Happy 30th Birthday Commodore 64

I feel all nostalgic about my first computer, the Commodore 64 turning 30 this month (granted, part of that is further realisation that my big 4-0 is only a few months away).

I LOVED my C64. Not in the same way as I love my Air or my iMac but an immature 'Jackie' or 'Blue Jeans' stylie.

I knew I was getting it yet I was elated to see it sitting under the tree on that Christmas morning in 1983. 

The large box had been there for a week, it had been burning a hole through my being. I'd ticked off the slow, lonely hours till we could be together. It was painful.

Come 5am, Christmas morning I tore open the paper and sat stroking the box. I was so excited at what lay before me. The knowledge that time spent inputting syntax would result in my name running across the screen was almost too much to bear.

Thankfully my big brothers were on hand to take over. TV tuned, we were ready to go. My first experience on my very own computer was to be a game of Damsels in Distress.

We put in the cassette and waited and waited and waited for the game to load. There was a cheer when the welcome screen came alive about an hour later. I was blown away by the picture before me.

Like seriously impressed. You young people don't even think about going there...

I'd never seen anything so awesome.

For those of you un familiar with the classic game of Damsels in Distress you are the dude at the top left of the screen and you have to make your way to save your damsel at the bottom right of the screen.

It's not rocket science but you have to outwit ghosts, scary spiders and get down ladders. It's hardcore stuff in early '80's gaming terms. You are risking life and limb to save this girl! Its serious and really, really hard because after a full day of game play my brothers and I still hadn't got past the first level... (Disclaimer: This would not be the case now and we would totally have kicked ass in modern gaming terms....)

They packed me off to bed, promising that they wouldn't stay up all night playing without me.

They lied.

Boxing day morning 6am and I was fresh as a daisy and raring to go.  I was refreshed and ready to trash the spider and the ghost. I rushed downstairs to my computer, switched on the power and got a big fat NOTHING. 

My brothers lied to me. Not only had they stayed up to save the Damsel (and failed, like a complete pair of losers) but they'd also forgotten to switch off the C64's power pack, which had gone into gaming overload and totally given up the ghost. GAME OVER.

No big deal you would think, call the store, get it sorted, but this was 1983 and shops didn't open on Boxing Day. 

Zip forward 30 years and I've just about forgiven my brothers for frying my pride and joy but I also can't thank them enough for instilling their own excitement in modern technology in me, their (much) younger sister. Without their influence and excitement I would never have gone on to achieve the things that I have in social media.

So Happy Birthday Commodore 64 and happy memories to all the other Commodore Christmas kids of 1983.

According to Wikipedia, sales of the C64 totalled between 12.5 and 17 million units, making it the best selling single personal computer model of all time.

I like that. A lot!

Manage your Instagram feed from Hootsuite dashboard

It's been a long time coming but thanks to Hootsuite there's now a decent, quick loading Instagram web app that makes light work of managing your Instagram stream from the comfort of your Hootsuite dashboard.

Multiple Instagram streams on the Hootsuite dashboard

Of course this isn't the first third party online Instagram app but I've always found Webstagram and Statigram to be slow and glitchy. 

First impressions of the Hootsuite app are pretty good I'm disappointed that it doest have a multi account function, Now that would have been something to shout about.

Key features include:

Share Instagram photos to your social networks

View feeds for: Your photos, users you follow, popular pics and your likes

View and post comments and likes

View user information

Come on Hootsuite, not having to log in and out of my personal and work Instagram accounts would make me very, very happy and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

You can download the Hootsuite Instagram app via the Hootsuite App Directory and it's FREE!

The Not So GlossyBox

Yesterday morning I was rather excited to receive my much hyped 'Luxury' Harrods Edition GlossyBox, my excitement was heightened by the fact that the postman knocked on my door at 9am on the dot and that never happens in the depths of the countryside that I call home.

I raced downstairs to open my box of goodies but what lay before me was not the luxury assortment that I'd seen people blogging and tweeting about. Where was my Burberry Lip Mist or my YSL Forever Youth Liberator???

In their place were items that I could have picked up in any high street Boots store. I decided that I'd been sent the wrong items and went back to check what it said on the GlossyBox blog.

My box contained: Lancome Hypnose Mascara, Molton Brown Bath & shower Gel, SK-II Signature (nice), Clarins Firming Body Lotion, Valentino Valentina Perfume, Shu Uemura Cleansing Beauty Oil.

Below quote from the GlossyBox blog...

"This month we teamed up with the world of luxury... Harrods! Harrods is most well known for having the largest and most luxurious beauty hall and in this month's GLOSSYBOX we bring you the luxury to your front door.

Here is the selection of samples that are in the box this month..." 

Whizz forward 24 hours and the first tweet I chanced upon this morning was from someone blogging about her GlossyBox (hereby known as #BloggerA), so I went over for a read.

She had exactly the same contents as me and she was similarly disappointed. I tweeted #A to let her know that she wasn't alone but all around my stream people were raving about the awesomeness of their deliveries.

By this point I was becoming increasingly annoyed and I tweeted GlossyBox to tell them so. I tweeted them a fair bit, @messaging to include them in the conversation trail that was panning out but they didn't reply at all.

They had hyped up the arrival of this Luxury box, packed with luxury cosmetics so much yet I had been sent a box of tat.

I stepped away, but everytime I went back to Twitter the situation had escalated. Blogger A had been in dialogue with GlossyBox throughout the day, via Twitter and email. I joked about not being influential enough to warrant a reply from them.

Then another blogger (lets call her #B), who just happens to be a GlossyBox ambassador chips in and questions Blogger A's integrity, saying that she should have stated that she'd been sent the non luxury special edition Harrods GlossyBox as a freebie sample.

Ouch. As a brand you don't really want your ambassadors to be sprouting that kind of stuff do you?

No you don't. Cause you can bet your ass that if Blogger A had posted a glowing review then GlossyBox would have been re-tweeting it from the rooftops.

So to my second issue in the ongoing GlossyBox saga.

This is where I became aware that most of the GlossyBox conversation was coming from bloggers / tweeters /  who had also been sent their boxes free of charge. 

That's fine. I'm a PR myself but what isn't fine is when the views of paying customers are completely ignored or when different boxes are sent out to 'elite bloggers' to secure favourable reviews.

Over the past few months I have seen many posts, pics and tweets about GlossyBox boxes, yet not once I have I seen it disclosed that the boxes were freebies.
Think about it... 100 or 200 free subscriptions to bloggers = lots of brand mentions and positivity each month but unless conversations like this take place bloggers don't realise that they are being used by the brand and that they ARE the marketing plan.

It leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

I will be cancelling my GlossyBox subscription as soon as I get back from my business trip and if anyone one can suggest another beauty box, but with good customer service, please do say.