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Paul Hadley, a relative newcomer to the blogging scene is probably best known for his work with Rhubarb Radio, but I sat him down and asked him about blogging in general, and what he’d do with all the world’s data.

Watch the Viddler video

Thanks be to Paul for giving up his time, and for being new, and therefore interesting. I look forward to reading more of his blog. And speaking of such, here’s where you can find the illustrious gent:

• justblogging.co.uk
• @hadleypaul on Twitter

When a Twitter user is caught spelling incorrectly, using colloquialisms or lolcat lingo, they call in the @SpellingSquad. Thank God, we can all rest easy.

You might think you’re free to say what you like on Twitter without being condescended to by someone you don’t follow. Wrong, as was proven to me today when I sent this tweet:

and found this reply when I got home:

My somewhat vitriolic reply of “fuck you @spellingsquad, fuck you” (thanks to Phill & Phil for that lovely piece of phraseology) was met with what can only be described as a small barrage of abuse from someone who, judging by the tone of his or her tweets is in no place to patronise.

...and then 3 minutes later:

...and finally

I’ve written before about the importance I place on “good English”, but have also stated in a previous how-to guide, that the message is what is important, not the means.

Readers tend to forgive or ignore spelling and grammar mistakes - after all, most bloggers are just members of the public, not professors of English - and read the blog to find out about you, your opinions and your life.

(I’ve just quoted myself. Am I now officially a wanker?)

So the question is: why does a microblogging platform which is now famed for the immediacy it allows and the mobility it affords bloggers, need a glib and self-satisfied spell checker? I get enough hassle from Google as it is!

Remember that Twitter is simply a set of overlapping and interconnected conversations had between real people. Would you, @SpellingSquad hover over the shoulder of your friends in the pub and correct them every time they mispronounced a word? I think you’d be horrified if someone did that to you, so I’m sure you can understand the situation here.

In short, Douglas Adams puts it better than I could: “nobody likes a smartarse”.

Google the phrase “twitter is pointless” and you’ll find I’m listed number 4 in the results, at least in the UK. Should I be worried?

Obviously this isn’t a view I hold, so if you Google phrase with quote marks I won’t appear anywhere, but even more bizarre is that the two articles above are in praise of the microblogging platform.

The offending post on my site was a reaction to Twitter’s stopping of outgoing SMS in the UK, but it’s one of the most popular pages on my site.

This shows two things, one of which we already know:

1. There is a lot of bad feeling towards Twitter. I find most of this is centred in the US, with talk show hosts like Jon Stewart and the like railing against the site, presumably because their researcher’s seen a comedy video online that says it’s nothing more than a platform for telling the world what each one of us has had for breakfast [sigh].
2. Semantic search means more than reading microformats. Surely it must be about attempting to disseminate meaning. The second two search results for the phrase “Twitter is pointless” are cases for the defence. Now unless Google has an ingenious system that tries to find the alternative argument to a polemical statement, that just means that Google isn’t really as clever as we might want to believe, so ingrained as it is into our everyday lives.

So the next game is, how long will it take for the page currently listed at number 4 in those results, to be replaced with this one? The one that actually includes the phrase “Twitter is pointless?”

That’s quite enough chin-scratching for now, methinks. Back to work.

A blogroll is a list of peers whose opinions you share or whom you like to debate with. Adding a person to your blogroll shows you respect their opinions.

So I thought “why not actually converse with the people in my blogroll?” That won’t be possible in every instance, but where it is possible I think it’s of value to find out what others’ opinions are on the topics that are kty to my website.

Jon Bounds, “Internet expert” is first up, telling us what social media can and can’t do, and saying something very important about kittens.

Watch the Viddler video

Thanks to Jon for taking the time out to chat to me. You can find him all over the place:

• Birmingham: It’s Not Shit
• The Bounder
• jonbounds.co.uk
• @bounder on Twitter

He also co-presents a Saturday morning show with Julia Gilbert on Rhubarb Radio, called The Big Paws. It’s ace.

You can expect loads more from the video blogroll: not just a disparate bunch of posts, when the site relaunches in July.

Bigup yourselves and so on.

I just bought a Roberts Stream 202 Internet, DAB and FM radio for the office, not the bedroom. Why? Because sometimes it’s good to touch things.

I sit at my PC for most of the day, and it has a good sound card and a decent set of 2.1 stereo speakers. I can of course receive any freely available Internet radio station, which basically means every national station that broadcasts digitally (ie: most, if not all DAB stations also broadcast online).

So why pay over the odds for a radio that can’t do everything your computer can? The answer’s simple. When I get up and stumble into the living room where I have my office setup, the first thing I want to do is fill the silence. What I don’t want to do is wait for my PC to boot up, login, open up iTunes and select some music or head over to an online station for a listen, click the link and wait for the player to open.

Having a computer that can do everything, doesn’t mean it has to do everything. Plus, what feels like a lo-fi, disintegrated approach is just more satisfying; more tactile; more interactive.

Rediscover your fingertips. Walk your digits past your keyboard and find something else to press for a bit. Get a hi-fi, a CD player, even your iPod (on a dock, not plugged into your computer) and push its buttons. I guarantee you’ll feel better.

Birmingham community station Rhubarb Radio has won the Digital Innovation Award at the Midlands Media Awards, whose ceremony was held at New Bingley Hall in Hockley.

On behalf of the Web contingent of Rhubarb, thanks to everyone who’s supported us since Pete Ashton first setup a Rhubarb Radio blog, right up until yesterday, and our coverage of the Digital Britain report launch. Without help from the likes of Paul Hadley, Daniel Cremin, Kevin Busby and all of the presenters and volunteers, we’d have been nowhere, so a big pat on the back to everyone at Rhubarb methinks!

Congratulations also to Karen Strunks and the 4am Project for coming second in the People’s Choice Awards; pipped to the post by Donato Esposito’s Facebook group.

The Digital Britain report was published today and is due to be launched to the public tomorrow, so here are the tabs you need to keep open tomorrow, to track the discussion:

• Live video stream
• Rhubarb Radio coverage (for those with low bandwidth, or who want extra analysis)
• Yoosk page where you can put questions to the various panels
• Twitter stream
• Rhubarb’s Digital Britain minisite, which takes photos, videos and blog posts tagged from around the Web and puts them in one place
• The full report

Aswell as the “main event” in the ICC, the real fun will be had at Fazeley Studios, wherein the Digital Britain Unconference is behappening.

What have I missed?

It’s back, with a new date. June 21st is the day to step out into the moonlight with your cameras and photograph the hell out of your neck of the woods.

I’m also delighted to discover from a few sources that the site has been entered - and is currently in the lead - for the Digital Press Awards. So if you feel Karen Strunks’ fantastic project is a worthy winner, please get your voting trousers on and cast your eyes to the bottom-right of the page, where you can help increase the lead.

Aswell as a new date, the site has a new handyman taking care of the wiring and re-attaching the sticky tape, so thanks Andy. And if you’ve got your own tiny corner of the Web, why not slap on the countdown badge:

I dunno; I go away for five minutes, and the next thing I know, my flat’s on Twitter! I mean, there’s hyperlocal, then there’s just being silly.

My flat, formerly known as Milky Towers but now more affectionately called the Milkloft, has just found its way onto Twitter. @milkloft is tweeting the various happenings that occur where I live, and spend most of my time.

She - for it is a she - is only following people who have at one point or another stepped into her, but if you want to know whether the sink is unkempt or what track the big PC is playing, you can follow her. Why would you though? Honestly.

Back of the (Inter)net’s NBA correspondent Paul “the Hoop” Slater has a beautiful head of hair. He’s very proud of his hair, but he’s shaving it all off to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

If you’ve been enjoying our weekly sport podcast or you just fancy giving to a worthy cause, please pop along to our JustGiving page and make an ickle donation. Thanks!