Take that, Malcolm Gladwell. Twitter just got the Gap logo back

Here’s one in the eye for Malcolm Gladwell. The New Yorker’s big-haired, big-brained and big-mouthed columnist argued in a recent article that ‘the revolution will not be Tweeted’.

Well now, Gap has gone back on plans to revamp its logo, thanks to pressure from Twitter and Facebook. Oh yeah – social media brought the Wispa back, it got Rage Against the Machine to number one in the music charts and now it’s taken on the High Street. And Malcolm thinks social media can’t bring social change. Tsk tsk.

Oh alright, I don’t care about Gap’s logo either. If you’ve missed it – and I wouldn’t blame you if you had – Gap said it was changing its logo to a new one that nobody much liked. Faced with complaints, Gap said they wouldn’t make the change after all. For all I know, this was a Salad Cream-style publicity stunt.

A far more sensible response to Gladwell came yesterday from the founders of Twitter. Ev Williams and Biz Stone dismissed Gladwell’s argument, saying that Twitter, like any communication tool, could be used as a complement to activism but could not replace action.

Williams said: “Anyone who’s claiming that sending a tweet by itself is activism, that’s ludicrous — but no one’s claiming that, at least no one that’s credible.”

That’s the most important point – and it’s the reason why I haven’t bothered writing about Gladwell so far – he’s arguing against a position that almost nobody has taken.

Most people are arguing that, like the telephone or email, services like Twitter can be quick and effective communication tools. Even Gladwell acknowledges that. In a Q&A with New Yorker readers, Gladwell said: “In combination with grass roots work, [Twitter] can be a very useful tool.”

So what’s the problem, then? Once again this sounds like a journalist from traditional media trying to make a new tool fit an old paradigm and complaining when it doesn’t. Citizen journalism won’t replace professional journalism, tweeting won’t replace activism, home cooking won’t replace restaurants, dogs won’t replace cats. Why is all this so hard to grasp?

Gladwell has form in this area, sadly. In 2006 he was demonstrating his inability to grasp blogging. “Without the New York Times,” he said, “what would there be for bloggers to blog about.” I said at the time he was wrong but at least he was a few years ahead of Andrew Marr.

In dismissing Twitter in 2010, Gladwell is right on schedule. Expect his takedown of Foursquare some time in 2012.

Police take to Twitter to show how hard they're working

The Greater Manchester Police is tweeting all of the incidents it deals with in 24 hours as part of a bid to raise awareness of what they do in a typical day. While it’s tempting to dismiss this as gimmickry and mutter about how they shouldn’t be wasting their time, I’m finding their Twitter feed quite fascinating. It’s like a real life version of The Bill, only with better writing.

So far they have had more than 700 calls – so many that their Twitter accounts keep getting suspended for tweeting too much. The force has to move from @gmp24_2 to @gmp24_3 and so on. As you’d imagine, there have been several burglaries, missing persons reports and car accidents but there have been several bizarre calls too. The highlight so far is this one:

“Call 384 report of man holding baby over bridge – police immediately attended and it was man carrying dog that doesn’t like bridges.”

There have also been several children calling 999 by accident and a surprising number of escaped animals: so far this morning the police have had to deal with loose dogs, cows and horses.

Greater Manchester Police says it wants “to raise awareness of the complexity of policing. There are a lot of social problems we deal with as well as crime”. That’s being demonstrated pretty clearly from the Twitter feed, though it’s also clear that there are plenty of time wasters. Yes, that means you, the person who phoned to report a video being put on your YouTube site and you, the person who called to report a man shouting “you’re gorgeous” at a woman.

The idea is to shed a little light on police work before the Government’s budget cuts, which are expected to require police forces to make savings of up to 25 per cent. The Twitter feed is little more than a peep through the keyhole of the police station, however. It doesn’t give us a complete picture of what’s happening. It would be nice to know more about how these calls are prioritised and dealt with, for example, and how quickly police are able to respond.

Still, Greater Manchester Police have to be given credit for drawing attention to what they do. The question is whether this will lead to a serious discussion about police funding.

Update: Inevitably, there’s a spoof account for Greater Manchester Police now too.

Facebook and Twitter dominate online communities map

The 2010 version sees a tiny MySpace dwarfed by Facebook, which sprawls across the top third of the map. Twitter occupies a large territory in the lower half of the map, next to a slightly smaller YouTube.

However, as always with Munroe’s creations, the fun is in picking out the little details. It’s amusing that Sarah Palin can see Russia (LiveJournal) from her position on the fringes of Twitter and the fact that Facebook’s privacy controls are in the centre of a sea of lava is a nice touch. Lord of the Rings fans will find a nice in-joke for their benefit too.

I won’t spoil any more of the gags. Open up the large version and start exploring for yourself.

I wonder what the 2013 version will look like. Surely Facebook won’t go the way of MySpace? How much larger will Twitter grow? And will Google’s invasion fleet have successfully conquered Skype?

Buy ‘XKCD: Volume 0′ by Randall Munroe from Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Take that, Malcolm Gladwell. Twitter just got the Gap logo back

Well now, Gap has gone back on plans to revamp its logo, thanks to pressure from Twitter and Facebook. Oh yeah – social media brought the Wispa back, it got Rage Against the Machine to number one in the music charts and now it’s taken on the High Street. And Malcolm thinks social media can’t bring social change. Tsk tsk.

Oh alright, I don’t care about Gap’s logo either. If you’ve missed it – and I wouldn’t blame you if you had – Gap said it was changing its logo to a new one that nobody much liked. Faced with complaints, Gap said they wouldn’t make the change after all. For all I know, this was a Salad Cream-style publicity stunt.

A far more sensible response to Gladwell came yesterday from the founders of Twitter. Ev Williams and Biz Stone dismissed Gladwell’s argument, saying that Twitter, like any communication tool, could be used as a complement to activism but could not replace action.

Williams said: “Anyone who’s claiming that sending a tweet by itself is activism, that’s ludicrous