Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

why I trended on twitter in ireland yesterday

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Yesterday morning I was reading through the posts in my blog reader. One story in Enn.ie stood out.

enn story about Amazon buying warehouse space in Dublin

enn story about Amazon buying warehouse space in Dublin

In short, it said that Amazon had purchased a 22.5 thousand sq metre warehouse in Dublin. This warehouse used to belong to Tesco, meaning it’s set up for distribution of product. It’s near the M50. I wondered if it could mean that they were finally planning to open an Irish Amazon web store, instead of treating us as poor cousins of amazon.co.uk.
I tweeted a link to the story, wondering “amazon just bought 22.5 thousand square metres of warehouse space in Dublin! amazon.ie finally?”

This original tweet was RT’d a few times. And a few more times. And then I got a message that I (or rather @brianclayton was trending in Dublin).

image showing @brianclayton trending in Dublin

image showing @brianclayton trending in Dublin

A short time later, an automatic message saying I was trending in Ireland!

image showing @brianclayton trending in Ireland

image showing @brianclayton trending in Ireland

This was proving to be a really popular tweet! Later that evening Silicon Republic put out a story saying that the warehouse was bought to be converted to a data centre.

I then tweeted a link to that, saying that I hoped all those who had RT’d my earlier tweet wondering if it could be a shop would RT the one explaining that it’s a datacentre.

I think this shows two things – first, that all 140 characters are important. The ‘?’ in my first tweet, and secondly, that Irish people really want Amazon.ie. Please Amazon – no more “item can not be delivered to your country”.

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Posted in tech stuff | No Comments »

twebt 5 tonight

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Hi,

I hope you’re ready for tonight’s twitter blind wine tasting.

To get ready for the tasting – there’s no need to chill the bottle. Just open it about an hour before we start, so at about 8pm tonight. Don’t look at the cork when you take it out of the bottle or you’ll give the game away.

make sure you’re following me, @kevatfennsquay and rednosewine.Kevin and I will be loosely mc’ing the show and Gary (rednosewine) will be giving us the answers when prompted.

We’ll follow the usual sequence,
* old/new – is the wine from the old world or the new world?
* the year – what year was the wine made?
* percentage of alcohol
* country of origin – what country does the wine come from?
* the grape – what grape or grapes is the wine made from?
* region – what region does the wine come from?

We’ll start around 9 and the whole thing should take about 90 minutes. See you later!

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new date for twebt 5

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Hi all,

with twitter being swamped and running into technical difficulties due to the World Cup we’ve decided to move #twebt 5 back a week, to Sunday the 4th of July. There’s no soccer that day so hopefully Twitter will be working properly. I hope this won’t inconvenience anyone!
Gary from Red Nose Wine, our supplier will extend his offer for a half case including the mystery wine and the mystery bottle too.
The half case including mystery bottle will set you back a mere €80 and the bottle on its own is €14. Shipping is a fiver in both cases.
Use the coupon ‘Twebt’ at checkout to get the delivery back to €5.

My original post is here and Gary’s post is here

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Posted in food and drink | 2 Comments »

it’s nearly last call for twebt 5

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Tomorrow evening (Wednesday 23rd) is the last day to order your mystery bottle for twebt5.

You might get away with an order early Thursday morning but I wouldn’t risk it.

Do join in!

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twebt 4 a great success

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Our fourth twebt, a blind wine tasting on twitter went very well.
We had about 11 people at our twebtup in the Sextant bar in Cork, and about another 20 people took part across Ireland.
Thanks to everyone that took part, thanks very much to O’Briens who did a great job on choosing the wine and joining in on the night, and massive thanks to the Sextant bar for hosting us.
They did a great job – gave us a lovely area to work in and were brilliant hosts. I can’t recommend the pub enough. And they do pig-on-a-spit!

I’ll have details of twebt 5 soon!

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Posted in food and drink | 1 Comment »

free twitter prosecco in fenns quay

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

Fenn’s Quay restaurant in Cork ran a special offer on Twitter this week, where you’d get a free glass of Prosecco or Beer with your meal if you made a reservation by DM (a twitter private message).
As I was heading to Blackrock Castle Wine Club thursday I decided to eat in Fenn’s quay beforehand. I duly made a reservation and lo and behold:

Prosecco?

Prosecco in Fenn's Quay

some very tasty Prosecco. Thanks all at Fenn’s Quay.
Incidentally I had the Beef Osso Bucco, which was really tasty.

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twebt 3 is on!

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Welcome to #twebt 3!

and a not so serious one of me training for #twebt3

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twebt 2: this time it’s curious

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

twebt is back! and this time Curious Wines have kindly agreed to be the suppliers of the mystery wine!

twebt (twitter event, blind tasting) is a wine tasting on twitter. You buy the mystery bottle of wine and at the appropriate time you open it, taste it and we all try to guess what sort of wine it is. It’s not competitive, there’s no prize and it’s for everyone, not just wine buffs. It takes place over an hour or two, so everyone has a chance to taste the wine, and start talking about it with everyone else.

The twebt itself will take place at about 8:00 pm Sunday the 31st January. You can buy the mystery bottle from Curious Wines either in-store in Bandon, or online.
It’ll cost €19 shipped to anywhere in Ireland.
You need a twitter account, and then you need to follow me – @brianclayton,Kevin Crowley, the lads at Curious Wines and everyone who signs up below. you then follow the #twebt hashtag and have fun!

taking part so far we have (at least):

judges and imparters of information will of course be Curious Wines

We did this last November with a bottle from Bubble Brothers and it worked really well.

Huge thanks to the gents at Curious Wines and Kevin from Fenn’s Quay

We’ll hope do this again in a couple of months – we’re eyeing up Karwig Wines for the next one!

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Posted in wine | 9 Comments »

twebt

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

Update on our twitter blind tasting!

Tomorrow, Sunday at 20:30 we’re opening our mystery bottles. We’ll live tweet our impressions of the wine, try to describe what we’re tasting and some of us will make wild allegations about where the wine came from. There’s nothing at stake but honour and bragging rights.

Our list of participants is growing. We now have at least:

@bubblebrothers will be our independant observer, and will pronounce the victor **.

You are very welcome to join in. You need to get a mystery bottle from Bubble Brothers. Then you need to follow all the twitter people mentioned above, watch for the #twebt hashtag, and most important of all – enjoy the wine.

@grapes_of_sloth has a link to a systematic approach to tasting. Or, you can use my style of tasting. Open bottle, pour into glass*, taste.

Thanks to everyone that’s taking part, and to the gang in Bubble Brothers, Mortons of Galway and Urru in Bandon for breaking out the wrapping paper and making this possible.

We’re hoping that if this event goes well we can have another one, perhaps with a mystery bottle from either Karwig Wines or Curious Wines.

* this step is optional
** possibly not till Monday or later in the week, given that I’ve not actually asked him to do this :)

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Posted in food and drink | 9 Comments »

twitter blind tasting

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

This Sunday, I’m going to take part in a blind tasting of a mystery bottle of wine, in the virtual company of some Cork (and now Galway) twitter-ers. Our plan is simple. We all open the bottle at about the same time, taste it, describe it as best we can, and then make wild claims about its origins, hopefully to howls of derision and claims of cheating.

The good people of Bubble Brothers have prepared a suitable bottle, wrapping or otherwise anonymising it to preserve the mystery.

mystery wine

So far, the participants in this event are

We’d love it if some more people joined in. All you need is to go to one of BubbleBrothers shops, either in the Marina or the English Market. Explain that you want the bottle for the “twitter blind tasting”. They may look at you strangely but they will know what you’re talking about :) The bottle will cost less than €15 euro. You’ll need a twitter account, follow everyone on the list above and watch for the hashtag.

The time and the hashtag are TBC.

if you’ve any questions drop me an email to brian at brianclayton.ie

I’m not entirely sure who’s idea it was, but credit to everyone mentioned above, particularly whoever in BubbleBrothers is getting in early christmas present wrapping practise. Thanks also to Mortons of Galway for bringing Galway in on the act. In the future we hope to try this again, with enough notice that we can arrange a country wide event.

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Posted in wine | 5 Comments »