Layout, Design and (more) Twitter

Three pages of the March issue were worked on today including the Chujado piece. A ‘travel blueprint’ containing practical information for a visit is due for completion next.

OJB has a new post on how to introduce Twitter to journalists:

“Make it an internal tool first.

What I mean is: employ Twitter as a way of keeping journalists in touch with other members of their team, and their editors, via their mobile phones.”

Possible in Korea? Possible with the Jeju Life team?

Twittering on Jeju

Reading Online Journalism Blog (OJB) tonight, I saw that Twitter continues to be in flavour.

It’s still nagging at me how it can be set up for the foreign population on Jeju Island. It could be a great tool for keeping everyone right up to date with events.

Unfortunately there still seems to be some issues when it comes to syncing Twitter with a Facebook account. Facebook user Tom Trelvik explains:

“The Twitter app started failing to sync my facebook status again for the second time. I was able to fix it both times by removing the app, readding it, and reauthorizing it to update my status.Until the developers manage to figure out what’s going wrong and fix it, they might at least add the ability to easily reauthorize the app without having to completely remove it and re-add it.(And if it is a matter of losing the authorization it previously had, this may be a problem on Facebook’s side, not the app’s side.)

But it’s great when it works…”

Twitter would work with the forthcoming Fire Festival, for traffic updates (it is going to be poor coming from Jeju City) and letting people know when things are starting.

Tamraguk Ipchun Gutnori and Twitter

Despite the gusting wind and increasingly chilly temperatures, the Tamraguk Ipchun Gutnori festival seems to have garnered universal praise from all of those involved.

Beginning at the steps of City Hall a shrine was set up, towards which a number of Jeju City dignitaries paid their respects.

Then led by the Mayor with hundreds of traditional dancers in costume following, the march down to Gwandeokjong (historical seat of government on Jeju) began.

Throughout the event I was taking photographs, gathering audio and attempting to Twitter via SMS.

Let’s look at Twitter in a little more detail.

Writing the SMS wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. And it took time to put something together, which meant I wasn’t giving my full attention to the event.

My Korean cell phone allows for only eighty English characters (a Twitter update allows for a maximum of140 characters). Within this limitation I tried to be descriptive and summarise the scene –mainly the noise and the fact that hundreds of people were walking on the busy city streets holding up traffic.

I realized that due to the length of the event (4:30pm – 7:00pm) someone reading the initial updates could choose to come out and join in.

However, there are some Korean-specific issues with Twittering. First off, the messages I send from my cell phone go to a number in England. This can get expensive. Then anyone who follows the Jejulife account would receive their update from England, US or Canada. That’s costing people a premium for every update I make. On top of that we can’t be sure that every Korean cell phone receives international text messages.

Twitter updated my Facebook status as expected. I was satisfied with that result. I’ll have to be careful of ‘Facebook Noise’ though and creating too many status updates, clogging people’s news feed.

It was an interesting experiment and one that needs refinement.

Tomorrow morning I’m scheduled to meet with Jenie Hahn of Jeju National University. We’ll be talking (amongst other things) about my commitment to speak with students in the coming weeks regarding my magazine experiences.