Charlie Brooker on the iPad

Oh Charlie Brooker, I love your Guardian blog – particularly on a Friday afternoon after a tough week.

Here’s some highlights of his review of the iPad:

“It’s an oblong box that lights up.”

“It’s an iPhone for people who can’t be arsed holding an iPhone up to their face.  A slightly-further-away iPhone that keeps your lap warm.”

“It’s the spork of the electronic consumer goods world.”

“I’m sick of being pitched to like I’m a one-man corporation undertaking a personal productivity audit anyway. I don’t want to hear how the iPad is going to make my life simpler. I want to hear how it’ll amuse and distract me; how it plans to anaesthetise me into a numb, trance-like state. Call it the iDawdler and aggressively market it as the world’s first utterly dedicated time wasting device: an electronic sedative to rival diazepam, alcohol or television.”

And later on buying a MacBook…

“I just hope buying a MacBook won’t turn me into an iPrick. I want a machine that essentially makes itself invisible, not a rectangular bragging stone. If, 10 minutes after buying it, I start burbling on about how it’s left me more fulfilled as a human being, or find myself perched at a tiny Starbucks table stroking its glowing Apple with one hand while demonstratively tapping away with the other in the hope that passersby will assume I’m working on a screenplay, it’s going straight in the bin.”

Getting a balance

This week I’ve been grappling with the problems of being a big social media fan, and wanting to use it for both work and personal reasons.  I must admit, at times I haven’t got it quite right; sometimes it’s a bit weird when someone at work stumbles across some of your more personal stuff on Facebook or Twitter, and at other times I’ve held back and been too formal.

I’m sure lots of other people must struggle with this.  Everyone’s heard the more extreme stories of people being sacked after their bosses saw what they’d been up to on Facebook, but what about the day-to-day stuff of making sure the right people see the right things?

The problem is that you can’t really package up sections of your life into neat boxes because people are much more diverse, contradictory and interesting than that.   And should you even try to?

This is where I’m up to:

Facebook:  Just for friends, fun stuff, silly photos, staying in touch.

LinkedIn: For business, with a focus on networking with other marketers.

Flickr: All my amateur photos.  I don’t really mind who sees these as it’s amazing how many places you can find other photographers to share ideas with, whether it’s at work or home.

Twitter:  This one’s causing me trouble.  I can’t decide whether to use it for my personal thoughts (what I had for tea this evening type stuff) or just to post marketing related stuff.

My blog: Again, this is similar to Twitter.  I’m now coming to the conclusion that I want to incorporate much more of my general interests, not just marketing. I’m also going to have a go at taking my own photos for my blog posts…