How to Leave Twitter does not go very far to explain how to leave Twitter. And rightly so, because Grace Dent is very much still on it. In both senses of the term.

What How to Leave Twitter does do is give a brief and humorous guide to the social network (or "microblogging" network, as it is less and less frequently termed) some insight in how to use it well, and an array of wittily crated thoughts and experiences of Grace Dent's in her 3 years of using the website. In fact, a tidbit: she joined it a month to the day before I did.

When first I heard about this book I thought it an absolutely appalling idea for a book. I still think its title and description don't do its content any favours. I became a little less sceptical after reading Scott's glowing review in the Spectator (it's much better than this one, go and read it), so when I spotted it in Fopp for a fiver, I thought I ought to give it a look.

The page to which I turned contained a collection of Tweets you often see on an ill-curated timeline. You know, the complaints, the rants, the humble brags and self-congratulatory retweets, followed by Dent's imaginary dialogue with the offending Tweeter. Imagining the entire book must be like that, I almost didn't buy it. In the end, though, I decided it might be worth a look, if only for the sake of a good exercise in critical blogging.

Despite my best efforts to rail against the only Twitter user with a substantial following and the right attitude to write a book about it, I found myself quite enjoying it. As Dent mentions, it's difficult to sum up what Twitter is, since it's such a different experience for everyone. What the book does is to lay out the typical timeline for Twitter uptake, some key points in learning to use it to your best advantage, and some of the ways ways in which Twitter has affected her life. From finding internet buddies who send you torrents of the TV show you want to review to the Twitter effect on marketing buzz, there are lots of interesting tidbits amongst the @caitlinmoran ramblings.

Twitter is full of sharp, opinionated women. Or, as men tend to call us, 'sassy'. Footnote: I hate being called 'sassy'. The only reason 'sassy' still exists is to denote 'a woman who can verbally spar and issue droll one-liners at the same level as a man' is because we're so unused to seeing her we haven't invented any other words since the 1950s.

Amongst the chatter, too, is a stand-out segment on the state of the media landscape and its relationship to women. Where women in TV and the media are concerned, Twitter stands unique as a place for female writers and comedians to speak unedited, where their references to Boardwalk Empire aren't changed to Sex and the City and their references to top poop are left to reek joyfully at the writer's behest.

I wonder if men get told so soften the tone of think pieces for fear that the poor male reader might feel under attack? Or are they allowed to be as pointy-tongued as they want, as men trust each other men to lap up a few truthbombs and realise they're talking about some other jerk anyway?

For sharp-tongue and quick wit, get your butt on Twitter. If you're already on there, you can read this extra-long tweet in book form by picking it up from Amazon (UK) or (US Kindle edition).

Book #28: ★★★★★

What's the funniest book you've read lately?

I'm tragically behind on my 52 Book Challenge. Check out the 52 Books page for micro-reviews or add me as a friend on Goodreads.

The pen is mightier than the sword, but is the printing press greater than the CMS?

Page One: Inside the New York Times opens inside the mammoth New York Times printing press - a sight to behold for life-long online journalists. Alongside it, the stately monolith of the New York Times headquarters located in Midtown Manhattan is a statue to the legacy of the iconic daily newspaper. In the face of open access to information, new authorial voices online, and a decline in advertising revenue, online presents a new apparatus of accountability in journalism.

When, in January 2009, The Atlantic's Michael Hirschorn published an article citing the end of days for New York's sacred text, the newsroom was rocked at the insinuation.

As documentarian Andrew Rossi worked on a documentary about Web 2.0 for HBO, the article acted as a catalyst for a conversation with New York Times reporter David Carr about the media's utopian future. Following the breadcrumbs, Rossi stumbled into a legacy.

"The conversation I was having with David Carr suddenly took this sharp turn toward a conversation about what the future for legacy media would be, and what was going to happen to the Times," says Rossi. "I realised that following his story through this change of digitisation and technology could be really fascinating. Drawing the story out towards the future of journalism and what's happening to newspapers and what the implications are for those people was another approach, versus, for example, following an entrepreneur who is starting their own company and has a sort of wide-eyed take on everything."

Rossi acted as the Times HQ's fly on the wall, working to emphasise verité. Taking us behind the news desk with former crack addict and veteran journalist David Carr and blogger-turned-reporter Brian Statler during a turbulent year of leaks and take-downs, it's a personality-driven piece on the now-threadbare existence of the world's best-known newspaper.

In the face of Twitter reporting, online news aggregators, and WikiLeaks, will the New York Times become, as David Carr inquires of the iPad, "a bridge to the future or the gallows"? "I think that [Gawker and The Huffington Post] are websites which have a lot of value add for their readership. Maybe the Huffington Post has a lot of people in democratic politics who look to it on a regular basis, but I don't think they're doing any investigative pieces that are changing the world."

Having captured the revelation of WikiLeaks from within the newsroom, however, the journalistic process takes on a new set of parameters online. Is it unedited journalism, or a simply a source? "WikiLeaks was something that nobody could have predicted would become such a huge story and really dominate the conversation,' says Rossi, 'not only in the media, but also in geopolitics. That was definitely a surprise, and a wonderful one, because it's one which I think really crystallises all the themes in the movie."

The Times subsequently partnered with WikiLeaks to release a series of daily headlines. This is where free information and the arbiters of what's news collide.

The proliferation of news media has blinded us to the sheer amount of new media content that is produced by mainstream sources and aggregated online. We've seen how legacy journals have fallen in the hands of malfeasant executives, but here the New York Times represents a crew prepared to go down with its ship, which in turn refuses to sink. Can the news world strike a balance between strong investigative journalism in the face of free, to-the-second online content?

"The New York Times do still set the agenda," says Rossi, "but I think that it's very important for people to be educated news consumers. People can access original documents and can fact-check stories that they see themselves. They don't have to be a slave to one piece of paper that gets printed on a daily basis. 24 hours a day, they can write comments and talk back to the paper."

Agenda-setting is no longer a one-way street. "I think something that we learn [in the film] is that it's a 2-way street, and there's a way to guide the global conversation on different topics that accommodates counter-voices."

In a culture where everything is perceived to be free, are we ready to learn the cost of losing the New York Times?

Page One: Inside the New York Times is released Friday 23 September and screens in the UK throughout September and October. Out on DVD 14 November. Find screenings in your area here.

You can pre-order Page One on DVD or stream it online through Dogtooth.tv by clicking on the player below.



A version of this feature is published at the Spectator Arts and Culture blog.

Read more on Uncultured Critic: Blogger Outreach at Social Media Week; FilmCamp at Social Media Week Glasgow.

Yomego sheltered a lively group of social media dilettantes from the torrential downpour today in their cosy basement-level presentation space. The Glasgow and London-based social media agency's Annie and Mark talked us through some of the finer points of social media marketing with their talk: A Practical Guide to Effective Blogger Outreach.

To summarise their introduction, blogger outreach has become an appealing strategy for brands as prominent bloggers and individuals with online followings command a great deal of trust from their readers and fans. The statistic cited was that 70% of internet users expressed that they trust friends in their fellow internet community to give good recommendations. With the popularity of sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp, this fact has become all but inescapable for the hospitality industry. Capturing that trust can be key to marketing for films, events, and products across a number of industries.

Annie and Mark explained Yomego's holistic approach to blogger outreach, and here they recommend a direct mode of communication with niche bloggers. Detailing some key components in finding the right kinds of bloggers, some important factors include demographic, audience size, thinking about the kind of value their client can add to the blog, and looking for bloggers with an established interest in the relevant brand. Influence can be measured through Klout scores, Twitter followers, Facebook presence, and the interaction on their blog, like subscribers and comments.

It's evident that there are no shortcuts in this approach, and as Annie pertinently pointed out, the best way to reach 100 bloggers and communicate to them that you've spent time and read their blog; you're going to have to find relevant bloggers, take time to familiarise yourself with their sites, and personally contact 100 blog owners.

Connecting with bloggers on a personal level and working to a mutual advantage is key to the success of blogger outreach. When working with bloggers, Annie and Mark also recommend patience, timely and positive responses, and anticipating the blogger's needs. Though one risk of inviting bloggers to write on your product is that they have ultimate control over the editorial content, the potential rewards certainly seem to outweigh the risks.

Although the potential power of the blogger is well documented, poor practice like mass mailings and unsolicited inbox press release dumps can turn bloggers off in an instant. As companies begin to adopt more active social marketing principles, peer recommendations is becoming a key component in driving more transparent and mutually beneficial campaigns.

If you want to learn more, the slides from today's presentation are available .

This post appears as a guest blog on the Social Media Week website.

Read more: FilmCamp at Social Media Week Glasgow; Intellect Books: World Film Locations

Modelled after BarCamp's 'un-conferences', FilmCamp is the third event of its kind organised by the staff at Glasgow Film Theatre. Designed to facilitate the sharing of ideas in an open environment, today's FilmCamp celebrated Social Media Week with three talks.

Kicking off at 2pm, the first event invited Netribution's Nic Wistreich to speak about the ongoing revolution in film distribution. Citing exciting film distribution projects and events like Age of Stupid's indie screenings and Secret Cinema, which take films out of the cinema and into new event spaces to create new filmgoing experiences. Despite the economic downturn, distribution is on the rise and, as he sagely noted, you can't pirate a social experience. The media revolution has already happened, and film distributors must find new and creative ways to distribute their films before tech companies create monopolies on the market. This raises the question of how to stand out online, which Ben Kampas from the Scottish Documentary Institute went on to discuss.

Since the draw of documentaries is in good subject matter rather than names and reputations, it's a challenge for documentarians to stand out online. Using a model employed by Virtuous Circle - a Creative Scotland initiative that specialises in audience engagement and retention - documentary filmmakers are beginning to employ campaigning software like NationBuilder to promote their films and ongoing projects. Rather than waiting until the distribution stage to woo audiences, Kempas says, "the film community can really learn from [SNP campaigns using NationBuilder] and we can all build our own nations". Combining the crowdfunding power of Kickstarter with the campaign tracking capabilities of NationBuilder, filmmakers are now able to identify their biggest supporters and encourage their involvement. While this encourages growth for turned-on filmmakers to build communities and returning audiences, it does not necessarily allow entry into mainstream cinematic distribution. Whether or not the crowdfunding model is sustainable remains to be seen, and while there is potential for local distributors like Distrify to increase the availability of film on demand and direct-to-DVD, it's a niche market whose potential is still being discovered.

Another project with great and growing potential is local start-up blipfoto. Founded by Joe Tree as a picture-a-day project, it has become his full-time job. Now operated by a team of six in a small local office, the website boasts 201,000 uniques per month, 1.3million images (each representing a day in a user's life), and each photo has an average of 6 comments. Tree describes the site as, "social networking for people who don't like social networking," and testimonials from a dozen of his users exemplify this. Blipfoto has become a safe haven on the net for creative individuals with the desire to record their lives, one picture at a time.

Blip's user retention rate is something of a marvel, with 48% of users who upload one picture returning; a number which grows exponentially with the number of photos uploaded. Tree describes this user experience as an emotional transaction, and by charging a small annual fee for extra features on the site, Blip sees its users' payments as a way of forging a greater sense of ownership over their online profile. The CEO also expressed a feeling that Facebook doesn't add value to people's lives in a way that Blip can and, in a similar fashion to FourSquare badges, Blip takes the appeal of the added reward and crystalises it with ambition. As users take more pictures, receive comments, and begin to interact with other users, the commitment to taking daily pictures and becoming a part of the community becomes its own reward. By building interest and reward over time, encouraging interaction, and creating lasting value, Blip has become a unique social network with a real community at its heart.

Another community that has grown exponentially in its 6 years (though I'm sure you thought it was longer) is YouTube. Google UK's Industry Manager Danny Gray made his way up to Glasgow to present Press Play for Social. Now that, allegedly, the number of hours we spend watching online video have exceeded that of porn, YouTube is the UK's 2nd largest search engine. A whopping 48 hours of footage is uploaded to YouTube every minute, while 3 billion videos are watched daily. Gray went on to demonstrate more ways in which online video exceeds its conversational counterparts on other major social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. In fact, the two social media gains are YouTube's two biggest traffic referrers. Interestingly, Facebook's biggest referrers are Twitter and YouTube, and Twitter's are YouTube and Facebook. This trifecta of link-sharing has interesting effects on the ways in which we share and consume online video, and measuring KPIs (Key Performance Indicators - all 35 of them) is a big concern for YouTube. The company continues to innovate the ways in which advertising content is viewed online, allowing users to take control with features like TrueView, which gives users the option to skip pre-rolling ads. Promoted videos are also taking over in a similar model to AdWords, allowing paid content to sit at the top of the page as you watch your favourite videos. As Gray puts it, the better you run your paid and owned media, the more you will earn.

The ongoing commercialisation of a social network that began as a hub for user-driven content became very clear during this talk. Rather than promoting user-generated content on the homepage, large companies are now invited to buy advertising space amongst banners for film trailers, and TV content from Channels 4 and Five. If you don't have money, or a following along with a desire to partner on advertising, it is very hard to get noticed on YouTube, let alone have YouTube notice you. While the company finds new and innovative ways to sell you top shelf advertising content, its social media-driven community has fallen into the background. For me, that's what YouTube is all about - but in the commercial world of social media, KPI is King.

Have you attended any Social Media Week events, or is it taking place in your city?

I'll be covering more events throughout the week, including Yomego's Guide to Blogger Outreach, and KILTR Presents (Scottish writer) Alan Bisset. This post also appears as a guest blog on the Social Media Week website.

Read more: Attack the Block DVD Review; Intellect Books: World Film Locations

After World Book Night this April, the big book giveaway organisers set their sights on creating a list of the English-speaking world's top 100 most popular books.

As you can imagine, many classics including Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre made the top 10, alongside everyone's favourite of the last decade, The Time-Travler's Wife. Perhaps unsurprisingly, To Kill A Mockingbird stole the top spot.

You can find the World Book Night Top 100 here.

I've read a slender (but, I hope, respectable!) 30, and am currently reading a 31st.

How many have you read? Are any of your favourites on there?

The first editions of Intellect Books series World Film Locations were released earlier this week.

Each book focuses on one city and a selection of films shot and/or set within it, featuring essays on key films for the city alongside short reviews of the films and how they interact with their locations.

I contributed to two of the first four volumes (respectively): London, Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo; all of which are released this month. More titles will follow in October, including Paris, Dublin, Madrid, and beyond.

The books are also available to . It's free to download, and when you do so you'll be invited to download one of the first three titles for free.

It's such an exciting project to be involved with, and I'd like to say a massive thank you to The Big Picture Magazine family - Gabriel, Scott, Neil, and Jez - for getting me involved.

You can purchase all of the titles online from the Intellect website and , as well as Waterstones and selected retailers. You can also follow  for updates and photographs from key cities.

The book launch takes place at London's BFI on Friday 30 September.


I'm currently on the lookout for freelance projects - to see more of my published work, visit my portfolio website at http://nicolabalkind.com. If you'd like to contact me to discuss opportunities, you can .

It's time for a new DVD review, innit Blud?

Radio's Joe Cornish makes his big screen debut with hoodie-alien action thriller Attack the Block. Set in the tower blocks of Souf Landan, 'ard as nails 'oodies (or hooligans, as they'll no doubt be known to the upcoming US audiences) clash with extra-terrestrial critters the size of gorillas that move like wrecking-balls armed with bright green gnashers. It's probably what Dennis the Menace's sidekick imagined he looked like, come to think of it.

When Moses (John Boyega) and his gang of block resident pals partake in a little late-night mugging, their retribution comes not in the form of policeman but a slimy contenance unlike any creature heretofore seen in the city's fair boroughs. Knocked from their feet but regaining composure, our crew of showboating teens take to the titular block, whereupon they are pursued by many more of the aforementioned beasts.

The flow of belligerent chatter wears on (a slang vocabulary of about 10 words which you are taught as you go along, Joe Cornish claims), staunched only by bleating from mugee Sam (Jodie Whittaker) and a welcome reprieve from Nick Frost as the local, loveable dope dealer. Attack the Block doesn't boast the most charming bunch of leads, but that makes it all the more fun to [SPOILER] see them eaten alive by aliens.

Despite its despicable subjects, after spending an hour with the blockmates they almost become palatable. Meanwhile, a deft camera keeps track of events without any of the monster-movie misdirection or shaky-camera cliché to which we're so often subjected. Out-the-window shots of London make the block's views worth saving, while the wee bruvs running around in their gangster training wheels provide plenty of comic relief. For the most part, it fails in many of the ways that Misfits succeeds, but pleasingly the mercy killings are in direct correlation with lack of likability.

The DVD includes a mini making-of documentary, a glimpse at the casting process, and clips of the cast.

Attack the Block is released on DVD on Monday 19 September. . You get me?


Read more: My interview with TrollHunter director André Øvredal; Friends With Benefits review.

Today, I'll be appearing on The Movie Café radio programme on BBC Radio Scotland. Tune in to hear my review Jane Eyre, an interview with TrollHunter director André Øvredal followed by a quick review.

You can tune-in live at 1.15pm and stream the programme live or later on the Movie Café homepage.

Read more: My interview with André Øvredal.

Also out this Friday: Friends With Benefits.

As coital pleasures replace a date-night dinner, smart snark supersedes sincerity in the unambiguously titled Friends With Benefits. Director Will Gluck moves from the sex games of a quick-witted teen (Easy A) to twenty-somethings teetering on the edge of friendship and love. More charming in actions than in words, the film is kick-started by peppy New York recruiter Jamie (Mila Kunis) as she strikes up a fiery camaraderie with web-savvy Los Angelean Dylan, whom she’s head-hunted for the role of art director at GQ. Take the Sex and the City lifestyle, subtract the dating games and you've got a Harry and Sally for the internet meme generation.

In lieu of unpredictable plot twists, Gluck whips up every metropolitan delight from hot dogs on the roof to flash mobs at Grand Central. Reviving the authentic New York for an LA audience with a cheek full of tongue, its self-aware wisecracks on all but absent rom-com cliches give way to flashes of sincerity. A few round-about justifications must be made as it ridicules the same cutesy clichés that it perpetuates, like making fun of Nicholas Sparks romanticism as it attempts to emulate its biggest gestures without losing considerable street cred. But when self-awareness meets caricature, a pinch of irony goes a long way.

Timberlake’s hapless yet agreeable commitment-phobe is far outshone by Kunis’ self- deprecating charm in this tangled web of limbs and emotions. Their personal quirks are backed up with family background as they duck an weave around relationship territory, but ultimately, it's too smart for its own good. Over-selling fringe characters like Emma Stone's John Mayer-obsessed ex and a cameo from snowboarder Sean White, the film hints at past lives that cost a hefty suspension of disbelief. However, bringing fun set-pieces of video-gaming parties, work photo-shoots and flash mobs into an otherwise typical existence allow its elements of satire and send-up to jibe without judgement.

Though it knows itself all too well, Friends With Benefits has canny appeal, making it the oddly enticing summer rom-com of the year.

Friends With Benefits is released in UK cinemas on Friday 9 September.

Having endured a summer of messiah wizards, robot romps and all-American superheroes, and with another long, cold vampiric winter ahead, a new beast from the north has arrived to break up the monotony. This is the autumn of the troll. Smashing through the vampire, werewolf and zombie stranglehold on the multiplexes, Norwegian director André Øvredal brings some of his homeland’s medieval mythology to the big screen with Troll Hunter. It’s The Blair Witch Project meets Cloverfield meets… The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Breaking out of the icy north with a hilarious trailer and on target to bring in a mean cult following, we caught up with Øvredal, a director on his way to the big time, at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival, where his film had its UK premiere and thrilled three sold-out audiences. Already the talk of the fest before its first screening, trolls appear to be capturing film-goers' imaginations, just as they captured Øvredal’s. "I grew up with films in the 80s, with Spielberg and so on, and I wanted to make a very Norwegian version of that with a very tough central character. Not an American movie hero, but a much more down-to-earth, very realistic Norwegian guy who has this amazing thing that he needs to do." Sound familiar? With raw talent and an excitable imagination, Øvredal is already tipped for bigger Hollywood productions. But what about the trolls? "I always loved the trolls, and I found that [the people of Norway] had kind of lost touch with them – they're such a big part of our cultural heritage and they're not really utilised in any particular way. So I figured that was a great contrast, to have a guy who is an ordinary worker for the government and what he's doing is actually fighting to make sure that these trolls stay in their reserves."

Using meta-monster found footage – mockumentary style – Øvredal's film shows how a group of student filmmakers find their way into a well-guarded government secret. The suspicious deaths of a number of bears lead them into the murky underworld of troll hunting, where a disgruntled government lackey shows them his overworked, underpaid, extremely hazardous working life. Tasked with keeping massive mythical beasts within their territory, our amateur documentarians uncover more than they bargained for. Pointing out idiosyncrasies and questioning ignorant workers along the way, it's as funny as it is inventive. "I think that the format of mockumentary helps insist on the reality of everything, and then it becomes more absurd," says Øvredal. "It also makes it possible to talk directly about trolls and take them seriously. Everybody's seen documentaries and things from a news segment, it's a language we know – somebody talking very seriously about a topic – and when the topic is obviously not serious, it can become funnier."

Working with a low budget also kept the creative juices flowing. Øvredal's clear Spielberg influences appear to have been held at bay, affording him the kind of creativity a break-out debut needs. "We can't do Jurassic Park in Norway – it's going to be too expensive – so that was a way of hiding the trolls when we needed to. Also, that required me again to build lots of suspense and use other entertaining values, rather than actually showing the trolls on screen all the time." Shooting in mock-documentary style also allows Øvredal to invent much of his own lore to keep the troll stories interesting and fresh – do power lines really double up as troll electric fence perimeters?

Expectations for this debut are high and there's already an American remake in the works, so how long will we have to survive the trolls? "Having the Troll Survival Guide [a pamphlet handed out at each screening], I guess I could do it forever!" We'll have to wait and find out if the box office says the same.

Troll Hunter is released in UK cinemas on Friday 9 September. You can hear my review on the BBC Movie Café on Thursday 8.

As I may have mentioned a few times previous, I'm a huge fan of silent comedies, particularly those of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

So when Park Circus sent word that they're releasing a DVD box set of Chaplin's features, I held my breath. And held it. And held it. Until I realised that I might not last until Tuesday 14 November, which is when this box of goodies hits the shelves.


After Park Circus launched their Chaplin collection of DVDs and BluRays, I vowed to collect them all. Now that they're available in this jaunty little package I can't wait to get my hands on them. While most are available individually, A King in New York, Monsieur Verdoux and A Woman of Paris are new to the collection. So who wants to buy them for my Christmas?

While we're on the subject, I wanted to share with you a few of my favourite Tumblrs devoted to silent comedy stars. This begins, of course, with the ubiquitous Tumblr set up: and . I also love ,  and, more generally, . Enjoy!

Which filmmaker would you most like to see immortalised in a big fat DVD collection?


Read more: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton's autobiographies, reviewed. Notes on The General and Limelight.