Spring clean 2.0

New year, new start, new blog template. Not sure I like it truth be told, but it's feels much like it does to rearrange your bedroom. I might prefer sleeping against the wall, but I'll position the bed in the middle of the room just to feel a little bit more alive for about 30 seconds. So pink is out, crazy notepad in.

As part of the new digital me, I am now a daily twitterer and follower of knowledgable digital gurus. Well, sort of. My main impetus admittedly was the opportunity to stalk Stephen Fry who has possibly the best life on this planet. Apart from the obvious manicness but even that adds interest. The man must never get bored. And when he does he just hops onhis private jet to chase armadillos or has a drunken debate with his old pal Hugh. And now I get to be a part of that every day. Hence why twitter is great.

My only slight grumble I have with Twitter is not that it's addictive, because I haven't reached that stage of neediness yet. It's that it's almost too much - too much pressure to be interesting, and too many tweets to keep up with. Aren't our lives fast-paced enough without having to constantly follow hundreds of people around the virtual planet? Finally I feel like I understand how Jack Bauer feels.

Shameful - but not as bad as some!

I know, it has been over a month since my last gem of advice and it's not even the holiday season. Shameful. I've been busy but I think I could have found a spare twenty minutes to be writing a blog. Blogging though is one of those things that if you leave it for too long the whole concept morphs into an irritating niggle at the back of your mind which is far easier to ignore than to face. Perhaps that's how our local politicians are feeling about it.

Recently I've come across a number of indivuals who play a big part in our island politics and although they talk about starting their own blog very few of them if any are willing to share their insights online. I don't understand it, what are they so afraid of?

The web has become a participation-orientated medium - one where presidential hopefuls can win votes through youtube and social networking sites such as meetup.com. In America, Barack Obama, the new US presidential hopeful, is recruiting supporters via facebook - another social networking site. The site is popular with students who may otherwise not be interested in voting.

Yes it's true that sometimes the web can work against you - providing you're doing something wrong in the first place. But if not then at least you can fight your own corner. I think it's about time the States members took matters into their own hands and started participating with their islanders online. It takes less than 5 minutes to set up a blog, you may even learn something - it's really not such a scary prospect is it?