor? Are they flush with funds?

A flurry of tweets in October revealed special prices, National Recycling Week and the fact “SAFE Toilet Tissue is 100 percent Australian owned and made”. That’s important to stress when your competitors are plundering Sumatran rainforests and killing tigers (my words, not theirs).

I started writing this post with no idea of where I was heading. It just seemed an interesting prompt.

Now I’m feeling a little deflated and less likely than I was earlier today to purchase Safe toilet tissue.

Apart from the Twitter account being random and erratic, the spelling is atrocious!

There may not be a manual yet on how companies should promote themselves in social media, but I’m sure there’s a common-sense rule to spell correctly.

While the marketing department at Envirosoft hasn’t quite pulled this one off, they might be onto something if they can get their shit together.

“EBook Share and Make Money: Affiliate elegantthemes Payout $78 – have Proof (link) via @TieuRamBo . Join today”

It’s disturbing that these tweets were made and I have no idea how it happened. I have changed my Twitter password as an obvious precaution.

The author of the Fake Penny Wong account actually secured the user name @Penny_Wong.

This seems to be a breach of the Twitter guidelines. I guess adding “fake” to the description has made it acceptable, or Penny Wong has not objected.

The fake account makes much of perceived rivalry between Senator Wong and Peter Garrett, eg:

“In discussions with surgeons looking at options of transplanting Steve Jobs’ brain into Garrett’s body. A win-win situation”, and

“Cabinet split on letting Garrett do flood relief gig with the Oils. His Dept unanimous in wanting him released for 3 weeks to do it.”

The @FakeFielding account is clearly identified as such and parodies the wacky right-wing fundamentalist Senator from Victoria, who won a fluke election victory courtesy of preferences from everybody who thought he couldn’t possibly win.

It will be a shame for satirists to lose him from Parliament in June, but hopefully the tweets will continue. Some recent examples:

“What people don’t understand is that a levy for the whole of Queensland is going to require A LOT of dirt. That’s going to cost money”, and

“Queensland should sell the water to drought-stricken countries like Ayers Rock to recoup some of the money they lost in flooding.”

Senator Steve Fielding

The author replied to one of my tweets about a bus running late with a remark that maybe I was early, but I soon figured it couldn’t be a real PR account.

A couple of weeks later I noticed the user name had changed to @notADLMetro.

I contacted the author to ask why and received this reply: “Some smack head failed to sense irony, sarcasm, parody etc and reported it as fake, like duh! So changed to make twitter happy.”

I’m a little surprised a public transport agency would bother to complain about something like this, but it’s good that Twitter acted on the complaint and allowed the creator to retain all their original tweets under the former user name.

It’s curious that a government department saw fit to complain about satire while the Queen has so far allowed the fake Elizabeth Windsor account @Queen_UK to continue, with the only disclaimer being “fictional” at the end of the bio.

The pretender to the throne mocks British politicians, calls “gin o’clock” most days and sends friendly greetings to her Australian subjects.

Perhaps the real Queen has a better sense of humor than Adelaide transport boffins.

A combination of factors are responsible. Time is a major one, also the need to be cautious in the opinions I publish.

With regards to time, I’m using some short messaging services more frequently, including Posterousand Twitter.

I’m also hooked on the notebook/organiser application, Springpad. Most of the notes are private, but I’ve made some public.

This blog will continue, but posts may be infrequent.

Microblogging, for the uninitiated, is online publishing of status updates within a limited space, normally 140 characters. Think Twitter or the wall on Facebook.

StatusNet offers its software for download, which can be installed on any PHP/My SQL server. This gives the user control over branding, design and access.

I have installed the program at gorey.com.au/miniblog/.

For people who don’t have a domain or access to a server, StatusNet offers a hosted account.

So, why would anyone use either of these?

The “cloud” version doesn’t appeal to me because it simply duplicates what Twitter and others do, albeit using open source software.

However, I’m enthused by the self-hosted version, despite its current limitations. Owning the web address and controlling access is a good thing.

At the moment it’s not possible to pull Twitter updates or cross-post to Twitter and other services. That’s a must-have feature as far as I’m concerned.

When that’s available, a user will be able to run their own customised microblog and aggregate content across different services.

I can also see the potential value for businesses and organisations.

I’m restricting registration on my microblog to family members at this stage.

Visitors can “follow” my posts either by going to the site, via RSS feed or using an account with http://identi.ca or status.net.

@mgorey on Twitter.

I currently have accounts with both. Also with identica, Tumblr and Type Pad.

Twitter is the one I use most. The Twitter updates also feed through automatically to my wall on Facebook.

Let’s take a look at the differences between Twitter and Facebook, bearing in mind this is my private view and each person will be different.

I find that Twitter is more professional than personal. More than half of my contacts are people who work in the media and public relations.

For that reason, I’m fairly self conscious about my updates, knowing they will be read by my peers and potentially a public audience, rather than close friends.

I tend to focus on writing tweets related to my work or current news, injecting humor when appropriate.

These posts also go through to my Facebook wall, where my readership is entirely different.

Most of my Facebook friends are relatives and friends, many from places far away where I used to work.

They’re more likely to comment on my updates than Twitter followers and I make an effort to read theirs.

Dare I say it, Facebook is more popular with young people. Two of my children have Facebook accounts and most of my staff are on there too, but none of them show any interest in Twitter.

When it comes to following people and being followed, I’m happy to link up with anyone on Twitter I find interesting. With Facebook, I just allow people I know.

Because I’m careful about what I publish on Twitter, I sometimes make more casual posts on other sites, either my own blog or a new Type Pad microblog.

I’ve stopped using Tumblr, I just found it not very social and it delivered poor search results on Google.

So in effect, I’ve created boundaries around which web services I use for what purpose. The boundaries aren’t solid walls and can be moved, but in general terms they provide a consistent point of reference.

I also uses a “lifestream” aggregator on my personal blog for a while to bring together most of my content, a sort of personal Friend Feed.

If you have both Twitter and Facebook accounts, how do you differentiate between them?

Zarrella claims that TweetPsyc uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets.

“The service analyses your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform,” the site says.

According to Read Write Web, where I first heard about this, RID is a text analysis tool composed of more than 3000 words from 43 categories of cognition and emotion. LIWC is a text analysis software program that calculates the degree to which people use different categories of words in emails, speeches, poems, or transcribed daily speech.

“The program considers positive and negative emotion words, self-references, and words that refer to sex, eating, or religion,” the site reports.

I’ve only made 523 Tweets, which is below the recommended number for analysis.

That may be why my descriptors sound fairly introspective, or it could be I just sound shy compared with the online exhibitionists who tell all.

My “primordial, conceptual and emotional content” sounds somewhat contradictory, although it’s nice of the computer to say my writing shows “constructive behaviors”.

I’m interested to read more about the veracity of tools like this. Part of me suspects I’m just boosting the influence of the “viral marketing scientist” who developed it.

Anyone can login using their webmail or Facebook account to post or comment.

The experiment is because I like the short post format, but feel Twitter has some limitations.

I opened my Twitter account on March 23, 2007, but quickly lost interest until recently. As of today, I have made 402 posts.

The concept of short updates has grown on me and I like the sense of community that Twitter now offers.

I feel that I’ve “met” more people through Twitter than blogging or Facebook.

A few weeks ago I made a conscious decision to use Twitter mostly for media-related posts. I actively sought other journalists and editors as friends and followers.

I now have 104 followers and I’m happy with that number. I follow 79 people and I enjoy reading their updates. If there were more it could become difficult to manage.

Most of my followers are friends, fellow bloggers and journalists with a few politicians who follow me because I follow them.

Ironically, as my Twitter usage has become more targeted I feel less comfortable about making bland random posts.

Politicians and editors don’t want to know what I had for breakfast or the score in my daughter’s hockey game.

I expect their posts to be meaningful, so mine should be as well.

That’s where Short Say comes in.

I host the content and control the design. Visitors come because they want to or they stumbled there by accident.

Twitter pushes a post to a reader. A self-hosted site draws readers to the post.

There’s a place for both and I’ve achieved some integration by synchronising all my new Twitter posts with Short Say using a WordPress plugin.

But whereas I’m self conscious about making potentially trivial remarks on Twitter I can write whatever I like on Short Say.

Neither replaces this blog because, by design and definition, the others are for short posts.