What is 'useful'?

Apart from the inkling that working from a garage increases your chances of success (David Packard and William Hewlett launched Hewlett-Packard Co. in a garage. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computer Inc. in a garage. Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google Inc in a garage) I know very little about what it takes to create something useful on the web. As affordable garages are a little hard to come by in London (proof of this fact here) I set about doing a bit of research about other recurring traits of recent success stories and thought about how what I found out might relate back to my brand of choice, TopShop.

Look for opportunities where the personal and the collective can overlap
This seems to be one of the main reasons why sites such as Digg, and Del.icio.us are a success. They generate a sense of self, or allow you to express your identity as part of a collective or community. And this is all thanks to a wonderful thing called tagging (which I admit until now I hadn’t quite grasped the true worth of).

I got to wondering which is most important as I thought this might help to filter my ideas, and started to read about what Joshua Porter calls the “Del.icio.us Lesson”. He believes that ‘personal value precedes network value: that selfish use comes before shared use. Even though we’re definitely benefiting from the value of networked software, we’re still not doing so unless the software is valuable to us on a personal level first.’ i.e. he doesn’t believe that tagging for the benefit of a community is primary why people use sites. I disagree. Certainly in the case of flikr I think that the fact that you can share your experience with others is the reason they are so popular – otherwise you might as well save your pictures on your hard drive (although I suppose it depends on whether you define friends and family as ‘personal’ or ‘community’).

Any way, my learning here for TopShop is to start with something that is of use to the individual but can incorporate the collective. And to make use of tagging.

Identify a niche audience
It’s widely acknowledged that the key to MySpace’s success was music, as it is a defining factor in how young people create an identity for themselves. MySpace focused on a niche audience and found what would be useful in their world. It’s when you try to be everything to everyone that it starts to go wrong – which for many is the reason that Yahoo! is in a spot of bother (see the interestingly titled article 'How Yahoo! got bogged down in peanut butter')

But just because you don’t start out catering for everyone doesn’t mean that your site or idea won’t end up with mass appeal, if you subscribe to the ‘tipping point’ thinking of Malcolm Gladwell that is. Identify the right early adopters and your niche will become mainstream in time.

I think identifying the right niche for TopShop is going to be relatively difficult as part of the reason for TopShop’s success is that it appeals to such a diverse audience. From teenagers right through to the most avid fashionist. May be in TopShop’s case it’s more about defining an attitude than an audience (interesting fact: when the term Web 2.0 was coined in 2003 by Tim O’Reilly, it was with reference to an attitude rather than technology. Hilarious then that the wikipedia entry is very techno-focused.)

Ensure there’s a reason for your content to be constantly updated
Usefulness is often short lived. This is why user generated content = lifeblood. It’s important to give people a reason to keep uploading new stuff, to keep it fresh.

This should be quite easy to bear in mind when coming up with an idea, as TopShop is constantly refreshing and updating its offering.

Solve a problem
If you have a experiencing a problem or are frustrated about something, you can be pretty sure that there’s others out there experiencing the same thing, One of the best things I stumbled on illustrates this well. Zootit.com is a site that shortens long links. You upload the long link to their server, and link to it via a short link of your choice. Probably the best known example is Facebook, which was a way for university students to keep in touch.

As most of the best sites are a result of problems their creators have experienced, I’m going to focus on a problem that I have that I want to solve in relation to fashion.

People like to vote
Web 2.0 is really good at letting people vote – and it’s obvious that this is something people like to do.

As one of the key insights I pulled out of my research on TopShop was that girls like to get and give opinions I think that voting will be central to the success of my idea.

Make use of existing technology
In fact the majority of the today’s most popular (successful?) sites have made use of existing technology rather than come up with something new. The back end was already in existence, they just found a way to use it.

For TopShop I’d like to think of a way to use the mobile phone in line with on line technology because this is what people are going to have with them when they shop. This also feel the right way to go with the recent advent of mobile internet – prices are coming down and it’s becoming standard on most handsets.

With the above in mind I had a look to see what else was out there in the online fashion world that might inspire me. Whilst I didn’t set up a del.icio.us page, I did find it a useful way to search for related sites, as was Technorati. Killerstartups.com was another interesting place to browse. The site I found that interested me most was Wishpot.

Wishpot is a social shopping site that probably ahead of the game. Whilst there are a host of different sites that allow you to list or tag items you’d like to buy (or even make money out of someone buying something you’ve tagged) e.g. gifttagging.com, Stylehive.com, Wishpot has taken this concept one step further. With Wishpot social shopping goes mobile. Basically when you’re out you can record the stuff you’re interested in by sending a text (with barcode, style, colour, size etc) or picture message to you Wishpot account. When you later go online you can view your saved items, research prices, view ratings, ask others what they think.

My idea – i-want
With all the above traits in mind, and the best bits about Wishpot, I decided that a MattCam probably wasn’t the way to go and the idea of a guest blog to take away some of the reliance on Kate Moss a little dull. So I started by thinking about problems/frustrations I have.

I hate it when I see something I like on someone else, but don’t seem to be able to find anything similar in the shops. And I hate it when I have a favourite piece of clothing that’s reaching the end of its days and I wish I’d bought it in multiple colours, or could have a replica made, but unfortunately I haven’t planned a trip to the tailors in Bangkok (who’ll copy pretty much anything for you) for another couple of years.

I think it would be great if you could take pictures of looks or items (clothes, bags, shoes, accessories) you like with your mobile phones out in the street, then upload them to the i-want part of the TopShop site where you can tell people what you like about them (the colour, the detail, the cut). Visitors to the site would be able to vote on the things they liked too (tagging would help people search for a ‘look’) – as well as see what’s ‘hot’ on the street right now. The most popular items uploaded would be the inspiration for new ranges. TopShop would take the essence of the item and commission their own piece, which would end up in store.

What’s also great about this idea is that it’s of use to both TopShop and its customers.

From TopShop’s point of view:
- It’s an easy way to identify new trends, fresh ideas and what their customers want.
- It would increase traffic to the TopShop site, and there would be an opportunity to flag any similar items which are already in store, driving revenue.
- Risk of producing an item that no one actually wants to buy could be minimised by giving the people who vote on the piece that is most popular the chance to buy one of the made pieces (almost a pre-order list) which would help indicate the sort of stock levels required.
- This idea is also a perfect fit with the brand’s offline model - TopShop’s success is built on uncovering what’s hot on the street and getting it instore quickly.

Customers can not only get inspiration from the site, but has a genuine opportunity to input into what they see in their favourite store, probably appealing most to those who are constantly on the look out for new ideas.

Click on the links below to see my idea in glorious youtube technicolour

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4

Be sure to read the description of each clip as the sound isn’t great, and neither is the focus!

I decided to show my idea by uploading video clips onto YouTube from my mobile as this was the one thing that wasn’t touched upon in the Cyberchase challenge, but something I’ve meant to learn how to do for a while. What a palaver though! I’ve been to Vodafone stores, to help desks, got passwords and codes, sent goodness knows how many messages to different sites… But apart from not being able to get the clips onto youtube in the right order, I’m pretty pleased with myself! Ideally I would have liked to have edited the clips together into one video, but due to time and the fact that I only just managed to get them online at all I thought I’d had enough experience of teccy stuff for one week.

So in summary, my TopShop i-want idea pretty much ticks off all of the ‘success’ traits identified, and relates back to the TopShop insights from the last challenge: it combines the personal and the collective, content will be constantly updated, it solves a real problem, it allows people to vote and uses existing technology. And not a garage in sight.

Yes, that is a harp in the background…

So the challenge is to interview a person or group of people I admire. About something that interests me. With passion. And with entertainment value in mind. Hmm.

Where to start?

Initially I was going to focus on pub quizzes. I wouldn’t say I was passionate about them (could have something to do with the fact that in the last few I’ve been to my team hasn’t faired too well) but I’m intrigued by their increase in popularity in recent years, how they’ve made a come back at the same time that social interaction is shifting more and more online, how with mobile phones and mobile internet the playing field might not be as level as it once was. The quiz master would certainly lend himself to the entertainment criteria, and I’d heard a rumour that Jon Buck in Fuel had worked out some formula or game plan to increase the odds of winning (before you go and ask him, it materialises this isn’t quite the case, although what with it being Jon Buck and all, it seemed pretty tenable at the time).

But tracking down quizmasters proved quite difficult, and on reflection my pub quiz tact seemed a bit of a round about way of approaching an interest in changing social networks. As the final weekend before the deadline approached, I realised I was running out of time. Not least with a wedding to go to on the Saturday and no doubt a hangover to deal with on the Sunday.

I gave myself a train journey home to come up with a solution, but got a little side tracked thinking about all the people I was going to see that I hadn’t been in touch with for a while. Good friends. People who I trust and admire. Coming together for one of the most celebrated kinds of social interactions, a wedding - a social gathering where passion and love are pretty much a given. And, knowing my friends, an event that wouldn’t be short of entertaining shenanigans.

And, suddenly it all fell into place. The way that my social circle interacts has changed significantly recently. A month ago very few of us had signed up to Facebook, and then, within a matter of weeks, the vast majority had a profile. I knew that I was going to be getting a ribbing on the fact that I haven’t signed up yet and consequently, within the blink of an eye, am a little out of the loop. But I realised I could now turn this impending conversation into an interview of sorts, and explore Facebook’s appeal amongst an audience that was never the intended target. Children of the 70s, long out of university.

The importance of preparation

I decided that there were a couple of areas I wanted to focus on.
My friends’ understanding of what is meant by social networking
- Which of my friends are using Facebook
- How they are using it
- How it’s affecting the way we interact with each other
- How Facebook sits along other online sites.

So I set about compiling a list of possible questions:
What’s the first thing that springs to mind when I say ‘social networking’?
- Are you a member of a social networking site?
- Which?
- Why?
- How much time do you spend on the site/when?
- How does this compare with the amount you see or call your friends?
- Is there are difference between ‘friends’ you communicate with online and those you communicate with offline (see/call/text)?
- What’s better about online friendships?
- Do you think online social networking is just a phase? Why/not?
- To put your online habits in to context have you done any of the following:
> Set up a blog?
> Read a blog?
> Bought something on ebay?
> Sold something on ebay?
> Used your phone to identify a piece of music?
> Listened to a podcast?
> Made your own podcast?
> Set up daily message alerts?
> Used netvibes?
> Visited flickr?
> Used del.ic.ious?

In reality

In the end I didn’t read from the list of questions. I just kept them at the back of my mind, alongside my objectives. I hadn’t anticipated that fact that my friends’ Facebook experiences were such that we could have talked for hours and several interesting thoughts materialised that wouldn’t have done so had I stuck rigidly to it. (Plus I’d had a glass or two of champagne by the time I put the dictaphone on and probably wouldn’t have been able to read off the list any way. I struggled to see the red on button for goodness sake!)

How it happened

Pulling a dictophone out at a wedding reception, brings a whole new meaning to intrusive research. Luckily most around me thought it hilarious, but I put it away sooner than I’d have liked to, because it didn’t feel like proper wedding etiquette (and the groom would have killed me, he thinks I work too hard as it is). I talked to four different people in the period between arriving at the reception and sitting down for dinner, that time when people are milling round seemed the most appropriate opportunity for something like this. Also I figured there’d be a fine balance between my interviewees having enough liquid refreshment to soothe away any shyness and slurring their words. I had intended on just interviewing one person for ten minutes or so, but photo calls, harpists really getting into their set’, rampaging sausages and the wedding breakfast kinda made that hard (listen to sound files to find out more…). In retrospect I gained from getting several different insights. And talking about social networking with just one person would have been some what ironic.

The four people I spoke to were Ben (a teacher), James (in media and technology), Kate (works for a cosmetic company) and Becs (until recently a London-based managing consultant but recently moved to Singapore). I did not identify these particular four in advance, there are twenty or so of us in my social group and these four just happened to present themselves to me first, to ensure no bias in interview selection.

My challenge to you: For comedy value, try to guess which interview I did first on the basis of the answers that were given, and the amount I giggle. The comment on the cyberchase blog about content production moving into the hands of amateurs seems rather fitting.

The interviews (unedited I'm afraid, but thus perhaps more amusing..)

Kate and Becky

Ben

James 1

James 2

Learnings

- My friends’ understanding of what is meant by ‘social networking’
Although James said that he’d read recently in online research that 70% of people understood what is meant by ‘social networking’ Kate and Becky asked me to clarify whether I meant the phase in the online sense or the everyday sense, which makes me think it’s perhaps not as ingrained as the former as much as we think it is (I’m sure this would be different if I asked some one younger mind). Amongst all the interviewees there was a general suspicion of the phase ‘social networking’. It seems to hold quite negative connotations of social status; people trying to use others to get to where they want to be. This is quite interesting when the definition of social networking is based around the idea of collaboration and is supposed to be less about the individual than the group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking.

- Which of my friends are using Facebook
Out of the 20 or so of us, five of us are not on Facebook. Of the four I interviewed, two only got in on the act quite recently. This was mainly because Becky has moved abroad – i.e. circumstances. Yet now that they are on Facebook, they have found it rather addictive. I was interested to hear Kate’s story about the junior doctor who does it between patients, and the lawyer who’s on for three hours a day. It rather puts paid to my excuse of not having enough time. Interestingly, the two most sociable people within our group have not signed up yet. May be they’re just too busy getting on with real life. I would have asked them to talk to me a little bit about why they hadn’t followed the crowd, but they had other things on their mind, what with being best man and chief usher and all.

- How they are using it and how it’s affecting the way we interact with each other
No one saw it as an alternative to seeing friends. Rather something that allowed you to keep in touch with the friends you see regularly anyway, to keep in touch real time (roughly twenty minutes a day). For them it’s seen as different – better - than email, as it is less intrusive. You’re not sure if someone can talk if you email them at work – on Facebook, if they’ve signed in, you know they are up for corresponding. In my mind it’s an example of how people are looking to redress their work/life balance, the infiltration of your external social life into work environments. How you can be social when you can’t be social is Ben’s way of looking at it. A supplement to real-life conversations.

Although the above is primarily why everyone (except Becky) set up a profile, it was the talk of the opportunity for voyeurism that made the boys’ eyes light up. The sneaky look at ex-girlfriends, or people you’d forgotten about that you didn’t have to get in touch with. What was interesting here is that they see Facebook in a very different way to how they see Friends Reunited, despite, as far as I can see, the cross over here in purpose. Whilst all four had been on FR, to them FR was a bit of a novelty, something that was very much driven by the content provider rather than the individual user, and it is the fact that they feel in control on Facebook that makes it so appealing.

- How Facebook sits along other popular social networking sites
Out of the list of different online activities/sites that I asked about, very few had been used by my interviewees. I’m not sure if the versatility of Facebook has something to do with this (e.g. if you can share stuff and upload photos on Facebook, there’s no real reason why you should know about Flickr?). I found this quite reassuring – blogging and ebaying is talked about so often, it sometimes feels as if you’re the only one not doing it. I might not have a Facebook profile but I have a blog, I’ve bought and sold on ebay, I’ve identified music with a mobile phone and I know all about de.lic.ious (but may be not enough to get the full points in the right place).

What did amaze me though, as a non-booker, was the number of people who after hearing what I was doing, came and told me a Facebook story. Every one has one it seems, and everyone tells it enthusiastically. This may be what Facebook has over a number of other sites. People have a real affinity for it, and whereas at the start of the day I was pretty sure the passion side of things was going to come more from the event than the interview topic, I was wrong. Which in a way is a little sad. Because when you're sitting at a computer screen, you are alone. At the centre of the world, but alone.

So what’s the future?

Is Facebook going to be superseded by the next big thing? Almost certainly in my mind. Isn’t that why everyone is so excited about Web 2.0? The fact that you don’t know what’s going to happen next? May be I’ll just wait for that next big thing before I create another profile. Or may be I’ll bow to the pressure and be on Facebook by the end of the week. Just one of the 100,000 or so new users a day….


Here’s what some others think:

http://markevanstech.com/2007/06/16/how-long-can-facebook-stay-cool/
Facebook backlash

And how social networking means social divide:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6236628.stm


N.B.
I haven’t been able to edit my files at Dan’s computer. It says that the format isn’t compatible. This means I’ve only got my original files for you. Stick with it through all the screeching at the start, it makes sense after a couple of minutes!

Why no one needed to ask what Kat(i)e did next

TopShop knows how to create buzz. Whether you have an interest in fashion or not I can pretty much guarantee that you know about Kate’s recent range for them. See, I don’t even have to mention her surname for you to know who and what I’m talking about. And despite the aforementioned going on sale at the start of May, there’s still hype, still discussion going on. I’m getting more Google blog alerts for ‘TopShop’ a day than I’m getting for ‘Vodafone’ and ‘mobile phones’ combined and the vast majority of these focus on Kate Moss for TopShop. A PR campaign well done, evidence of how information seeded in the right place spreads like wildfire and can have real longevity.

They’re not stupid over there. They’ll know that over 88% of women use the internet daily, with clothes shopping the biggest area of interest. And they’ll know that 60% of women default to their peers for an opinion on what to buy. They know the potential of online communities for their business.

Indeed TopShop.com already gets twice as much traffic from MySpace than from MSN and Yahoo combined - 5% vs 2.5% - and this is a figure up five-fold year on year. I went to MySpace to have a look at the blog page that TopShop’s set up, and wouldn’t have guessed in a million years it was their official blog page - it really does feel as though it’s been put together by some bright-eyed bushy-tailed 20-something. I was surprised by the 5% traffic statistic as there’s only 4,846 TopShop friends listed (may be they’re really avid shoppers) and even more surprised that most of the notice board contained ads/promotions for other places/products and events (as well as somewhat bemused, TopShop riding on Kate’s name, others riding on TopShop’s).

When monitoring online blogs and chat rooms I did notice quite an interesting phenomenon that suggests that TopShop really does have its ear to the ground. There was a conversation thread a couple of weeks ago about the fact that wouldn’t it be great if TopShop had a widget that you could sit on your desktop that delivered the latest styles enabled you to click through and buy. Hey presto, today another blog tells me TopShop now has a widget I can down load. Similarly there was quite a lot of blogs/online debate around the social responsibility of shoppers (particularly around the time of the Anya Hindmarsh bag), and a lot of people were debating the merits of swap shops online, jumble sales etc. Within days TopShop announced that they’ll be holding charity fashion sales where people set up their own stalls. TopShop is listening, and more importantly, responding.

It seems that the strategy that helped reinvigorate the brand during the 90s is being employed once again to ensure that TopShop stays on top. At the heart of TopShop’s success is its responsiveness to the current mood/vibe on the street, turning catwalk to high street within days. Now if you want to know what’s going on, what people think of you, you go online. And TopShop get this. So all in all, TopShop are doing pretty well on the online buzz front, but if I was to get stuck in a lift with Mr Green and he asked me where I thought the opportunities and issues were for TopShop based on what I’d heard I’d go for:

1) The Kate conversations are getting boring. It’s time to get people excited about something else.

2) TopShop is more than a clothes store. It’s a barometer of cool. But this reputation is harder to protect online - people seem to get confused more easily about what’s ‘endorsed’ and what’s not.

3) Girls want reassurance that they’re making the right fashion choices. They constantly ask for others opinions, friends, strangers, anyone who will listen. Throw some personal shoppers out into the virtual world, make them THE place to go for advice

4) The boys aren’t talking. Which means there’s a whole untapped side to the TopShop brand.

5) Make Matt on the till in the Oxford Street store more prominent. Apparently he’s a real draw and girls make several different purchases in one trip for more chances to say hello…

Hahaha

Popular on you-tube. Wait until it struggles to breathe!

Revelation of the day: I’m an eBayer ahead of my time

One of the tricks on eBay is to repackage the item you’re selling. Be this through the description you give, or the freebies that you throw in to make it seem like there’s more of a bargain to be had in comparison to what else is up for grabs.

I thought that there might be another way to increase the value of what I was trying to sell; the feel good factor.

Ultimately this is why we like to laugh. It makes you feel good, better about things; it’s therapeutic for the soul. When I bought my CD, this is what I thought it would deliver. So I thought that the sort of people that might be interesting in buying the same CD from me might also be up for magnifying this feeling for themselves by donating to charity. I wanted to set up an auction whereby if you placed a bid but didn’t win, you could choose to donate the amount you’d ‘pledged’ to a charity – the Make a Wish foundation (a charity that tries to help kids with life-threatening diseases feel better about life for a short while by making a wish come true). As an added incentive to increase bids, I would promise that if I won the challenge we were set I’d donate my winnings to the same charity. This then got me thinking about the last challenge set and the idea of trust online, so I decided that I’d promise to email all bidders the outcome of the auction and provide proof of the charity donation.

In order to spread the word about what I was trying to do I thought about seeding my intentions in one of the eBay chat rooms and also contacting the original seller to see if he would be willing to direct people to my auction (as there’d be ‘free’ advertising involved for him as the sound of laughter CDs are his business). One of the most popular you-tube videos at the moment is a baby laughing so I thought that it could be worth contacting the person who posted it and seeing if I could ‘advertise’ with them (see you-tube link on this page for video).

Sounds interesting right?

Unfortunately it seems I’m an eBayer ahead of my time.

The functionality just isn’t in place to enable this sort of auction yet, although I think that eBay are missing a huge opportunity here. There is a way that you can donate to charity – there are charity auctions where the highest bid gets donated to charity, and options for the seller to donate part or all of his ‘winnings’ to charity. The appeal of what I was thinking was in its simplicity. The bidder wouldn’t have to go to a separate site to donate, or enter credit card details if they had paypal (the downside of directing them to another site such as justgive.com).

In the end I ran out of time to think of a way to make this work.

So on to plan B and the idea that key to an auction is getting your timing right. Now in a ‘traditional’ sense this is how long your auction should last, when people are online surfing etc. But I wanted to see if I could take this one step further and make the product itself time-sensitive. With April Fool’s Day fast approaching I thought that there was an opportunity to re-package the sounds of laughter CD as canned laughter that you could use to get back at a serial practical joker with (although I was a bit worried about repositioning someone’s livelihood as canned laughter so decided that I would have to think carefully about the image I’d use). I thought that I could encourage a fast sale using the ‘Buy it now’ option as if I sold my item before Friday at midday I’d worked out that I would be able to guarantee that they would get it delivered before April Fool’s day.

Again, the best laid plans….

In my eBay infancy I didn’t realize that you could only use ‘Buy it now’ if you had a certain number of ratings, or if your account was set up in a particular way.

So you’ll now find my item on eBay as a canned laughter CD with the incentive of a FREE loveable toy fish ((doesn’t everyone like a cuddly toy – just think back to the Generation Game cheer) to make you (or probably your kids) smile a bit more)). I decided to pay for an extra listing as I think people might search under jokes/pranks as well as CD (I didn’t find the eBay list suggestions particularly helpful – why anyone would search under ‘soft rock’ for this is a bit of a mystery).

Current status: No bids. Aution number 150107247044
Shame. I had such high hopes. And I could have been making eBay history.

Revelation of the day: I have trust issues

If things had gone differently, I’d now be the proud owner of a ghost in a wine bottle (I decided the ghost in the wine bottle would probably be more amicable than the one in the plain old jar). But perhaps it’s for the best that I’m not. I trusted I wouldn’t end up with an actual ghost, that what I was buying wasn’t quite what the seller would have me believe.

My ebay experience has highlighted that I have trust ‘issues’. I bid for something because I was certain it wasn’t what I would get. I ended up with what I did because I wanted to verify the claim the seller made about the product. I hated giving PayPal my bank details (companies are so inept in handling personal information). I passed on another opportunity because the seller didn’t have a 100% satisfaction rating from other buyers. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m not going to become a compulsive ebayer any time soon (no Carpenter and Walrus type situation for me).

But may be I should persevere. May be ebay is a way to ‘cure’ myself. May be the site’s founder is right, ebay teaches you to trust people and its success is testimony to the fact that societies can be built on a single shared value.

But if this is the case, why is there such an emphasis on policing the site? Never having been on ebay before, I was surprised by the prominence of rating systems, feedback options, chat rooms and forums. Strangely rather than reassuring me, they made me more apprehensive about the whole shebang. Worry about who to trust. There seemed to be mini trials going on left, right and centre – buyers ganging up on sellers, sellers on sellers, buyers on buyers. For example...

So I searched for something to soothe me, a fact that would put everything into perspective. Apparently just 0.01% of ebay transactions are fraudulent. And 10 million people in the UK alone make their living thanks to the site (don’t hold out much hope for the guy trying to off load 475 ‘quality’ Greek statues for £4,250 mind).

I’m glad my reservations do not seem to be wide spread. With the demise of car boot sales, ebay is a way of recycling what we no longer what. There is something wonderfully comforting in the thought that one person’s crap is another person’s treasure. Even if searching for those hidden gems mean you have to give up your day job.

My ebay experience

I started off looking for a rabbit hole…
Not really an every day sort of item I think you’d agree. The closest I got was the option of purchasing part of Tullock Farm in the Scottish highlands. Unfortunately my trust issues came into play again – in terms of what would happen after I bought it – how would I get access if I didn’t own the land around it, was it really legal, what if the rest of the farm was sold on…

…but ended up with a Cheshire cat
Apparently the laughter CD I bought is guaranteed to make me "grin like a Cheshire cat". I love the fact that laughter is contagious but I’ve always wondered if you have to see people to be infected by it. We’ll see. The idea of selling laughter on ebay really stood out amongst the more tangible items up for grabs. I was buying an emotion. For a bargain of £4.50 plus £1.49 P&P. If it works I will return and post feedback verifying the claim that when you listen, you can’t help but laugh. To minimise my trust palpitations, the seller had 100% positive reviews from 7,247 buyers. The item arrived when promised, the seller contacted me to know when to expect it. There was nothing white rabbit about it.

Ebay: the insanity of it all:
What the….?

Revelation of the day = Subconsciously I might have identified myself as a manic depressive

I thought I'd have a look at fellow Tweedledee/dums online - starting with the blog names that I tried and weren't available - for a comparison. What sort of people are Tweedledees and Tweedledums? Can I draw any sort of conclusions about 'our' personalities? Do our blogs have anything in common? Some of the search results (after googling related words and guessing at blog names) are in the list towards the bottom of this page.

Interestingly, a number of the blogs with Tweedledee/dum in the title seem quite old, the last postings are dated and there is little information on the pages in general. So there doesn't seem to be much longevity in the identity name. Does this mean Tweedledees and Tweedledums have short attention spans? (Thom's certainly thinks so - he's named his fish Tweedledee and Tweedledum). Are people more inclined to choose jokey, fictional character names when they're just looking to experiment and have a bit of a play rather than create a blog/identity which is longer lasting? (try santaclaus, batman or bugsbunny followed by blogspot.com and this observation seems to ring true).

Pretty much all of the blogs I got to by googling Tweedledee/dum (although not necessarily in the blog name itself) were a bit on the pessimistic side. I've an identity buddy in Singapore who identifies herself as perpetually depressed. A number of gay guys compared the difficult relationships in their lives to that of these opposing twins. Postings talking about Tweedledee/dum often referred to George Bush and state of the Republican party in the US...

I'm wondering if it's it too late to change my online identity?