News tickers churn on
spreading the latest tales across
slices of breakfast toast
sheets of preparation in a corporate’s reception
wide screen train station stare points
the worlds in commuting palms
and feeds magnetising a nation’s eyes.

Break (Typer investigates why Jessie J is trending)

Finding smoke breaks now more refreshing
the not so free world craves for its info gasps
intervening shrinking blocks of contentment
ever uncomfortable without the conjured
interruptions of biscuit crumb detail.

Break (Typer’s friend who’s working abroad appears in a box to say ‘hello’)

Society’s psyche
blasé through repetitive routine
shrugs exhalations of expectance
as a name or face or lamp post of flowers
gets its thirty seconds of red LED lights
ones and zeros.

Break (Typer un-mutes the TV’s sport report)

Rarely does the undercurrent of sedate suffering
over fill the land’s un-thresh-old
bursting overt feeling for once across faces
all in it together but mightily alone
positioning place names in another’s tragedy.

Break (Typer checks a train timetable to see when he needs to get showered)

The dead racist reality TV star
horny babysitter turned royal beauty
mauled school trip stranger
text book pop star implosion
have all exited stage left.

Break (Typer searches for reassurance that ‘psyche’ is an appropriate word)

Alarm clocks tally up looping races
coffee mornings stir competition
hunters stake claim.

Break (Typer uses a translation tool to e-mail a friend happy ramadan before he forgets)

‘I walked her dogs’
‘She lived in my cousin’s friend’s flat’
‘He bagged my neighbour’s shopping’
‘The reporters blocked my road and I was late for work’
‘A helicopter kept circling my neighbourhood. It was probably looking for the killer’
‘I knew all the words to that main song. It’s well sad.’
‘My hot water was off this morning. I knew it was going to be a bad day.’

Break (Typer does a replace all on ‘poet’ with ‘writer’ and then another, settling for less pretence, though walks straight into the ego strut he wanted to sidestep by referencing his edits at all)

An occasional city break
globe trotting backpack adventure
technical error
house move
bed stricken fever
might wean someone off the penetrative
onslaught of persistent mind buckling.

Break (Typer taps in apologies to a friend that he’s running late)

However peaceful an escape
surrounded by pixels of noise
the nakedness of calm re-hooks.

Break (Typer washes and shuts down for a weekend of drink)

Biting at the virtual fishing rod line

Break (Typer reconnects computer to see how he looked at the rave)

Notes of cocktail glasses
beside rooftop pools
do leave vast impressions
but not the ones you hoped.

As neighbouring as it is
your flat is in Shepherds Bush
about as Holland Park
as Romford’s the East End.

If your holiday is so great
why are you in your hotel
so logged on to work
that you’re basically home?

Any level of coolness
iPad bus journeys hold
get immediately overwritten
as you read the Metro app.

To endlessly talk diets
to anyone who will listen
isn’t really the point
to being vegetarian.

Ascot tux’s look glam
less so on tubes home
tinted by mustard stains
of a late night kebab.

A less waffly version of these thought crumbs features on the Outside Line blog

I check in regularly via Foursquare which updates my Twitter feed. I find it a quick and useful way to share somewhere interesting I’ve attended with my real life friends that I chat with via tweets. I favour Foursquare and its automatic updates to Twitter rather than Facebook Places and updates to my profile’s wall because I like the light entertainment of badges and points, find my iPhone’s Facebook app a little unwelcoming and occasionally enjoy browsing Foursquare’s user generated tips.

You wont see me shouting about being at the local takeaway in the early hours or sitting on a park bench, but you’ll find me putting my virtual flag in the digital ground of interesting gigs, museums and great restaurants or bars. When I get back into work after the weekend or catch up in person with friends that follow me online, location has proved to be a catalyst for conversation. ‘I saw you checked out that new bar the other night…’, ‘How was that new band you watched?’ and so on. Cynics will challenge the benefit of that over just starting a conversation from scratch in person and have a point, but they’re also some of the same people who said Facebook status updates would never take off and were pointless because people like being private and wont feel inclined to broadcast their thoughts.

Ultimately, social media activity’s often about showing off. People using location treat it as another outlet to present themselves through in a way they’d like to be seen. I want people to see that I went to a Rakim show this month so they associate me a little more with decent, historic rap music and knowledge. So I checked in at the gig. I don’t want people to know I munched through an all you can eat buffet at Pizza Hut because I”m a bit ashamed and would rather people not know I’m unhealthy and live off grease from time to time. So the phone stayed in my pocket.

In terms of what location can offer brands, I think this will increase with time and new developments in tools and functionality. At the moment, location’s a fairly separate aspect to social media activity, homed in its entirety on a lone platform (Foursquare) or a little hidden in iPhone app tabs and busy news feeds (Facebook Places). If Facebook were to put a leader board at the top of every user’s profile page showing the places they’ve visited the most or most recently, there would suddenly be a permanent, prominent place for a brand’s name to be championed to a user’s private network. I think that’s when critical mass will pick up location more and people’s inclination to check in at locations will increase. Then brands can start promoting themselves to more people at a louder volume.