How did it come about
Well as you may know I set up FootyTweets few years ago, a football news/updates service on Twitter. It started out because I wanted to get Reading FC news and score alerts on Twitter. So I started out doing it manually. After a few days I decided to set up a script to do it for me, but what about all the other teams? Well thats where FootyTweets came from.

I’ve had a fair bit of contraversy with FootyTweets and its or reltations: MotorTweets, CricketTweets and RugbyTweets. All of these came about due to the way “old media” see anyone using their copyright without their permission. Different companies/organisations treat their copyright and trademark in one of two ways:

• Old media: Send the person in breech of copyright a Cease & Desist letter (like I received)
• New media: Embrace the person that is giving them extra publicity and promoting the copyright holder

Anyway, as you can see from the Cease & Desist letter I received, all the clubs and governing bodies have a very obvious old media stance.

What happened with Reading FC then?
Well, Reading FC were the first team to make contact with me and ask to speak on the phone. I immediately knew the issue was Twitter related and was most likely just ringing to ask for the Twitter account I was using for Reading (@ReadingFC). Which I would be fine about since I’d rather not go to court because I wouldn’t change an account name. Twitter themselves have their rules about using other peoples trademarks and I wouldn’t stand a chance!

But… I was really surprised to speak to the Craig, the Head of Communications and Reading FC and he did just want the Twitter account name, which we had swapped over within 10 minutes of the phone call ending (my account changed to @Unofficial_RFC). But what I didn’t expect was him to thank me for running the account for so long. Not only that but he offered me the chance to go into the press area for any matches I like!

Let’s backtrack a second
A football club thanked me for using their trademark because it was benefiting the club. Craig specifically mentioned the term “new media” too. I wish more clubs like DC United and New York Red Bulls (Both in the MLS) would have done the same rather than sending me harsh e-mails or going to Twitter directly to take over an account.

Conclusion
You might well support someone else, but you have to admire what Reading FC have done. If it is possible, then I am a bigger fan that I was this time last week.

Did you know that Twitter attempted to secretly release a new feature to a small percentage of users (less than 5%)? The chances are that you did, but if you didn’t check out this Mashable article about Twitter Lists. They will be releasing the lists feature to 5% of people over the next few weeks.

When Twitter release new features, or are planning a new feature, they give developers new API methods to test out. This was the case for Lists. Developers have been given access to a draft API documentation.

So with a combination of being one of the small fraction of users given access to Lists I also saw the draft Lists API, I thought I could make an app as proof of concept of what can be done. The result was ListLeages.

One of my old Twitter apps TwitterLeague (which I no longer own or operate) was built before Lists was even an idea and so if you wanted to create a league of Twitter users you had to login to Twitterleague and add users individually. But now with ListLeagues you can create your lists on Twitter and turn them into leagues by matching the uri (the bit after http://twitter.com)

So for instance I have a league at http://twitter.com/ollieparsley/hootware. If I wanted to create a league from this list all I do is substitute twitter.com for listleagues.com. So the URL would become http://listleagues.com/ollieparsley/hootware

Alternatively you can see w

Ok so you might have just dropped it in some shallow water. Here is what you should do in the “rules according to Ollie”. Obviously if you have dropped it in water and have taken the time to find this blog post then it is probably too late for you. But if you are reading this for info then follow these rules:

1. Get it out the water! By now you will be getting odd messages saying “This accessory is not compatible with iPhone” (like below)
2. Wrap it in a towel to get the surface water off
3. Put the phone on a coat in the footwell of your car
4. Drive a long distance, whist:
   1. Blasting heat into the footwell of the passenger seat
   2. Opening the windows so you don’t boil
5. Sorted!

There you go. That was exactly what I did on Friday morning and it worked perfectly when I got to the end of the journey. The only thing I am not sure about is insurance. Although I obviously have needed to make a claim, internally there would be signs of water damage which would make the insurance invalid. I am hoping to get clrification on Monday when I take a trip to the O2 store.

After the amazing success of the h1debate Twitter hashtag poll. I decided to create another one for a slightly specialised topic. Do you love or hate marmite? Available at lovehatemarmite.com Obviously this is just available in the UK and South Africa.

So how does it work? Well if you have a Twitter account, simply tweet #lovemarmite or #hatemarmite along with your reason to vote! For more on Marmite check out the official site at marmite.co.uk.

There may well be more polls to come soon. Don’t forget to check out the h1debate.com

Paul Randall had some discussions on Twitter last week about where on a page you should use an h1 tag. There are 2 possible options. Either as the sites name for instance <h1>Acme labs</h1> or as the main heading <h1>About page</h1>.

This lead to Paul getting into a bigger discussion and finally approaching me (after our awesome collaboration on the design of FootyTweets) to help develop a site to integrate the Twitter discussion.

The site idea came at about 6:30pm yesterday (2nd Feb 2009) and was finished at 10:30pm ish the same day.

H1debate.com integrated Twitter hashtags and the Twitter Search API to create a voting system so there can finally be an outcome and settly once and for all the correct use of the <h1>.

As people who follow me on Twitter will know, I cracked my iPhone’s about 3 days before Christmas. I tried to replace the screen on my old iPhone and consequently broke the ariel meaning it immediately became an iPod touch! But this time I made sure I paid for insurance. So I took the my broken iPhone 3G to the Carphone Warehouse and they said it would be atleast 2 weeks to repair. I did point out that I think after the extortionate premium I pay that I should get a replacement. Instead they gave me a shitty Nokia that looked like it has a screen resolution of 100px x 100px! I was not impressed.

I got back to work with this shitty phone and immediate looked around for my old Windows Mobile phone that was locked to Orange and therefore spent the next hour finding out how to SIM unlock it. I succeded but during the process lost my 3G coverage. I then had to get it to sync with my contacts on my machine using Microsofts ActiveSync. I had to spend 40mins importing my Windows Contacts into Outlook (whihc I don’t use) just to get ActiveSync to see them! I was pretty much fuming at this point.

I then had to find a Twitter client for it. I ended up with Twobile. A nice little app that does everything you need, except it looks like it was a microsoft app i.e. broing to look at and took atleast 3 clicks to get to what I wanted.

Move on 3 weeks, I was walking down the high street and suddenly got a pain in my chest, it ended up being a Spontaneous Pneumothorax which at the time of writing I still have! But this meant for the next week I could not walk far without being in agony from my chest. So I couldn’t get to the shop to get my iPhone back.

Back to today (15th of January), I collected my iPhone and paid the £29.99 premium that clearly said 17.5 VAT (which is obviously wrong), I couldn’t be assed to argue over it. The guy then announced that it was a replacement handset, I could have told him they would do that 4 weeks ago! Instead I had to go back to the office and wait 5 hours till I could get home and sync the dam thing and get everything back to how it was.

Anyway I took a pic of what I got back:

1. A nice little box
2. A new (probably refurbished) iPhone
3. An official Apple paperclip

Anyway that is my story, my phone is still syncing (30mins so far). My recommendation: Do not drop your iPhone!

As you can tell I have a new theme. The last theme was starting to look a bit cluttered so I opted for a new theme with a space to put some free text. That way I can keep everyone up to date with my latest prjects without directing them to a particular page

Anyway how was your new year celebrations? Mine was quite quiet really, just went to my girlfriends parents house for lots of drinks and food.

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I have announced on Twitter that I have stopped Magpie from sending sponsored advertising into my Twitter feed. Basically it comes down to the fact that a lot of people expressed the fact they did not like advertising going into the Twitter and would ruin it’s image as a networking tool.

I would like to explain why I signed up for the service. Apart from writing a review for this very blog, I have been looking for ways to make a little bit of money on the side of my full time job, none of my web apps make money as they are just there for other users’ benefit. Like TwitterLeage, which was created to enhance the fun and competitive nature of follower counts. So this seemed a nice (not too intrusive way) of making a few pence.

But I didn’t see the line between making a bit of money on the side and clogging up my feed with advertising that may well have been suited to people following me.

So there you go. No hard feelings to anyone and thank you to the users who pointed out what I was doing.