As I sat here contemplating this blog, Christchurch experienced its most violent aftershock.

Since Saturday morning’s earthquake, we’ve had over 150 aftershocks – some as strong as magnitude 5.5. Another website puts the aftershocks in the 300s. But it was this morning’s 5.1 that I would say was the scariest. It was sharp and assured – like a house going over judder bars or a dozen heavy trucks – too heavy to be on the road – hitting your building one after another.

It struck at 7.49am, and our flat had not long said goodbye to my brother-in-law who was cycling to work. We told him to ‘be careful out there’. Of course our first reaction, after hovering under a door frame together in a frantic panic, was to call him. Relief came once we finally got through to him but the phoneline got cut just as he said he’d been thrown off his bike on Moorhouse Ave and I could hear in the background someone saying to him ‘are you alright, mate?’  The longest ten minutes of our life came as we tried to get through to him again, and my sister had decided she was going to drive and find him – but her car wouldn’t start. This is where I should explain that my car was totaled in Saturday’s quake by our next door neighbours chimney, so I too had been relying on their car to get around.

My car after Saturday’s quake…

Once we finally established contact with him, and the rest of our family, we immediately turned to Facebook and Twitter to see how everyone else fared. Some had been in the shower at the time, others threatened to leave town if it continues. But what is it about social networking now that makes us instinctively turn there when something happens?

I can only answer from a personal point-of-view in regard to the quake, as I’d rather speak from my perspective than research what academics might say. For me it’s the immediacy of social networking that I like because I can instantly see how everyone else is, where they are and what they were doing at the time; I want to see if anyone or anything has endured more damage; and I want to share my experience with everyone as they do with their other Facebook pals too.

Not longer after the quake on Saturday morning I was called in to cover the natural disaster for Newstalk ZB. It was definitely all hands on deck for such a big event. It was a full on weekend, but a truly humbling experience seeing all the damage around town. It turns out the damage to my car pales hugely in significance to what was out there beyond my home.

Here’s some pictures captured by my flatmate, Danny Knight-Baré, on Saturday:

Twitter was also a flurry of activity after the quake. I of course tweeted about what we’d just experienced, and as we were out exploring the city streets I was called by a Twitter ‘follower’ who works at the radio station Life FM in Auckland to do a live cross from the scene.

During that one, and others later for Newstalk, I experienced several aftershocks as I spoke live on air. Rather scary when you have to keep talking, but it just goes to show that us journos are in fact human after all and feel the same way as everyone else in a natural disaster. My tweeting about the quake also alerted media outlets in the UK, as per a tweet from a former colleague from London:

Because Twitter is an open forum, anyone can send you tweets, so getting messages from people you don’t know internationally in an event like this is truly meaningful:

Police have launched a Missing Persons website through the NZ Police main site.

Although there’s always been access to a page within the police website, this revised site will now offer more to the public in the way of information and photographs of both current and historical missing person cases. Only cases police have authority to publish information on will be profiled. This includes current and historic cases.

There are more than 350 long-term missing persons in New Zealand (people who have been missing for more than one year). The Missing Persons Unit is located in the INTERPOL office at Police National Headquarters and is responsible for the coordination of all Missing Persons cases nationwide.

See the Missing Persons website

Get ready for your streamlined business page – that’s the latest call from Facebook.

A notification box on business pages says, “Starting on 23 August, we’ll be simplifying your page to make it easier to browse:

1) Boxes are going away, including the Boxes tab; and

2) All custom tabs will be narrowed to 520 pixels. If you have a custom tab, we recommend that you visit your tab now for a preview of how your content fits in the new layout — please make adjustments as needed. The rest of Facebook will see the old tab width until 23 August.”

Profile and Page Roadmap Update – Facebook says, “We announced plans last October to remove application boxes and application info sections as well as reduce the width of application tabs to optimize for the new profile and Facebook Pages format. We will be moving forward with these changes the week of August 23 and want to help you understand what to expect.

“Based on feedback from developers, we have committed to the following plans to ensure a smooth transition:
* Boxes. We will notify users via messaging in profile boxes and in the Help Center that the “Boxes” tab, boxes on profiles and Pages, and application info sections will be going away.
* Application Tabs. Next week, we will give Page admins the ability to preview their custom tabs in the new 520 pixel width so they can modify their layouts as needed. All profile and Page tabs will be resized automatically beginning the week of August 23.

“These updates are designed to simplify navigation for users, reduce complexity for developers, and enable us to build the next generation of tools for growing your business with Facebook. Subscribe to the developer blog to learn about our new roadmap in the coming weeks.”

Fran, a Platform product marketing manager at Facebook, is busy updating the roadmap.

It’s in the public domain, so surely that means it’s OK to use social media as part of the job recruitment process?

But almost 40 percent of job seekers surveyed believe employers are using social networking profiles to help vet applications, but shouldn’t do so.

However, 35 percent believe employers use social networking sites and also believe they should use such information on those sites to vet applications.. Just 27 percent of those surveyed think employers do not use social media as part of the recruitment process.

The survey, carried out by Hays – Recruiting Experts Worldwide, reignites the debate about public versus private life, but this time it’s not well-known people in the public domain, but every-day job seekers.

The majority of people feel their personal life and their social media profiles shouldn’t be used as part of the job decision-making process.

But the argument is that anything that happens in the public domain are open to public scrutiny and assessment, with some saying reviewing a candidate’s social media profile is not that different from conducting a security check – although consent is needed for the latter.

So, if job seekers aren’t wanting recruiters knowing what they got up to on the weekend, and the photos to go with it, then tight security settings on Facebook, Twitter etc is what is called for. Making sure that just your friends can see your profile is a good start. But it’s not just Facebook that potential employers are looking at – careful with comments you leave on blog sites and perhaps a video that you’ve been tagged in on YouTube.

But, having said all this, cyberspace is a great place to promote yourself and you can certainly use it for your advantage with potential employers. For example, being connected with LinkedIn is a good place to start – showing your willingness to connect with other businesses and people in the same industry as you.

There is always a positive side to social networking, but just take care with security settings, wayward pics of yourself and what you’re saying online.

“Smell like a man, man,” – that’s the message spicing up YouTube at the moment.

It’s a very clever viral-marketing campaign on an old spice – Old Spice. The Isaiah Mustafa-hosted ads have been ranked YouTube’s number one most-viewed of all time in the Sponsors rank, holds this week’s and this months most-viewed top spot – globally.

Old Spice is keeping its customers interested by releasing the ads slowly over a period of time.

Here’s what all the fuss is about:

‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’:

The point-of-difference with these commercials is that the Old Spice’s Isaiah Mustafa personally responds to those who leave comments. Watch:

@aplusk (actor Ashton Kutcher):

He even does marriage proposals:

And responds to pretty much anything:

Life In A Day is a world-first global experiment to create the largest user-generated feature film – a documentary, shot in a single day, by YOU.

On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film, executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.

For more information, visit youtube.com/lifeinaday.

Kevin Macdonald is an Oscar-winning director of films such as The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and One Day in September, and Ridley Scott is the director behind films like Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner and Robin Hood.

Life In A Day will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere.

Check the trailer out here:

Using Tandem’s wide experience in new media has seen the creation of the website www.inthehouse.co.nz for the New Zealand Clerk of the House.

This website is the first in the world to present each individual speaker within Parliament’s debating chamber – online in searchable segments offering the chance to view, share and comment on that speaker using a mix of website, and social media such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Tandem created the concept, built the site and manages the site from its Christchurch studios. This has meant the employment of one full-time and three part-time employees. The website users an In The House YouTube channel which is regularly in the top 10 most-viewed YouTube channels in New Zealand and occasional as high as No 2. In fact, many members of parliament – including John Key, Bill English, Annette King – list the In The House website as one of their ‘likes’ on their Facebook pages.

This project was a major goal and achievement through 2009 and will see the forms and template for the site offered to other parliaments, city councils and large companies as a communication system for them and their key stakeholders.

Here’s a couple of high-ranking, high-hitting videos on our site:
This is a question from Hon David Parker to the Minister of Energy and Resources – Has he received my invitation dated 14 December to accompany me, after Parliament rises, on the Gillespie Pass tramping circuit in the north-eastern parts of the Mount Aspiring National Park, so that he can inspect first-hand areas in the conservation estate included in his stock-take of mineral resources, and will he accept it?

And, a motion without notice – Trevor Mallard congratulating Steven Joyce on his academic career:

The story dates back five years.. When Christchurch musician Amy Bowie was involved in a songwriting competition for television, she wrote and recorded a song inspired by Alice Sebold’s book, The Lovely Bones.

At that time, Amy wasn’t aware Peter Jackson had plans to turn that novel into a movie. Fast forward those five years, and the film was launched. With encouragement from friends, Amy decided to stick the song on YouTube. “Basically it was an experiment to see what would happen and if I could make any money out of it.”

Amy says she was embarrassed that people might think she was some “nutty YouTube girl” so she loaded it onto the video-sharing site anonymously under the username booksRgr8.

She didn’t have a proper video camera and was “way too embarrassed to ask my filmie friends for help”, so she went around every cemetery in Christchurch taking photographs of angel headstones and the like.

She also drew a few pictures, scanned them in and edited them together into what she calls “a stupid little video”. She titled it “The Lovely Bones Song” and away it went. To her surprise, people started asking for a download link so she started her own “Amie” (pseudonym) iTunes store – with most of the downloads and video views coming from the United States.

Thousands of people have now watched the video and it’s getting anywhere between 500-1000 hits per day, without really pushing the song at all.

Watch the beautiful, yet haunting, The Lovely Bones song here:

To download the song off iTunes, go to Amy’s iTune page – Amie

Wanting to capitalise on her success, Amy researched her followers on YouTube and found that most of them were ‘Twihards’ – often with usernames mentioning vampires and Twilight. So, she went and bought the book and discovered that one of the most mentioned songs in the book/movie was ‘Clair de Lune’ by Debussy. Amy did some further research and found that it was inspired by a poem by Paul Verlaine, which led to her decision to do a word-set adaptation/arrangement of the poem to Debussy’s melody – as she couldn’t find one to that particular melody. She has now loaded that one on YouTube and is working hard at promoting it on the sute through comments etc.

Amy finds the whole film-book-song-fan-video mix a fascinating study of culture and has even had someone make a fan-video of her song, “which I thought was way too weird and funny”.

Check out our interview with this interesting Christchurch muso as part of our Fresh Ideas:

For the first time, I’ve come across project management software – Huddle. Sure, it may’ve been around for a while, but when I stumble across new things, it’s good to share.

It’s a space where you can share documents and collaborate with people (specific people and groups) online who are working on the same project as you.

Huddle’s tag phrase is ‘connect, share and work better together.’ A place you can manage people, projects and information inside and outside your business – securely.

It’s like a big, secure chat room – and, it’s free to get started!

Here are the benefits of using Huddle:
* Unlimited users: Invite as many people as you need
* Discussions: Don’t ‘reply all’. Use discussion forums to brainstorm ideas
* Document creation: Create and edit Office documents online and on your desktop via Microsoft Office
* File sharing: Store, share and manage your files
* Project alerts and notifications: Assign tasks, auto reminders and iCal integration
* Whiteboards: Or wiki, share ideas and comments, easily work together on documents
* Document management: Automated versioning, audit trails and approval workflows
* Meetings: Integrated phone & web conferencing
* Custom branding: Customize your dashboard, homepage, emails, own URL
* Security: 128 bit SSL, control over who can see and read documents

Take a look – here.

An interesting blog at Mashable asks whether Facebook can make people instantly connect. Ori Brafman says with all the news about Facebook’s never-ending privacy problems and the exodus of angry users, has the real story been overlooked?

Specifically, is Facebook limiting people’s ability to actually, well, connect? Ori has done some research into the things that make people connect instantly.

He says, “From meeting someone at a work party to that special spark on a first date, instant connections aren’t just intense; they can have a substantial effect on the overall tenor of the ensuing relationship. Research has shown that teams that click tend to work more effectively together and couples that had love at first sight are more passionate with each other even after twenty years.”

Ori says that Facebook indeed does foster some of these connections, but there are specific factors, or accelerators, that trigger such connections. Read the whole mashable.com blog here.